Home Improvement Follows Spiritual Improvement

I am back to blog. Not because I have something to say, but because I am tired and want to relax.

I got lot more done today.

My house had dubious landscaping when I arrived, and part of the problem was aging hedges around the house itself. Apparently, hedges don’t last forever. Mine were about 20 years old, and some of them were not looking good. Also, I suspect there were problems with bugs. I kind of think you have to poison everything in order to keep plants alive here, and I didn’t do that. I came here from Miami, and whatever that area’s faults are, you don’t have to bomb your plants with poison down there in order to get them through a season. This is also true farther north. It seems like I’m in a strange belt of territory which is abnormally hostile to landscaping.

I had some kind of crummy, spindly, partly rotten hedge on the south side of the house, and a few months back, I got tired of it and hit it with 2,4-D, which is a weed killer. I figured dead plants would be easier to remove than half-dead plants. Today I went in with my Root Slayer shovel, and in about half an hour, I had ripped out 18 feet of dead and dying hedge.

That was nice.

I drove to a nursery and told them I needed 18 feet of shrubs, and the lady who worked there gave me a tour and provided suggestions. I sprung for some Indian Hawthorne. I don’t know much about it, but she said it would probably not die immediately, so it sounded good to me.

I also had some annoying plants in the flower box by the pool For some inexplicable reason, the patio has a concrete flowerbed built into it, right beside the pool. So leaves, insects, and dirt, beside a temperamental tub of water that doesn’t deal with contaminants well. The previous inhabitants put at least two different kinds of trees–not shrubs or flowers–in the flowerbed, along with ferns and some kind of ornamental thing. The trees got way too big. I murdered one a few months back and hauled most of it off. I also killed what I think was a banana tree and dumped it in the woods. Today I cut most of the remaining tree–a big fishtail palm–out, and I carted off the debris and hosed the raw stumps with 2,4-D and glyphosate. I’ll leave them there in hopes they suck up the chemicals and die fast. Then I’ll go after the roots.

I’m going to make the pool area my own. I’ll go ask the nursery lady what to put in the flowerbed. I’ll obliterate every trace of living plant matter, and then I’ll plant one kind of ornamental, and I’ll make sure I pick something that doesn’t grow over 18 inches tall.

My well has a big pressure tank over it, and someone made a terrible effort to hide it with a cluster of unkempt flowering shrubs. I was thinking about it the other day, and I realized there was no reason to hide it. A clean, orderly well looks better than a bunch of annoying weeds. Maybe I could paint Trump’s face on it.

This afternoon, I took the plant-massacre solution and doused all the plants around the well. When they die, I’ll rip them out and dump them. Then I’ll think about ground cover. Maybe grass will grow there. The weeds were an aggravating obstacle when I mowed. If I put grass where they used to be, I’ll have a straight shot all the way to the workshop.

I think I should plant another peach tree. They do well here. I poisoned my tree today to keep webworms off of it, and it needs a friend. I still have to do something about squirrels. They hammered the tree last year.

Squirrel season doesn’t start for 18 days, but I emailed the wildlife nanny agency, and they said I was free to kill them out of season when they caused problems. I haven’t taken advantage of this loophole for a long time. I’ve been planning to wait for the season this year, simply because I am not totally certain I trust the wildlife nannies to keep their word if I get caught. Once I get started, I plan to kill every squirrel I see. I may give up on rifles, which are the most enjoyable squirrel-control weapons, and use the Sweet Sixteen. I can’t shoot squirrels out of trees with a rifle without risking sending bullets onto my neighbors’ land, so I have to wait for squirrels to show up on the ground. A shotgun is less challenging and therefore boring, but it gets the job done more efficiently, and the pellets don’t fly all that far. If pellets make it off my land, they’re so small, they won’t be able to hurt anyone or damage anything.

Squirrels must die. Coons must die. Coyotes must die. Nothing else here gives me problems.

I showed mercy to a coon the other day because it had a youngun with it. That was a good deed which is certain not to go unpunished. I didn’t like the idea of shooting a coon’s mother in front of it. They’re horrible pests, though, so I can’t give it a lifetime pass. They’re so bad, there is no coon season in Florida. You can kill them every day and even at night.

I talked to the nursery lady about squirrels, and she suggested putting a plastic snake in the peach tree. I mentioned my preferred method of dealing with them. Hope she wasn’t triggered. I am not against buying a plastic snake, but I will definitely shoot squirrels anyway. I have grave doubts about the snake theory.

I would have had a couple of dozen peaches this year had it not been for squirrels. I got three.

I need to fix the island in my driveway. When I moved here, it had ferns, some scrubby ornamental plants, a bizarre doughnut of aging hedge, a huge rotting oak, a spindly magnolia, and some other kind of tree which promptly died. I got rid of the oak and the dead tree. I think I should scorch the earth and start over with bare ground. Maybe I can find some ideas on the web. I could stick an ornamental tree in there maybe. Perhaps I could make a raised bed rimmed with pavers. That would give me a well-defined perimeter for weed-eating and mowing. As it is now, I’m never sure whether I’m mowing grass or ornamental plants. They blend into each other.

The irrigation system is screwed up. They set it up so it only irrigates places that don’t need water. It wets the ground up against the house, in the driveway island, by the gate, and in the patio flowerbed. I haven’t turned it on in maybe a year, and it hasn’t mattered. Maybe I could find a place that actually needs water and put irrigation only in that area.

I have a big green electrical transformer box in my side yard. It has a rickety rail fence on three sides of it, and the fence used to have a horrible Florida fire vine on it. I killed the vine, mulched the whole area, and put in blackberry briars and grapevines. The blackberries are not doing great, and the grapes grow very slowly. One vine died mysteriously, on a property where grapevines grow so fast they cover the floor of the woods. It has occurred to me that I could tear out the fence, take up most of the mulch, poison the ground by the vines and briars to give them a boost, and let grass move in.

My guess is that the lady who lived here thought the transformer box was an eyesore. I am a man, so I think it looks swell. It would be better to put a little solid wooden fence around it than a rail fence that looks like it was moved here from Haiti.

I’m planning to take the rails out this week with the tractor. Then I can haul the mulch off.

I don’t know if my house will look better after I get done with it, but it will certainly look like someone tried, and that’s worth something.

Guess I’ve relaxed enough. Time to hang out with the birds.

Dry Bones of Neglected Projects Receive Long-Awaited Rain

My propane cart is all done. I finished welding, and I taped around the bare parts and hosed it with truck bed coating. Looks pretty good.

I decided to try my gas outfit. It had been sitting in a box since last September. The hose was still coiled neatly in the box. When I started taking parts out, I saw a big ball of woolly stuff in the coil. I thought Victor/ESAB had put some kind of filler in there for shipping purposes. No, it was a mouse nest. Thankfully, no one was home. Unfortunately, it smelled like infected mouse butt, and that smell is still clinging to the hose.

I was under the impression that I had bought a propane outfit, but it turned out to be set up for acetylene. It had an acetylene regulator instead of a propane regulator. That was a speed bump. I thought I would have to order a new regulator. Then I Googled around and learned that an acetylene regulator will work fine. The hoses are rated for propane, so that was not a problem.

I didn’t have a propane heating tip. I Googled again, and I found you can use an acetylene tip if you clamp a little shield around the end. I fired the acetylene tip up, and it worked fine. I just need to put a shield together. A propane tip costs $158, so I might as well try the jury rig method first.

I heated a piece of 1/8″ by 1″ bar, and it turned red in a hurry. This outfit is going to be very useful. I ordered a couple of propane cutting tips. I already have a pair, but since I put them aside a year ago, I have lost track of them. Some day they’ll turn up.

I need to create some kind of hanger I can weld on the cart to hold the torch and hoses.

I got a lot of other things done yesterday. I put a new seat on the garden tractor. This is the one part John Deere doesn’t overcharge for. The Chinese knockoff costs $90, and the real thing is $109, so I went with OEM. My old one had cracks in it, and they let rain fill the padding. I cover the tractor, but you only have to have the cover blow off once to get a seat full of rain, and it never evaporates completely. Now I should be able to mow with a dry rear end.

For some reason, the people who built this house left two humps in the yard, roughly the size of pitchers’ mounds. I have often wondered what they were for. It occurred to me that dogs and cats might be buried under them. People do that. As bad as I feel for people whose pets are dead, I am not going to screw up my yard for a dead cat. This week, I used the tractor’s front end loader to start scraping the dirt away. A few days back, I annihilated a hump in the front yard.

Yesterday, I worked on the hump next to the workshop. I unearthed one corner of a 6′ by 8′ blue Home Depot tarp! What on earth was that there for? Maybe somebody didn’t want Fluffy or Snowball to get rained on in heaven. Whatever. I could not budge it with a shovel because roots had gone through it, so I ripped it off with the tractor, smoothed the ground out, and took the tarp to the dump. I didn’t dig up any collars, so if there is a dead dog down there, he’s still resting peacefully.

Here’s a tip: if you bury your pet in your yard, don’t expect the buyers to leave it there when they want to put in a pool or plant a tree, and that goes double when you don’t disclose it during the sale. If you really have to bury dead stuff in your yard, pick an area that’s out of the way, and bury everything at least three feet deep. Don’t let the kids scoop out a little hole with their hands and then pile a little dirt on top of the departed.

The prior residents did a lot of bad landscaping, and I have been reluctant to dismantle it because I trusted their judgment more than my own. That’s all over with. I’m going to rip out a lot of annoying shrubs, along with some bad decorations. Nice grass is better than sloppy shrubbery and floppy rail fences.

The stumps from my ill-fated citrus trees are gone, and I’ve been running the mower over the locations to smooth the dirt down. I don’t plan to put anything in to replace them, although I might relent and plant a single peach tree. Something useful that won’t die from a Chinese disease.

Peach trees do great here, as long as you poison them to kill bugs. That reminds me; I have to start killing squirrels to protect the peaches. I don’t think I’ll eat the squirrels. I plan to throw them in the woods. Crows and foxes enjoy them.

I have a roof issue. I’ve been working with contractors for two weeks. One crew wandered off after giving me an estimate, so I got another one. Glad that happened. The first guy gave a high estimate and didn’t tell me anything helpful. The second guy gave me a painfully long, boring lecture about roofs and what does and does not work. It was dull, but I kept quiet and let him talk. I learned a lot of great things, and I realized he was going to do a better job for less money. I’m hoping to have everything fixed in around 10 days.

I got nervous and invaded the attic to inspect the roof from underneath. This was a horrible experience. It was over a hundred degrees, and I had nothing to stand on except widely spaced trusses covered with fiberglass insulation. I had to twist and contort my body to move a few inches at a time. The good news: no serious problems. That roof should be good for 5 more years, once I get my patch done.

I understand the roof a lot better now.

I’m having my satellite dishes yanked. They cause leaks, and there is no way I would ever have Dish or DirecTV in this house.

I still have one major boulder issue in my yard. I went out the other day and started blasting it with a jackhammer, and of course, it started to rain about 10 seconds in. The weather is getting cooler fast, and the rain is drying up, so I hope to have that boulder leveled soon. Then I’ll have more grass and one less mower obstacle. There are some small boulder tips nearby, sticking out of the ground. The tractor can’t move them, but the jackhammer will take them down below mower level.

I bought a propane weed torch. Wonderful tool. I’m thinking of using it to char steaks. It will also be great for starting burn pile fires. The tank is heavy, however, so I may go to Home Depot, buy another handtruck, and modify it to hold the tank. A cart made for the tank runs over $60, and that’s ridiculous, because it’s a cheap, embarrassing cart. I can get a real cart and modify it for less.

I feel like God has given me relief from demons that discouraged me. I speak defeat, binding, and muzzling to them every day. I know people don’t believe in demons, and they think people who do are nuts. Jesus believed in demons, and he talked to them. This has always been a nominally Christian country, yet we still assume people who say they have experience with demons are mentally ill. I don’t care. I’m old, and the older I get, the less I care what unintelligent, low-information, insecure people think about me. I’ve had demons cast out of me, and they’re as real as you are.

