If you say so...

Your Personality is Somewhat Rare (ISTP)

Your personality type is reserved, methodical, spirited, and intense. Only about 6% of all people have your personality, including 3% of all women and 8% of all men You are Introverted, Sensing, Thinking, and Perceiving.

How Rare Is Your Personality?

Had to smile at this as this is how I feel at the moment... the weekend's National has smitten the party animal part of me... but it was a good weekend nevertheless. No one got seriously hurt... a few will be needing Voltaren for a while... especially in the Vets and Masters... pictures will be posted on another posting when I get around to getting the camera back from MoonDancer... without her there would have been none! Don't know what I would do without her!
"The art of being yourself at your best is the art of unfolding your personality into the person you want to be. . . . Be gentle with yourself, learn to love yourself, to forgive yourself, for only as we have the right attitude toward ourselves can we have the right attitude toward others." Wilfred Peterson, This Week (Oct. 1, 1961)

Where does reality stop?

Amazing technology! This makes me realize we live in an amazing age. One where reality and virtual reality seem to be merging into one. No wonder many people do not know what the truth is any more.
Yet one thing is becoming even clearer to me day by day, that is that God loves us and wants us to be his children and not to be blinded by what we hear and see in the media...
So even when we lose sense of reality and seem to get immersed in a world that is whirling by, seemingly out of control know that He is Lord and loves you.
"No suffering or tragedy will ever separate you from God’s love." (Romans 8:35-39)

Love is more... than a full moon.

Ceoma Feat. The Larx - Full Moon

[via FoxyTunes / Ceoma]

I adore you for every single thing that you are

there is something I can't hide

the feeling for you

There's a full moon above and the stars are alight
and I hope that you know that...

Your love is my home
But I'm only one
One of so many hearts undone
No love isn't cold
Love is an anchor
Holding you down..
When lonely..
When lonely..

Love is only a word
The meaning on earth
Isn't the truth of all you feel
And Love will revive
If love dies inside you
Just let it find you.. ooh..

Love is more than just a memory..
Love is more than just a song..
I give heaven up if I have it here

Love is more..
Love is more..

Love is more..

Love is far from alone
And closer than near
Love is the truth that knows no fear
And Love is alive
It's stirring inside you
Just let it find you...
I could not find all the lyrics to Full Moon the video song but the ones I caught sort of lead into the second song from Ceoma and complete the idea that I had when I heard the songs in my collection while thinking about MD away catching ticks...
I know I am a few days early as well to be talking about a full moon but as we both share a love for that celestial object I thought it would be appropriate. I will never forget that Hunters Moon last year... when something wonderful happened... Wow... almost a year it has been! What a year it has been as well!
"Moonlight Lady, come along with me
Leave your dark city lights, its alright
'Cause the nights on me." Albert Hammond - Moonlight Lady 1975

Invisible but not hidden

Technology seems to be catching up to SciFi at a rapid pace these days...
That got me thinking that no matter what you do... God always knows. There is no Invisibility Cloak to hide under, unless of course you confess your sins and ask for them to be washed away.
That and the teachings of a few Sundays got me thinking of how we see the Blood of Jesus and the Holy Spirit that is compared to living water... in fact when you think of it they are the same... when we let the Holy Spirit fill us every day we get washed by His blood as well. Amazing!
Of course at the same time we put on the Armour of God and become His soldiers, not to fight a physical enemy but the ones in the heavens... the Holy Spirit is then like an Invisibility Cloak to protect us from the attacks that will come our way.
"Be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places."

How do you measure God?

Today's APOD reminded me how often we want to measure and quantify God, put Him in a box and label Him in our own way. The opposite is true, we have been measured and found wanting but his Love given in boundless measure, bigger than the universe we know, through the sacrifice of Jesus makes us worthy again.
That is why this picture of the moon being measured reminded me again of His love... and how infinitely powerless we are to measure it. All we can do is give thanks and embrace it in faith while at the same time giving an overflowing portion of that love to our neighbors... by this we will be measured by others.
"One look around us ought to show that all our arbitrary measures and bounds have been clamped on us by mankind." Author Unknown
PS... fixed my Blogoversary counter... another measurement that was not working properly, some people use month/day and others day/month... I prefer the latter but Blogger is the opposite... this resulted in the counter saying 34 days till Blogoverary when in fact it has come and gone again on the 7th of July!

