Satisfaction is the Death of Desire

I was listening to an album by Hatebreed called "Satisfaction is the Death of Desire." Funny thing is how insightful that title really is! Think about this, if someone is satisfied with an element of their life, do they look for further improvement? When you get your grades, and it's satisfactory, do you go for better? When your hunger is satisfied, do you eat more food? The answer to these is probably "no." That's the sad part.

If you are married, do you remember when you were dating? Remember having a burning desire for the person of your dreams? You had a happy dating, engagement, and then marriage. But are you just satisfied now? Do you go that extra mile anymore? Think about it - don't be satisfied with the status quo, go for more! Make the most of everyday! Never be satisfied with what the relationship is, go for more!

Okay, how about this? So, you get your most recent grade card. Everything on it's decent. The teacher says you are meeting the expectations. Does that mean you are satisfied? Do you desire to better, or just get by? Go for more! Make the most of your life.

Eating - man, what a bad example. It seems that most American's are not satisfied here! We are the fattest country in the world. We have become addicted to food - the desire is high, and we are never satisfied. So, in this case, would satisfaction be a good thing? Probably so, and the death of desire would probably save our lives.

You have to pick and choose, and only you have the ability to control your level of satisfaction. Look at the things in your life that should have more desire, and those things that should have less. See what adjustments you can make.
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Why I Will Recommend Linux To Family This Year

I read a recent post called “Why I Won’t Be Recommending Linux to Family this Holiday Season.” The author makes a few good points about the various applications that family members use, but forget to tell you about. Things like the Sims or other games that don’t run well under Wine. Things like music under iTunes. The funny part is, the real reason…he doesn’t want to take the heat for telling them to use Linux and have something go wrong! Wimp!

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IBM SVC - Great Complement to Virtualization and Linux

I was reading a recent post about how IBM has now shipped it’s 10000th SAN Volume Controller (SVC). That is remarkable, and says a lot about the industry and the desire for virtualization solutions across all hardware. Server sprawl is the easy and most obvious expanding problem in a data center. But, what about the storage? Solution vendors lock customers into proprietary solutions, and homogeneous environments are difficult to configure and manage. IBM SVC makes that so much easier.

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PAX FLEX - Mom Has Gotten Notified

Good news, the mom has already received the names of our friends and their address and phone number. This proves that PAX can move fast when they need to. Although we were approved as far back as Nov.2 - in email from PAX - they just couldn't tell Washington that...oh well!
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PAX - Program for Academic Exchange - PAXPress

Well, the really good news is the child I have been writing about is in a safe environment, being well adjusted and treated normally! It's an awesome thing to have happen. I believe that Oksana Pavlik of PAX probably had a lot to do with taking control from the local coordinator. So, thanks is certainly in order to her. Does this mean PAX and the coordinator are blameless and have no responsibility in the failures - not at all. Further, their now personal attacks against my family have now been reported back to me in earnest.

Here is what is going to happen -

I am going to try to find out from Oksana why I was lied to, and why misinformation was sent to Washington concerning my family and our approval process. If she refuses to comply...

I then contact my attorney to contact Oksana.

I am working on the State Dept. and Ukraine email and hope to have that out by the weekend. This is the one where I request an investigation of the local coordinator and PAX.

Finally - my general impressions are this - there are probably good organizations out there. It is the people that make them so. People who readily label others must have the first hand knowledge - i.e. liers know liers...or at least they think they do. In this case, all kids are bad, manipulative, and need proper guidance to be good citizens. What I see is a little different - teens are teens. They will do things that you must be able to handle. In the FLEX/PAX case, you have very intelligent teens. Don't treat them disrespectfully and they will not treat you disrespectfully.

I could have stood on the sidelines, and ignored the situation. But, the problem is, once you have received information, and let's say something happens and you didn't report it, you can be held just as libel as the person who committed a bad act. So, you can't just stay quiet.

As far as the coordinator goes - she should be fired. She is a poor example of a "volunteer" who is interested in the exchange program. She is quick to make sure you know how Christian she is, and will list the multitudes of volunteer work she does - just to impress. You know the kind of person, leaves a very sour taste in your mouth.

PAX? I could care less...provided they step up to the plate and do what they are supposed to do. I read their 990...there's a lot of cash in this organization.

So - bottom line, it's now personal - PAX vs. my family!
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OMG - More FLEX-PAX issues...can the madness stop?

Well, I just found out that the coordinator has been a busy little bee! Apparently on Saturday, as I first wrote, she wasn't done with her damage. Apparently she wrote a letter to Washington telling them that the biological mother FORCED her to talk to her! How can that be? Over 4000 miles separate them! That's not the end!

So Washington sends notice to Kyiv that the host child is on his last warning, no more chances. He is not allowed to talk to me or my family, and is being watched! Sounds like top secret spy crap! Anyway, The biological mother was also told that she can no longer talk to the coordinator.

To top it off, Apparently we keep getting told we are approved. However, the coordinator and PAX apparently sent a letter to Washington telling them we are "problems" and not "approved." Hmm, this one is going to cause PAX some problems...

I did send a email to the vice president of PAX today asking them to call and tell me if all this is true...I probably will not get a call.

Next stop - State Department and Consulate in Ukraine

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Exchange Student Update - PAX/FLEX

Great news! The group of friends came through and got the boy out of the questionable host family home. We are still dealing with the coordinator, hopefully that can be worked through. We have given an updated statement to the FOX News affiliate here. We also got a call from a representative of CSFES.ORG. This is a volunteer force that work towards the best interests of the exchange student/host organization relationships. Please visit their site and acquaint yourself with the organization. I wasn't sure if this amounted to something they would take interest in, as many of their cases are very sad. But, they are providing support and also want to be updated!

Now for the student update...

There are parts of this that are very funny. Many of the kids at school that have been aware of the students issues noticed that there was a lot of activity around him yesterday. First, the kids thought maybe they were going to kidnap the student and hide him so he couldn't be sent back home! Then, when they realized that the families that were coordinating together were going to meet with the PAX coordinator and the host family, they thought they were getting ready for a large rumble! Needless to say, no physical jabs were thrown - but as expected, my family was raked through the coals. No problem though, I figure that if you are touching a nerve, and if there is truth on your side, you won't be liked by the opposing party.

The coordinator was to meet yesterday at 3:00 PM. However, the families waiting were told that she was at work all day and would not be available until 5:00 PM. The host mother then told the group that she was having carpet installed, and wouldn't be there until after 5:00 PM. Then, the coordinators husband gave a different story - to which it doesn't really matter. Point is, they were all different.

After the coordinator arrived, an agreement was reached to allow the student to go with one of the mothers. Keep this in mind - my family is approved, supposedly. The coordinator does not know this lady that is taking the student. She gets a name and unverified phone number. Just think about that one...makes you go hmmm.

But, the best of best, he is now with a loving and engaging family!

The coordinator was to meet them last night for paperwork to be signed. However, she canceled. We are now concerned that there may be different action under foot. I still wonder who makes decisions for PAX...the coordinator locally, or the PAX organization itself.

I will keep you posted!

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