You can physically feel it when a demon leaves, and afterward, you notice your mind is quiet. The thing that was inspiring counterproductive words to form in your mind is gone. I’m careful not to call it a voice. I don’t hear voices. I can just see what would happen if I said I heard voices. “Your honor, clearly this man can’t be allowed to possess firearms or live on his own, so let’s take his guns and his house and turn his property into a BLM safe space for LGBTQ-trans-mutant-googolsexuals.”

You are surrounded by demons. You are inhabited by demons. They corrupt your thoughts and emotions, they hurt your body, and they destroy your success. It’s the truth. They’re not just for crazy people.

Why am I getting so much help from God? Why am I doing so much work on my responsibilities? I wonder if I’m getting this property ready for the people who will move in after the rapture.

Here’s something interesting: I expect to be here on earth after the tribulation.

I used to wonder if we would return after the tribulation. This week, something occurred to me. We are not going to die; we will be assumed in to heaven as we are, in the flesh. There will be no reason for us to die or age in heaven. If you’re raptured alive, you should be alive 7 years later when the tribulation is over. Jesus will return, in the flesh, at that time. The word says people will return with him and rule with him. It makes sense to believe the raptured will come back.

If these things are true, then a lot of redemption is coming our way. People who were crippled when they left, or who were old and single, or who lost all their children, or who always lived in poverty will be able to lead happy, successful lives on earth. They will be physically perfected.

Will they have marriages and children? Things don’t look so good. Jesus said, “at the resurrection, people will never marry nor be given in marriage.” Does that mean we won’t reproduce, or does it mean we’ll reproduce, but we won’t be bound permanently in pairs? Will there be a universal state of open marriage during the Messianic Age?

Jesus said people who gave up children for the kingdom of heaven would have children multiplied to them on earth and in the world to come, and it seems harsh for people who were trapped in solitude during their lives to have that condition continue after the tribulation, but I’m sure whatever happens will be great.

Was he speaking of the post-rapture return when he said “resurrection,” or did he mean the final gathering at the end of the Messianic Age?

Don’t know.

In any case, it looks like I will be back after 7 years, assuming I manage to be raptured. It would be nice to get a chance to do a few things over, correctly and without opposition or curses.

How do you get raptured? Jesus said he wanted to find his servants giving food to his household. Food appears to mean instruction in the ways of God. The Bible calls basic instruction “milk” and advanced knowledge “meat.” I think that if you want to be raptured, you should be involved in relaying knowledge when Jesus calls.

I keep this in mind these days.

I truly think we will be taken before the tribulation. Leaving us here with the willfully obtuse boneheads and God-haters doesn’t make any sense. God got the Jews out of Egypt, and the plagues didn’t touch them. God took Lot out of Sodom before he burned it. God lifted Noah above the flood. There has to be some reward for obedience.

On the web, I see leftists, literally shrieking about 2020. There is a famous lady on TikTok, screeching profanities like a severely autistic kid having a fit. There are many like her. Most are female. They are losing their minds. Ginsburg’s death pushed them over the edge. My response: 2020 has been great for me. Your reality depends on your relationship with God.

In April, my friend Travis died unexpectedly. I had hoped he would be my compensation for not having a son. I had a very bad month after he died. Other than that, this year has been wonderful. It has been peaceful. Annoying people haven’t been bothering me. I no longer had to care for my demented father. I had two properties that drove me crazy. They were sold last year. I’ve been getting things done. I’ve been doing things I wanted to do in the past but couldn’t seem to get on top of.

I have lacked nothing of importance. My health has been good. I stopped worrying, with God’s help.

My 2020 and the 2020 of people who hate God and authority are two different years. It’s as though they live on the other side of a gulf, like the gulf in the story of Lazarus the beggar.

It surprises me to see how miserable the Antichrist’s people are. I’m not in touch with them day by day, so it’s a shock when their rage and horror pop up on my monitor and in my speakers.

People really need to get to know God. If they’re this miserable now, in the world’s richest country, living in security, surrounded by opportunity, simply because democracy isn’t working out in their favor and the world refuses to mold itself to their pathetic, infantile fantasies, how crazy will they be when Trump wins the election and when his justice is seated?

It’s going to be an astonishing spectacle. They’re at the breaking point already. Full-blown psychosis is just a heartbeat away. They just need Trump to light the right match, and he will do it with the eagerness of a D-Day soldier tossing an explosive satchel into a pillbox full of Nazis.

The rapture will be a division. The Antichrist’s black-clad people will be stuck here, raging at each other and screaming in anguish, much as they are now, and we’ll be at a marriage feast in heaven, free at last from their incessant squawking and abuse. The division seems to be accomplished already, within us. Now it just has to be completed physically. When we’re gone, the Antichrist’s mob will get everything it has clamored for, and it will burn them like flamethrowers around the clock. They think we make life painful. In reality, our presence is the only reason it’s as pleasant as it is.

I can’t think of a time I have enjoyed as much as the last few months. I know that’s God’s work. I’m sure other people can get it, too, if they will just listen.

Thank you, God, for 2020. I hope you will see fit to continue things as they are.

Ginsburg Cements Conservative Future of Court

A couple of things are on the menu today.

First, I made biscuits with White Lily flour, and they were no good. Second, Ruth Bader Ginsburg died, taking us one step closer to civil war.

People sing the praises of White Lily flour. It’s THE biscuit flour, as far as many Southerners are concerned. I have tried it in the past, and I was not thrilled. The biscuits were rigid and had no flavor. Today I tried it with my proven recipe, and things didn’t go any better. The biscuits were almost crunchy, and they tasted more like crackers than biscuits.

I would stay away from it if I were you. I get beautiful results with King Arthur bread flour, so that’s all I’m going to use from now on. If not King Arthur, then another brand of bread flour. There is no point in tampering with perfection.

I’m wondering if White Lily will make a good thin pizza crust. It should be good for baguettes, and baguettes are a lot like pizza crust. I’ll try it and see.

Now…Ginsburg.

I’m not going to pretend I’m grieving. I did not know this woman. In order for me to get weepy over the death of a celebrity, there has to be some kind of connection. I don’t think you have to pretend to grieve in order to show proper respect.

I prayed for her and her family while she was alive. I prayed for her family last night. She is beyond help now.

I won’t say she was a great legal mind. I don’t know that to be true. There have been some Supreme Court justices who did such good work, they are remembered for making positive changes to the law. Benjamin Cardozo probably takes the top honor. I don’t know of any evidence that Ginsburg did work that was brilliant or illuminating. She generally toed the leftist line. I haven’t seen any evidence that she thought for herself.

She did very well in law school. Well, law isn’t that hard, and grades have a lot to do with a special set of skills that impress instructors. Grades aren’t that closely related to brains, unless you’re in a tough field like math or physics. I’m a lot smarter than people who graduated summa cum laude in my class. Spend your life in the library, hang out with your professors, kiss up, and always parrot their beliefs back to them. You’ll do well, even if you’re not a genius.

Michael Avenatti was first in his class, and he went to a very good school. That should tell you a lot.

People are honoring her for serving the public all her life. She did that, but so do street sweepers and game wardens. She was paid well, she got great benefits, she had incredible job security, she didn’t have to pay for malpractice insurance or deal with real responsibility while working as an academic or judge, and she was allowed to thrust her extremist beliefs on hundreds of millions of people.

She was a very able litigator and judge. She wasn’t Sir Isaac Newton.

People are saying her nomination was historic because she was female. It wasn’t. It’s amazing how barrier-busting Republican nominees and appointees are forgotten. No one remembers Reagan nominee Sandra Day O’Connor, the somewhat inept judge who joined the panel in 1981, and O’Connor is still alive.

Ginsburg even gets praise for having cancer. People say she’s incredibly tough, and they praise her for fighting. The thing is, everyone who gets cancer does what she does. They go to the doctor and get treatment. Very few people choose to let cancer take its course.

Leftists are losing their minds because she died under a Republican president, but very few are blaming the person who actually caused the problem. That person is Ginsburg herself. She knew she was dying. She knew Trump was likely to be reelected. She rolled the dice.

If you try to understand why she did this to her fellow leftists, two possible explanations come to mind. Either she genuinely saw the court as an apolitical institution, and she thought she should not consider politics when making decisions about retirement, or she was just selfish and unwilling to let go. It’s hard to think of a third explanation, and the first one doesn’t pass the laugh test. Ginsburg was a leftist firebrand who said she didn’t want to die under Trump, so it appears selfishness is the reason she held on.

It’s impossible to reconcile this with the selfless-public-servant narrative.

She was like a man who spends his life amassing wealth and then dies intestate, leaving his children to devour each other in court. She made it extremely likely that her own legacy would be dismantled, and in so doing, she may have largely nullified her own existence.

I can’t help being relieved that she’s gone, because all I can think of are babies being torn apart in clinics and hospitals. She was in favor of that. Yesterday, she had her first conversation with the God of her forefathers, and surely this subject came up. I am glad I didn’t have to watch. She supported the right of a frivolous, irresponsible woman to pay a man to take scissors and sever the spine of her live, healthy child while its struggling body protrudes from her vagina. That is ghastly. It’s as bad as anything the Nazis and the Japanese did to their victims. I can’t pretend I don’t think it’s good that a person who was working to protect systematic atrocities is out of the way.

They say she was a very nice person in her interpersonal relations. It’s strange that a nice person would have no feeling for the weakest and most innocent.

Now that she’s gone, we have yet another factor which augments the perfect storm that drives us toward civil war. The left is unhinged over the bad treatment a few people–nearly all criminals resisting arrest–have received from the police. Riots are now considered acceptable mainstream methods of influencing voters. Democrats are pushing mail-in voting, which is certain to generate a great deal of voter fraud and prolong the election process. Now we face the prospect of seeing Trump install a hardline conservative on the court toward the end of an election season. On social media, leftists are already saying they will “burn it all down” if he does that, and at least one is calling for the burning of Mitch McConnell’s house.

Imagine what could happen. Trump could win on election night, and then the ridiculous, unnecessary mail-in votes could be counted, putting demented Biden on top. Then Republicans would contest the votes, and we would be plunged into turmoil that would make the Bush/Gore mess seem quick and painless. The matter would likely end up before the Supreme Court. Right now, the court is 5/3 conservative, so things look bad for the left regardless of whether Trump gets a new judge, but 6/3 would enrage the left even more.

If you think the tantrum-throwing brats are mad now, imagine how they’ll act when they think Biden won and a packed Supreme Court didn’t give him a fair hearing.

I don’t really understand the rationales for delaying or not delaying justice confirmations during election years. It all seems like puffery and rationalization to me. McConnell says a delay is crucial when the president and the senate are on opposite sides of the aisle. I don’t see why this is true. He also says there should be no delay when they’re on the same side. I don’t get that, either. In any case, it appears that there is no firm law controlling the matter, and I don’t expect the GOP to put things on hold out of pure principle. I think Trump will put Amy Cony Barrett on the court, and the Senate will confirm her, perhaps with one or two Republicans abstaining.

To the left, having Ginsburg replaced by Barrett will be like the Soviets having Stalin deposed and replaced with George Patton. To snowflakes who can’t tolerate the pain of seeing a red hat in a mall, the pain will be unbearable.

Dana Coverstone, the preacher whose end-time dream went viral, may truly have foreseen our future. He said he saw UN soldiers with blue helmets in the US. That kind of thing happens when nations go berserk over questioned elections.

Leftists have to stop questioning everything’s legitimacy. Trump really is the president; the popular vote means nothing at all. Clinton and Trump both ran campaigns calculated to win the electoral vote, not the popular vote, so they have to live and die by the results. If Trump installs a new justice, she will be legitimate, too. Kavanaugh is legitimate. People have to stop dragging out the asinine, fabricated rape stories. If you can ignore a very credible rape story about Joe Biden, you should be able to ignore implausible stories about Justice Kavanaugh.

Of course, leftists will not stop. They don’t care about reason and truth. These are the people who rioted in Pennsylvania when a cop shot a man who was chasing him with a huge knife.

I wonder what else will go wrong before January. Are there other surprises that will pop up and work to funnel us into a state of endless internal violence? It’s fascinating to watch the process. It’s as though a scriptwriter planned it all. The synergy can’t be coincidental.

