Wordscapes strategy ~

So here is one of the things that I do to reduce frustration in my life, small frustration that it is:

I play this game called Wordscapes on my iPad almost every afternoon or evening. I do it so that I can say that I play games and also to exercise my brain at the same time with the cool word game on my device.

It offers little awards when you start out if you been away for a day or more. And one of the things it offers is a present that you have to tap on to collect. It gives you coins in different amounts, 10, 15, 20 or even 30 or 40 points. But it always gives you a choice of three boxes when it opens that window.

When I first started playing this game I would try to pick the box with the most coins in it and I would always end up getting 10 coins. Every once in a while I'd hit something bigger but usually only got 10 coins. I started to feel like this result happened because I kept picking a different box and it would be different every day.

To reduce my frustration when starting the game I started just picking the same present box in the same position every day. I've done that for more than a year and I've had a varied response from the app. Sometimes I get 10 coins, sometimes I get 20 or 30 points. But it's always changing and never the same even though I keep picking the same exact box on the screen.

Silly, I know. But that is one of the ways that I reduce friction and frustration in my life. Even though I like variety I tend to find a pattern and stick to it. Pretty funny!

Words mean things - Limit ~

Words mean things. It's important that we keep definitions of words straight so that when we communicate with each other we can actually understand what other people are saying.

I understand how language changes over time and the English language is changing rapidly because of all the influences on it. Multiple nations and people with different backgrounds speak and they bring their own flavor and flair to words. Marketers adjust the meaning of words and shorten them in order to fit more words in copy and hopefully communicate a feeling more rapidly than the next guy. People try to be cool by saying stuff like "suss" for suspicious and that sort of thing in an effort to confuse parents and adults and have their own little sense of control over what they're communicating.

But words mean things. As I drive around our country I see signs everywhere with the words "speed limit" on them. "Limit" has a very clear definition. It's the point at which you're not supposed to go beyond. And yet we have changed the meaning of that word to where when we see a speed limit sign that says 55 everybody pretty much understands if you're doing 65 or 70 probably won't get charged with breaking the law. So now limit doesn't mean limit anymore.

While that doesn't seem like a big deal, and everybody does it so really doesn't matter, if we all started to interpret the word "stop" to me slow down a little bit look around and make sure there's no police and keep rolling through the intersection more people will die in car accidents. (My Dad would say that stop doesn't mean 'step toe on oedal') But many people already do that so that's a bad example.

"Stimulus" is a word that has a very clear definition. And yet the way it's used today is leading us down a path of financial irresponsibility and enslavement to other countries and people.


"Infrastructure" has a very clear meaning when speaking about a community. Roads, pipes, electric and communication lines, those sorts of things are infrastructure. But when we allow politicians to corrupt the word by saying that sex studies for underage homosexuals is "infrastructure" then we have big big problems.

Keep that in mind the next time you see a speed limit sign. The more you allow little language changes to morph and to let words that have very clear meanings be undermined the less certainty and trust you will have in what people are saying and doing around you. Which will lead us into a low trust society, which is a different subject.

Never clean anything ~

This is a line from the show keeps echoing in my head.

It's a line from a Netflix show called "Emily in Paris". As a good husband I watch modern girly shows like this with my wife because she puts up with all my action adventure and science-fiction entertainment. I find that watching them is good for our relationship and he gives me insights into hers and others minds and drivers.

It was a fun show! While I don't agree with everything that Emily did in the show it was fun to see the way they created situations and then the offbeat and creative ways that they had Emily handle them. And marketing and promoting in the fashion industry is so outside of my realm that it was entertaining.

But one of the guys, the chef that lived in the apartment below hers in the same building that she lived in, said a line that keeps echoing in my head. He had fixed a meal and he was giving her the cast-iron skillet that he had used to fix it. He was washing the skillet out. And he told her never use soap in the skillet! Then he explained that the cast-iron skillet was a lot like the French in his opinion: we never really clean anything out, we just kind of scrape off the last layer and start again.

That line of philosophy is interesting to me. It's a generalization of a country and its people. But it's also a generalization for how we can handle things. We do something, it's either good or bad or not anything, and then we scrape off that layer and get to where the pan is usable for the next thing, and prepare something else in it.

It kind of goes against the idea that we're always building and growing. I struggle with the saying that is very common nowadays in my circles that if you're not growing you're dying. Because I disagree with it so much. But the idea of being useful for multiple things and events and situations just by cleaning off the last layer without any soap and without totally removing it is appealing to me. I tend to approach life like that. I'll do something, it will be great, I keep a residue of it with me, and then I go on to the next thing. If I keep the whole thing with me the residue can be comforting and adds flavor to whatever else I do. But I continue on with that new layer and I never really do clean anything out completely.

