Proof Of Heaven- Book Review

I've read several books on NDEs. With the ambitious title Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon's Journey into the Afterlife and the quotes on Amazon from Ray Moody and Pim Van Lommel and the fact that it was written by a neurosurgeon, this book set very high expectations. I've been around the block enough times to suspect that the use of the word "Proof" in the title was hyperbole, just like when I read Karen Armstrong's "Proof" of God. Again, I was right. There's no proof of anything in this book. It it well written although short. It's a very quick read and it drew me in right away. There is quite a bit about Eben Alexander's life before the NDE and that is quite interesting. Almost as fascinating as the NDE itself is the fact that he contracted the type of meningitis he did (a 1 in 10 million chance) and that he survived the type of brain trauma he experienced as a result. The fact that the guy is upright walking around and talking is a miracle. So, you could say there are three miracles that happened to him that week.

As another reviewer noted, I was left wanting more of the NDE itself. Dr. Alexander talks of great insights he received while unconscious in our world. But, what he gives us in the book are generalities that most NDE experiencers seem to bring back. Those being that we are all greatly and unconditionally loved and there is a purpose to all of this madness. One of the unusual things about his NDE is, while in that state, he has no recollection of Earth. I had a friend a few years ago who had two Out of Body Experiences that sound very similar to Dr. Alexander's. He talked of places like the Core and the Gateway (mentioned in the book) and of being in a state where he had no language, no real thoughts and was just experiencing things. I haven't heard any other NDErs describe things that way.

Overall, the book is good. But, if you're looking for "proof" of heaven, I'm afraid you'll have to keep looking. I've read of other NDEs where the person experiencing them, who should have no knowledge of what is going on on Earth, has been able to describe things he could not possibly know. There's no such proof in Dr. Alexander's experience. Dr. Alexander tries to explain why his experience couldn't have been produced by his brain. I wanted to believe and I do.  But, while I believe him, I don't think he proves beyond any doubt that it could not have been created as he was coming out of the coma. We've all had dreams where seconds in that dream state seem like minutes or even days.

Related articles

• Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon's Journey into the Afterlife ~ Dr. Eben Alexander [updated]
• Opening the Conversation About NDE: Dr. Eben Alexander & the Question of Consciousness
• Dr. Eben Alexander, Harvard neurosurgeon, says he has seen heaven
• Eben Alexander, Harvard Neurosurgeon, Describes Heaven After Near-Death Experience (VIDEO)
• Near-death Episodes Are Brainy, Not Soulful

Cichlid Stones by Underwater Galleries- Review

I just got my 75 gallon tank a week ago and decided to stock it with African Cichlids. More specifically, Lake Malawi Mbunas- which, I've been told, are very aggressive and need lots of hiding places.  I looked at several alternatives to provide a backdrop for the aquarium and hiding places for them and decided to go with the Underwater Galleries Cichlid Stone Bulk Pack .  They arrived yesterday.  So far, the little guys love 'em and I do too.

The other alternatives I considered were:

• Texas Holey Rock- a natural limestone with holes worn through it.  Pros- looks great and provides natural holes.  Con- expensive, heavy, displaces a lot of water and how many holes is dependent on the piece since each is naturally formed.
• An artificial Texas Holey Rock- there's a company that makes modules that look like Texas Holey Rock but are more lightweight.  Pros- more lightweight and has more holes then natural Holey Rock might.  Cons- still expensive.
• Clay pots-some people just break up clay flower pots and/or drill holes in them.  Pros- cheap.  Con- looks anything but natural
• PVC pipe- you can use PVC pipe, gravel and aquarium silicone to create caves. Pros- they look pretty natural, inexpensive.  Cons- not as natural look as I would like, requires some work, not very stackable- takes up a lot of horizontal space.
• Build my own from stones- either buying rock locally at a landscaping store or going out to find rock.  I live in an area with a lot of limestone (which naturally raises water pH and hardness- something Malawi cichlids love).  Using some rock and aquarium silicone, I could build caves.  Pros- inexpensive and natural looking. Cons- some amount of work, heavy, displaces a lot of water.

After considering all of the alternatives, I decided to go with the Cichlid Stones from Underwater Galleries.  They weren't too expensive.  They ended up being about $70 for the 15 pack- no matter the source.  In total, the 15 pack only weighs about 15 pounds.  The equivalent amount of any type of stone would weigh several times that.