I don’t know what I’ll do if the rapture doesn’t come this year.

I published my ideas about the rapture recently, and someone who thinks he’s a prophet showed up to instruct me. He said weird things like, “ASK the prophet,” and, “I am not a prophet by my choosing, Numbers 12:6. ASK are the initials to my name.” I don’t even know what this stuff means. He said Satan was deceiving me in order to destroy me. He apparently thinks being wrong about the rapture’s date leads to destruction. He says that if you expect to be taken before the tribulation, you won’t “prepare” for it.

The obvious question is this: how do you prepare for the tribulation? It can’t be done.

The tribulation will be very, very bad. Right now, we walk around in masks, and a miniscule percentage of the population is sick. We have minimal shortages. We have a few areas where terrorist riots are a problem. During the tribulation, we will have worldwide plagues that will resemble the Black Death in their magnitude. We will have plagues of disease, lack, murder, and natural disasters. A huge percentage of human beings will die, along with trees and sea life. Americans will run around murdering each other for food. People will long for death.

You can’t prepare for that! Do you seriously think a pallet of canned tuna and 10,000 AR-15 rounds will help you? The whole point of the tribulation is to show you you can’t prepare or protect yourself. People are interconnected. To have an acceptable quality of life, you need fuel, electricity, and all sorts of goods and services. When everything collapses, you won’t have those things any more. Whatever you’ve stored up in your shed or under your bed will not get the job done.

I don’t want to be here during the tribulation, eating dried beans and shooting my neighbors. That is not “life.” It’s just existence. Death would be much, much better.

You can say God will provide special cocoons of safety for believers. Where does the Revelation mention that? And if God plans to set us aside and keep us safe and prosperous, wouldn’t heaven be the best place to put us?

A pre-tribulation rapture makes the most sense to me. I could be wrong. What does NOT make sense to me, even if the post-tribulation theory is right, is preparing by carnal means. I would expect God’s children to have to stay very close to him and to be so strong in faith they would get supernatural provision, as Elijah and the Hebrews under Moses did, day by day.

Trump should go ahead and nominate Barrett. He is going to be hated regardless of what he does, and he will be lied about and condemned. He might as well do the best thing for Christians, Israel, and the unborn.

Once you reach the point where you can’t do anything to appease your persecutors, it’s okay to do as you please and let them scream. At least one party will be pleased.

I want out of here before the real insanity starts. This place is just too crazy.

No Longer Stumped

Something has come over me (or left me), and I am getting on top of a lot of jobs I’ve put off.

I had a big rock in my yard. It was the size of a couch, minus the backrest. My tractor’s bucket will lift 1500 pounds, and I was not able to get it up using the forks. I would guess the rock is around half a ton. I dislodged it from the yard last year, if memory serves. A tiny stone protrusion was in the way when I mowed the yard, and when I decided to remove it, I found the giant rock attached to it.

Since then, I’ve had a big hole in my yard, next to another big hole from which I extracted a similar rock which was just small enough to lift with a rope. I had to mow around a big rock and two holes. It was worse than the original situation.

Yesterday I lifted one end of the rock, tied a tow strap around it, and dragged it out of the yard. Now the cattle can deal with it. Maybe they’ll use it to scratch themselves.

I had a sweet gum stump by my gate. Again, a mower obstacle. It had been there since Hurricane Irma. I put stuff on it to make it rot, and it paid no attention. Yesterday I decided to test it. I shoved the tractor’s forks under it, and up it came, along with half of the yard. I dumped it in my pasture on my shooting berm, and I used some of the berm to fill the hole. Very nice.

I had another stump which was nearly level with the ground but still in the way. I had to take the forks off the tractor in order to move dirt, so the bucket was ready for use. I scraped the stump away with ease. Excellent.

There is a huge stump just outside the yard, from Irma. It’s from a very big water oak I cut up. Chemicals didn’t bother it, and there was too much dirt in it for the chainsaw to be an option. Yesterday I ripped up the sides of it where it was rotten, and I tore up a bunch of the dead roots around it. I used the tractor to smooth out the ground around it and fill in the low areas. It’s still there, but it’s not nearly as annoying.

Today, I got rid of my citrus trees. I cut them a while back, but the stumps were still there. I had to cut them because it’s no longer possible to have citrus. Citrus greening is everywhere except the west, so if you have trees that still look good, you don’t have much time to enjoy them before they go bad. My trees were sick and produced disgusting fruit, and the people who built this house planted them way too close together anyway. Today I used my middle buster to rip the stumps out, and I dumped them in the woods.

My middle buster’s ears are bent because I’ve used it so much for clearing stumps. By “ears” I mean the thick metal tabs that hold the pins that attach it to the 3-point hitch. The steel is nearly half an inch thick. To fix the ears, I have to heat the steel, so I need to get my propane outfit running. I haven’t used it because I’ve been waiting for a unicorn to call me with a great deal on an oxygen bottle. I gave up today and got a price from Airgas, so tomorrow I’ll buy a bottle of my very own, and I’ll heat the ears and bend them back into line. Then I’ll weld some gussets in the corners to make them stiffer.

My pins are also bent. I guess that’s because they’re Chinese. I’m thinking I’ll replace two short pins with one long 7/8″ bar of solid steel. Not sure yet. It would be a pain to remove if it got bent. I could put some kind of coupler in the middle of it. It doesn’t have to be that strong in the middle. It just has to resist flexing, and there would be very little torque in the middle.

When I get the gas, I’ll pick up gusset material and a steel bar. I also plan to get an 18″ square piece of 1/4″ steel to turn into a steak griddle. I’m going to use my Offroad SWAG finger brake to turn it into a pan, and I’ll weld the corners shut to keep grease from pouring out.

That finger brake is a godsend. It opens up a whole new world of projects most people can’t hope to do even with a $1500 standalone brake.

I’ve also cut a bunch of annoying trees that looked like they had STD’s. Good riddance.

It’s nice to be going into fall in an industrious mood. Generally, my pattern is to work hard during the summer, which is miserably hot, and then sit around doing very little when the weather is good. It’s not a great way to get things done, and it can lead to additional problems such as death from heat stroke.

If I can get these things done, it almost seems like I should be able to blacktop the driveway. Is that hubris? I already have a bucket of goo and a squeegee.

I wish I could go to Airgas right now for my oxygen, but they won’t have any until tonight. Guess it’s time for a propane burger.

Are These Kids or Oompa Loompas?

My friends Alonzo and Teri–newly-minted members of the landed gentry–just left with 4 of their 5 kids. About three weeks back, I helped move them into their first home, less than an hour away. They decided to drive up and see how I was doing.

Generally, when friends visit, I have to brace. In addition to cleaning up my house so I look much neater than I really am, I have to buy food. I usually have to cook. I have to do a lot of cleaning while my friends are here. This time, it was very different. My friends brought me food, and then their kids cleaned my house.

They brought fried chicken. I hope it’s okay for a white person to have fried chicken with black people. Maybe no one will find out.

The weather was somewhat cloudy, so the kids were not allowed in the pool. There was some concern about lightning. We had lunch by the pool, and afterward, Alonzo and Teri and I sat outside and talked. My goddaughter Gabriella asked for a broom. The next time I went in the house, it looked wonderful. I had it fairly clean before they arrived, but they took it to a new level.

It should be unbearable outside, but while we talked, the sun was buffered by clouds, and it was so cool, I didn’t even sweat. It should have been about 95 with harsh sun and high humidity. It seems like we always get unseasonal nice weather when we’re together. Alonzo said he had noticed a pattern. We get together when it’s cloudy, and then the sun comes out. It happened when I went to help them move. It’s hard to explain how odd it is, having pleasant weather in Central and Northern Florida at this time of year. It isn’t supposed to happen. Warm days in winter are common everywhere. Cool days in summer in Florida are freak events.

It’s relaxing, being in a house someone else cleaned up. I haven’t had this experience since the last time they visited. Before that, you have to go back to the last time I rented a hotel room.

I don’t know where they got these kids. They don’t whine. They don’t break things. They don’t fight. They don’t talk back. They’re very quiet. They clean people’s houses for fun. I told their parents they could leave them here.

I always say I was a good kid when I was young, but I wasn’t. I was awful. I just thought I was a good kid because I was comparing myself to liars, thieves, tantrum-throwers, crybabies, dopers, and bullies. I didn’t know any families that had good kids, so I didn’t know any good kids I could compare myself to.

I did just about nothing to get ready for the visit, apart from cleaning. I had to fell and cut up a big oak this week, and I didn’t really feel like shopping and cooking after working hard outdoors.

We had a great conversation. They talked about our friendship, which is now about 12 years old. They said it was strange.

They lived in a ghetto suburb in Miami, and they seemed about like everyone else there. Then God started changing them. They moved to better and better areas as he did his work. They moved to Orlando, and now they’re in a very rural town called Tavares, in a 5-bedroom house they own. They’re surrounded by conservatives, and they’re happy.

They talked about the things we’ve gone through together. They said it was strange to be so close to an old white man and so distant from old friends and their own relatives.

It is strange, but it’s what happens when people base their relationships on God’s word instead of blood and culture. God’s word says he divides families, but it also says he puts the solitary in families. He divides us from blood relations and friends who belong to Satan, and he puts us together with people who may look different yet listen to the same Holy Spirit.

All over the US, people are fighting to protect their segments of society. People of different ethnicities are clashing with each other. People with different religious beliefs fight. Men are against women, and women are against men. It’s because churches generally reject the Holy Spirit. He is the only unifier. Where he is allowed to work, Jews and former Muslim terrorists worship together. People intermarry. National identities become less important. Where he is silenced, people behave like team athletes, fighting anyone who wears the wrong shirt. If you’re on God’s team, you don’t define yourself by the skin you wear as a shirt in this world.

Is life supposed to be like this for everyone? Can life really be this good on this cursed earth? Can every person who is Holy-Spirit-led have nice kids, a supportive spouse, friends with whom they have no friction, financial success, and a peaceful home he owns?

Maybe life really can be this good, and we don’t know it because almost none of us try doing things God’s way.

I have often told my Christian friends I didn’t want anything to do with my own sister. Once a hard core addict reaches a certain age, behaves badly enough, and proves he or she will never change, you cut the cord. It doesn’t just happen with addicts. There are many people who are so unpleasant and stubborn they have to be cut off. Today Teri said she used to wonder why I was so mean about my sister. Now she understands. Her mother has a very dark heart. She is angry. She is controlling. She is very unpleasant to be around. Alonzo and Teri had to take her in for a while, and she made their home a miserable place. They finally had to make other arrangements for her, and she calls and threatens them over it. Teri says peace left their house while her mother was there, and it returned when she left. She understands that there are some people you have to remove from your life if you want to be blessed.

It’s not just individuals. There are cities and neighborhoods people have to cut off. Nations. Entire cultures. You can only do so much to turn others around, and then you have to move on. This is what the rapture is all about. We’re not going to succeed in changing the world, and the time to break with it is approaching.

It’s hard for me to believe the relationship I have with this family. I’m so used to worldly people who can’t listen and never change. It’s strange to be accepted and agreed with. I can’t imagine what it will be like to be in heaven, where there won’t be a single person who doesn’t appreciate me, agree with me, and get along with me. Imagine a world in which you never have to walk on eggs around anyone or debate anyone.

It’s hard to believe the rapture is coming, but then it must have been hard to believe when a virgin gave birth to a man and that man was killed, resurrected, and assumed into heaven. It must have been hard to believe when the ground swallowed Korach, when God parted the Red Sea and made the sand dry so the Hebrews could walk through, and when the fire of God came down for Elijah and ate two steers and the water in the trench that surrounded them. All these things did happen, and the rapture will happen, too.

It’s going to be wonderful. I feel like I’m getting a taste of it. The peace and victory will be overwhelming. The absence of obnoxious people and spirits will be more beautiful than anything I’ve experienced in this life.

Imagine a world with no election signs and no arguments. Imagine a world with no riots. Imagine a world where there are no preppers because there is never anything bad to prepare for. No illness. No crime. No failure. No lack. No taxes. No pain. No prisons.

