Survived again ~

I survived another near-death experience the other day.



My wife and I were driving home. We were in our pickup truck, so we were both in the front seat with her sitting beside me. We were on a two-lane road approaching our neighborhood. We were doing about 50 miles an hour in a 45 zone.



I saw a car coming out of a neighborhood ahead of me. He hesitated but didn't stop at the stop sign, then pulled out turning left right in front of me. I was at a speed where I knew if I didn't do something, I was going to T-bone this guy. When I saw him pull up towards the stop sign, I really thought from the looks of the car and just the way it rolled that he wasn't going to stop. So I had automatically, instinctively started slowing down. I pressed on the brakes and pressed harder and finally really pressed to where the anti-lock system kicked in and started pumping the brakes for me. I came to a complete stop about a foot or so from his rear driver's side quarter panel and he just continued rolling and finished his turn left and pulled off. His windows were tinted so I don't know if it was an old person or more likely a young person. Because of the tinting, I don't know if he even looked or if it was even a he. I don't know what pronouns he used or better yet what pronouns that person used.



What I do know is that I was very thankful for good brakes and good awareness and quick reflexes.



And my wife and I live to tell more stories.



This modern life is dangerous in weird ways.



+++

Planet Earth continues ~

Him there is what the news calls disasters lately. Tornadoes, floods in South Florida, another natural things that happen where humans are living.



It's always interesting to me when we get so full of ourselves that we think that the order that we've imposed around us is so strong that the natural world will obey it.



A friend at work went to Africa. While there he went on a couple of trips out into the bush. Not really safaris, more like outings to go and see the wildlife.



When he came back he said it was amazing! He said it was so incredible to see elephants and lions and rhinoceroses and so many other creatures that we typically only see in a zoo or on a screen. He said they were beautiful!



But he also said something that fascinated me. He said it was so weird that the animals acted as if he and the others in his group didn't even exist. He said these big animals didn't even bother to acknowledge them. They just kept motivating along their way and doing their thing.



He said that that was almost scary because their tour guide told them the group was not a threat to them and so they're not even looking at the group. The guide said "They know we're here, but because were not prey right now and we're not a threat they just do their thing."



The weather is even more indifferent to us. We act as if we can predict it. We build things in ways that will hopefully handle whatever the weather sends at us. But then a tornado or a flood or other things happen and we try to reason it out and say we caused it with global warming, our flatulence, and our emissions.



In the same session scientists will talk about how things have been happening on our planet for eons and then say that because of our little 200 years of charcoal burning in mass cities we are the ones causing the environment to change.



It just amazes me. Is it hubris? Or arrogance?



More and more I just try to live my life and stay devoted to my God. Because I know he'll help me handle whatever comes up.



+++

10 Commandments devotional ~

Recently my wife and I went through a devotional about the 10 commendments in the YouVersion Bible app. Sounds boring, right? But it wasn't because this one was put out by the Bible Project team.



It was amazing to have the 10 commandments that I have read and heard sermons about for so long explained by these guys! I really enjoyed the lofi approach to the videos and the way they brought the thing into focus in regard to the overarching story of God's love that the Bible tells.



If you're interested I highly recommend checking it out at

https://bibleproject.com/videos/the-10-commandments-as-wisdom/



or in the YouVersion Bible app at

https://www.youversion.com/bible-app

Go to Plans and then search for Bible Project 10 commandments



Enjoy!



+++

Sunflower disabilities ~

I was a support manager over an office that did a lot of different things. Our office interfaced with the facility grounds management line of business. And we told them what parking spaces we needed and when we needed extra handicapped parking spaces and that sort of thing.



My people would always get wound up when some of the employees would park in handicapped spaces and they had no business parking there. They could walk around just fine. They weren't in a wheelchair or on crutches.



They had no business apparently parking in the handicapped parking spaces. And I had to explain to them over and over that those employees had handicapped stickers and handicapped license tags and those authorized them to park in the handicapped parking spaces.



I even got complaints from people that worked around us. They would complain that so-and-so shouldn't be parking there. It got so bad at one point that I got tired of explaining it. So I came up with a phrase that captured my sentiment about the whole matter without crossing any of the EEO lines or any of the outrage-prone woke people that work there.



I would tell these people that were complaining about others getting to park close when they couldn't park close that "Not all disabilities are visible". And they would look at me and then they'd kind of laugh in a real hushed chuckle because they thought I was being funny and insulting somebody because they had a mental handicap.



What they didn't realize, because nobody ever listened when I told them, was that my wife is a nationally certified sign language interpreter. She's been doing that as a vocation for over 30 years. And a lot of the deaf and hard of hearing people that she has worked with over the years look just like everybody else.



You can't tell that they're hearing impaired at all. Not very many of them take advantage of the whole handicapped parking thing, but some do and even in the deaf community, people will tisk tisk and say they shouldn't be doing that because they're able-bodied and they can walk.



So after using that phrase."not all disabilities are visible" for several years, I finally saw something on an airport monitor recently. It called them "sunflower disabilities". And the phrase that they had underneath it was "not all disabilities are visible".



I busted out laughing when I saw it. I was just astounded that somebody had actually come up with a name for that and was putting a positive spin on it.



Pretty funny.



+++

The Answerman ~

It's so fascinating listening to old time radio as part of my podcast that I make. Yesterday I was listening to a Thanksgiving show by the radio Answerman and it was actually very fascinating. He answered questions about Thanksgiving and one of them was about a food about cranberry in their Pemekin.



And that's the thing that's so fascinating about old time radio is I've only read about Pemekin, a long lasting food that preppers now create in case the end of the world comes and they can't get any supplies.



But otherwise I've never heard that word used. But I heard it on that radio show and it seemed like it was just a regular word that people knew and understood. So many of the things that we just assume because we hear them every day or deal with them online every day, we just think that that's the way it was.



But so much has changed. I listened to those radio broadcasts from the 1940s and they talked about wartime, eastern wartime and Pemekin and had commercials for floor wax and cigarettes. I even ran across one that was advertising beer but it wasn't really specifically beer it was more just the brewery.



We have a lot of that now but it's just different. And everyone seems so uptight now for all of our freedom. We're just uptight.



Fascinating.



+++

Distasteful phrase ~

I don't like the phrase "on the right side of the grass".



I'm in my 60s now and a lot of times I still fall into the trap of after saying hello to somebody asking "how are you?" it's such a shallow question and I'm trying to break the habit but it's so hard because it's so prevalent. But when somebody says "I'm on the right side of the grass" it just freaks me out! All I can think is that the person is so focused on death that I need to get away from them.



It just seems so negative, and after having so much doom thinking and negativity in my brain for so long because I lived under the gun for most of my life, I just don't like it.



I remember when I was leaving the training class in Oklahoma City after making it through air traffic controller training and the follow-on training. And this big redneck dude told me as I was headed out to my car to drive home, "keep it between the hedges". The rest of the trip that I drove for 16 hours on, I was so focused on those lines on the highway that it was amazing.



I don't know if that's my suggestibility or if that's a flaw in my thinking, but I fell for that big time. And so when others around me focus on the turd in whatever we're doing or talking about, my lasers get focused. And then my comments become very clear about the shape and the smell and the irritating position of and all the other things associated with the turd.



I'm slowly learning to focus on the other things like gratitude, thankfulness, availability, presence, possibility of these from where we are instead of negative outcomes. But it's a challenge when surrounded by so much negativity.



Thank you God for my freedom!



+++

AI echo chamber ~

I have been reading a lot of articles about artificial intelligence and how people are using AI to enhance their productivity. Also articles on how people are using AI to confide in and journal with, and to gain insights into their own lives with.



I've read articles about people losing their minds and going into psychosis because they put all of their belief in a computer-based artificial intelligence. Come on! just like with any tool it comes with good and bad effects. People who overuse it or use it for improper things or put unfulfilled beliefs in it usually get different and odd results. Like the people that are outliers that are ending up in psycho wards and that sort of thing.



But there's a lot of hype about AI these large language models that have soaked up all the data that their creators can feed them, whether it was legal or not, spit out really cool responses that seem very realistic and very useful.



I use AI in a information tidbits so that I can have my phone whisper things in my ear to help me learn stuff. For a long time I had to go and search for individual websites, capture what was on the website into a text file, edit it so that it was in the right format, and then feed it to my system. Now with AI I ask for a list of facts and it spits out a list of facts very easily in a format that I can easily adapt to what I'm doing.



I did give in and subscribe to one of the voice recording systems that has an AI with it. They offer the ability to get insights from your notes and the ability to quickly summarize transcriptions into action items and emails and the like. I've been using that for about six months. Recording my thoughts about trips and feelings and other things happening in my life.



So I went to the AI in that system and asked it what the overall vibe was of my notes. I figured I would put it to work and let it give me some feedback on what I sound like to the machine. The response was pretty positive.