Here's what I like about them:

• They are ceramic, not plastic- eco friendly. Fired stone.  I'm assuming/hoping they'll be good for the water chemistry as well as being good for the planet.
• They are lightweight- I don't have to worry about the silicone failing, them falling and having a cracked tank or dead fish.
• They are easily installed, rearranged and/or removed- because they are completely separate, you can arrange them any way you like. Scatter them around the floor or stack them up.  When I first got them I thought the tops should be flat so they could stack easily.  A few of the medium sized ones do have flat tops. But, I realized they look more natural not being flat on top and bottom.  To get them to stack, I just rested the pile against the back wall of the aquarium.
• They don't displace a lot of water- Because they're hollow, they fill up completely with water.  My 75 gallon tanks still has about 75 gallons of water. An equivalent amount of stones would not only be much heavier, they would displace much more water giving me smaller amount of water to carry oxygen, etc.
• They provide a LOT of hiding spaces for the volume they take up.  Any other alternative other than the pots and possibly the PVC piping would provide less hiding spaces and room for my cichlids.
• They look pretty realistic- the paint job is good and the shapes look very natural.  Of course, you don't see natural rocks with holes in them and hollowed out. But, this is a good trade-off to get so much space for the fish.  As they get some algae on them, I think they're going to look even better.

I've only had them for a day.  But, unless the finish wears off and they turn white, I can't see why they would just get better over time.  I'm very happy with my purchase.

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Margaret's Ark- Book Review

Even though many of us were taught the story in Sunday school, Noah's Ark is not a children's story in my opinion. We tend to think of the story from the perspective of Noah and his family surviving and being spared by God, rather than think of the millions of men, women, children and animals that drowned because they were all so evil. Because that story has such moral problems- like why did God have to kill every living thing? Couldn't he have been a bit more selective? For those reasons, I read a book In the Shadow of the Ark which looked at the flood from the perspective of those not on the Ark. It's a story that disturbed me the older I got and the more I thought about those outside the Ark. And that's why I was interested to read Margaret's Ark. I wondered which perspective the writer would take.

I could not figure out whether the author intended this book for devout fundamentalist Christians, who might not have a problem with the literal interpretation of Noah's Ark; or for more progressive Christians who might think of the story as allegory or for just general fiction readers. By the end I still hadn't figured out the audience for this book. There was some pretty rough language, which will offend some Christians. The angels who visited th Ark builders were quirky at best. There was unnecessary violence, not as bad as Stephen King. But, too much for many Christians. The author realized that In the Bible God agrees not to destroy the Earth by flood again and indicates it's different this time. God is not destroying all life on Earth, but instead saving those who choose to be saved from a natural disaster. But, apparently God, while having the power to give dreams to people all around the world, the power to give a foreshadowing of what is to come in the way of a not-so-natural worldwide rain as a warning shot, does not have the power to stop this "natural disaster". And this God is a god of playing hide and seek. He only gives the dreams to certain people. He only gives the dreams to those not in positions of power or authority. He is a god many fundamentalists might be able to relate to. But, as I said, I would expect they would have a problem with the unnecessary language and violence in the book.

The books's chapters are numbered in descending order and skip numbers. I thought the Kindle version of the book might be missing chapters. Then, I realized the numbers of the chapters were a countdown to D-Day. I read with great anticipation to see if there would be an actual flood, how it would be pulled off to come at a certain time, since rains would take days to drown people in high places. The people given the dreams were given a time on the day to expect the flood. I thought maybe the "twist" would be the people in the Arks would die and the others would be spared. I love a good twist. There was a twist- sort of. But, I felt the twist here was a cheat.

I was disappointed when I finished the book. The payoff was disappointing to say the least. I felt almost as if the book could have started at the point where it ended. I don't know if the author plans a second part. But, it felt like the first book in what should be a two book set. The book left me feeling far less than satisfied.

**SPOILER ALERT**

There is an actual flood. The device used to create it was clever. But, it is far from a "natural" disaster, defies the laws of physics and thus was an act of God. So, God broke His promise. I expected a twist at the end. In fact, I hoped for one. But, it makes me angry when the twist "cheats". God once again destroyed the Earth by flood, against His promise and once again indiscriminately killed billions. People who behaved the way most normal people,would behave were executed in a horrendous flood. However, this time, I'm not even sure why they were killed. One of the people given the dreams isn't even given instructions to build an Ark. The book ends with some of our main characters on Margaret's Ark. But, we don't know where they are going to land or what kind of world they'll discover/create when they do. An epilogue would have been nice. This book has gotten great reviews. But, I don't get it. I was not only disappointed when I finished it, I was a bit angry.