Actually, there will be a prison. It’s called hell. The earth is a sorting facility.

Today while we talked about the peace and prosperity we’ve experienced during the coronavirus months, I said it was as though God had separated us into a corral to wait in peace for the rapture. It’s like he put us aside so we can be cleaned up and readied.

I would love to be gone before the election. Failing that, I would like to be gone before the inauguration.

I think Trump will win, and I think there will be a Satanic leftist tantrum that will fill city streets with furious left-wing racists. I think the current riots will seem feeble compared to what’s in store. I suspect that rioting will also ramp up before the election, driving fair-weather hobby socialists to drop the pose and vote for Trump in order to restore order. I wouldn’t be surprised. I think many, many people will vote for Trump and claim they voted for Biden.

The voting booth is like the confessional booth. Or Vegas.

I can’t help wondering what Earth would have been like had people listened to the Holy Spirit. I guess we’ll find out during the Messianic Age.

Trump Admits He’s not God

I suppose I should blog about God a little bit.

First of all, I wonder how many people have seen Trump’s recent remarks about God. He was in Minnesota, giving an unscheduled talk beside Air Force One. He was talking about the economy, and he said this:

“You know what that is? That’s right. That’s God testing me,” Trump explained. “He said, You know, you did it once. And I said, ‘Did I do a great job, God? I’m the only one who could do it.’ He said, ‘That you shouldn’t say. Now we’re going to have you do it again.’ I said, ‘OK. I agree. You got me.’ But I did it once. And now I’m doing it again. And you see the kind of numbers that we’re putting up. They’re unbelievable. Best job numbers ever. Three months, more jobs in the last three months than ever before.”

I think this is great. I believe he talks to God. I don’t think he’s lying. There is too much evidence out there to deny that he has turned to God in recent years, whether or not you think he’s a good example to other Christians. I am pleasantly surprised to see him show some humility. I didn’t think he knew pride was bad. If he believes God told him he shouldn’t take credit for his success, it’s an indication that he’s growing.

We all know his faults. There is no point in denying them. But Christianity is a process, not a state. We accept Christians who do yoga and have illegitimate babies in strings, but we get upset because Trump owns casinos and has a history of adultery. Who knows what he’ll be like 5 years from now? If your direction is right, your location can’t stop you.

Here’s another thing: I got a nice revelation yesterday, and it looks like it’s surprisingly powerful. It’s very simple. When I interact with another person, or I think of another person, or I see another person, I think, “What can I do for him?” Generally, there is nothing I can do by earthly means, but I can still pray, so that’s what I do.

It sounds like a big nothing, but it isn’t. When you ask yourself what you can do for someone else, it changes your inclinations. Maybe the person is someone who makes you angry. Maybe it’s someone you like. Maybe it’s someone you feel a counterproduction sexual attraction to. When you ask yourself what you can do for that person, your attention shifts away from selfish ideation, and you get a chance to pour God’s benevolence into the world through prayer or other means.

I believe in charity. It’s extremely important. It’s important to do things for people. I have felt this way for many years. Having these beliefs isn’t as powerful as asking yourself what you can do for people. I can’t explain it, but I suggest you try it. I’m making it a habit.

Praying for people isn’t a negligible service. Prayer is more powerful than anything else you can do. You shouldn’t feel you’ve done nothing because all you did was pray. That’s crazy.

The Bible says faith works through love. My sense is that love behaves like a supernatural lubricant that allows faith to flow. I suppose this is because we should be exercising our faith to get things we pray for out of love, not selfishness or duty.

We always wonder why our prayers aren’t answered. Maybe a lot of answers are stuck in the pipe because there is no lubricant. I’ve seen healers tell people they can’t be healed because they don’t forgive. It’s consistent with the notion of love as a supernatural grease.

This morning, I thought about a Bible passage:

There is that scattereth, and yet increaseth; and there is that withholdeth more than is meet, but it tendeth to poverty.

The liberal soul shall be made fat: and he that watereth shall be watered also himself.

The second verse says the generous “soul” shall be made fat. To me, that suggests it’s important to be generous in your mind and heart, not just in your actions. If you make a practice of asking yourself what you can do for other people, you make your soul serve God.

The word translated “made fat” can mean “oiled.”

It all makes sense. The Bible says we are servants. What do servants say when they meet people? What does every clerk in every store say when you walk up? “How can I help you?” They know they’re servants, and Christians generally don’t have the same mindset. We’re always running around squawking, “God heal me! God protect me! God give me stuff so I won’t be poor!” We’re too busy on defense to think about offense. Conquest is all about offense. You can’t conquer by sitting behind a wall, hoping your enemies go away.

Anyway, try it. See what you think. It costs you nothing, and it’s as easy as a thing can be.

Final thing: something wild is going on with my shoulder. My gallbladder is not exemplary, although it’s not bad enough to cause attacks or require surgery. The main problem it causes me is shoulder pain. For some reason, gallbladder issues can generate referred pain in your shoulder, neck, or back.

For quite a while, I’ve had a problem putting my right arm behind my back. I didn’t go to a doctor. I try to get God’s healing and correction when I have a problem, and doctors are useless when it comes to gallbladder disorders. Generally, their kneejerk response is to remove your gallbladder, leaving you unable to digest fat, with a high probability of continued pain from stones. They don’t even try to fix gallbladders.

I didn’t think there was anything wrong with the shoulder itself.

The other day, I moved my arm around to loosen it up, and I heard crackling sounds. I wondered what was up. Maybe my gallbladder wasn’t the problem. Maybe the cartilage in my shoulder had disintegrated. I wondered whether I would have to give up and go to a witch doctor (my term for MD’s). I moved my shoulder vigorously, trying to reproduce the sound. The more I moved it, the less noise I heard. When I stopped, my shoulder felt better and had more mobility.

For the last few days, I’ve been doing this from time to time. It’s better than going to a witch doctor and letting him cut up and damage something God might be planning to heal.

This morning, I reached behind myself for some reason. I can’t remember what it was. Maybe I was scratching. Anyway, I realized my arm was way back there, and I wasn’t feeling pain. I did it without thinking. So now I can reach maybe a foot farther back before I feel discomfort. The change coincides with the revelation about doing things for people.

Thought I should put it out there. I don’t know what will happen next, but I’m thrilled to be feeling better. I went to a Last Reformation event in 2019 and asked for prayer for my shoulder, and I didn’t get results. Maybe God was telling me I needed to think about other people differently.

Yesterday I bucked and moved a tree by myself. I think I took 5 tractor loads to the burn pile, and a lot of the wood had to be lifted onto the tractor by yours truly. I’m out of shape. I don’t exercise. I’m old. I feel great today. I’m not sore or stiff. That’s a blessing. I’m thinking of cutting the rest of the tree down today.

I cut the tree in the middle of the day in August, in Florida. It was not raining. The temperature should have been 98 degrees, and I should have gotten a sunburn. My clothes should have been drenched with sweat. The sun was very gentle. I don’t think we ever broke 90. I didn’t sweat much at all. No problems.

I think I’m doing well for my age. I may look like Wilford Brimley’s dad, but I have a lot of energy, and everything works pretty well. I’ve seen other people my age, or younger, whose condition scared me. I keep hoping I can improve my body’s state by finding out what God is trying to get me to confess and repent of.

People get mad when you say their physical problems come from sin and ignorance. Where else would they come from? Are diseases rewards for righteousness? If the suggestion that your sins or your ignorance are making you sick makes you angry, you have exactly the kind of problem that perpetuates curses. You need to grow up and stop playing the victim.

It may be time to fire up the pole saw. Can’t wait to get the rest of that tree out of my life.

Tree? What Tree?

It’s amazing how many things you can do when the alternative is shoveling out a big wad of cash.

The people who built my house left a large mangy oak in the driveway circle out front. It was originally a double-trunked tree, but by the time I got here, one trunk was gone, and the other leaned away from the house at a 20-degree angle. This remaining trunk had a fork about 30 feet up. A few weeks back, I felt the house shake, and I went out and saw that one fork was lying in the driveway.

I was glad to see it, because I had been wanting to cut the tree, and cutting a leaning tree with a big fork is not easy to do safely.

Yesterday, I went outside and saw that the other fork had snapped off. Great news, right? Not really. It had fallen into another tree. The broken tree was bent at a 90-degree angle, and the upper fork was resting in the top of the second tree. The trees were on different sides of the driveway, so the upper fork was set to land in the driveway as soon as the joint gave out.

Trees and tree parts that hang over areas where people are likely to be found are called “widowmakers” for obvious reasons. Tree surgeous hate them. A widowmaker can fall with tremendous energy, very quickly, without making much of a sound.

I stared and stared at the tree, trying to figure out what to do. I could not cut the base of the broken tree, because that would release the widowmaker, and there was no way to tell what would happen. Also, the part of the tree that was still standing was rotten and might split, creating what’s known as a “barber chair.” A barber-chaired trunk can spring up in one direction and come down in another very quickly, and what happens to you if you’re under it is like what happens when you step on a roach.

I called a local service with great reviews. I didn’t call my usual service because they had given me a $1000 estimate to put the entire tree on the ground. I thought that was insane for 20 minutes’ work. The new outfit came out, left, and sent me an estimate: $1300. For that, they would drop the widowmaker, get rid of a nasty smaller tree nearby, and haul the debris, which I had told them I would do myself.

They also said they might not be able to do the work for two weeks. During that time, I would have to worry about UPS and Fedex drivers who might drive around my pickup, which I had parked in the driveway to keep traffic out.

Suddenly, I had a lot more enthusiasm for cutting the tree myself.

I went to Tractor Supply and bought a 30-foot tow strap, 100 feet of thin nylon cord, and one of those nylon straps you use to buckle cargo down.

I came back to the house, tied a weight to the end of a fishing line, and made a cast. On the first try, the weight went over the widowmaker and landed on the driveway. I tied the thin nylon rope to the fishing line and pulled on it, and that gave me a widowmaker with nylon rope draped over it. I joined the new strap to my old one, end-to-end, giving me a 60-foot strap. I used the nylon line to hoist the straps over the log. Then I ran a 3/8″ chain through the free ends of the straps. I tied a rope to my tractor and connected the chain to the rope.

After a few pulls, the widowmaker came down. Wonderful. I was 40 feet away, in no danger at all. An hour or so later, the widowmaker was out in the pasture, and the cows were eating its leaves. They’re so weird. They think my tractor is the ice cream truck.

I saved myself $1230, and I came out of it with some rope, a tow strap, and a cargo strap. Instead of nothing.

I still have to cut the rest of the broken tree down. I’ll put the cargo strap around it to prevent it from barber-chairing, and I’ll drop it in the driveway. Two to three hours of easy work. The difficult job will be removing the stump.

I would have been happy to give the tree people $500 or even $600, but $1300 seemed like robbery to me. They would have been here about an hour, and they wouldn’t have saved me much work. Maybe I’m cheap. I thought the estimate was way out of line. Even if they had left the tree on the ground, they would have expected $1100, and I would have provided 90% of the labor.

If an old man like me can do a job in an hour without breaking much of a sweat, you probably shouldn’t try to charge $1300. I think they’re overcharging right now because it’s hurricane season. They said people were bugging them to cut trees because of that.

I’m so glad that tree is going away. It was a thorn in my side. I told the tree people they could give me an estimate for grinding the stump, but I have a feeling they’ll be too high. I can get rid of it myself with a chainsaw and a shovel, so I am not open to high three-figure estimates. Time to look for a second peach tree.

It was beautiful, watching that weight sail over the widowmaker in just the right place.

Of course, I prayed about everything in advance.

Now all I have to worry about is a minor roof issue. Wonder what they’ll try to charge me for that.

Mike Tyson has Been Punched in the Face More Than Your Whole Family

Not much has happened today. For some reason, it didn’t rain. That was shocking. I was able to mow the yard.

While I was mowing, my tractor pulled one of its tricks on me. I drove through the web of a gigantic spider, and after I stopped the tractor to flail and scream and knock the webbing off of me, with great dignity, the tractor would not start. I put jumper cables on it and went in the house to Google a solution. While I was walking in, a very useful phrase came to me: “I’ve already won.”