The AI said that my notes reflect a balance of excitement for new experiences and a thoughtful navigation of personal and practical improvements. It also pointed out that I am learning to value a softening approach, pausing rather than constantly pushing, and this indicates to the AI a maturing perspective towards self-compassion and incremental growth.



I really liked its response! But this response reminded me of another article or two that I've read about the dangers of using AI to analyze journals and feelings and possibly as a therapist thing.



The articles warned that The AI is seeking to give you an answer that you want and can quickly turn into an echo chamber of whatever you're thinking about and desiring to hear others say. So I chuckled at the response of the AI to my notes, filed it away, and moved on.



I don't really get into echo chambers, but I do like it inside my bubble.



+++

My kaleidoscope ~

I remember having a kaleidoscope when I was growing up. I loved to take it to a bright window and put it up to my eye and spin it to make the designs change inside of it. So many colors and so many changes.



I always wondered how it worked but then I just enjoyed looking at it and then I'd put it away and move on to something else just like kids do. Over the years I've enjoyed putting screensavers on my computers.



Sometimes I'd put a kaleidoscope but it would be too much for the people around me so I would turn it into something else. Now, I enjoy playing a kaleidoscope video on YouTube on my living room TV.



Relaxing and trippy all at the same time.



Fun!



+++

Tinting my own windows ~

I remember when I was a teenager, or maybe 20, tinting my own car windows. It was a four-cylinder Subaru hatchback and my father and grandfather had convinced me when I bought it that a four -cylinder engine couldn't support an air conditioner because the air conditioner would cause the engine to burn up.



So I drove around central Florida in a hatchback with no air conditioning. Every time I drove to work I prayed for green lights.



One summer I really wanted to have tinted windows but I really didn't want to pay somebody to do it because that was expensive. I saw in the Sears catalog where I could order window tinting. The write-up made it seem like it was a pretty easy process even though I had no idea what I was doing. I ordered the window tinting and anxiously waited.



When it came in I backed the car into the driveway of my mom and dad's house. I spread everything out on the dirty garage floor because I didn't think that I needed to sweep in order to do this. There were no surfaces to lay the window tinting on to work with it.



And so I of course laid it on the floor of the dirty garage. And while I was going back and forth to the directions and the window tinting and cleaning my car windows, getting them ready, once I peeled the window tinting backing off of the sheet that was going to go in my back window, I had to go over and get something off of the freezer that was in the garage.



And I didn't think about it, I just kind of stepped over the window film and my foot sprinkled granules of sand all over the sticky side of the window tinting. I put it in the window and went to smooth all the bubbles out and could not smooth them out very well because of the sand.



There was no extra window tinting to use to do it again and so I ran with it and just put it in with the sand and the bubbles. The side windows I did better on and didn't get any sand in them and I got most of the bubbles out of them.



In Florida you could do the front windows so I did the front windows too and that turned out okay. But I had to ride around with the windows up and it was hot and that was a rough few days while I waited for the window tinting to dry.



But I did it! I was successful in tinting my own windows. I looked through bubbles every time I looked in the rear view mirror and most of the time I'd be upset with myself. But sometimes I actually laughed about it and just kind of shook my head.



Even today after so many years I'll go to do something and I'll think, "Hmm I need to think through this one more time so I don't mess it up like I did that window tinting." And by mess it up I mean make it not look as cool as it could have.



It worked and it looked awesome to me. I like bubbles :-)



+++

Cashew nuts ~

I remember when I was growing up that getting cocktail peanuts during the holidays was a special treat. It was always fun because they were salted and they tasted so good.



As we got older my brother and I would demolish a can of them! My mother actually had to restrict us and say you can only have a few at a time. My mother liked cashew nuts but because they were more expensive she didn't really get them very often. Sometimes she would receive them as a gift at Christmas. Sometimes she would buy a can and tell us that we could only have one or two cashew nuts because she had bought them for herself as a treat. She said they were her favorite. And we respected that and would go through the Spanish peanuts or the cocktail peanuts fast like we did.



But I never knew what the difference was between all of those different kinds of nuts.



As I've gotten older I've learned to enjoy Brazil nuts where I didn't really like them very much growing up. They were so dry! But they're actually quite good and make an enjoyable snack in the afternoon. I never liked pistachio nuts. I still don't like to have them in the shells but if I spend the money and get them already out of the shell they're actually really good.



But I didn't know that cashew nuts were so different from other nuts. I learned just before a trip to Guyana about how cashew nuts are actually part of an apple and that they stick outside of the bottom of this small apple.



And I was amazed after learning that at the age of 60 to meet someone on a trip less than a month after learning about how cashew nuts are actually grown who had a tree that he grew cashew nuts and apples on. We talked about how different that was with the nut poking out of the bottom of the apple.



It's amazing all the fun things you can learn through reading and scanning through different things on the internet.



I enjoyed learning about cashew nuts.



+++

Fake luxury ~

I think I realized or I figured out why so many people are getting tattoos. It appears to be a pursuit of fake luxury. Because people see it on their entertainment and the people that they admire are the rebels that have these things and they want to emulate them.



It's almost as if they want to express their individuality by being just like everybody else. I've thought that about nose rings lately too. All these young ladies piercing their noses in different places.



I remember I had a cousin who got earring piercings on her ears all the way around the ear. Then she'd get upset when people looked at her. But it just looked weird. It's like all these tattoos.



When I see them I feel bad because they look dirty and they look like criminals and they look like they're trying to be something that they're not. I understand people wanting to memorialize loved ones or what they think are exciting moments in their lives.



But to do it by covering part of your body with an image that will fade and costs quite a bit of money just doesn't compute for me.



And that's okay. I don't have to have a tattoo. I hope they enjoy theirs.



+++

Clean comedy is fun ~

My wife and I have enjoyed watching Drybar Comedy on YouTube for two or three years now. We've developed a habit of watching an episode or two of a series on a streaming service and then just before we go to bed, we'll switch over to YouTube and look at the latest drybar comedy offerings and pick something to watch.



Funny comedians. Good crowds. But it is funny how so many of the jokes end up talking about farts, or toilets, or that sort of thing.



But it's a lot of fun!



It's also funny watching comedians from outside of the clean comedy crowd go to Drybar Comedy and do a routine. Most of them do fine. Some talk about how they're not supposed to say certain words. One of the funniest ones like this was Adam Carolla,



And we did see Jeff Allen live near where we live. We've gone to a couple of clean comedy shows at churches near us. They were not even close to the caliber of Drybar Comedy, but they were still fun.



But it's funny after watching clean comedy for so long, watching "regular" comedy again. And when every punch line ends with or starts with the f-word or some other curse word, it's just not the same. We watched one show on YouTube that was not Drybar Comedy, and we actually turned it off because we didn't want all those words floating around in our living room. We're not prudes, but it just didn't seem as much fun to us that time.



We were on a cruise once, and one of the comedians had been on Drybar Comedy, and we had seen his bit. So we made the effort to go to one of his shows. We were disappointed that he was foul-mouthed and derogatory and negative instead of how he had been on Drybar Comedy.



I get it. It's hard to just tell stories and jokes and not fall into the pattern of everybody else.



Like I said, I'm no prude. I can let fly with some words that will curl your nostril hairs if I hit my thumb with a hammer or get hit by a car. But we really enjoy Drybar Comedy. One day we want to go out to Provo and see it live.



Check it out at

https://www.youtube.com/@DryBarComedy



+++

Like Bruce the shark ~

Sometimes I feel like I identify with characters and movies and stories so that I can explain why I am the way that I am. One that I've happened upon recently is identifying with Bruce the shark in the animated movie Finding Nemo.



I love that movie even though it's got the whole Disney sadness in it and people work from that place of sadness to a place of happiness. But as Nemo's dad makes his way with Dory to go and find and rescue his son, they meet these sharks that are having a shark anonymous meeting and it's like they're in a 12-step program trying to avoid eating fish.



That's kind of the way I feel when I meditate or when I try to go through those things that are supposed to help me stay calm and not react strongly or just not lose it. I feel like Bruce. I get that scent of blood in the water, or challenge in my face, and off I go.



I was trained and honed into a relentlessly driven performance machine that could solve everything so that it all turned out okay in the end every time. I did that through a lot of methods, and at times I did have to be emotional about it where that's frowned on now.



It actually works in the short term, which is where I lived most of my life in the short term. But I like that analogy because it encapsulates my experience. I don't like the analogy of being like Bruce because I'm not an addict and I don't look for opportunities to get upset, or at least I try not to.



It just happens. And my strategies of staying quiet and not saying anything fall apart when I'm in pain. I'll have to think through this a little bit more.



+++

Understated achievements ~

Over the course of my life, as I have achieved more and more, I've learned that I prefer to achieve things in quiet and just keep moving. Major things, even.



