Shocking! A few Raw and Naked Facts About Sunstone!

[Geoff-Allen]

Thank you for your kindness.

You're most welcome - I wouldn't say it if wasn't impressed!

Are we starting some sort of mutual admiration society?

 

[Sunstone]

At least you remembered your pants...

Of course, it's never quite certain that a guy like me is going to remember his pants.

 

[Sunstone]

Are we starting some sort of mutual admiration society?

I suppose we are. That's not such a bad thing, given the extraordinary quality of our society's members.


We should have a rule, though, that just about anyone can join -- except, perhaps, that awful @Terese!

 

[Geoff-Allen]

I suppose we are. That's not such a bad thing, given the extraordinary quality of our society's members.

And we're so humble too!

 

[Sunstone]

And we're so humble too!

Don't forget good looking! We're certainly good looking -- no matter what that insufferable @Terese says!

 

[Geoff-Allen]

Don't forget good looking! We're certainly good looking -- no matter what that insufferable @Terese says!

You're assuming that I am good-looking!

Character is far more important than looks

 

[Sunstone]

You're assuming that I am good-looking!

Of course you're good looking! This is the internet! Everyone is good looking on the internet unless they disagree with you about politics or religion!

Character is far more important than looks

Now you're talking like that excruciating @Terese. She's always confusing me with common sense, good judgment, and truth.

 

[Ellen Brown]

Well, it's time to post another "Know Your Moderators" thread since the last one I posted was about eleven or so years ago now. So, here are a few random facts about me:

I live along the Front Range of the Rockies, near Cheyenne Mountain, in Colorado (USA).

I love walking about the town, and I tend to walk at a fast pace.
Some of my other interests are:
painting (mostly acrylic portraits),
reading (mostly non-fiction science and history),
writing (mostly essays),
composing poetry (mostly a wee bit experimental),
tutoring (mostly @Terese),
and soaking nude in hot springs (mostly to the horror of any bystanders).

I paid my university room and board by working as a fire fighter.

When I was at university, I would now and then get drunk with a few friends and then, after the bars closed, climb to the roof of one or another multiple story building, where we'd dare each other to walk along the building's edge. Looking back now, that was one of the dumbest things that I have ever done more than once or twice in my life.

I once owned and operated a small business with 13 employees, including my ex-secretary, who I was especially fond of, in part because she taught me — better than anyone else in my life until then — that people with absolutely no intellectual interests could be lovely, wise and compassionate.

When I was 16, I hitchhiked around the Western United States, living on the streets of the cities I found myself in. At that time, I was one of four people I met who were 16 or younger. Nowadays, there are thousands of kids even younger than 16 living on the streets.

I didn’t figure out I’d married my first wife for her exceptionally good looks until after I was divorced — the obvious often escapes me.

My mother was the CEO of a small business for 30 years. Her company came to be recognized as a model for other businesses within its industry. My father died when I was two years old, but he had been an inventor, a manufacturer, and a portrait artist.

At university, I went an extra year and a half beyond the standard four years because there was just so much that I wanted to learn, and tuition was cheap back then. I took courses in all the major sciences (except chemistry), but I majored in philosophy and had a double minor in comparative religious studies and anthropology.

I was raised in a tiny Mid-Western American town of 2,000 people in which the dogs were allowed to vote in local elections on the theory they knew everyone in the community at least as well as anyone else.

A traumatic event when I was eight years old triggered childhood depression in me. Undiagnosed and untreated, it developed into a series of frequent adolescent and then adult depressive episodes that afflicted me on and off for most of my life. I finally got professional help and with that help brought the attacks under control. For the past dozen or so years, I've been virtually depression free and insufferably happy.

I had a nice little basement chemistry lab when I was a kid. I learned how to make gunpowder which I then often enough sold to other kids, or now and then set off at night in the yards of such adults as I or my best friend, Dennis, considered obnoxious.

My second marriage was to a brilliant, but abusive woman who herself had been abused as a child. After leaving her, I vowed not to pass along her abuse of me to anyone else by abusing them, and to live well, as my only revenge.

At thirty-seven, I lost nearly everything I owned within a short period of six months, including my business, my wife, my money, my home, and most everything else I’d built my self-identity on. Perhaps strangely enough, it felt like a huge burden had been lifted from me.

When I was young, I had an artistic bent and somehow managed to twice win adult art competitions for paintings I'd stolen from my elders had done -- once when I was eight, again when I was sixteen. But I gave up painting when I was eighteen, and only returned to it about six years ago. I figure it will take me at least another dozen years if I work at it before I get to where I want to be with my paintings.

When I moved to Colorado about 25 years ago, I had no inkling at all of the radical life-changes in store for me. Had someone described to me my future self when I was younger, I would not have easily recognized me.

I think of myself as having known in my life far more than my rightful share of fascinating people.
​

Thanks for reading! If you're interested, I've posted eight of my paintings, and seven of my poems in places later on in this thread.


Questions? Comments? Observations? Rose bouquets? Muddled rants? Nude selfies? Random solicitations for magazine subscriptions? All are welcome!

I used to know of a website or online magazine that was "questioning Mormon". Are you such?

 

[YeshuaRedeemed]

I used to know of a website or online magazine that was "questioning Mormon". Are you such?

Cool scarf in your pic.

 

[Ellen Brown]

Cool scarf in your pic.

Shukran Jazillian.

 

[Sunstone]

I used to know of a website or online magazine that was "questioning Mormon". Are you such?

Interesting question. Do you ask because of the name "Sunstone"? I have never been Mormon, but some years ago a large ex-Mormon website adopted me for no reason I know of.

I had an active blog back then with about 400 daily followers. One of the reasons for the followers was the ex-Mormon website -- they kept referring their readers to me. That went on for a few short years.

 

[Rival]

Interesting question. Do you ask because of the name "Sunstone"? I have never been Mormon, but some years ago a large ex-Mormon website adopted me for no reason I know of.

I had an active blog back then with about 400 daily followers. One of the reasons for the followers was the ex-Mormon website -- they kept referring their readers to me. That went on for a few short years.

I don't understand the sunstone-mormon connexion. What's 'sunstone' to do with anything?

 

[Katzpur]

I don't understand the sunstone-mormon connexion. What's 'sunstone' to do with anything?

Sunstone is the name of a group of mostly Mormons who could probably be best described as intellectual and questioning. They publish a magazine and have an annual symposium where a number of different guest speakers are featured.

 

[Sunstone]

I don't understand the sunstone-mormon connexion. What's 'sunstone' to do with anything?

In addition to what Katzpur said, "The Sunstone" was a carving that the Mormon's used in their temple when the lived in Illinois.

I had no idea of the Mormon connection to "sunstone" when I picked my internet username.

 

[Sunstone]

By the way, a doe just went galloping past my cottage door, which is open. Just so you know.

 

[Rival]

By the way, a doe just went galloping past my cottage door, which is open. Just so you know.

It wasn't me. I'm a tomato.