I have been saying this a lot lately. Years ago, on a certain day, God told me I would have total victory from then on. At least I believe he did. Since then I have had a lot of very annoying challenges leap up and bite me in the rear end. Things don’t always go smoothly. I used to ask God how that could be considered victory. Then I realized victory is not the same thing as peace. Muhammad Ali defeated George Foreman, but he had to fight several rounds with a broken jaw in order to do it.

I used to feel beaten when things went wrong, because it seemed to happen so often, when it seemed I had done everything right. Now I remind myself: I’ve already won.

If the tractor won’t start, or the new stove won’t fit in the hole in the granite counter, or the people at the ALF where I put my dad for several days are overcharging me and turning bill collectors loose on me, or GEICO is trying to blame me for being backed into in a parking lot, or I just slipped and committed a sin I thought I was done with, it doesn’t matter. I’ve already won. I’ll react. I’ll get God’s help. A solution will come. When it’s over, I will have won.

You can project this principle to life itself. I’m surrounded by sick people. A man who thinks he might be a prophet says we’re going to have 80% inflation next year. Trump is polling badly, and God-haters may put Kamala Harris in the White House next year to abuse people like me. Maybe the rapture won’t come this year, as I feel it will, and I’ll be stuck here to cope with a bad situation when I’m no longer young enough to start over. It does not matter. I’ve already won. The very worst thing that could happen is that I could have 35 bad years and then go to heaven. They can’t keep me alive when my body quits. Escape is guaranteed. Sooner or later, I will be with Jesus, and I will have won everything.

It’s a good thing to keep in mind. It will give you strength.

In other news, we had another day of pre-hurricane weather here. I’ve written about this before. In the days prior to a hurricane, the air is still. Everything is quiet and peaceful, but there is a feeling of impending misfortune in the air. Often, the sun isn’t as bright as it ordinarily would be. Today was like that. It was overcast much of the time, but there was no rain.

Is the storm really coming this year? I’ll admit it: I hope so. Not so much the storm, but the rapture that precedes it.

I know that’s selfish. I’m just tired of living among hostile, impudent, underdeveloped, ignorant boneheads who won’t be helped. I want people to be saved, but I want to live in my own world, with my own people. I want rest.

We have a tropical storm headed for Florida. Isaac. The son of promise. Not a big deal.

I no longer own a single property that can be damaged badly by a hurricane or tropical storm, so this year is completely different from years gone by. It’s a new feeling. I hope Miami doesn’t get pounded this season, but I have no personal stake in it, so I have new peace. I guess heaven will be like that. Right now, my flesh is down here in a world full of microbes, violence, accidents, economic threats, and natural disasters. Once I am removed, I will have no vulnerable parts left on the earth, and most of the people I care about will be safe with me. That will be a nice change.

I’ve already won, and you can win, too. Think it over. You’ll never get another offer this good.

Plus Cheery Thoughts About the Apocalypse

It’s a frustrating day. My Ruger Precision Rifle arrived at the pawn shop yesterday. I have seen it. I have touched it, with quivering, eager, enraptured fingers. But my background check is still adrift in cyberspace. I have not been allowed to bring the new baby home.

In Florida, background checks go through the Florida Department of Law Enforcement; wonderful, wonderful people, doing a hard job and doing it well. I want to emphasize that last part. While they are diddling around with my rifle.

They match your name up to lists of people they know can’t buy firearms. If there are no matches, they clear you. If anything they pops up, they look into it, and eventually, they clear you. Or not.

The shop owner told me he was seeing two types of checks: the kind that take 5 minutes, and the kind that take 4 hours. It looks like I’m in the latter category. Last time, I had to fill the form out one day and pick the gun up the next. Same thing is happening now.

My guess is that someone with a name somewhat similar to mine did something bad this year. This is my second long background check in a row. Something changed between my last reasonably fast check and the two long ones. It can’t just be the backlog caused by increased gun sales, because I bought a gun a month or two back and got cleared while I was still in the store. There was a backlog then, and they still got me out the door in less than an hour.

I used to wonder if they were deliberately messing with me because I bought so many guns. Thing is, they’re supposed to destroy all background check records, so when I buy a gun, the FDLE should have no idea whether I’ve ever bought one before. Would they lie? Here’s what I think: they are wonderful, wonderful people, doing a hard job and doing it well.

The current administration is pro-civil-rights (more accurate than “pro-gun”), and Florida law enforcement people have a reputation for feeling the same way, so one assumes they would not do anything to reduce gun sales.

The delays are irksome, because they amount to a de facto waiting period. I’m not supposed to have a waiting period. I have a carry permit, and for some reason, this means I don’t have to wait. It’s a little odd, because the waiting period exemption applies to long guns, and a carry permit does not. Maybe the assumption is that if you’re already carrying, a waiting period won’t prevent you from shooting anyone. You’ll just tell the clerk, “My wife burned the taters again, and you guys are holding me up, so I guess I’ll have to shoot her with my carry piece. Thanks for ruining our anniversary.”

I looked up the numbers to see how many checks are done in Florida every month. Guess how many they did last month. Wrong. They did over 200,000. A lot. It makes me wonder how many guns Americans actually have. Anti-civil-rights nuts like to say we have 300 million, but even if you cut Florida’s current monthly total in half to reflect more typical times, Florida alone must be adding a million guns per year, not including private transactions. Wouldn’t that mean Americans are adding something like 10 million per year, making allowances for snowflake states where the serfs don’t get to buy many guns?

If the numbers are right, we should have added something like 200 million guns since 2000, and America has been around a lot longer than that. Guns don’t disappear very often, and most are used very little, so most old guns are still around. Maybe we have more than half a billion guns.

That’s fine with me. The more good people are armed, the more motivation bad people have to leave them alone. We worry a lot about bad people getting guns, but we should probably worry more about good people not having them. The kind of people who want to go after the innocent in America are generally cowards, and they avoid confrontations with anyone who can retaliate.

My guess, based on what the pawn shop guy told me, is that I’ll be getting a call between one and two.

I think I’m getting over the AR bug. I was not a fan of the AR platform, but I bought an AR-15 anyway just for the experience. Then I made fun of it. Then I improved it and started loving it in spite of the design’s obvious silliness. I thought I might build a second AR in 6mm ARC for fun. Today I read some statistics about reliability issues, and now I’m off the AR again.

I read that 19% of troops surveyed said they had experienced an AR failure DURING A BATTLE. When I say “AR,” I mean all types. The M16, for example, is really an AR-15 with full-auto included.

It would be bad if 19% of troops said their guns had failed at any point in their service, including during training, but having it happen during a battle is really bad. It means a lot of Americans have been killed by AR malfunctions; when your rifle fails during battle, you can die. That’s not a small thing. Also, remember, the men who were killed by malfunctions didn’t get to take the survey, so 19% is probably lower than the real figure.

I read an article by a Green Beret, and he pointed out something I hadn’t thought of. The AR has a buffer tube which has to be in line with the barrel, and if the tube gets bent, the gun can’t shoot.

Rifles have bolts, and when they extract and eject cartridges, the bolts have to go backward. There are plenty of semiauto and automatic rifles that don’t have foot-long bolt-and-spring assemblies, but for some reason, Eugene Stoner put such an assembly on his guns. It looks like it was totally unnecessary. The buffer tube is a pipe that holds a spring that operates an AR’s bolt, and in order for the bolt carrier to go backward, a big piston has to travel down the pipe toward the shooter. If the pipe is bent, you’re done. You can’t shoot until you buy a new pipe.

Many guns give you the option of hitting your enemy instead of shooting him. It looks like you can’t do that with an AR. If you hit someone with the butt, you can bend your tube, and then all you have is an expensive club. You can say the answer is to avoid hitting people with your gun, but tell that to someone in combat. What if a soldier is right in a terrorist’s face, and his magazine is empty? Sorry; go get a pugil stick instead. Say, “Time out.”

Even if you don’t hit people with your gun, what if you drop it and step on it? I think that happens in combat. Just guessing.

Another problem with the buffer tube is that it forces you to use a stock which is at least as high as the barrel. There is a reason why long guns have had bent stocks for maybe 500 years. You need to be able to sight down the barrel. You need a place to put your face.

The stock height doesn’t seem to be a problem for me, but I’m not the only person who owns an AR-15.

I may still get another AR15, but I’m afraid I’ll be tempted to set one up for self-defense, and that’s a bad idea. It’s obvious to me that .223 and 5.56 are very poor home defense calibers, but 6mm ARC would be phenomenal. It would cry out to be used against burglars. The caliber would be better than the rifle.

Maybe if I get one, I should weld a long-range scope to the receiver so it could never be used for self-defense distances.

Just kidding.

People get furious when you criticize the AR-15. You should see all the filthy language they use on the web. It’s bad even by Internet standards. “Rage” is the correct word; it’s no exaggeration.

I don’t understand that. You can criticize any product I buy, and I won’t care. I’m not a rifle. Why does it upset other people? Criticism is good. It helps you to stop screwing up. You have to have a serious maturity problem in order to be infuriated by mean remarks about something you bought. People are way too emotionally invested in products. Insecurity leads to bad decisions.

Years ago, at a gun show, some kid heard me talking about my LR-308. He was walking around with an AR-15 on a sling. He had to know what kind of LR-308 I had; it was important to him. I told him it was a DPMS. He was so happy; it was cheaper than what he had. His superiority had been confirmed.

He comforted me, saying my gun was as good as one from Spike’s, a company I had never heard of. I don’t know what he was carrying, but based on his age and attitude, it was probably a $4000 gun he hadn’t finished paying for. He obviously wanted people to see it, since he was lugging it around at the show.

I could have walked up to a table in that very show and bought any AR-15 in the place, and I could have paid cash. I could have bought 10, just to impress the cool kids. What for? I had a 1-MOA rifle from a very reputable company, capable of doing anything you can do with a gun costing three times as much.

I admit, I didn’t have a portrait of Col. Jeff Cooper [genuflect] laser-engraved on the stock, and the bolt carrier wasn’t platinum-plated. If you want economy, little sacrifices have to be made.

Try what I did. Do two Google searches. Here they are: 1) “AR-15 problems,” and 2) “AK-47 problems.” The search results speak for themselves. They are in no way comparable.

Today, out of idle curiosity, I looked around for AR alternatives. The best one for under a thousand dollars is the Mini-14, which is superior in every way except accuracy, which doesn’t matter for self-defense. But the Mini-14 is still expensive, and it shoots the same crummy .223 cartridge. I thought about a Mini-14 in a better chambering. Then I realized I already had Eastern bloc weapons that do exactly what a .30-caliber Mini-14 would do. There was no purpose in changing anything.

I made the right choice years ago when I decided to keep a Vz58 beside my bed, and nothing has changed. It was a great move. An AR-15 would be a big step backward.

Flame away.

I have a ton of .223 ammo, and I don’t regret buying it, because the AR-15 will be a blast at the range and for shooting irritating four-legged mammals. Reliability issues don’t matter when you’re shooting a target or a coon that keeps knocking over your potted plants.

I haven’t shot a living thing since my dad died last year. I lost my taste for it during the grief. I have to go back to firearm pest control. It’s something responsible men have to do. You don’t let squirrels and other pests screw up your property just because every death makes you think of your late dad.

Will I get many chances to shoot the Ruger Precision Rifle before the world ends? I wonder.

Yesterday, a longtime reader provided a link to a disturbing video. A pastor in Kentucky had a couple of dreams. In one, he saw sick people all over the US. Then the coronavirus epidemic hit. In another, he saw chaos which was supposed to take place in the fall of 2020.

I’ll embed the video here. It’s both disturbing and tedious. Sorry if it bores you.

He says the dream indicated that people would be fighting and killing each other in our streets. That, you don’t have to be a prophet to predict. If Trump wins, there will be terrible violence, because leftists have decided rioting is good. If Biden wins, there shouldn’t be rioting, because the people who riot will be celebrating, but as leftist oppression set in, there would surely be widespread civil disobedience in the areas of firearms ownership and carry.

Conservatives just don’t riot. It doesn’t happen. If you see conservatives fighting in the street, it means they were attacked.