When I worked in fast food, when we would have a rush at lunchtime, I would cook more burgers than you could imagine. And when the rush was over and they were still handing out the food, I was taking a break because my rush was over at the grill.



In air traffic control when I would work and set things up so that everybody would get to where they were supposed to go safely and efficiently, I would get it done and then be given a break. It hadn't happened yet, but it was all set up.



That was even more amplified when I was in traffic management where I was planning out the evening shift due to thunderstorms and setting things up in the morning or middle of day so that they could be successful in the evening while I was at home. I would negotiate delays and reroutes and get everything set up and then have to leave because my shift was over.



Recently I achieved a couple of life goals. After over seven years of effort, I captured all of the slides that my parents had from my childhood in the 1960s and 1970s. I put them online for my family and sent them postcards with the web address so that they could view them at their leisure. I got no response because I made this life accomplishment that took over seven years in the quiet.



Another major milestone is publishing a book. I self-published my first book recently. I struggled with the final moves that I had to make to get it through the process, and I had to rework the cover several times in order to get it the right size so that the do. But once I published it and it was available solar system-wide, I turned my computer off and went to bed. Glowing, of course, and it was hard to sleep, but understated achievement.



At times, approaching things this way is challenging because I see others being lauded for their achievements, and I see others celebrating and having a big time. That's really not me.



Sometimes, I think something's wrong with me because I don't want to be like that. I celebrated a retirement from a long career by quietly leaving and working myself out of a job over the last two years of my career.



I celebrated turning 60 by celebrating another person's birthday and the birth of a granddaughter.



I like the way I do things, even though it's so different from everybody around me.



+++

Unpredictable ~

One of the things I've been called is unpredictable. I find that funny when I don't feel pain from the attack.



When I learn that someone has said that about me or feels that way about me, all I can think is that they don't really know me and they haven't taken the time to ask or get to know me.



At work, when people would say that, it typically meant that they couldn't control me. And I agree with that, but I am unpredictably consistent in so many different things, streaks and apps, things that I do each day, things that I do each week and each month and even each year, things that excite me change, but they're similar often, although I have been stretching and reaching out to do different things lately.



No, if I'm seen as unpredictable, that usually means they don't really know me and don't want to take the time to know me.



Good luck with that! You'll never figure out what I'm doing next...



+++

Kept a messy car ~

I kept a messy car for a really long time. When I started driving in high school and I ended up with my own car I would put stuff in the back seat and in the floorboards. As I got older and I would eat out at fast food places I would put the garbage in my car and leave it empty it out every month or so. It was gross.



As I got older I would leave things that I thought I needed in the trunk and in the side pockets and in the places underneath seats and it never moved. When I had garbage I would put it in the backseat if I had an empty cup or empty can or bottle it would go in the floorboard of the backseat and this continued well into my adulthood.



Even when I had children I threw stuff in the floor and didn't clean it up.



One day I had to let some people ride with me to lunch while I was at work. One of them was my facility manager and one of them was the assistant facility manager and I was embarrassed by what they had to move to sit in my car and then what they said about my messy car.



They didn't put me down and they didn't make fun of me, but it was embarrassing. After that, I cleaned up the inside of my car.



I'm still not very focused on washing and waxing and cleaning the outside of the cars because I'm just not into that.



I don't want my car to be shiny and look new and I don't want to really impress anybody, but I do try to keep the inside clutter free and garbage free. And I feel a lot better about things when I have to have somebody ride with me.



It makes me happier. And I like that.



+++

Broken belt ~

This past summer, while out of the country, my belt broke. It was the loop that held the excess belt in place. And the rest of the belt was pretty worn, but still held together. It was leather. Because space in my luggage was crammed full, I had only brought one belt with me.



When the loop broke off, my brain raced. Always in the past, I would have thought that this is what happens. And I knew something bad was going to happen on this trip. And my brain would automatically start searching for the next thing that was going to go wrong.



And quite often, I found it. But after much effort and many years of trying to change, I went down a different street. I shrugged my shoulders, said a bad word, and put my belt on without the loop. I spun it over so that the excess belt didn't stick out like something that sticks out from the front of a guy.



And I just kept rolling. I thought about the paracord that I had brought with me and how years ago when one of my sons didn't bring a belt at all to a trip, I had to fashion a quick belt out of paracord. I figured if things got rough, I could do that and maybe start a new style in the country we were visiting.



The big thing for me was that I didn't get upset. So different from the way that I used to be. I was reminded of that when I finally bought a replacement belt five months later.



I'm glad to have been able to make these changes in my life. While I do still get upset over things, it's not the same.



And it's not as often. Thank you, God, for my freedom!



+++

Different travel goals ~

My goals when I travel have changed as I have gotten older. I remember when I was growing up looking forward to when my Dad would come home from his temporary duty assignments overseas. He would bring me something and it would be fun.



A couple of times he didn't bring anything back and that was okay, but it was just weird because my mother made a big deal about it and everybody was, oh, what'd you get? And when I started going on trips myself, I would make a point of buying something for my mother and my father and bringing it back.



And I always bought a physical souvenir because that's what I was taught. You collect things and you get a physical souvenir and that's a sign that you went somewhere.



We have four children, and so whenever we would go on trips with our four children, we would come back with lots of little things because everybody got something to bring back. And we taught them what we were taught, that you bring a souvenir back to show your love to whoever didn't get to go and to your parents. We even would bring back gifts for other people. And that was fun for a long time.



But I've reached an age to where I don't want any more stuff like that. And I don't want to spend my time in gift shops every time I go on a trip. And I don't want to figure out a new place to put something that I just got on a trip.



I like to send postcards and for a long time that was a priority because the only place I could get them was in the gift shop. I had to remember to bring stamps. Otherwise I had to figure out how to buy stamps and send myself a postcard and send others a postcard while we were on the road so that they could participate and I could share with them the joy of what we were doing.



I was always so eager to share with my parents and family.



Now with modern technology I can take a picture on my phone and use an app called TouchNote to send postcards to anybody both nationally and internationally. Because it works on the internet I usually make a calendar reminder when we're on a trip to send a postcard every night around 9 p.m.



I send myself and my wife a postcard just so we can remember what we did that day and be able to share it with others or look at it and talk about it. At the end of the trip, I try to send a postcard to family and share with them the joy that we just experienced.



But I don't really buy things when I'm traveling. I don't want to have to carry them and I don't want to have to put them in my luggage and hope they don't break.



Funny how things change.



+++

Hit by partition ~

I remember having a partition fall on me at work.



I worked in a very large dark control room for many years of my career. One time I was working a position that was near the supervisor's desk in the middle of the aisle between our areas of specialization.



These desks had been put in the middle of the aisle in an effort to bring the supervisors of the shift closer to the action in the operation and make them more available. Once the desks were put into place, of course, things were modified and cubicle partitions were brought down and put partially around the desks to give the supervisors a little bit of privacy while working and especially when talking to trainees or discussing private matters with different employees.



An operational environment is challenging because you have to be in the middle of it but you also have all these administrative things that are outside of the bounds of the operation that still have to be done.



The partitions had been put into place by staff people, and they didn't have all the parts that they needed, and so they were being held up in different ways.



One partition was held up the way it was supposed to be. Another partition was taped together. Another partition was held together with a bunch of rubber bands. They didn't have any money to do what they did, and so they had gotten partitions from another building and brought them in.



One day while I was working a position it had been a particularly strenuous session where I had had to express myself clearly to people that were working other positions. That's a polite way to say that I probably made several people mad that day. So i was hunched over my position concentrating on what i was doing. All of a sudden I felt this weight hit my back with a lot of force. It hurt but I was working a live position and i couldn't just stop what i was doing. So I said "ow" and then I started hearing movement. The supervisor and several people came rushing down the aisle. They lifted this weight off of my back. All I thought was "Wow, I really must have made somebody mad that they came over and decided to pound on me!"



What had actually happened was one of those partitions had fallen from the supervisor desk and landed leaning against the back of my chair and hit me on my shoulders and back of my neck. The supervisor and the other managers were very very apologetic. They got me off the position and made sure I was okay. I had to fill out a couple of forms and life went on.



But it was so funny thinking that I had made somebody so mad that they had to come and take care of me.



What a life!



+++

Fun museum visit ~

Recently, my wife and I went to a museum in a town in Pennsylvania. The museum had a lot of cool static displays showing the way things were in the past and different things that had been used in the city as it developed.



They had examples of Victorian bedrooms and 1800s general stores and that sort of thing. In one of the rooms in the museum, they had some electronics equipment that was very fascinating. They had an old telephone switchboard that had the little headphone-looking jacks so that the wire could be swapped from one connection to another when somebody called and said connect me to BR549.