Something different to think about.

Encounter meditations ~

Encounter meditations

As a Christian of always been hesitant to meditate. Because I was taught and saw meditation being done by blue new age people and advocated to five some strange dudes I shied away from for a long time. The whole concept of emptying your mind was appealing to me that after reading up on new age things I was afraid of what would fill my mind once I got identity. Following their track anyways.

In the past few years I revisited the decision to not meditate formally. One of the podcast posts that I listen to for a while was the shilling for the calm. The column packages a lot of him him meditations of daily meditations that are different every day. They package in some music and some relaxing ambience stuff which time into. I have some bedtime stories and other things that I don't really use them but every once in the hall was no one just to relax not to go to sleep.

But the call map is very much a self oriented thing. They talk about the person being the way to change. And as a Christian life use the call map I feel somewhat guilty at times because I feel like I might be doing the wrong thing. But then I am careful and don't fall into thinking that I shouldn't fall into. Hopefully.

A while back I found the encounter podcast. When I founded it was called encountering peace. But they have since shortened it. It's a Christian meditation podcast!

I was skeptical when I gave it a try. It's very relaxing and contemplative, which means it's too slow and sleepy for my wife. But I enjoy it! The host focuses on Scripture and messages from the Bible and does a good job repeating it so that I get a verse or thought that I can remember throughout the day and that it helps me. They have an app also that I use, though it seems to drain my battery a little bit too much if I forget to exit it completely.

But I've enjoyed doing the Encounter meditations as a devotion thing in the mornings for a couple of months now. From what I've learned prayer is talking to God and meditation is us listening to God. I don't know if that's too "new age" are not, but it has helped me slow down and take 15 minutes to listen to God. And the messages in the Encounter meditations have many times been right on what I needed to hear for the day.

Like today's: talk about a runner that her dream was to compete and win this big big race, she won every other race leading up to it that year. She got to the big one that she really wanted to win and was in second with the person in front of her quite a bit in front of her but still within sight. The person running in front of her stumbled and from exhaustion fell to the ground. And instead of just running by her this young lady stopped, helped the other runner stand again, and then helped her cross the finish line. That's a message that I like because I've tried to put the "I am second message" from Jesus into action in my life. It helped me focus on that idea rather than be angry about something recently.

So I'm enjoying the Encounter meditations. If you want to check them out and follow the links below. Enjoy!

Email addressing ~

One of the things that I've learned from watching marketing all of my life, taking a couple of classes on marketing in college, listening to gurus online and in podcasts, is that when you are sending something to a group of people address the individual and not the group.

If I were to send this to you and I was addressing this post to the world I have a choice: I can say hey all y'all out there! Or hello you chose to read my post, this is for you.

I see this in multiple emails very often. Hello group! Dear friends,. And that sort of thing.

I guess I appreciate the personable approach. I like it when somebody is talking to me and not the general group that I'm supposed to belong to but refused to accept being pigeonholed.

Maybe it's a symptom of the times where we are being divided into subgroups by entities looking to dominate all of us through rules and regulations. It's hard to dominate me one-on-one, and when you address me as a member of a group I automatically reject you and whatever your message is.

That's my rant for today. As a US citizen I like to think of myself as a rugged individualist, even though I don't roam the wilds of Montana or Alaska or brave the unexplored territory that remains in Idaho and Utah.

But if we divide things into groups, I really prefer being the member of the smallest minority. There is nobody else like me, and so address me as an individual and you've reached me in my box. If you address me as a member of a group you've usually missed.

Weights in garage ~

I used to work out in the garage at our old house. The garage was a two car garage that I don't think we ever got two cars in. Front facing and a big double door - I don't know how to say that but had one door for the entire two car garage door opening.


I had my weight bench and my cement weights that I had grown up with out there. I had my Muscle and Fitness magazine subscription and I would go out there and I would study the exercises and read about the supplements that I couldn't afford to buy and when I would try the supplements they would upset my stomach or make my bowel movement smell so bad that I would stop using them. I had a radio out there. And I would go outside and work out.

That's the way I did it when I was growing up. As a teenager my parents got me a weight set. I set it up out the garage and worked out. We lived out in the woods so there wasn't anybody across the street to see me because there was no street. We lived a ways away from the road and so I could hear the traffic but I couldn't see it. And nobody was watching me.

That was not the case as an adult in our first house. Across the street in the little subdivision that we lived in Anthony and his wife lived. They were an older couple. And they liked to sit out on the front porch all day long. So anytime I would go out to work out Anthony would be watching. It drove me crazy!