I don’t think that will change.

He also said there would be inflation, and he mentioned an 80% drop in the value of money. That concerns me more than rioting. I can’t keep other people from killing each other, I have done what I could to get away from cities, I have encouraged other people to move, and I am able to deal with the stress of watching stubborn people destroy themselves. Inflation would be bad, however, because I need to eat, and I can’t grow much of anything.

Is he right? I am not able to get a clear impression from God. Most of the time, people like this turn out to be wrong, even if they’ve been right before.

I’m wondering if I should buy a property in Tennessee, ASAP, not just for a refuge, but as a hedge against inflation. Land will always have value. Cash and securities won’t. Even gold and silver can become useless.

I keep asking God to tell me what to do. I don’t want to move after it’s too late. I don’t want to beg and live in a shed on someone else’s land. I definitely don’t want to be an agricultural laborer at my age.

Truthfully, I don’t want to be here. If this is the end, may the rapture come ASAP. I have no desire to live in squalor or die at the hands of vicious, unthinking people who have the hearts of apes.

Last night, a young lady I know called me, and she asked if I had seen the same video. That was not comforting. I hadn’t mentioned the video to her. She found it on her own.

She talked about being bound to South Florida for many years. She said she didn’t have the same ties now. I told her she had to get used to cutting people loose. It’s a big part of Christian life. She’s a Haitian girl who grew up in the suburbs, but she has always wanted to live in the country. She had a dream about Tennessee, before I ever mentioned it to her. Weird.

I told her one of my burdens was the knowledge that I couldn’t help most people I knew. I have a good number of friends, and they like to visit. I have spare bedrooms. I have land. Still, I can’t house three dozen poor, unprepared, unskilled, unarmed people and look after them. This is especially true given that I live on sand. Growing food for one person would be hard enough.

I can help a couple of people, but friends who think their families are going to be able to show up and move in are going to be out of luck. Whoever gets here first will win, and the others will have a problem.

The young lady who called is married. Two small children depend on her. Her husband had very little interest in God when they had their first child and became entwined. She knew better. He’s coming around, but it’s very late, and he hasn’t laid any groundwork for the future.

I don’t think I can do much for them. I could take on a wife. I could conceivably shelter an orphan or two. It’s not my place to be a husband to a husband. A married man should be in God’s presence every day, getting God to provide for his family. It’s not my job.

Don’t marry anyone who isn’t close to God. You will regret it.

Here’s a funny thing: I live like a hermit, and I don’t see people often, but there are a bunch of people who depend on me in one way or another. Most of my friends fit this description. They need counsel and other things all the time. I know some of them see my home as a potential haven. I don’t know if they understand how many people want my help or how hard it is for a single man to carry several families. I can’t do it. I need a helper, not people who ride on my back. They need to get ahold of God’s favor, just as I do.

As for my feelings about the future, for a long time, I’ve had the feeling that it doesn’t matter if I let my responsibilities go. I’ve felt that if I chose, I could ignore them, and it wouldn’t make any difference. I’ve felt that if I decided not to do my taxes, it wouldn’t matter, because by the time the IRS would normally have noticed, they would be unable to do anything about it. Maybe chaos really is coming, and the government will be unable to keep up with what we do.

I know I have to live in the country among peaceful Christians. I have to get God to provide abundance for me no matter what happens to America. I will help other people if I can, but I’m not a lifeboat.

Decide What You Stand On

For some time, God has been teaching me about the problems white people are having. He has shown me that we lost favor because we turned away from him. I’ve been thinking a lot about the problems associated with this change, but today he helped me see the opportunity it presents.

It’s natural to be concerned when you find that the group to which you belong is besieged and disempowered. People like me look around at 2020 America, not to mention the world, and we see we are standing on an island which is getting smaller and smaller as the water rises to drown us. Anti-white racism is red-hot, and it’s becoming white-hot. It’s not going away, and the people who are against us sincerely want to inflict terrible pain on us, as well as humiliation. They’re going to get what they want. Favor has left us.

While it’s reasonable and normal to be concerned about our future as a group, those of us who know God should be happy about the opportunity we now have. We can focus on building a holy family which destroys the barriers of race and nationality and includes brothers and sisters from every background.

Yesterday I got around to fixing my new audio Bible. I had been listening to a Zondervan Bible, but it wasn’t that great. The man who did most of the talking mispronounced things. It was clear Zondervan hadn’t spent much time preparing him. I downloaded a different dramatized KJV, and I turned it into MP3 files, but when I was done, my televisions couldn’t use the files. I had 1189 files in one folder, and the televisions refused to index them. I had to consolidate them into 66 files or one per book.

This morning, I got up and turned on the bedroom TV. Somehow I found myself listening to Joshua. I went to the living room to make breakfast. I turned on the living room TV, and I played Joshua in that room. I didn’t really think about the choice.

I was already prepared for Joshua, because earlier, during prayer, God had give me this word: “I am victorious because of you.”

The book of Joshua is a story of dominance and conquest. Moses led the Hebrews into Israel, but he didn’t enter the country. He died to the east of Israel, and his body was left there. God put Joshua in charge, and he told him to subdue the inhabitants of the land. Israel had been given to Abraham and his descendants, but others were squatting there, and they were idolaters.

The Hebrews fought people God told them to fight, when God told them to fight them. When they were in good standing with God, they defeated their enemies easily. When they displeased God, they were routed.

The Hebrews attacked a city called Ai. Scouts told Joshua it wasn’t necessary to send a big force. They said a few thousand would do, because Ai didn’t have many warriors. The Hebrews sent several thousand soldiers, and the inhabitants of Ai defeated them.

When Joshua complained to God, failing to ask what the Hebrews had done wrong, taking a victim attitude, God told him to get up and asked him why he was lying on his face. God said someone in the Hebrew ranks had taken something cursed in the conquest of Jericho. God had told the Hebrews not to take any treasure, but a man named Achan stole a Babylonian garment and some silver and gold and hid them in his tent.

God singled Achan out as the culprit, and the Hebrews stoned him and his family. They burned their bodies. Then the curse was lifted.

I don’t know what the significance of the gold, silver, and clothing was. Maybe the clothing was associated with demon worship, and its presence would have threatened the Hebrews with the spread of idolatry. Maybe there were pagan images on the silver and gold.

Once the transgression was dealt with, God resumed giving the Hebrews victory.

After the Jews rejected their Messiah, white gentiles were chiefly responsible for spreading the gospel. God gave them favor over peoples who worshiped evil spirits. They ended up ruling every major land mass except for South America, and even there, the dominant group was European, if not quite white. No one could stand before white people. They turned a huge part of the globe’s surface into Christian territory, and God was with them in spite of the fact that they, like the peoples they subdued, did considerable evil. The heathens were a good deal more cruel and bloodthirsty than whites were; no one seems to want to talk about that.

When whites in Europe rejected God, Europe’s favor diminished. The British were great missionaries, but England walked away from God, and the British empire was stripped away. People they used to dominate drove them out.

Here in America, too many whites have chosen godlessness. Now whites are off their pedestal, mobbed by groups to whom they thought they were superior. They credited themselves with their success, claiming they were smarter, harder-working, and so on, but in reality, brains and work will get you nowhere without God. Asians are smart, and they work harder than westerners, but Asia was inferior to the west until very recently.

Now the age of the gentiles, in which white people spread the gospel, is ending or over, and white people have lost their dominance. Those conservatives who are proud and godless think prepping and buying rifles and voting Republican will save them. They’re completely wrong. You can’t replace favor with work. One of the main purposes of favor is to show you how ineffective your plans and works are.

If you’re a white American, you can’t keep hanging onto the shield and weapons that seemed to work for you in the past, because they won’t work unless God is backing you up. The security you used to have because you belonged to the herd is disappearing.

The good news is that without the illusion of racial superiority, white people, and the rest of us, have an opportunity to find favor by aligning ourselves with the family of God.

We can’t turn the clock back and regain dominance as a group, and it’s not a desirable goal anyway. Our segment of the population is vulnerable as a whole, and that won’t change. What we, and everyone else, can do is to find favor as individuals. We should have been doing this in the first place.

If God favors you, it doesn’t matter which ethnic group you belong to. You will be dominant. I don’t mean you’ll be able to push people around. I mean you will be victorious when you’re attacked. You will have a lot of insulation from hostility. You will have provision when godless preppers and militia nuts lack.

One of the best things about seeking favor as an individual is that your status will transcend race and nationality. You may still be targeted by BLM and Antifa destroyers, but you will be united with Holy-Spirit-led people of every type. When you’re with family, race and nationality won’t matter. The anxiety and wariness will be gone. They will be replaced by love and trust.

There is no such thing as racial unity on a nationwide scale. We try to implement it, and we fail. We got rid of segregation laws, and minorities responded by segregating themselves. If you want to find someone who hates interracial marriage, go to any black or Asian neighborhood. Most white people don’t care about it. White people changed, but the rest of America wants no part of it. They want black colleges and Muslim neighborhoods with sharia patrols. They want La Raza and Mecha. They want non-white gangs. Young Asians excoriate girls who marry whites, saying they suffer from self-hate. They say whites who marry Asians have a fetish. Most non-white Americans don’t want unity, and many whites agree.

We can’t have unity as a nation, but you can have unity with the brothers and sisters God has given you, regardless of what they look like. Together, you can step back from the fray and watch the unenlightened tear at each other. You don’t have to let BLM and Antifa screen your friends.

The Bible is full of promises of help and favor, but somehow, Christians have decided they’re not intended seriously. We have cultivated the notion that a really good Christian lives on a sidewalk in a box and preaches love and kindness while people spit on him. The Bible says God gives us victory, healing, joy, peace, strong families, and prosperity. It says our enemies will flee before us. Who is right? God, or the people who preach defeat?

Favor is real, and the stronger the destroyers get, presumably, the more favor God will be willing to give his children. And surely he will want to unite Christians of different backgrounds in order to shame the destroyers and give the lie to their racist nonsense.

There is no black student union in heaven. There is no Italian social club. There are no whites-only golf courses. There is no yeshiva that doesn’t accept gentiles. Jeremiah Wright won’t have a black church in heaven. He’s probably going to hell. Segregating people according to the flesh is a Satanic notion. God unites people according to the Spirit, regardless of what their flesh looks like.

Man’s protection is falling away from me and every other white, male, Southern, Christian, Jewish, or heterosexual American. That’s fine, as long as I move into God’s protection. Man required me to compromise and tug the forelock. God gives favor along with dignity, with no self-betrayal.

People who take sides according to the flesh are going to get nowhere. The word says God will release a horseman to take peace from the earth, and he may already be here. You can’t fight that with earthly weapons. The only real peace is among God’s children.

If Joshua and Caleb throve while surrounded by enemies in superior numbers, so can you. God says he prepares a table before us in the presence of our enemies. He struck the gay rapists of Sodom blind so they couldn’t find the door to Lot’s house. When the rain lifted the Ark, not one pagan was able to break in.

Too many people are taking the wrong messages away from the successes of the destroyers. They’re becoming more carnal, not less. They are following the destroyers instead of standing up as leaders.

I’m glad God showed me the positive side of what has happened to America. I have felt a lot of grief over the spectacle, but in Christian thought, birth comes after death. I should have considered that. Most people will fail and be destroyed, but eventually, the people who are spared and delivered will make me and other Christians forget all about the lost and the pain they caused us.

The New Crazies Make me Miss the Old Crazies

Today I had fun mowing my yard in a T-shirt and a shoulder holster. And pants. Then I came indoors, made hot dogs, turned on Youtube, and found out Seattle had been taken over by leftists with AR15’s.

Okay.

By the way, something seems to have gone wrong with hot dogs. I am not a big hot dog eater, so I’m not an expert, but I’m pretty sure they used to be a lot bigger. I picked some up at the store the other day, and no matter which brand I looked at, they all resembled pink noodles. I grilled a couple of Ball Park bun-length hot dogs yesterday, and when I added the requisite ketchup, mustard, relish, and onions, the meat disappeared. I can only guess how awful it would have been had I gone to a full-throttle chili-cheese-slaw dog.