It was funny because the one from the 1940s was very simple with very few lines. Then they had an operator's console from the 1950s and it had a lot of plugs on it. What caught my eye though was the cheat sheets on the console in front of the places where the wires got plugged in to connect people to other people.



The cheat sheets were cut down pieces of notebook paper or typing paper and they had lists of names and numbers. Some names were people and some were businesses and they were laid out in 2x2 grids so that somebody could easily look up a name listed in the alphabetic list.



The reason it caught my attention was this was like what I used when I was working in air traffic control. At each position we had lots of telephone lines that we had access to When we needed to talk to another facility or a position in another facility We had hot buttons that we could press that would connect us to them we had Numbers that we could dial to talk to different positions in our control room There were so many Connections that we could make that we had cheat sheets on the consoles Beside the keypad and in front of the buttons that connected us to them a Lot like that old-timey telephone operators console Thank you.



I thought it was funny that in our modern age we're still using the things that people came up with in the 1940s and 1950s. Sure they take a different format, but it's still the same stuff.



On a side note, it was neat to see a manual typewriter and to share with my daughter that my father had been able to type 80 words a minute on one of those manual typewriters when he was young.



Fun museum visit.



+++

In the moment ~

It's fascinating how so many people are encouraging everyone around them to live in the moment. Live right now. Don't think ahead. Don't fall behind. Don't look back and be stuck in the past. Right now is the only time that you have.



It's in meditation apps and videos and recordings. It's in blog posts and books and self-help guides. It's taught in big companies and everything else. Marketers use all of this teaching to get people to go ahead and spend money on something they really shouldn't buy.



But since you're living in the moment, you should have your best life right now and have this right now. Spend your money on my thing.



As a Christian, I read the Bible. I love to read the book of Proverbs each month. And I'll pick a few Psalms and run through the New Testament. I don't really enjoy the prophets because it's just depressing. And I'll do the whole history books whenever we're going through them at church. Just so I can be reminded of all the great stories that the Bible tells about our God and his people.



But this living in the moment thing is a struggle for me. I meditate and I use a couple of apps to do it. They are not Christian-based meditations. And so they are beating hard on that drum that you should live for right now. Breathe in, breathe out. And that's all there is.



I struggle with that teaching because that's not what I was taught. I was taught to plan ahead and be prepared. And I struggle with that.



In the Bible, Psalm 49 seems to talk about this. Psalm 49 talks about plain spoken wisdom being set before you, how the writer doesn't fear the bad times. In The Message version of Psalm 49 it even says, "there is no such thing as self-rescue, pulling yourself up by your bootstraps. The cost of rescue is beyond our means, and even then it doesn't guarantee life forever or insurance against the black hole."



Further down in Psalm 49, it says, "we aren't immortal. We don't last long. Like our dogs, we age and weaken and die. This is what happens to those who live for the moment, who only look out for themselves. Death herds them like sheep straight to hell. They disappear down the gullet of the grave. They waste away to nothing, nothing left but a marker in a cemetery." And then the writer says, "but me, God snatches me from the clutch of death. He reaches down and grabs me."



It's interesting to think about that psalm in light of things being taught.



+++

Resurrect radio greats ~

With the rapid development and advent of artificial intelligence and all its myriad uses that are happening right now, there's one use that I would love to see. It would be great if someone would use it to resurrect some of the legends of radio for today.



Like Wolfman Jack. It would be great to have him doing late night radio podcasts and weaving in today's news like Gemini AI does and its briefings and that sort of thing. And I think it would be awesome if an AI Dick Clark, could be like that weird video thing back in the 80s and 90s and have him run via video AI in a box on New Year's Eve and counting down.



Give him eyes and ears and let him go at it. Here I'm celebrating the new year from the great beyond. Red Skelton would be another one. Bring back some of that comedy and make it modernized for today but in his way.



And of course, one of my favorites, Rush Limbaugh. Love him or hate him, he was one of the biggest radio raconteurs ever. And it would be fun to resurrect him via AI and turn him loose on liberals today and just the world in general today.



There's so much to make fun of and talk about and comment on. It would be amazing!



+++

Healing takes time ~

One of the recent insights that I gained into the book of Job and the Bible is that healing and restoration takes time.



I've heard the book of Job and the story of Job preached on and told about and complained about for years. The awful things that were done to him and to his family, his time of mourning and questioning and seeking, the friends that came to supposedly comfort him but actually didn't quite do that. The wife who told him curse God and die and he didn't do that either.



The whole story is just hard to swallow. Preachers will speak on it and talk about how the devil does this and that and he pays attention to you and God is watching you all the time and so many sermons about Job.



One of the messages that I don't remember ever hearing and the insight that I got was that healing and restoration takes time. Job had a wonderful life and prospered with lots of children and grandchildren and lots of flocks. And in a short amount of time it was all taken away from him by the devil after he and God conversed about it.



Job was blessed and prospered again. But kids take time to have and to raise. Kids take time to get grandchildren and get to raising them. Flocks don't instantaneously appear, they usually are grown through work and management of a herd. But the book of Job ends talking about how Job is prospered and continued on with the lord.



But that second lifetime took just that, a lifetime. And that was my insight. As i go through a couple of things in my own life that hurt deeply i'm learning that most people think that forgiveness and healing are instantaneous. We're Americans, everything is supposed to be instantaneous. But it's not.



Healing from a an emotional wound takes time just like healing from a physical wound does. Sometimes more so. There's not a solution. There's not something that can just be fixed and you're all better. Tere's not an instant release. In my case it just takes time to work through it and accept it. Accept that it happened, move forward from where you're at instead of constantly looking behind.



And i'm doing that on multiple things. It just takes time



+++

Holly bush leaves ~

My last name is Holly. I've read several articles on how Holly bushes adapt to their environments. The traditional Holly leaf with its spiky points and distinctive shape is actually a response to their environment.



When a Holly bush senses that it's being nibbled on by deer and other animals, it signals and has leaves grow with spikes. And if you'll notice on tall Holly bushes and trees, often the leaves that are down low are spiky and pointy and the leaves that are up high are smooth and not spiky and pointy at all.



It's an interesting adaptation and I think it applies in my life too. For many years my environment has always been confrontational and filled with conflict. Time constraints and artificial deadlines and interplay between people and entities that created stress and turmoil made me spiky sometimes and pointy oftentimes because that's what I had to do to survive.



But now that I'm away from a lot of that and free from so many artificial deadlines and time horizons, I'm smoothing out. It's a good feeling.



I like this adaptive response to less stress.



+++

CIA family day ~

I got to visit the CIA on family day one time. We were living in Washington DC while worked at FAA headquarters on a 1-year detail. One of my wife's family friends lived near where we lived and we got to go over and spend time with them.



She worked for the CIA and it was funny because every time we would ask her questions about her job she would gently bring up a different subject and we would move on. I caught on quickly but my wife took a few tries before she got the hint.



But she invited us to go with her on family day which was awesome. We got there and drove inside the gate which was imposing and intimidating just like in the movies. We parked and went up and went into the building. It was so awesome to see what had been shown in so many shows and be there in real life.



We actually got to go inside the gate, inside the building, and walk down the hallway with the signs sticking out from doors. I'm sure everything was declassified in there and it was no big deal. But it was still cool to see.



During this time we had little children and an infant with us. I carried a pouch, I wore a pouch, or fanny pack if you want to call it that. It had two bottle holders on either side of it. I kept water or some sort of drink in those bottle holders so that if I or the children got thirsty instead of having to listen to crying or whining or having to scramble to find something I'd have an instant thing for them to drink.





I also kept some snacks in there and other things that I wanted to have with me as we traveled about Washington DC and other places. While we were inside the building, or actually while we were headed inside the building, I unzipped my pouch to check for something for the kids. Or maybe I was getting a mint, I don't remember. But I realized that my 35 millimeter pocket camera was in there. I froze and I was kind of panicky because here I am inside the building at Langley with an unauthorized camera on family day.



I'm thinking as a federal government employee I'm about to get in lots of trouble. I showed it to our friend and told her yeah I didn't realize it was in there she said oh it's no big deal. Just don't say anything.



In my head I was thinking I'm about to get in so much trouble. But we went through security and nobody said a word about it. One of the results of me having my camera in there was I got to have my picture taken in front of a section of the Berlin Wall.



It was so amazing and to actually stand in front of a piece of history like that was awesome. Thank you. Sadly I can't find that picture. I know it was taken with my 35 millimeter camera that I carried around back then.



I know that I got it developed and I remember seeing the picture in my hands and our apartment. I think the picture got buried in the basement of our house when we moved back to Georgia. Over the years I'll take up the search again and again and see if I can find it.



As I go through all the pictures that we've taken over the years I smile and laugh and remember fondly the things that we were doing when the picture was taken. But I still haven't found that picture of me in front of a piece of the Berlin Wall.



