Personal

This is one of those pass-along things on Facebook, where you tell something about yourself to your friends. I liked doing this one so much I thought I’d post it here as well. The idea is to come up with the 10 books that have stuck with you the most—not necessarily the best, but the ones that had the most effect on your life. Here’s mine, with Amazon links:

1. How I Found Freedom in an Unfree World by Harry Browne. Although it wasn’t written as a self-help book, it’s probably the best self-help book ever written! Browne gives you a practical, logical, no-nonsense approach for everything from relationships to taking on obligations. Read it and take charge of your own life!

2. Cosmos by Carl Sagan. The classic PBS series made such an impression on my 12-year-old mind when it first aired. This being the days before VCRs (or at least before we had a VCR), this book, written as a companion to the series, helped me not only relive the series but grow and develop my mental skills. Carl Sagan was truly a master at both astronomy and writing.

3. The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress by Robert Heinlein. A masterful work of science fiction with so much food for the mind that I’ve read it again and again, from teenage years into adulthood.

4. Why People Believe Weird Things: Pseudoscience, Superstition, and Other Confusions of Our Time by Michael Shermer. I must admit I had no idea who Dr. Shermer was when I first read this book, but I was so taken with it I just had to read more from him.

5. Healing Our World in an Age of Aggression by Mary J. Ruwart. Imagine being taken on a journey to a place so enlightening your life will never be the same. Now imagine that every single step of that journey is based on logic and rational inquiry. That is precisely what this book does as Dr. Ruwart shows, almost to a scientific certainty, that aggression in all its forms—even when unseen—causes the harm we see throughout society.

6. The Mask of Nostradamus: The Prophecies of the World’s Most Famous Seer by James Randi. By all rights, this should be his book Flim-Flam!, but the truth is I only read that after I was a confirmed skeptic. The Nostradamus book got me on my way. I’d never heard of James Randi, and I was researching Nostradamus for a paper I was writing in college. I came across this book, completely rewrote the paper as a result, and my approach to research and learning has never been the same since.

7. Whatever Happened to Penny Candy? by Richard Maybury. As one of the Uncle Eric books, it’s intended for children, but great for adults, too. Probably the best introduction to economics (at least, its most important aspects) that I know of.

8. The Voyage of the Beagle by Charles Darwin. Although his science books The Origin Of Species and The Descent of Man rightfully have their place as two of history’s most important books, this earlier book detailing his years on the HMS Beagle tells an inspiring story of Darwin’s love for all humanity and how he was truly a man ahead of his time.

9. Economics in One Lesson by Henry Hazlitt. Written in the 1940s but still just as relevant today, this one simple lesson is not only a good lesson for economics, but for everyday life as well.

10. Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie. Poirot rocks. That’s just all there is to it. Christie had a genuine talent for making improbable stories very real, with very real characters, and this masterpiece of hers has to be the best mystery novel ever written. Even if you’re not into mysteries, even if the identity of the murderer has been spoiled for you, this book is still a wonderful treat for the little grey cells.

I made another video update, showing why I’m having to go into surgery Monday. It includes images from the CT-scan of my arm.

In my update video, I mention a letter I got from one of the EMTs who helped my children. I mentioned that I was going to see if she’d let me post the letter here on my website. She said she would be honored. That made me feel really good.

Continue reading to see her letter.

So many people have been asking for updates on how the kids and I are doing, that I thought the best thing to do is just make a short video and show everyone:

Again, thanks to everyone who has expressed their concern and their well-wishes. You have no idea how much the little things like that help.

Yes, I’ve been putting off making this blog entry. But sometimes one just needs the courage to soldier on.

As you can read in this story from the AP Newswire, my daughter and I were severely injured and my wife killed when a drunk driver hit us head-on on the interstate.

I am happy to report, however, that Aleena is now walking and I am able to start putting some weight on my right foot. It’ll be awhile before I join her among the ranks of the ambulatory, but I’ll get there in time. The healing process is going rather well. My right humerus was shattered, so it’ll be even longer before I can use that arm for anything other than light duty (such as typing), but it, too, will heal in time. The prognosis has always been that we’ll both make a complete recovery. We’re both very fortunate that no nerves were severed and that there was no serious internal or brain damage; it was quite a crash.

