reflections Archives

Pondering death, spirit and the wrath of God

Happy New Year everyone! Mine is off to a shaky start. After spending quality time with family and enjoying the mountains and beaches of my Caribbean homeland, I'm back to the cold reality of winters in the heartland... pondering death and new beginnings. A close family member died unexpectedly the day I came back. My family is feeling sadness and the strange emptiness of losing someone you thought would be around for a long time. This death was preceded by my first experience of an earthquake. It is nerve-wracking not knowing when the next one will strike and whether the…

Three memories of 9/11

When it comes to 9/11, "We will never forget" is more than an empty phrase. I will never forget where I was that day, nor the memories associated with it: One. I was at the Executive Offices of the Intercontinental Hotel Santo Domingo (currently a Crowne Plaza) - just an ordinary day of Sales & Marketing work. I had three bosses in the five years I worked there. The third one was in charge on September 11, 2001. It was 9:02 a.m. and the hotel managers started to come in, as they did every morning, to gather in the conference…

Doomsday Bunkers: Salvation for sale. Can you afford it?

I recently watched the Discovery Channel show 2012 Apocalypse. It shows people around the world making a living from selling doomsday bunkers at outrageous prices, as well as a wide range of survival gear. Other sites, usually blogs by self-appointed modern-day ¨prophets¨are selling e-books, DVD's and asking for donations to keep the 'cause' going. The cause being making more people aware of our imminent demise and 'preparing' them for it. Even the very people who tell you on their posts that they have been endowed by the Gods or powerful aliens to deliver this message want to charge you for…

The end of the world: the Rapture and other predictions

It's past 8 p.m. CST and the "Rapture" predicted by Harold Camping and much publicized by the media in recent days has not happened. Wait, it could have happened at 6 p.m. PST! Did California go down with a 9.0 earthquake? NOPE. No earthquakes in California, no noteworthy earthquakes anywhere. However, there is a volcano erupting in Iceland, the Mississippi River is cresting at 61+ feet and Sarah Palin has the "fire in my belly" for a presidential run. In other words, the world as we know it is over. It ended a while ago. Yes, that world in which…