Maybe one day I will find it.



+++

Propane home heater ~

I went to an old lady's house with my wife this past winter. The lady is getting up in years and not moving around very much and her family and friends are concerned that she needs to be in a partial-care facility but doesn't have the money or inclination to move.



My wife had bought the lady a wall clock that displayed the date, day of the week, and time on it. She did this because the lady had said a couple of times that she didn't even know what day it was. My wife's hope is that the display of the day of the week will help keep the lady in touch a little better.



When we took the clock to the lady's house it was just getting dark on a cold winter day. The high temperature had been in the mid-40s and was forecast to be in the mid-20s that night. So the lady had her heaters going full blast in the living room. When we went in she was tucked under a pile of blankets in her reclining chair.



The heaters made the room hot! One heater was electric and kept cycling on and off while we were there. I guess it had a temperature sensor and was trying not to overheat the room.



The other heater was a home propane heater. It was short, about the height of a coffee table, and stood against the back wall of the living room. It was going full-blast with flames and blower and had no temperature control on it. It was very nice to warm my buns in front of but quickly made me start sweating so I had to move away from it. It was a small, crowded living room so I couldn't get very far away from the heater.



That propane heater reminded me of my grandparent's house in Florida. Their home heater was as tall as I was when I was 13 or so, about 5 feet tall. Grandpa had a big tank in the side yard of the house and had it filled once a winter. The tank was big enough to last all winter in Florida.



When it got cold in central Florida it felt really cold to everyone down there. So once Grandpa got that heater going in the kitchen he would leave it going all night and into the morning. He would close the kitchen doors that led to the living room and the hallway to the bedrooms to keep the heat in. That room would get hot! The few times my father took me over to their house on cold evenings we would have our heavy jackets on and quickly peel them off down to our t-shirts while sitting there. Dad would talk with Grandpa about things and Grandpa would comment on everything, talking about how the "system" worked against regular people.



I remember getting so hot in the heated kitchen that I would be falling asleep at the table. And then when we would leave we'd go outside and freeze even more because it had been so hot in the kitchen.



It was fun to be reminded of that when we took the clock to the old lady.





+++



#history

Hard to watch ~

It's tough watching some of the Hollywood elite get older. Some do just fine. They age gracefully and know who they are and what they are and what their age is and have put it out there for everybody.



But a lot of the women tend to fall into the Botox trap. They puff their lips and forehead and cheeks to the point that several of them have looked like caricatures of themselves or worse, caricatures of other people.



I think that's sad. I know that many people worship youth and wish that they could stay young forever and still look like they did in their first entertainment venues. I enjoy my age and I'm happy and proud to have made it to this level.



I'm 61 at the time of this posting. It's hard to see those women that looked so nice when they were younger and looked so scary as they get older.



+++

Prayer and quoting scripture ~

So many people that pray out loud tend to quote scripture by chapter and verse and they try to say that this is God's promise and we need to remind him of his promise and he likes to hear his words quoted back to him.



But I know that when somebody comes to me and asks me to do something and they say, do you remember when you said you were going to do this? You said on this date, at this time, that you were going to do this and this and this. I tend not to like that.

Part of me would love to go to our pastor and say, yeah, on this date you said this and so I'm here to get this from you. And then see how he reacts and then tell him, that's what you do with God when you tell him, you said you were going to do this and now I want it.



My relationship with my God is different from that. He gives me good gifts. I try to appreciate them. And I try to share them. When I ask for things I don't tell him how he has to do it because he said this or that or the other. I ask him. I believe.



I hope you do, too.



+++

Handwriting shortcuts ~

My handwriting was bad when I was in school. I wrote fast because I was a note-taker, wanting to capture everything I could in case it was on the test or I never heard it again. But when I looked back at my notes I had trouble deciphering what I had written.



In college I thought that my handwriting was so bad because I was rushing through writing words that repeated over and over. This is this way BECAUSE of that, this number is BETWEEN this and that, and other words.



I read about shorthand and after several attempts to learn it on my own gave up. I would look at it every few years, try a few strokes, then put it away again. The whole concept of writing phonetic symbols still boggles my mind! I probably will not be able to learn Arabic or any of the other phonetic written languages, we'll see.



Anyways, in an effort to speed up my handwriting I came up with some of my own abbriviations of words. I thought that if I could use these abbreviations it would give me more time and I could slow down and write more legibly.



Here are some of the abbreviations I came up with:



w/ = with

b/ = because

b// = between

backwards 3 with line above and below = and

square = a task or todo





I looked at and tried some of the official logic symbols like the three dot triangle that stand for "therefore" but never could stick with it. I even tried the delta triangle symbol to capture the change of things but it never looked right to me and made me think too much. I've tried arrows through a square to show a task was rescheduled; that one looks great in the articles I read but never worked for me.



After using a Handspring Visor/Palm Pilot device for a couple of years I even tried writing the digital "grafitti" alphabet it used on paper. Because I was drawing each character it slowed me down and was legible but just looked weird in the real world. But it was so fun I still use it when I want to bring attention to something!



The best thing I did to improve my handwriting was to switch to my left hand. Now I write almost all the time with my left hand and most of what I write is legible. The other best thing I did was to type things. And with our mobile devices that's been an easy transition. But it doesn't work the same was in my brain as handwriting does.



My abbreviations and shortcuts have helped a lot over the years. I sometimes use them when I type, but not a lot.



It's fun to try new things!



+++

Not into Hollywood stuff ~

I'm not into learning about actors and actresses lives. The entertainment industry works so hard to add depth and interviews and all those things with actors and actresses. But I've been disappointed many times when I've learned things about people that I really didn't want to know and it really kind of turned me off of the shows that they were in when I learned it.



What am I talking about? Secret homosexuality, secret pedophilia, drugs, etc. One major one was when Michael Jackson, of all people, died from the sedative overdose that he had a doctor administer to him supposedly so that he could sleep.



It's just sad and wrong. On top of all the other things that came out about him, it was very disappointing.



People glorify sports stars while they're on the field or court, but then call them chumps when they're 10 years older and broke or worse so deep in debt because they were living large and spent everything that they had ever been given and more.



I guess it's like lottery winners. I've read stories about how people who win the lottery usually end up messed up and broke soon after.



But I don't really want to get into actors and actresses and their personal lives and all that stuff.



I've watched people like the guy that was in the Eagle Eye movie and the Transformers movie just go completely over the edge. Heath Ledger is another one. Best Joker representation in my opinion. Gone way too young to overindulgence.



I don't need to know that stuff because it makes me sad. It makes me not want to watch anything that they were in.



And the cheating! It boggles my mind that these guys that are married to the some of the most beautiful women in entertainment cheat on their woman or take advantage of the help like some do.



When I watch entertainment I just want to be entertained! I don't want to have to think about all that stuff.



I've had songs ruined when I've learned things about the artist, songs that I really liked, that had really good meaning until I learned what the artist meant by it. And then I'm out.



I'm careful what I let in and even then I'm concerned. I don't want to be steeped and stewed in so much drama that I begin to create drama like I see on the screen. I've see enough people fall for that.



+++

Those people ~

One of the things I was told as I was raised, and even as an adult, was that "those people" have a different culture. Those people think differently. That's not what those people do. They do it differently.



I always found it fascinating because it was usually in reference to someone of another race. It's black people, oriental people, even Indian people. I tried not to teach that to our children, but they picked it up anyways.



I've been told that certain groups don't care how they look in a bathing suit or just in general. I've found that to be very untrue. What I've learned over the years is that people are just people. Yes, they have different attitudes shaped by who they were raised with and what environment they lived in, but all in all, people are people and they have different drivers and different decision-making processes, and yes, different cultures.



But I don't believe that it's racial. It seems racial because that's what we see with our eyes. But then we see a white guy dressing as a rap artist and trying to talk like he's from the Bronx in New York, when he's actually from southern Georgia.



It's a choice that he's making, and people that want to change their lives are choosing either to change or not to change based on difficulty and availability and all that. I just think it's sad that so many people buy into the separation of us as different cultures and races.



We're all just people, people trying to make it.



People loved by God.



+++

Blue USPS boxes ~

A blue US Postal Service mailbox had to be removed from a shopping center near my home. Last year they had a standard US Postal Service mailbox there and it was convenient when we needed to mail something and didn't want to leave it in the mailbox at the house.



But someone began to mess with the mail inside the box and then vandalize the box trying to break it open. The Postal Service did an investigation and then replaced it with a more modern and more secure blue mailbox.



The new one had a narrower slot to insert mail in and it had chains to help deter people from trying to fish stuff out of the mailbox through the slot. It seemed pretty secure, but it was vandalized also. Rather than continue to offer the service the Postal Service pulled the box and removed it completely.