Oxo Good Grips Ratcheting Pineapple Slicer- Review

I'm a gadget guy.  Alton Brown may not be fond of unitaskers, but, I am.  The right tool for the right job is my motto.  Our family loves fresh pineapple and I'm always the one assigned to carving them up.  I've perfected my technique over the years. I wouldn't have sought out the Oxo Good Grips Ratcheting Pineapple Slicer.  But, when I was offered one to try, I decided it was worth a try.

I decided to record my experience with it because with a device like this you want to know if it's easy to use (easier than using a knife) and if it actually works. The answer to both is an unqualified "Yes!".  On the video you'll see me using it with no rehearsals and having only glanced over the instructions. It probably looks a little harder than it is. The next time through I'd do it a little differently.  For example, I realized I was pushing down while turning the device.  That probably isn't necessary because it has a corkscrew design that will pull it through the pineapple if you just twist the handle.

I ended up with a nice need cored pineapple spiral.  There was very little waste, I think no more than if I had peeled, quartered and cored the pineapple the normal way.  As a bonus, you end up with a nice pineapple "hull" that you could serve drinks in, if you had small pineapples.  Or you could serve a salad in at a party.

Zip-It Drain Cleaning Tool

I've been using the Zip-It Drain Cleaning tool for several years now. Having two girls with long hair, I found the drain in their bathroom backing up to the the point where the bathtub wouldn't even drain.  Because of the way the drain is made (the plug screws in and there are four small openings around the center where it screws in), there is a very small opening and a normal drain snake wouldn't fit.  Even if it did, I'm afraid it would just push the hair clog further down the drain.  I didn't want to use chemicals if I didn't have to. One day, while at Lowe's I found this little piece of plastic with hooks on it.  It's an extremely simple device. It goes in, pushing through the hair, and when it comes out, the barbs grip the hair pulling it out.  The device is disposable. But, I'm cheap. I'll use them several times before throwing them out even though they're less than $3.00 each.  No chemicals to harm the environment, your fixtures or your pipes.

Here's a picture of the clog I just pulled out.  This is only about two months worth of hair.

Philips Sonicare Toothbrush Review- Won't Live Without It

I have used the Philips Sonicare Toothbrush for close to 20 years now.  My dentist first recommended it to me because I build tartar quickly and it was threatening the health of my gums.  I've been through several generations of the Philips Sonicare toothbrush.  It's expensive. But, it's well worth the money. I believe that because of my use of the toothbrush I have saved hundreds of dollars in "planing and scaling" (deep cleaning under the gum line) of my teeth and possible gum surgery.  The toothbrush leaves my teeth feeling extremely clean, that just came from the dentist clean.  I will never go back to a manual toothbrush again.

The latest version of the Philips Sonicare I just got a couple of days ago from Costco. It's now called the Platinum Edition Philips Sonicare HX6733/90 HealthyWhite 3 Mode Platinum Edition Rechargeable Toothbrush 2-Pack Bundle (2 Power Toothbrushes, 2 DiamondClean Brush Heads, 1 UV Sanitizer with Integrated Charger, 1 Travel charger, 2 Travel cases) and it came with (2) handles, a charging base with a UV sanitizer for the heads, a travel charger and two travel cases.  While the system is kind of expensive, retailing for around $150, as I mentioned above, it may save you that or more on dental bills.  I've found that, on average my handles seem to last around 3 years.  The system I just replaced I had bought just over three years ago and Philips replaced one of the handles, under warranty, last year.  That same handle just went out on me again. This time Costco came to the rescue.  Since I had bought the system there, I simply returned it and they gave me full refund which I used to purchase my new system. 

Click here to see the system I bought.

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Does my iMac need more memory?