Who died and made you president...

Or even God for that matter...
As an outsider I can view the coming American elections with some amusement but something has struck me of late... The Obamessahia seems to act like it is a done deal! Helloo? Who died and made you president?
If he does get elected then I am afraid the Americans commonsense has really left them, must be all the KFC and Macdonald's... then when it all goes pear shaped I can say... you got what you voted for.
Maybe the Americans need this to wake up and realize that politicians are the lowest form of life on earth?
I was prompted to post this by the current Rockwood by the way...

I am also reminded that others also aspired to be like God...
"How you have fallen from heaven, 0 morning star, son of the dawn! You have been cast down to the earth, you who once laid low the nations! You said in your heart, 'I will ascend to heaven; I will raise my throne above the stars of God; I will sit enthroned on the mount of assembly, on the utmost heights of the sacred mountain. I will ascend above the tops of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High' But you are brought down to the grave, to the depths of the pit"
(Isa. 14:12-15)

We will learn the words when you get back...

I was shopping for storage boxes and buzzed past the CD dept... and Sarah Brightman's new album Symphony caught my eye... this is from the album, for my love, away on business...

Sarah Brightman & Fernando Lima - Pasión

[via FoxyTunes / Sarah Brightman]

Pasión

Sueñas con un amor
Puro, sin condición
Fuerte, eterno como el sol
Con el que se dibuja una pasión

Sueñas con un amor
Limpio, con devoción

Libre, sacar las alas del corazón
Y Volar a dónde anida la pasión

Chorus:
La pasión, es como un viento inquieto
Que se convierte en libertad
Es saber que hay alguien más que vive
Deseando poderte encontrar
Es viajar sin miedo entre las estrellas y la inmensidad
Es atravesar el fuego, caminar sobre las aguas
Convertir un sueño en realidad
La pasión es ésa fuerza inmensa
Que mueve a toda la creación
Es saber que alguien te está esperando
Mas allá dónde se oculta el sol
Es borrar por siempre de tí la palabra soledad
Son dos almas que se unen llegando así a la eternidad

Nunca te faltará
Alguien en quien confiar

Un ángel que de la mano te llevará
A descubrir un mundo de pasión

(Repeat chorus)

Vives con un amor
Fuerte y sin condición
Libre y ponerle alas al corazón
Volar adónde anida la pasión
I have the English... but would rather learn the Spanish first... together...
"To live content with small means, to seek elegance rather than luxury, and refinement rather than fashion, to be worthy, not respectable, and wealthy, not rich, to study hard, think quietly, talk gently, act frankly, to listen to stars and birds, to babes and sages, with open heart, to bear all cheerfully, do all bravely, await occasions, hurry never, in a word to let the spiritual, unbidden and unconscious, grow up through the common, this is to be my symphony."
William Henry Channing

Listen and take the words into your heart

Jewel- Hands

[via FoxyTunes / Jewel]

If I could tell the world just one thing
It would be that we're all ok
And not to worry because worry is wasteful
and useless in times like these
I will not be made useless
I won't be idled with despair
I will gather myself around my faith
for light does the darkness most fear
My hands are small, I know,
but they're not yours they are my own
but they're not yours they are my own
and I am never broken
Poverty stole your golden shoes
but it didn't steal your laughter
And heartache came to visit me
but I knew it wasn't ever after
We will fight, not out of spite
for someone must stand up for what's right
cause where there's a man who has no voice
there ours shall go singing
In the end only kindness matters
In the end only kindness matters
I will get down on my knees and I will pray
I will get down on my knees and I will pray
I will get down on my knees and I will pray
My hands are small, I know,
but they're not yours they are my own
but they're not yours they are my own
and I am never broken
My hands are small, i know,
but they're not yours they are my own
but they're not yours they are my own
and I am never broken
We are never broken
We are God's eyes
God's hands
God's mind
We are God's eyes
God's hands
God's heart
We are God's eyes
God's hands
God's eyes
God's hands
We are God's hands
God's hands
We are God's hands
No special thought but the song just went with what I experienced today in the service... we are only able to do God's work when we hand over our lives to him. I have always liked her music and this one touched me today. She is a very special singer and if you read about her life and career you will soon understand her songs much better... another instance of a person's name fitting perfectly... a true singing Jewel.
No quote seems fitting today... so here is the same song but the video version...