When I see the blue mailboxes at other places all I can think is that apparently some people are growing up without the training that messing with a post office mailbox is a felony with the federal government and if caught can lead to large fines and jail time.



I guess that's what happens when communities become made up or people with different priorities than upholding the law and being a fine, upstanding member of your community. Or the pervasive "no one's watching so I did it" mentality.





Or when a community becomes filled with transients because of all the apartments and rental homes.



It just makes me sad.



+++

Fun with a kids club ~

I had a good time at a kids club I help with recently. Our church runs a club at one of the elementary schools. I started helping out and find that I really enjoy it! Reminds me of when our children where in Cub Scouts and I was a den leader.



On one day I was asked to share about some of the big things that God made. The examples they gave in the lesson plan were redwood trees, whales, and stars. I liked their write-up about them but didn't like the idea of just sitting in the classroom and talking about these things.



So when the day came I went and helped the other adults set up the room. I brought my 100-foot tape measure with me in my backpack and pulled it out just before the kids got to the room. No one had any idea of what I was going to use it for.



When it was my turn I asked the kids to tell me what was big in the room. They pointed out the dry-erase board, the cabinets, the window, etc. I then showed them a picture of a redwood tree and talked about how wide they are. Then I had them come out in the hall for a demonstration.



I gave the end of my tape measure to one of the kids and had the group walk down the hall until I said stop, right around 14 feet away. I told them that's how wide redwood trees can grow. Their eyes got really big! Then I gave the end of the tape to one of the kids and asked her to start walking further down the hall while we waited with the other kids. She walked and walked and walked. When she got 80 feet away I had her stop and explained that this is how long a small whale is, and that there are whales that are much bigger than 80 feet long! Everybody oohed an aahed.



What was neat was that the tape measure was now stretched across the entry area of the school. My hope is that the next few days when they come in to the school they'll remember how big a whale and redwood tree is in comparison to the entrance and will remember the lesson about how much God loves them.



It's fun to do this kind of thing!



+++

Paying attention ~

One of the challenging things that I deal with in myself is that I actually watch and listen when people talk. I think about what they say and what they do, and then I act accordingly. If someone says they don't like a certain thing, then I try not to do that thing.



If someone says they feel left out, I do what I can to include them more and more. I like to help, and that gets me in trouble too because a lot of people don't want my help. Often, people will say things in passing and I pick up on it and I react to it and I plan and act accordingly.



And then they act surprised. And they say, that's not what I meant at all. And I have to explain, it's what you said. You were very clear and very adamant. To me, actually paying attention by listening and watching is respect.



I don't see a lot of respect from other people nowadays toward me or towards anyone around them. I was told recently and I've read in a couple of places that in our society our attention span has fallen below the attention span of a goldfish.



Scientists have studied goldfish and through their observations concluded that goldfish have an attention span of about nine seconds. With our devices and our screens and other distractions all around us scientists have determined that humans in our society can only pay attention for about 8.4 seconds. Less than a goldfish.

I'm not a goldfish and I'm not going to let a goldfish be better at paying attention than me.



https://time.com/3858309/attention-spans-goldfish/



+++

Music tastes have changed ~

As I have gotten older my music tastes have changed. I like a lot more instrumental music. I like a lot more relaxing music. And I don't really like a whole lot of words,



Once I got away from a lot of the songs that I listened to when I was younger, and then I went back to them, I realized how sad so many of them were. They told about sex, or chasing a woman, or losing a woman, or drinking alcohol. But so many sad songs. Great beats, great riffs, sad lyrics.



One of the things I've been trying to do is change the way that I think away from the negative to the positive. It's challenging, because I'm a "what could happen" kind of guy, and I think of lots of scenarios, including the bad ones.



I still enjoy my music, but I tend to listen to instrumental stuff a whole lot more now, just so I can get away from those words programming my brain that my wife is going to leave me for somebody else, or I need to have a drink of alcohol, or I need to do this or that.



It's kind of like with advertising, I've gotten to where my bubble is pretty well defined and I don't let in a whole lot of advertising. When I end up in a situation where I see commercials on a screen, I love the ones on TV if it's really TV but the ones on YouTube I've eliminated through a subscription and I really don't like having everything interrupted.



Social media has gotten to a point where it's almost every other thing that you scroll through is an ad. I don't like that so I've tuned out a lot of social media.



But the lyrics of the songs just get me now when I pay attention and really listen to those songs that I loved. I still listen to some of them. I have a jams playlist that I play when I'm mowing. I enjoy putting on rock and roll when I'm driving around in my car. But I really don't like letting those thoughts in.



I've come so far I don't want to jeopardize the progress that I've made.



+++

Electric football game ~

I remember when I was a kid getting a football game. It was electric, but it was digital. It was a sheet of metal on short plastic stands that held it off of the ground and it plugged in. And it had a little mechanism underneath it to vibrate the metal really fast.



The players that came with it were plastic and they were on little green bases that had four tiny, almost grass-like feet sticking out just below the bottom of the base. And when you put them on the field or the sheet of metal and you turned it on, the vibration would make them move along on the field.



Sometimes in a good direction, sometimes in a not so good direction. As long as we kept the game on the floor or on a table, it was good. I'd set up the men. I'd turn it on. I'd watch as everybody scattered in different directions.



It was kind of silly looking back on it. It was nothing like Madden football on video games nowadays. It wasn't even anything like the Coleco handheld football game where you had a little digital red dot.



You had to press buttons to make it go up and down and then sideways to run down the field. But it was fun. Sometimes I'd put a dinosaur on the field and see if it would run. It would not. It was too heavy.



I could put army men on there and the army men would jump around and move, but they tended to be too heavy also.



I don't think this game contributed to my not being into sports. But I enjoyed playing it for a little while, and then I didn't play with it anymore.





Fun memory.



+++

Dealing with assumptions ~

One of the interesting things I've had to deal with in my life are the assumptions of others.



People would not see me on Sunday mornings so they thought I didn't go to church. Early in my career I worked shift work and often worked Sunday mornings. But when I would go on Sunday night or Wednesday night people would greet me with "missed you on Sunday!" It just rubbed the wrong way.



Working shifts also meant that I was "too busy" or that my schedule was "too confusing" for others, especially my parents. They never did get the hang of my shift work and it led to several misunderstandings.



Because I was involved in Cub Scouts people have assumed I was an Eagle Scout. Sadly that is not the case. When I was a kid I was in Cub Scouts but never got involved in a Boy Scout troop.



Becaus my wife and I had four children many people assumed that we home-schooled. Each of our children attended public schools when they were growing up. Three of them attended public colleges/universities, two of them on scholarships for part of their time in college.



Because my wife and I like to travel people think that we've been gone on another trip when they don't see us. That's another assumption that often sounds strange when it comes up.



In my profession I was taught that "assuming" anything was not a good way to operate and that it made an "ass" out of "you" and "me". When I have applied this in the real world it has often helped me avoid issues but has also generated other issues.



I wish people wouldn't assume things about me. It's like I always told my people at work, just ask. If I can answer the question I'll answer it.



+++

Substack as social media ~

When Substack started I went ahead and started an account there and I posted a couple of things and then let it lay around. I've started posting on it more regularly. Mostly I just wanted to get my foot in the door with them and I wanted to see how it developed.



It's an interesting platform and makes blogging and updating people through a subscription easy and fast. You can quickly convert it to a paid subscription and you can engage your community via notes and other interactions.



I think of it as a blogging platform with a lot of social media aspects. The thing that I don't like is how so many of the marketers and wannabe marketers have jumped in there and every post that I see is about how to expand your reach and how to make money on Substack and how to take it to the next level and how to grow what you're doing.



I don't want any of that. I'm counter cultural in that way. I just want to post my thoughts for the world to see and let them go where they go. If lots of people see them, awesome. If nobody sees them, that's okay because all the bots see them and I will live on inside of artificial intelligence.



I just think it's funny in a sad way how Substack posters all are trying to make money off of you paying them to help you do something that you can already do for yourself.



I guess that's what it's all about. Here's this convenience platform but I can make it even more convenient for you to grow beyond your wildest dreams and you can't do anything except focus on numbers.



Ridiculous.



Man, I'm crabby today LOL



+++

Age and wisdom ~

I saw a meme float by in my Pinterest stream that had a quote supposedly from Ernest Hemingway. The quote said that "The great fallacy was the wisdom of old men. They do not grow wise, they grow careful."



The definition of fallacy is a false notion, a statement or an argument based on a false or invalid inference, incorrectness of reasoning or belief, erroneous. So I find the quote a lot more careful because of the experiences I've had over the years and I'm trying not to do things out of urgency which I did for so much of my life.



But I still like to think that I'm doing it out of wisdom and not just being careful. Being careful is is exercising wisdom in a lot of cases. For the past few years, I've listened to the book of Proverbs, one chapter at a time each month.