Let me digress from my digression. Smoked sausages are the best hot dogs. Unless maybe bratwurst counts. A Hillshire Farms smoked mystery meat cylinder is actually a lot thicker than hot dogs used to be, and it tastes a lot better, too.

To digress even further…”bun-length” hot dogs??? Isn’t this a blatant admission that most hot dogs are too short? It looks like they shrunk the dogs lengthwise even before they went after girth. Now they’re selling length back to us, like they’re doing us a favor.

This tyranny has to end.

Slob cooking tip: when grilling hot dogs for one, nuke them first. Then they’ll be nice and hot in the middle, and you can grill them a lot faster. Just burn the outsides a little, and you’re off to the races.

So. The exact thing I predicted has happened, except that the rioters are white, not black, and the authorities are in favor of it.

The other day I pointed out that there was a huge danger BLMtifa nuts would realize they could take over cities, and when that happened, we would be in big trouble. Not “we,” really, because I live on a farm surrounded by wonderful people and zero targets of leftist interest. But still.

I figured black rioters would be the culprits, because they have gigantic support from huge ghettos. It didn’t occur to me that white lesbians and man-bun-sporting baristas would beat them to it.

Seattle is a very white city. Less than 10% of the population is black. Compare New York with 25%. Even with the huge white and black exodus and Latin influx, Miami is almost 20% black. Chicago checks in at around 30%. Black people like cities. They just do. But they don’t like Seattle. Maybe it’s the rain.

The takeover includes City Hall, and one of the rioters’ demands is that the mayor, who looks like someone on the editorial staff at Cosmopolitan, resign, immediately. Not one to take this lying down, the mayor says…wait, she agrees completely. I think. In any case, she is on the news forcefully defending the people who put her in the street.

She may not have a good answer to the problem of displaced people and illegally seized property, but she has pinpointed the true source of all of Seattle’s ills. Of course, I refer to Donald Trump. Obvious?

Why do I call these people rioters, given that they don’t seem to be very violent at the moment? Look, if you take over a city using semiautomatic rifles, it’s a riot. It may be a nice, polite, Caucasian-heavy riot, but it’s a riot.

It’s a wonder to behold. I knew white liberals were suicidal, but it’s still amazing to see them self-actualize.

There are a lot of weird things about the takeover. When did leftists decide it was okay to carry AR15’s openly? When did they even decide it was okay for AR15’s to exist?

Part of me wants to cheer them on for buying rifles, because it will be hard for leftists to keep throttling our civil rights if they’re also carrying guns. But capturing cities is not really consistent with the intent of the non-trans cis men who wrote the Second Amendment.

Here’s something weird: leftist crazies can legally carry rifles in Seattle, which is insanely off to the left, but I can’t do it here in Florida, where we are constantly under attack for our “loose” firearm laws. How did that happen?

I’m allowed to carry openly in two places: my home and my business, which, sadly, is my home. It’s really one place. That’s all I get. And I can’t permit you to carry openly on my property, in case you’re wondering. Of course, I would let you do it, if you’re a friend, but that doesn’t mean you wouldn’t be committing a felony.

I saw a fascinating video by a guy in North Dakota. He calls himself Tiborasaurus Rex, if I spelled it right. Weird guy. I thought he was just another grumpy dad bod with various beefs he wanted to air, but I looked at some of his old videos, and I saw a young military-looking guy teaching viewers how to be snipers. Is it really the same guy? It’s terrible what a few years and some kids can do to you.

I’m kidding. You can’t spend your whole life living on the edge and looking like a recruiting poster. Sooner or later, you will probably find yourself wearing Crocs and driving a minivan.

This is why they always kill the girl before James Bond marries her.

Anyway, he apparently lives near a town called Dickson, which is across the state from–you guessed it–Minnesota. BLMtifa terrorists decided to send rioters to various small towns in North Dakota, perhaps because they thought they were good places to commit violent crimes and take selfies. Soft targets, they must have thought.

Oh, you didn’t hear about this on the news? Amazing!

The folks in Dickson knew they were coming, so they got out their guns and invited some bikers. When the BLMtifers showed up, they were greeted with a wall of barrels, more or less. The local mall was completely blanketed in parked Harleys. The people of Dickson must have realized that stealing TV’s was always high on the BLMtifa agenda. You can’t protest from the heart when you don’t have Ultra 4K on the wall in your mom’s basement.

According to Mr. Rex, the BLMtifers packed up and went home without damaging anything. Total buzzkill.

He says he sat at a table in a local restaurant and listened to BLMtifers planning violent crimes and thefts. He said they even planned rapes. He says they were intercepted outside a bank they intended to knock over. For the cause. Hey, lattes and American Apparel shirts aren’t free.

What he said was highly disturbing. It shows how dangerous and cruel these people are. They’re no joke. Well. They ARE a joke, but they’re still very dangerous.

What would have happened had Mr. Rex and his friends lived somewhere else? Exactly what happened somewhere else. There would have been looting, beatings, and fires. Fortunately, he and his friends had the full cooperation of the police, and with their help, they not only kept their town safe; they made a name for it so BLMtifa will be very afraid to return.

Seattle, now…that’s another story. It’s BLMtifa paradise. But it’s relatively safe because the population is mostly whites and Asians who don’t want police records to prevent them from getting jobs at the Genius Bar.

I’ll tell you what I wonder. How are small-town Floridians supposed to be safe if we get arrested when we show up to deter BLMtifa with rifles? How can we help the police if open carry is a crime? It’s illegal to carry a rifle openly, and a concealed weapons permit doesn’t cover rifles, so it’s also illegal to carry openly.

What have we learned?

1. BLMtifa now knows it can take over cities.
2. Leftists may respond to BLMtifa aggression by apologizing and asking what they can do to assist in their own destruction. This feeds back into observation 1.
3. Open carry is the immediate answer to BLMtifa threats in small towns.
4. Open carry won’t be possible in Florida unless the cops issue statements waiving arrest in exchange for help.

One city has fallen. How long will it take for the next one to surrender? Of course, you could say places like Compton, Overtown, Bedford-Stuyvesant, and Chicago’s south side already exist in a state of perennial surrender. I grant you that. But when will we see blatant, Seattle-style takeovers spread, with more violence?

I would love to be a fly on the wall, watching girls in short haircuts waving rifles telling Seattle…ites? What to do. They’ve declared their area to be a “cop-free zone.” Okay, so that means you can do anything you want there, right? Probably not, because people would be going in and taking their property back. So if the short-haired ladies are not permitting that…wait for it…aren’t they…the POLICE?

What if someone resists them? Will they shoot? Will they get out the cable ties and pepper spray? How do you restrain suspects–people accused of eating meat or whatever–without force? What if they kick you or punch you? What if they grab you by your blue mohawk, pull your head down, and rain blows on your skull? Do you just walk away? Do you knock them down and kneel on them for 9 minutes? One wonders.

There is a musical called Pippin. It’s about Charlemagne’s son. It’s not all that historically accurate, because Charlemagne’s father was named Pepin the Short, and while he did have a son named Pepin, the son who succeeded him was named Louis. But let’s go with it.

In the play, Pippin gets all soyed up and woke, and he finds his father’s harsh treatment of his subjects reprehensible. He murders him and takes over, eager to show how nice life is under an enlightened king who loves chick flicks and walks on the beach. Of course, he finds he has to be tough in order to prevent everyone from taking advantage of him. Things come to a head when he tells the leader of a besieging army he wants to begin a new day of peace, joy, hot yoga, and pointless sham recycling. The leader sends word that he agrees wholeheartedly and will depart. As soon as Pippin sends him his severed genitals.

At this point, he pulls the knife out of Charlemagne, who magically comes back to life to say, “I told you so.”

In a truly dark country with heartless, despotic rulers, change may be a good thing, but here in the US, every insurgent who gets anywhere will eventually have a Pippin moment. It’s like the first time you open your mouth and, to your horror, hear yourself say something your dad used to say.

Maybe I shouldn’t take such a lighthearted tone, but what else can I do?

Since I appear to be predicting the future successfully, appling a mystical gift known as the ability to perceive the obvious, I’ll say we should expect more takeovers with a more violent, race-tinged (i.e. hostile to whites, Jews, and Asians) flavor. If it doesn’t happen during the current wave of insanity, it will happen during the next one. I’m not sure the current one will end, though. It may be of of them “new normal” deals.

I foresee people using cyberspace to rule through mobs. We are not quite at the point where that would be a slam dunk. Maybe the bread needs to rise a little longer. Maybe America will succeed in getting the current crop of babies to take their pacifiers and nap for a bit, and we’ll see them return with more power when Skynet gets its fingers into all of us sufficiently deeply.

I could totally see Google and Facebook working to make that happen. I’m sure there are Google kids talking about it already. If I’m smart enough to see true technocracy on the horizon, people who actually work for social giants must have seen it years ago.

They saw it if they read my blog.

If you don’t know the Holy Spirit, you better introduce yourself. You’re already way late for boot camp. You can’t save yourself, and the government will either be unwilling or unable to help. You need to know someone who can surround you with favor and tell you where to move and what to do.

Learn from my Bad Example

God changes lives with supernatural revelation, and he has been very generous with me lately. He gave me a compound revelation this month involving my attitude.

He showed me that I need to be much more reluctant to complain. I’ve had a lot of bad experiences in cultures where people were pressured to bury their heads in the sand, and I have come to love exposing the truth, but I haven’t done a good job of separating exposure from pointless bellyaching or from reviling or ridiculing. Revealing the truth is very important, and it’s very important to do it in situations where it will destroy your popularity, but you can’t let yourself obsess on what is wrong or let it become an excuse for giving up too early.

It’s good to say, “I hear a noise coming from my front end, so I need to have my bearings checked.” It’s bad to say, “I hate this car. It’s always letting me down. Why can’t I ever have a car that works right? Other people have good cars. I can’t believe this is happening again. I’m so sick of this thing.”

You have to appreciate what you have and what happens to you.

Here is what God has shown me: you have to have what I call an immigrant/orphan/warrior attitude.

Consider immigrants who move the USA. I know many of them are curses to us. Many come filled with hostility toward us. Some perform acts of terrorism. Some expect us to mold ourselves to their toxic, backward cultures, which they themselves fled, instead of adapting themselves to our superior culture. Many come here out of pure selfishness. All those things are true, but I’m not suggesting we be like them in those ways. I’m suggesting we be like them in our appreciation of what we have.

I read an anecdote about a visitor from Russia. This person kept telling her hosts how wonderful the USSR was and how inferior America was. She could not shut up. Then there was a trip to an American supermarket in the winter. The critic looked around at the packed shelves and the fresh fruit and vegetables and started to cry.

That individual appreciated a blessing I have enjoyed every single day I’ve spent in America. I, on the other hand, feel deprived when my local store doesn’t have the exact cut of choice beef I want to buy or the right brand and variety of tomatoes for pizza.

Consider orphans. Many are hard to place, so they get stuck in orphanages for years, or they go from one foster family to another. They dream of having their own homes, with siblings and parents. The rest of us don’t feel much gratitude for situations older orphans pray for every night.

My family did me a lot of harm, but at least I had a family. My bills were paid, and we never had to live in a shelter or even an apartment. My mother was wonderful. I knew my grandparents. I knew my aunts, uncles, and cousins. Both of my parents left me inheritances. My family damaged me more than most white American families, but it also did me a great deal of good.

Think about warriors. When a warrior in a superior force goes into battle, and enemy soldiers start shooting at his position, he doesn’t say, “I am cursed. These people should have given up as soon as they saw us, but they’re trying to kill us anyway, and now I have to go through a miserable battle.” A warrior expects conflict. It’s what he trains for. He sees it as a normal obstacle he has to pass in order to get to victory.

The other day I bought a new stove. My old primitive stove was very hard to clean, and it only had 4 burners. I was reluctant to cook because it was so difficult to get the stove back in order afterward. I found a great induction cooktop at Home Depot for something like 45% off. I measured the existing stove, and while I couldn’t get at the cutout in the stone counter to measure it, I made a reasonable assumption: because appliances are standardized, a 36″ induction cooktop would fit in a cutout made for a 36″ conventional cooktop.

