Ryan and Debi Cragun’s Blog

I’m adding this sentence from a paper to my list of memorable student quotes,

The religious affiliations of the United States as a whole are that 77% of people are Christian (which includes Catholics, Baptists, Protestants, Methodists, Lutherans, Christians, Proletarians, Episcopalians, Mormons, and others), 1% are Jewish, 1% are Muslim, 1% are Buddhist, less than 1% are Hindu, 1% have other affiliations, 14% have no religious affiliation, and 5% refuse to disclose their affiliation.

I highlighted the mix-up for those who aren’t reading it closely enough to catch it. I’m sure Marx would roll over in his grade if “proletarians” were considered a religion, but, then again, maybe Proletarians would bring a much-needed focus on social stratification to religious practice.  The creed of the proletarian,

There is no god, but our masters, the bourgeoisie, are demon spawn from hell. 

I picked up a few items when I lived in Costa Rica that have proven to be remarkably durable. Alas, one of those items died a few days ago - my infamous (to Debi at least) pink flipflops. I bought these the first week or so I was in Costa Rica (which would have been around March of 1996). Due to the ever-present danger of strange infections one could catch in showers, I showered with these flipflops for the two years I was in Costa Rica. I’ve since worn these flipflops irregularly over the intervening 10 years. As you can see, they are well-worn and have paint on them (I wore them all around the house when I didn’t want to put anything else on). You can’t see it in the photo, but one of the straps finally broke (right near where it goes through the bottom of the shoe, making them unusable. Here’s the best part about these flipflops: I bought them for 250 colones. Rather than make you figure out the conversion rate for colones in Costa Rica in 1996, I’ll let you in on how much they cost me….

You ready? $0.75! Yep, 75 cents for flipflops that lasted 12 years!

You’ll also notice in the picture a comb. That, too, is a relic from Costa Rica that I bought about the same time - March or April of 1996 in Cartago. I’ve used that comb almost every day since. It’s still going strong. When they finally freeze my body in storage to be reawakened in the year 2,357 when they can cure my cancer and bring me back from the dead (okay, that sounds funny when I write it like that), I hope to have that comb waiting for me with my personal affects. Debi gives me crap about it all the time, but not as much crap as I give her - she has almost lost it several times, and whenever she borrows it I freak out until she brings it back. Oh, and the cost of the comb? About $0.50 (around 125 colones or so).  Ergo, the best 375 colones ever!

The picture below shows me in Limon wearing them while calling in the numbers for my district at the time.

We had our first familial visitor last weekend. My Dad was in Orlando for a carwash convention and made a side trip out to Tampa (about 1 1/2 hours away). He and a colleague of his spent the night then we took them out to Fort de Soto. Debi and I had never been but had heard a lot of good things about it. Fort de Soto’s North Beach was recently chosen as the #1 beach in the U.S. Unfortunately I forgot to take my camera, so this borrowed photo will have to do:

It’s an amazing beach, and that’s not all there is to see/do there. There is, in fact, a Fort, too, along with a great bike trail. The best part - the only cost is the tolls to get there - about $0.85. The sand is remarkably fine and there is a lot of it. We’ll definitely be going back.

On a different note, if you’ve been following Ben Stein’s movie-making efforts with his anti-evolution flick, Expelled, you should check out this NYTimes review, which I think does a great job of summarizing the film. (Update: eSkeptic has even better reviews.)

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Now playing: ABBA - Take A Chance On Me
via FoxyTunes

I’ve been buried in classes and haven’t been doing much of anything other than school related stuff as of late, so not much to post. Here’s my round up of the last few weeks:

I just received an email from a friend with this link rating Bank of America as the worst bank in America. In case you don’t recall, I predicted this several months ago when they took my money and days of my life away, all because they screwed up multiple times! I knew I wasn’t alone in cursing Bank of America.

Peas, wonderful peas… We have a garden! I don’t think I mentioned on here that back in February we planted snow peas, tomatoes, and cucumbers. The snow peas grew like pubescent teenagers, so we’ve spent the last couple of weeks harvesting snow peas for salads and Chinese dishes. Unfortunately they are starting to die (we think it’s the heat - yes, it’s already 80 degrees here daily), so they may be a short-lived crop, but we’ll replace them with something else. We also have zucchini, watermelon, and basil growing too. We’re hoping to have quite the little harvest this summer.

Finally, in case you haven’t heard, the presidential hopefuls (Obama, Clinton, and McCain) turned down a chance to debate science and instead opted to “debate” faith (read: see who can claim to have the most faith). What a sad day for America… Judge a candidate not for the faith she wears on her sleeve but for the prowess of her intellect and her grasp of the issues facing the world. Alas, no, it’s not to be. America is more interested in a divine pissing match than real issues…

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Now playing: Gheorghe Zamfir - Stranger On The Shore
via FoxyTunes