That means every year I read Proverbs 12 times or more. I may not get the last chapter because there's only 30 days in a month, but reading a chapter at a time, one for each day of the month, has really worked well for me.



And, as it soaks into my brain. I steep in it, I feel like I'm getting wiser. I also wonder at the source of this quote, if Ernest Hemingway truly said this, he said a lot of things that people quote, and he's a celebrated author and famous guy that happened to be an alcoholic who lived in Key West and was involved in plane crashes and generally hiding from the world while he generated books.



So I don't know that I agree with him that it's a fallacy that older men are wise. I also again wonder why we celebrate these kind of people. This guy was no shining knight and not the best example of a stable male personality that was dedicated to a wife and children.



In fact, he got into a lot of trouble in multiple ways. And like so many of the other artists that our society celebrates, I just wonder why we celebrate this guy.



I actually think that's part of why I write and blog because we celebrate him because we have his words in writing in a book that we can go and get off of a shelf.



I want my words out there so that someday maybe somebody will celebrate me in that way.



You never know.



+++

Softball game ball ~

I was recently digging around in my basement and found an box filled with some really old life memorabilia.



A softball signed by a bunch of people I don’t remember took me back to that softball game when I was in my late 20s.



I was not into sports at all growing up. In high school I enjoyed being in the band but didn’t really enjoy the football games we sat through and played at. No basketball, no soccer, I tried high school wrestling but my family didn’t have time or money for that.



After my wife and I moved to Georgia we got involved in a church. One summer they had sign-ups to be on the church softball team. i had never played softball on a team like that, and I wanted to get to know more people, so I signed up. My shift work kept me from a lot of the season but I played a few games.



I had explained to the coach that I had not played ball growing up. He took the time to explain things to me, and put me the outfield during the games. Whenever I was up to bat I tinked the ball and was usually thrown out before I made it to first base.



One game late in the season I went to bat. Everyone in the other team’s outfield came in close to the lines between 1st, 2nd, and 3rd base, laughing about how easy this was going to be. I connected solidly with a pitch and the ball flew over their heads all the way to the fence! I ran as fast as I could and made around to 3rd base. The next batter got a solid hit and I ran and touched home plate. I had scored!



I got a second hit my next at bat. It was solid and went far! I ran as fast as I could and thought I could make it all the way around. The coaches were yelling at me and I thought they were cheering me on when they were actually telling me to stop on 3rd base. I got tagged out before I made it to home base.



We won the game, and our coach had everyone on the team sign the ball. He made a big deal about presenting it to me as the game ball. It was great!



And it was one of my few good sports experiences. Fun!



+++

Second place ~

As a Christian, I read the Bible. I don't study it the way others seem to study it, but I do devotions and I do read proverbs every day and I go through the Gospels and Acts and the letters of Paul.



One of the things that Jesus taught was to be a servant and not to think more of yourself than that. Paul expanded on the idea and said that as Christians we should be content with second place.



In my life, when I have expressed contentment with less than first place, I have been chastised. I have been encouraged to do better. I have been told my performance was not what it could have been. And I was skipped for rewards.



When I look at news outlets, I don't see any of them celebrating the person who came in second place. Not even any of the Christian news outlets. They all celebrate who won, who came in first, who the supposed best is.



I find it fascinating that we're so caught up in our society with performance and being better than others that people seem to skip right over this teaching in the Bible. In fact, they turn it and say that God made you and loves you more than anything else and you are the best. They say that we are entitled to things as children of God and we can walk into the throne room of heaven and demand things because we're the best of creation. And even if you were the only human being God still would have sent his son to die for you.



That's what they teach. And then I read this little message saying be content with second place and make yourself a servant. Jesus didn't even say anything, he just went and got the wash basin and towels and started washing his disciples feet. And then said go and do as I have done.



Tough lesson, hard to grasp. I'm glad God blesses me in second place.



+++

Not Arby's ~

I survived something recently. After church, my wife and I were driving somewhere. She started talking about something and it was obscure to me what she was talking about. She went on and on for about five minutes.



It was a very in-depth discussion. But it was one-sided because it was just her talking about something I didn't understand. I didn't know what she was talking about. I felt very lost.



But after about five minutes she paused and she kind of turned towards me and she asked me, "what are you thinking?"



Often this question gets me into trouble, especially when I answer it honestly. So I tend to say nothing or grunt politely. Because I was so lost and I didn't really understand what she was asking. I just kind of looked at her quickly and said "not Arby's."



She scrunched up her eyebrows andsaid, "that doesn't make any sense. What do you mean?" And I kind of smiled and said, "exactly." And I lived to tell the tale.



I said it because I was playing off of the old commercial where they would have a Arby's hat floating over somebody's head around lunchtime and say, what are you thinking? And the person would say, "I'm thinking Arby's."



I chuckled about that the rest of the day. I still can't believe I got away with it!



+++

Grew up in fear ~

I grew up in fear. I've talked about it before here but I have a new experience with it.



I grew up being afraid of things. My parents taught me that there were bad people out there waiting to take my stuff as soon as I went out. They wanted to steal my money. They wanted to break into my car and take my stuff. They weren't very afraid of identity theft but I was scared of that.



It's taken me a long time to work through those feelings of fear. And get to where I don't think them as much as I did. But they're still hovering in the back of my mind.



I had an episode of that recently on some travel. My wife and I had gone to see our daughter and son-in-law and granddaughters. We had a great trip! On the way back we stopped to eat at a sit-down restaurant instead of grabbing something fast and driving. And the whole time that I was inside enjoying talking to my wife and the meal I kept thinking "Somebody's going to break into my car."



Did I lock the door? Somebody's gonna steal our suitcases. Somebody's going to steal my computer. Somebody's going to steal my chocolate, whatever. Sad, I know, but that's how I was raised, to be careful so that the bad guys don't get your stuff.



The only way to be careful is to think about it and double check and make sure that they don't have an avenue to steal from you.



Weird.



+++

Manual window cranks ~

I have a pickup truck. It's almost 20 years old. It's red. It has four doors and I enjoy driving it. I bought it so that I could join the ranks of people that could show up somewhere, throw stuff in the bed of the truck, carry it, and then unload it quickly and easily. No muss, no fuss.



The pickup truck has manual windows. Instead of flicking a button, I have to actually turn a crank to turn the windows down and then put it back up. If I'm driving, I'm probably not going to adjust the windows on the passenger side or in the back seat.



But there was frustration there because I have guards over the windows so that I can leave the windows cracked and let the heat out without rain getting in. The truck came with them and they work great.



When driving down the road the window crank was in the right place with the window up, but if I wanted to crack the window and let some air flow without rain coming in, the crank would be right where I put my left knee when I'm driving.



So I would end up rolling the window down on just a little bit further, get rain on my face or the side of my head and be aggravated. I finally made a note to look up how to change the position of the hand crank on my truck's window.



I found a YouTube video that made it very clear how to use a piece of paracord to pop a little clip on the window crank and then I could put it wherever I wanted and put the window crank back in as if it had been there the entire time.





The trick worked! The clip popped. I didn't lose the clip, and I got the window crank exactly where I wanted it.



I love YouTube. I love learning little tricks like that and then using them successfully.



Woohoo!



+++

Please be rude ~

I read an article this past week about how one of the big AI companies encourages people not to be polite to their AI because of the extra cycles it takes to process the please add thank you. Their reasoning was that we're already using gobs of electricity on everything else, Please cut it out so that we don't get into trouble for destroying the planet.



A computer processing company wants you to be rude or not polite in order to save the planet.



The urgency being driven there is so subtle and yet I can see where the people that are joked about as our tech overlords are trying to drive a certain behavior which is reduce consumption in order to quote unquote reduce the use of limited resources because we're going to use all the resources to dominate you.



Pretty funny.

Talking with my aunt ~

I remember being in the little house and talking to my aunt when I was a boy I don't remember what year it was, but I remember being in the kitchen of the little one-bedroom house that my aunt and uncle had built on an acre of property that my grandfather gave them.



My uncle divorced my aunt at some point. And she ended up living in that little house again for a little while. But because it was so far from the main house and because of her nervousness she didn't stay there for very long alone.



But I remember being in the kitchen of the little house with her. There was a radio playing and the song "Rhinestone Cowboy" was playing. It was in the 1970s, so that was a hot song.



I think she was talking about her husband and other things going on. And because I had learned to comment on things from my parents I made some sort of comment. I was 13 years old and so that means it would have been 1977.



I remember my aunt telling me that I was wise for my age. And that I knew a lot of good stuff.



In the mid-1980s I got to stay in that little house while I went to the University of Central Florida. Even later in my life that little house became mine.



Now I enjoy staying in the little house whenever my wife and I get an opportunity. I enjoy the rustic nature of it and the fun that we've had there. And I look forward to future fun and my children having fun there.



