• At Your Funeral

    So Monday was the Wife’s Grandma’s funeral. Pretty much the whole family was there. It was a sad time, but also a nice bonding time. It was quite obvious that everybody cares a great deal for everybody in their family, despite not seeing them all that often.

    Grandma picked out almost every detail of her funeral from the songs, and singer, right down to the casket color inside and out. That got me thinking about my death.

    Do people really care about their own funeral?

    I personally could care less. I don’t really care what they do with my body. I probably prefer to be cremated, just because I would take up less space that way. I am not religious, but if they want a religious funeral go ahead. The funeral is for them anyway. Once I am dead, I won’t know any better anyway. The only thing I really care about is not having a religious symbol on my headstone or urn. That lives on for an eternity, and I don’t want my name next to a religious symbol. Anything else you want to do for my funeral, go for it.

    I kind of think of it like our wedding. The Wife and I didn’t need any wedding or vows to prove our love. We got married in a church for our families. Most of our families are Christian, so we pretty much did it for them. That may sound wrong to do, but I am a big fan of traditions. In my eyes, our wedding was more of a traditional thing rather than a religious thing. It’s sad that it’s so hard to avoid religion in our society. It’s wrong that I feel like an outcast for not being religious. Hopefully that starts to change as more people start questioning religion.

  • Skepticism

    I have always been a skeptical person. I don’t believe in ghosts or any supernatural beings. I believe in science, and critical thinking. I first discovered the skeptic community back in 2005 when I discovered the Skepticality podcast. Nowadays I read a lot of skeptic blogs, and listen to a lot of skeptic podcasts. I have learned so much in the last four years thanks to the skeptic community. The more that I learn to think critically, the more I learn to spot all the misinformation being spread about many topics; From the Moon hoaxers, to the 911 truthers, to the antivax crowd, and all the “alternative medicine” quacks. There is a lot of nonsense out there. Critically thinking needs to be taught more in high schools. Learning how to think really should be a top priority in schools.

    One of my favorite person in the skeptical community is the Bad Astronomer Phil Plait. He has a great blog, is the President of the James Randi Educational Foundation, and an excellent speaker. I have watched many of his talks online and they all are incredible. This past summer he was a speaker at Chris Pirillo’s Gnomedex and did a great talk about skepticism. You can watch it below:

  • Goodbye Grandma

    So my Wife’s Grandma finally passed away last night. It’s sad, but it’s kind of a relief. She was in a lot of pain these last few weeks, and hardly slept. It was also taking a toll on my Wife’s Grandpa. He is in he 80s and doesn’t really need the stress. Her daughter from Arizona that was living with us, was also very stressed. She felt uncomfortable living with us, and really wanted to go back to Arizona and her job. Just a few days ago Grandma was looking pretty strong and we had no idea how much longer she was going to live. The one good thing is she passed before the holidays. My wife has a hard time during the holidays because her other two Grandmas passed right around Christmas.

    The next few days are going to be busy with family and funeral plans, but we knew it was coming, so will be nice to get it over with. I am sure everybody agrees with me, but funerals suck.

  • An inside look at H1N1 vaccine production

    One of my biggest pet peeves are all the antivax and alternative medicine nut jobs spreading nonsense. The Jenny McCarthy and Bill Maher’s of the world do a great job at spreading fear and nonsense about vaccines. Why anybody would take medical advise from a celebrity boggles my mind. Vaccines are about as safe as anything can possible be, and they save lives.

    The above clip is from last nights 60 Minutes. It’s a great behind the scenes look at the vaccine making process. I knew they made them in eggs, but it was kind of amazing how many eggs they use.

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