Activity Monitor (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The Problem

I had my previous iMac for about 5 years.  It kept running slower (and slower and slower).  It went from being a screaming, stable platform that I loved to work on to something almost almost as bad as my Windows machine with the spinning beach balls all the time.  I had maxed it out on RAM, 4 GB.  So, I decided it was time for an upgrade, trotted down to the Apple Store and plopped down my money for a 27" iMac with a 2.7 GHS Intel Core i5 processor.  I asked the Apple salesperson about additional RAM and she asked me what applications I was running.  Just the normal stuff, a couple of browser windows, iTunes so I could whistle while I work, iPhoto on occasion, MS Word, Powerpoint, etc.  She said that 4 GB of RAM would be more than sufficient for me because none of the applications I was using would take advantage of more memory. Boy was she wrong!  Yesterday, I upgraded to 12 GB of RAM and I immediately fell in love with my iMac again. It's the best $50 I've ever spent on computer hardware Here's how to tell whether or not you need to upgrade too.

After months and months of going through this experience I realized something.  The beach ball was popping up, not when I was within an application but when I was switching or launching a new application.  If I were working in iPhoto for example, it would run fine.  But, when I tried to switch over to check my mail or take an order from a customer over the phone in Safari, the beach ball would stop me dead in my tracks.  After getting the new machine, I made the mistake of buying MacKeeper reasoning that I had legacy software on my system from my first iMac bought almost 10 years ago and maybe all that stuff was clogging my system up.  That's a story for another day.  Just don't do that.  I finally ran across some articles that showed me how to scientifically determine if I needed more memory.  After just a few minutes, it became VERY clear that I did.

How to Know If You Need More Memory

What you'll want to do is go to the Utilities folder and open Activity Monitor.  In Activity Monitor, there is a tab called System Memory. This will show you exactly what is going on with your memory on your Mac.  You might want to do a restart before you try this to reset Activity Monitor.  Open it up first with no other applications running. You'll see the processes you have running the percent CPU they're using and the amount of real memory they're using. But, what you really want to look at is at the bottom of this window.  On the left, you'll see Free, Wired, Active, Inactive and (Total) Used memory.  With no other applications launched, you should see a fair amount of Free Memory (Green on the pie chart to the right).  Wired and Active Memory should be relatively low and Used should be a fraction of your total memory.  As you perform activities on your computer, the RAM gets allocated and used by applications.  The operating system pages out to your hard drive when it runs out of space in your physical RAM.  This page out (represented in the right hand column) can severely slow down your computer.  The total amount of space allocated for paging in and out is Swap used.  You'll want to keep an eye on the Page Out and Swap used numbers in particular.  They should be relatively low.  Before I made my memory upgrade, Swap used was actually approaching 4 GB at times and the Page outs were in the multi-GB range also.  Free memory would often dip to just 30-40-50 MB and this is when the beach ball would pop up.

With Activity Monitor open, start to open up applications and go about what you would normally do while working. Here's where the salesperson at the Apple store was wrong.  She was right that none of my applications are true memory hogs. I don't work with very large files or do a lot of hardcore video editing.  But, because I work from home, I'm on my computer all day and I don't shut down on thing when I move to the next.  I typically have at least iTunes, Mail, iCal, Safari (with 5-10 tabs) open.  And, it's nothing for me to launch iMovie and/or Excel while all of these other things are still open.  As long as I was working within an application, everything would be fine.  But, if the phone rang while I was creating a video and I switched over to take an order, my machine would lock up, just when I needed it most.

So, after just a few minutes of this testing I knew, beyond the shadow of a doubt that a memory upgrade would help me.  I read that the amount of Swap used would give me an indication of how much more memory I needed.  In my case, the Swap used would max out around 4 GB.  If you've bought memory, you know that while it's a LOT cheaper than it used to be, the dense DIMMS are still relatively expensive.  So, the decision I had to make was how to utilize the two open slots Apple had left me.  In the previous iMacs, you only had two memory slots. So, any memory upgrade meant throwing out what you had already paid Apple for.  But, the new iMacs have (4) slots and ship with (2) 2 GB DIMMS.  I decided to keep those and add (2) 4 GB DIMMS taking me up to a total of 12 GB.  The guy at Crucial.com, where I bought the memory, tried to convince me that I might want to go to 20 GB.  But, adding 8 GB DIMMS was going to be about three times the just twice the total amount of memory. Having looked at Activity Monitor, I was pretty sure that 12 GB would be more than I need.  Better to save the money, add just what I need for now and upgrade later, if I need to.

I installed the additional 8 GB yesterday.  As you can see from my screenshot above, now with all my normal applications open, I still have almost 7 GB free (almost twice the total amount of RAM Apple shipped my iMac with).  This now truly feels like a new machine.  Application switching is now smooth and seamless the way it should be.  And this only cost me $50 and took about 5 minutes to install.