Good stuff!



+++

Sucked in by AI ~

I'm reading more and more stories about how people are using the so-called "artificial intelligence" services to plan their lives and do all sorts of things. I hear a lot of good things about how people use it to generate letters and crank out reports.



But I'm also reading disturbing stories of people talking to these things and breaking with reality because they're believing that they're talking to a higher intelligence.



I'm shocked because this is kind of what happened before with computers. Salespeople would go around and if a salesperson had just papers and charts you weren't very impressed. But if a salesperson pulled out a screen and they showed the same sorts of things on a screen and used a keyboard to move through the pictures all of a sudden you felt like were dealing with somebody that was so much better and this was modern and much better than anything else.



I'm seeing similar things with the large language model artificial intelligences that are being marketed today. It's scary.



And then I'm reading stories about people as they use these things, starting to ask existential questions about spiritual things and life guidance and all that sort of stuff. And they lose their minds because they think that they're finally connected to the "higher consciousness" that New Agers have been selling all this time.



I do have some hope because I have started seeing stories about how people are pointing out that these things are probably just really fast pattern matchers, and it's not really intelligence, it's just really fast language matching.



And that's what computers do. We make decisions based on a lot of inputs that we don't even understand are happening in our own brains. We're basing them on smells and nerve endings that we don't even realize are feeding us data and we're fast.



And then when a machine is demonstrated to be able to make a yes or no decision a million times faster than we can, at least we think it can, all of a sudden we want to let it tell us how to run our lives and run our operations and do everything for us so that we can go and do other things.



But it's a computer. I'm a human. The computer doesn't rule me. Some people would argue about that too, but that's a different subject.



Large language model artificial intelligences are cool tools that are being adapted and used by early adopters and the rest of us are just kind of trailing along behind going, wow, how did they do that? And why did they do that?



Be careful out there. Remember what you're dealing with.



+++

Button batteries ~

Button batteries must be one of the biggest scams running in department stores ever. They charge huge amounts for these, but if you go online you can find the same exact batteries for five and ten packs that are half the price of a one or two pack in a department store.





Paying half price for three to five times more just makes economic sense. I actually buy button batteries in bulk and I keep them in a zip bag in my closet so that when my smart devices or my watches run out of battery every once in a while instead of going and paying outrageous prices I just pull out my pouch replace the battery and keep rolling.





Just search Amazon or any of the other online stores for the button battery that you need and you'll be amazed at the price savings you'll get. Check it out!

Plants on the deck~

This is my third year having the same plants on the deck. I have two pots of lemongrass that I rooted from lemongrass that I bought at a local Asian market. I have two flower box things with basil and rosemary in them. I tried cilantro in one and it did okay for about three weeks but the cilantro gave out and withered and died.



This is my third year of having a flower box of petunias right outside the kitchen window on the deck. They're red petunias and this time I bought jumbo red petunias. They're taller and the flowers are bigger. They get beat down by the sun so I water them and the basil and lemongrass every day. And then when the afternoon thunderstorms come the petunias get beat down by the rain and the blooms look terrible for a day and then they start blooming again and they look beautiful.



I have a grapevine in a pot that I started four five years ago now. I was so excited to try to grow a grapevine. I thought about the Bible and all the talk about grapes and grapevines and all that. The first year it did nothing. Then the second year it actually had grapes on it. They went full-term and we got nice purple grapes. When I bought the vine it didn't say muscadine, I don't know if it got cross-pollinated with muscadine grapes locally or if that's what they were to start. But I was so disappointed that they were that weird musty muscadine flavor grapes. I put it back up in its spot and I water it every day. I don't really get very many grapes off of it but it's fun to see the grape leaves and think about Greek dishes where rice is wrapped in grape leaves.



This year I'm trying a hydroponics experiment in 5-gallon buckets on the deck again. I put two cherry tomato plants in hydroponics buckets. No pumps, no fancy things, just nutrients in water and plants poking out of the side of buckets. They did well last year, we'll see how it goes this time.



I'm enjoying my plants on the deck. Fun!



+++

Email subject lines ~

There's so much spam email flying around it's incredible. It's kind of sad and disappointing to watch email have descended so far, but I get it. It's easy to automate and easy to flood people with useless information trying to part their dollars from them.



Distractions, grabbing that attention, pulling us away from what we thought we were going to go and do or look at or read.



I remember I had a manager at work who was big on the military method of subject lines. Every subject line had to have a prefix in front of it followed by a colon and he wanted only four prefixes. INFO, COORD, ACTION, and a couple of others that I don't even remember.



What was funny is I had read articles about that method years before. I really liked r concept but nobody used it outside of the military and I didn't get very many military emails so I didn't know if they even used it. But he told us to go forth and use it.



Nobody else on the team did except for me. I loved it. Now I had a way to tell people very clearly about my email. This email is just information. This email is calling for some sort of action. This email is coordinating something with you.



It didn't go over very well when I started sending the manager emails with those prefixes. He did not like being told he needed to take action on something. But I was right and he did.



I have a friend who, when things are leading up to a big event, he starts putting "please read" as the prefix to his email subject. The first couple that I got I just deleted. I finally opened one up and it really didn't have anything that pertained to me in it. I told my wife this guy needs to understand. I automatically filter anything that says "please read" as nothing I need to read.



She and I talked about it. She didn't understand. So I told her if someone has to beg me to read their email then all of their other emails I don't have to read. I probably don't have to read this one either.



Clogging the system with useless information. What's funny is another person on the same staff that my friend is on sends out very meaningful emails full of information about the entire year of events. Not just tidbits of information shared one at a time with a subject line of please read.



One benefit is any email that starts with "please read" usually gets filtered by my systems and put in a folder where I never see it.



But anything that starts with INFO: or COORD: or ACTION: ends up marked as important and right in front of me.



Hilarious.



+++

Meat run ~

I recently went on a meat run to Walmart. It's funny to go into the chest freezer out in the garage and find it almost empty. We don't eat as much meat as we used to, but we do like to buy it and cook it.



In summertime I like to grill chicken and pork. We don't get steak very much, but we enjoy ground beef in the form of hamburgers quite often. Although we have been enjoying ground turkey and turkey burgers more often than beef.



But I went out to the chest freezer this week and found that we were almost out of stuff. So I made a Walmart run. I went in the morning. My hope was to find some discounted things with the yellow tags on them. And I saw quite a few of those. Steak is still outrageous and so I didn't buy any of that. But I bought a bunch of other things.



I remember growing up when we would have the very occasional time of going and eating dinner at Grandma and Grandpa's house next door.



Grandpa would brag about how he had pulled steaks out of the freezer. I always wondered about that freezer and how he had so many steaks in there. And the steak always tasted good!



But I like keeping meat in the freezer so that when we want to have something we just go to the garage, open up the chest freezer, and pull some meat out and defrost it, and have at it.



Good stuff.



+++

Fake eyelashes ~

One of the sad trends that I am watching is the way young ladies use fake eyelashes.



I understand the desire for the beauty of the flashing eyes. But I see so many young ladies with eyelashes that are just outlandish. They don't even enhance the beauty, they just look outrageous.



I see ads for magnetic eyelashes. They show how you can superglue a magnet to your eyelid and then connect eyelashes to it so that you have this beauty enhancement easily accessible to you.



That just seems wrong. And then when I encounter someone with obviously fake eyelashes, all I can think is how sad, you're beautiful without them.



To me, it's akin to shaving your eyebrows and then using a tattoo or a pencil to draw in clown eyelashes or eyebrows. It just doesn't seem right. And that's the thing, we're so balkanized and split up that people are doing things that just really don't seem right.





Weird.



+++

Custom mobile phone mount ~

Before mobile phone mounts became cool to have in your car and everybody just kinda used them willy-nilly and all that I actually rigged up my own mobile phone mount.



I bought a mobile phone mount that the phone could sit in. It clamped onto the phone. Then I bought a metal strap, cut it, and curved it so that it would velcro to the dash sticking into the crease between the dash and the windshield. Then I bent the end of the strap so that I could velcro the phone clamping device to this piece of metal sticking up.



It was funny because people thought it was ridiculous that i wanted to look at my phone while i was driving. I did it because i had a gps thing that i was capturing waypoints with and I enjoyed watching the waypoints that i had captured before scroll by as i drove.



I had a couple of older friends that rode with me and said, "You know, that looks a lot like a sword sitting on your dash and if you're in an accident that could impale you and kill you." I just laughed and said "yes i know, just like the steering column could do that and just like the engine could do".



I now have nice supposedly military-grade suction cup devices that stick to windshields and discs that you glue to your dash. They do okay and it's nice to be able to move it around and put it where i want. But i tend to find a spot and just leave it there.



Fun to think about and remember...



+++