Are we still here yet?

It is a rare Sunday that I blog. Not that anyone cares, but I like to lay my explanations, or rationalizations if you will, all out there so that I can see them. That is why I don’t cringe at editing after I have published something. If I didn’t have to go through a major to do, I would probably print out my blog before I publish. Of course, paper can get expensive.

I did want to say that I am still here despite all the hype generated by the media over one man who spent too much time working as a civil engineer. Harold Camping, the 89-year-old retired engineer, used selected Bible passages and all the numbers left floating around in his head after a fun career of engineering to predict that May 21, 2011, would be the “Rapture.”  That rapture did not take place except perhaps somewhere that the excellent recording of the same name released in 1981 by the group Blondie probably played. Wikipedia describes the song “Rapture” (Warning: Video preceded by a commercial, but worth waiting for especially the great sax and guitar) as a combination “New Wave pop, funk, jazz and rap music, with the rap section forming an extended coda.” And while I don’t care much for rap, I think this song rocks!

Whether it be rapture (the Biblical event, not the Blondie song), the End Times, the Second Coming, Judgment Day, or the Seven Seals whether opened by the Lion of Judah or subsequent to the second coming of Vernon Howell a.k.a., David Koresh, all are subject to interpretation and such dilly-dallying as did by Camping can lead to what many Christians see as “False Prophecy.” I suppose the most comforting fact that rapture did not occur Saturday, other than it didn’t take place, is that most folks of  most faiths thought Camping was off  the mark if not off his rocker. One Website even offers a free timer one can use as a computer widget that lists the days, hours, minutes, seconds and milliseconds since Camping’s last false prophecy.

Still, one must wonder if this whole End Times things went through the minds of those who experienced strong natural events Saturday such as a 6.1 earthquake off New Zealand, a 3.6 in San Francisco, the eruption of Iceland’s busiest volcano and a tornado in Kansas?  Only from the tornado, of those nature-driven events, were casualties produced including a death and almost two dozen homes damaged.

Speaking of Kansas, it’s back to Kansas City for me tomorrow on business. This is Kansas City, Mo., of which I speak. If a little free time comes up perhaps I will catch a cab to take me over to the Kansas side just to say I have been to Kansas. When I last visited KC, it was snowing like we were in the northern climates instead of the extreme central continental U.S. I didn’t get to Kansas. As a matter of fact, I only traveled a block from my hotel the whole time other than the 20-minute trip to and from the airport. I did see Betty White at my hotel though. That was cool.

Scattered thunderstorms are forecast tomorrow for the KC area. That means two things. First, the possibility of delays but hopefully not cancellations. The second is the thunderstorms themselves. I could drive, of course, it would be a 14-hour trip. I definitely would need a stop for a night and continue on the next day. But that would be an extreme alternative.

Just go with the flow is all I can do. I’m pretty well packed and ready to go. Also, I’m here.