I'd make a move and see him turn his head and watch. Change weights and he would watch me do that. Whether he was watching or not I don't know but because he was sitting facing my house and my garage directly across the street from me I felt like I was being watched all the time.

This was not fun for me, though I would do it anyways. I had a dartboard out there and I would throw darts at the dartboard between sets. But Anthony was always watching.

I remember one day I had to get up on the roof to paint the top part of the chimney or something. My ladder was tall enough to get me to where I could get up on the roof but I had to dangle my feet in order to find the ladder and get down. On that day I was not able to find the ladder. Then when I did find it I kicked the ladder and the ladder fell down and I was stuck on the roof. It was a one-story house and so it wasn't real high. And Anthony had been watching the entire time. And Anthony yelled as I kicked the ladder over accidentally that he could help.

Remember that I said Anthony and his wife were older? Anthony used a cane and was at least in his 70s. He did not move fast at all. It seemed like it pained him to walk. And so when he's yelling that he could come and help me all I could think was that I was stuck on the roof for another 30 minutes or so. And that he wasn't going to really be able to either get the latter into a position where I could get my feet on it or bring a different ladder anytime soon. So as he shuffled for his front door and turned around and looked back I jumped off of my roof and down into my front yard. I did a quick roll and tumble and landed safely. I checked that I hadn't broken anything, and then got up and waved and said thanks anyways, kicked my ladder where it laid, and put everything away.

In our current house my weights are in the basement. Nobody can see me down there. They're even around the corner to where if somebody comes down the stairs they can't see me until they come into the back area were my work desk and all of my messy tools and boxing bag and speed bag and weights and all that stuff are located. It's a nice area but it's dark and quiet. That was very important years ago when the house was full, but now with most of the house quiet that's not quite as alluring as it was before.

I share this because I'm enjoying watching our neighbors' kids work out in their garage. My front porch does not face their house. I cannot see them directly unless I go out in my front yard and turn and make a point to watch them. But I still see them when I pull into my driveway in the afternoon and evening and I hear them when I'm out in my garage and doing things in my yard. It's kind of fun to know that they're working out in the garage just like I did. And I hope that they develop a love for being muscular and staying as fit as long as they can. I still work out, though not the same way as I did. And not as often as I did. And I tend to do it with much lighter weights than I used to.

But it's fun to see those kids working out in their garage.

Rocks on the path ~

I'm in a stage of life where I like a smooth path. I like to know what's coming, what I can expect around the curve, and that where I'm going is going to be prepared for me.

It doesn't always turn out that way. Sometimes I'm not sure where I'm going and so I have to just go on faith. Luckily our society is one that is prepared to provide almost anything. At a cost, of course, but if I need a place to stay in the middle of the night I can almost always find it.

With GPS and an Internet connection I can see the weather, know where it's raining and where it's not, know what to expect when I go somewhere, and go precisely to a place on the map without ever having to talk to anybody personally.

And then there's the past. We have a network of asphalt that runs coast to coast on our continent. Much of it is smooth and easily driven some of it is rough and still easily driven but bumpy. There are fewer and fewer dirt roads, but even those are pretty easily driven.

And then there are the hazards. The accidents were other people run into each other or have vehicle issues. The construction and the rocks.

Rocks are the unexpected bumps the either are pleased on the path or to the path or sometimes crawl onto the path. Sometimes they fall from above, like the son of an Indian chief that I tell a story about. Sometimes there placed by an enemy or by someone that is not as structured as I might be and they put it there so that they can remember and pick it up later but forget and it becomes an obstacle for me.

Sometimes the rock is big and unavoidable. Sometimes the rock is small and easily avoidable or even easily run over.

Sometimes the rock is alive. Turtle, possum, and armadillo, or a human being with things and doing things and tripping on things as they walk on the path that I'm trying to navigate.

I used to get mad at the rock. Irritated that it was in my way. I expected something laying there to know what I was trying to do and work with me in trying to accomplish it. Foolish, I know, but that was how I felt and still do often.

I had a rock drop into my path this past week. Someone trying to clean up their own mess ended up creating a mess for me when they were supposedly trying to help. Trying to give me a break. But giving in to that would've meant giving up something that I've done for six or seven years and really don't want to give it up to somebody.

Life is so interesting, especially as I get older. The way that I deal with things. Remembering how I dealt with them in the past and feeling shame and embarrassment and sometimes glorying in how easily I rolled through things before.

Now that I'm older I slow down a little more and enjoy the scenery a lot more and look around a lot more. Not necessarily at the scenery but at the people on the path with me and the people creating their own path and all the other things happening along the way.

Life is good, even with rocks on the path.