Jewel - Hands

[via FoxyTunes / Jewel]

Moonrise over the Maloti

Today I had to go and sort out a small problem and on the way back I just had to stop and take pictures of the full moon rising over the Maloti mountains... here is the picture as well as some of the others I took earlier the day...
The moon caught rising over the Maluti (or Maloti as some pronounce it in these parts) Mountains just outside Clarens on the way to Fouriesburg, taken on the way back from our other campus at Qwaqwa.

Fortunately the clouds dispersed when it was time to leave... I had not packed the rainsuit!

The dirt road to Kestell over the mountain... will be explored one day...

Shadows falling over the mountains of Golden Gate...
The trip was highlighted by me being able to test the new HID light and I can say it works well... just near Tweespruit some cattle had wandered onto the roadside and I was able to see them clearly... with lesser lights I would have seen them a lot later... maybe too late.
"Beauty is a form of genius--is higher, indeed, than genius, as it needs no explanation. It is of the great facts in the world like sunlight, or springtime, or the reflection in dark water of that silver shell we call the moon."
Oscar Wilde (1854 - 1900)

LED there be light

Ok... so while Shrek was dismembered I decided to do some radical surgery to the instrument cluster and add a hazard warning switch while I was about it...
Fortunately the wiring diagram has not changed much since the 1985 model, it is basically the same just that some of the stuff has been relocated on the bike.
The indicator relay is now under the instrument cluster which made it very easy to splice in a wire on the Orange output wire to feed to a DPDT switch and then feed that to the LH and RH indicator wires on the harness. Green = left and Grey = Right. I used a peice of ribbon cable... also fitted 2 plugs so that it is removable. yeah I know... looks like computer plugs... I did not have a suitable 3 pin one at hand so this will have to do till the next
farkle episode...
Then I removed the white lettering on the N and <> lamps, this was to make the Neutral the LH indicator and the <> the RH one. I found that paint brush cleaner did the trick while not being too aggressive to the plastic lens.
The indicator leads are now split, one to the old neutral lamp and one to the old <> lamp, the other ends of the lamps are now grounded on the instrument cluster ground points so that they LED's now have a ground path.
Due to the fact that the LED lamps are fitted with reverse polarity diodes you may have to orient them 180 degrees if they do not work. This also keeps the LH/RH indicator circuits isolated!
While doing this I hooked up 2 diodes and a buzzer as well to the indicator circuit... now Shrek sounds like a delivery bike... but I have less excuse to leave the indicator on now!
Then I fitted the new amber neutral LED under the speedo... using plastic steel to mount the led and resistor as well as the lead securely... the lead is then spliced on to the old neutral wires from the harness plug... the other ends became the LH indicator leads...
Once all the splicing and dicing was done I fitted the blue LED lamp to the high beam socket and the 3 HiBright LED lamps to the 3 lighting sockets. LED lamps are supposed to outlast ordinary filament globes and at the same time
they draw less current from the electrical system. Here are the pictures:Led lighting up the unstruments...
DB25 connectors!

Splicing into the Orange indicator lead to go to the DPDT switch...

Splicing into the R/h L/h Indicator leads...

DPDT switch mounted and silicone used to waterproof and insulate the back...

The switch on the front panel...

Indicators! one for each side!

Mounting screws on the right to be loosened when un mounting the instrument cluster...

Ditto another screw on the left...

Neutral LED mounted on the front panel...

Led and resistor prior to connecting and potting with epoxy or plastic steel...

Lead fitted and the lot gobbed with plastic steel...

Filament lamp VS LED lamp, a bit bluer than the filament and not quite as bright... but I like it...

Main and indicator LED's being tested...

Another shot...

Lights before the mod...

All the plugs and leads... wiring and speedo cable loosened to remove instruments.
"Let your loins be girded about, and your lights burning."
Bible, Luke xii. 35.