I’d like to thank everyone who has supported and continues to support us during this difficult time. Of course, there’s my immediate family, taking us in until we’re ready to get back on our own again; the rescue workers and hospital staff in West Virginia who were so incredibly great; so many people from Unity Presbyterian Church who gave us so much help and support, from the funeral to building a very professional wheelchair ramp; my friends in the Libertarian Party (especially the ones who set up a special blog for outreach and updates) and the skeptic movement (primarily the JREF) who gave their well-wishes, support, and even generous donations…there are just so many people to thank I can’t even think of them all right now, thanks so much to all of you.

And most of all, thank you, Joey, my beautiful wife. You changed my life in ways you never even could have imagined; you changed me in so many ways I can’t describe. I miss you so much, sweetie. I’ll always love you.

Yes, it’s another server move—and now I’m finally back on Linux (yaaay!) and the site is again built with PHP (double-yaaay!!!). Guess what? That means more new features (see the pretty pictures on each entry? Categories, man!) and no more of the Windows Server “I’ll deliver your web page when I feel like it and not a second before” attitude! I’ve also helped my wife, Joanne Burch-Killian, set up the same blog on her website. Check it out!

Just a brief update of Things Going On In My Life:

I’m married to a wonderful woman, the woman of my dreams, she who lights up my day and warms up my night, Joanne Burch-Killian;
She and I are partners of WebAppExpressions.com;
We’re also the creators and sponsors of GuamIslandChat.com;
We now have six children all total, Joanne’s four and my two;
I’m having to come to terms with suddenly being a grandfather since three of her children have children as well;
This sudden burst in the number of relatives I have means I have even more work to do on my genealogy (hopefully it’ll get posted here someday);
I still need sleep.

We recently visited her children in Michigan. Her youngest son, Sean, is attending college and is now engaged to a wonderful girl named Morgan. We spent Sean’s birthday with them, and we also visited her son Miguel, with his daughters and his new baby boy. Aleena didn’t want to leave! We also visited her son Jonathan and his son Chase. Our two families have merged together wonderfully.

We’re back in NC now and Aleena’s already asking when we can go back. Hopefully it won’t be snowing then!

What? It’s been over six months since my last blog entry? Geez…well, I guess falling in love, getting custody of the kids, and getting married all at the same time will cause someone to drop out of the loop a bit.

When’s the next update? Who knows? I need sleep…

Due to popular demand, and after some testing from a couple of helpful individuals, I now have an RSS feed available for my blog. You can always find the link over to the right.

I guess moving to a new server every three years isn’t a bad thing…except, in this case, I’m no longer on a Linux box and on Windows instead (waaah!), and no more PHP scripting; only ASP is available (double waaah!), but it’s really not so bad. I’ve got a bigger pipe, access to a nice, huge database, and a host of other advantages.

Since I was having to translate all of the code anyway, I took advantage of the server move to make a lot of changes. You’ll notice that the site pretty much looks the same, except I think the blog is a little more nicely formatted. And did you notice? Comments! You can now post comments at the bottom of every blog entry. It’s nice to get feedback from the visitors to your site, so this was a welcome addition. I deliberately did not give myself the ability to edit the comments that people write, since I wanted to avoid the appearance of censorship. I can delete comments, however, and will do so if people abuse the system, though flooding, posting links to illegal material such as viruses, etc. (the links won’t be live anyway). Somehow, I don’t think that’ll be a problem with the people who come here. Please don’t prove me wrong on that.

Oh, and the whole site is now made with XHTML 1.0. It’s also a bit sleeker under the hood. But, for the most part, the site is pretty much as it has been for years. Enjoy!

I finally have the new look and feel of the site up. I hope you like it! I had really outgrown the simple layout I started with. This should be easier to navigate as well as more pleasing to the eyes. Let me know what you think.

Since the Apple Festival was cancelled this year for fears that Ivan would bring in inclement and even dangerous weather (of course, it ended up being a beautiful day…), I’ve secured booth space for October 1st and 2nd at the Denver Days festival. The festival runs from 3-11 on Friday and 9-6 on Saturday, and I plan to be there for as much of that time as humanly possible.