I got the old cooktop out, and I found that the cutout was 3/8″ too short. I had expected the switch to take about 30 minutes. Now I was looking at hiring someone or buying unfamiliar tools, making the new cuts myself, and enduring a long, messy job. I also learned that the manufacturer had not included some brackets for supporting the new stove in a stone counter. I’m talking about two small pieces of steel plus a tube of glue. Should cost about 10 bucks. In fact, these things should be included in the package with a stove that retails for $1800. I looked online, and the price for the “kit” was about $135.

I felt defeated, and that’s ridiculous. I knew it was ridiculous. I apologized to God even while I was feeling defeated. I rejected the feeling.

I said I knew the stove was going to fit. Victory was already mine. No doubt about it. I wasn’t experiencing defeat. I was just having a setback. I was blessed with an $1800 stove for which I paid about $1000, I didn’t have to use cash to get it, I got free delivery, I didn’t need help removing the old stove, I was sufficiently handy to know I was going to be able to get the cutout enlarged, I was putting it in a beautiful kitchen in a magnificent house in an extremely pleasant county in the United States of America…what possible excuse was there for feeling cursed and defeated?

I didn’t have a warrior attitude. I had a snowflake attitude. An Antifa/BLM attitude. I knew it. I hated it. I refused to continue in it. I asked God to help me.

I knew that on the other side of the work and the mess, a fantastic new stove was waiting. The new stove has a top which is a continuous sheet of glass. Cleaning it after a messy cooking session takes less than 5 minutes. It has 5 burners, one of which is gigantic, which is a nice feature. It’s much, much faster than gas, conventional, or radiant cooking. It won’t work with certain cookware, but I can get new things, and I have additional portable burners anyway. When I’m not cooking, the surface functions as temporary counter space.

God was blessing me like crazy. Feeling defeated and wronged was not just incorrect; it was offensive.

I made a terrible mess when I installed the cooktop, but a tradesman would have made the exact same mess. Instead of getting a new stove for $1800 plus maybe $500 in installation costs, I got it for $1000, no cash left my bank account, and I learned a lot.

Along the way, I found out I didn’t need the expensive tube of glue and sheet metal brackets.

The Bible promises us victory over and over. It doesn’t say we’ll never have to fight or that things will go exactly the way we want. Victory is not the same thing as lack of conflict. When we win wars decisively, we still have to fight, and we still lose people. No one with any common sense says that makes us losers.

Sometimes God has shown me what it’s like to deal with me and my bad attitude. I have been in situations where I’ve been in charge of people who were doing various things. If you have employees, or if you have hired people temporarily, you’ve been there. I have dealt with people who whined and complained. I have dealt with people who stood around conversing instead of working, while I, the one who was paying them, worked. I’ve dealt with people who were so slow and lazy, they were literally much slower than I would have been had I done things alone. I’ve experienced resentment from people I was paying. I felt I was being punished for giving them money.

When I was slaving away as an armorbearer at Miami’s Trinity Church, I worked a couple of Richie Wilkerson’s Rendezvous meetings at the Fillmore Theater on Miami Beach. People volunteered to help the armorbearers. We were there mostly to manage crowds. I had a lot of experience, and I was in a position of authority. A young black man was part of my team.

I set things up the way they were supposed to be, in cooperation with the other armorbearers. Then this young man decided he was in charge. He started moving cordons and changing the way traffic flowed. He started telling me how things were going to be set up, as though I had volunteered to work for him!

His ideas were inept and would have caused problems. I immediately moved things back, and I told him I was running the team. I said if he wanted to help us, he had to follow orders.

He got so mad, he walked off and quit. He could not understand that he we were not equals on the team. It was impossible to explain this concept, which 98% of human beings chosen at random would have understood without being told. No one on the team could figure him out.

I never interacted with him after that. I forgot his face. I don’t know what happened to him. Another young man from the same area had also volunteered, and he could not have been more helpful. He kept making sure he was doing what the team wanted him to do. He never complained. After the conference was over, we would always wave at each other in church and converse a little.

I’ve dealt with a lot of people who could not submit, honor, or appreciate. I have often shown similar attitudes toward God.

If someone is willing to pay you and advise you when he has other options, and you make him miserable, he’s going to limit what he does for you. It’s just not worth it when you have to be treated like you’re imposing. On the other hand, when people have a good attitude, it makes you grateful. It makes you want to do more for them and to be more closely involved with them.

Surely we punish God when we aren’t grateful and respectful, and surely he responds by holding back our blessings. Surely he must increase our blessings when we have better attitudes. I believe there are things I wanted which God kept from me, and now I believe he will provide those things because I will reward him instead of making him wish he had a better son to work with.

Here is something Jesus said:

A certain man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and he came and sought fruit thereon, and found none.

Then said he unto the dresser of his vineyard, Behold, these three years I come seeking fruit on this fig tree, and find none: cut it down; why cumbereth it the ground?

And he answering said unto him, Lord, let it alone this year also, till I shall dig about it, and dung it:

And if it bear fruit, well: and if not, then after that thou shalt cut it down.

When you’re push-starting a car, you don’t push forever. If it doesn’t start to run eventually, you quit pushing.

Every day, I need to see my blessings as though they were new. When I get in my car, I should feel as though I were driving a new car off a dealer’s lot. When I sit in my air-conditioned house, I should feel as though I had been living in a tent in insufferable heat all my life. When I eat and drink, I should feel as though I had just been rescued from a month in a lifeboat. I live in a world where billions of people don’t have the good things I have. I could easily be replaced with someone more grateful.

That’s what happened to the Jews. I’m not talking about replacement theology. They are still God’s chosen. But if you read the Bible, you will see that they got in trouble over and over for taking God’s blessings for granted, and in the end, most didn’t appreciate the greatest blessing of all: their messiah. So most of what he offered went to Gentiles. Now, of course, most Christians take God and his blessings for granted, so we’re in the same boat.

I believe this revelation is extremely powerful and that it will bring me things I couldn’t get before. I pray, and I have faith, but faith isn’t everything. How effective can faith for a result be if God knows you’re going to make him wish he had never granted your request?

I’m astounded when I look back and think of all the blessings I’ve spat on and ruined. My education is an example. I barely did anything in high school, but one of the world’s best universities sent me a letter, asking me to apply. When I was accepted and my parents paid my tuition and expenses without hesitation, I didn’t appreciate it at all. I behaved like a character from the movie Animal House. I thought the administration was my enemy. I thought drunkenness was cool. I made trouble.

I wish I could go through high school again. I went to the best school in Florida. I could have focused on math and science. I could have gone to MIT or Caltech. Even Columbia, the school that accepted me, was a top-notch STEM school.

I know I couldn’t have done much better as things were. I didn’t know God, and I truly was cursed. My family was a constant source of discouragement and pain. Things didn’t go well even when I did things right. But if I had known God and had a better attitude, I would have excelled.

I know people who were thrilled to be able to go to community college. I know people who were thrilled to go to state universities. I know people who have student loans. I had a full ride at one of the best Ivy League schools, and I resented it!

I can’t complain about mowing the yard. Most people don’t have a yard. I can’t complain about doing bookkeeping and taxes. Most people have no money to manage. It’s amazing to me that I ever complained about cleaning up after my pets. Who chose to buy them? How many people are there who would love to have two beautiful exotic birds who love them?

I have to remember that regardless of what happens while I’m here on Earth, I have victory. Under the worst circumstances imaginable, which are nothing like my actual circumstances, I would still be saved when I died. The rejection and problems I face here are like the heckling and reviling Cubans used to experience when they chose to move to America. People would spit on them and call them worms. The speed bumps I deal with are temporary and unimportant, and they precede blessings that will make me forget them.

I think my new outlook will improve my life tremendously, so I want to tell other people who make the same mistakes I did. I hope someone else can make the change earlier and have a better life than the one I’ve had.

Democrats Killed the Small Gas Engine

Today’s amazing news: sonic cleaners work.

I have three chainsaws, two gas blowers, and a gas weed eater. Thirty years ago, these were great things to have. Now owning them is torture because Democrats force us to use inferior gas tainted with ethanol. It turns out ethanol is a great fuel for political campaigns, but it ruins small engines, and it’s not great for large ones, either.

Here is what Husqvarna says about using ethanol gas: “It is recommended that you replace gas in your fuel tank every 2-3 weeks to avoid alcohol and water related engine issues.”

I have 6 small engines. I never know when I’m going to need to use one. Nonetheless, if I use gas station fuel, I’m expected to maintain a strict schedule of replacing fuel in every tank, and “replacing” doesn’t just mean you can pour it out. You have to run every engine dry, and then you have to run them dry with ethanol-free fuel.

Obviously, I am not going to turn my life upside-down so I can nanny a bunch of yard tools. I buy ethanol-free gas, I add the best ethanol-fighting additive I can buy, and I buy new carburetors when I have problems.

A stock carburetor for a typical chainsaw runs somewhere in the neighborhood of $100. They’re made in China. They’re not very good. Even if ethanol doesn’t plug them up, the diaphragms rot. It’s not like you’re doing yourself a big favor by buying OEM.

The same carburetor, made in the same country and sold by a different company, will generally cost you under $15, along with a new fuel filter, a spark plug, and some other useful junk, such as gaskets. My belief is that any time you buy a small engine, you should buy a Chinese carb off Ebay just so you’ll be ready for the inevitable. Some carbs are a pain to replace, but many pop in and out in 10 minutes, with no tools except for a screwdriver.

I am a huge fan of Chinese Ebay carbs, but I know have an even better weapon: the sonic cleaner. I saw a Youtube video about using them on carbs, and I saw my destiny unfold before me. I needed a sonic cleaner anyway. A sonic cleaner, like a welder or a mill, is a superpower tool. It lifts you to new levels most men will never reach.

My pole saw pooped out a few weeks back, due to ethanol. I can’t recall whether the carb is Chinese. I have a dead-carb collection. Maybe one of them came from the pole saw. Anyhow, by the time it died, I had a 15-liter sonic cleaner. I filled it with hot water, partially disassembled the carb, sealed it in a jelly jar full of gas, and gave it the business. Today I reinstalled it. No problems.

Of course, in order to check it, I had to put fuel in it, so once I confirmed that it ran, I had to empty the fuel, run it dry, and so on. Even non-ethanol fuel should be removed from a carb before you put a tool away.

I didn’t have total confidence in the effect of running the saw dry, because, believe it or not, you can run one dry and still have problems later. My solution was to run some Sea Foam through it. Sea Foam is an engine treatment made from mineral oil and secret ingredients. It’s supposed to be great for engines. I am hoping it can’t congeal like gas.

I wanted to use my weed eater today. It refused to start even though it has never seen ethanol. Today’s gas supposedly contains things that can plug an engine even without ethanol’s help.

I popped the carb off, stuck it in the sonic cleaner, and gave it 25 minutes at 53° Celsius. I picked 53 arbitrarily. Then I gave it another 25 minutes. I’m about to reinstall it.

I’m planning to get some of the Gucci premixed gas they sell at Home Depot. It’s supposed to be better than ethanol-free. My plan is to run engines dry, add a little Gucci gas, and run them dry again. It’s a giant pain, but it’s not as bad as taking saws apart and working on the carbs. I don’t know if it will work.

It seems like there is something special about the climate here. Small engine carbs just don’t like it. People from other areas tell me they use gas station gas and never have problems. I can’t explain what’s happening, but I’m not imagining my problems.

I may get some Gucci gas tonight. You can’t use it all the time, because it costs $20 per gallon. That’s over six times the cost of ethanol-free.

Replacing carburetors is actually cheaper than using this stuff.

You can use sonic cleaners for jewelry and a whole bunch of other things. A big one will run you around $150, but having a superpower is worth it.

Maybe the weed eater will run tonight, and if so, maybe I’ll be able to use it to clear the beautyberry bushes out of the shooting lane in my pasture. I sure hope so, because otherwise I’ll have to attach the bush hog to the tractor, and attaching the driveshaft will probably be a one-hour job all by itself. Having a quick hitch on your tractor is great, but if your driveshafts are torture devices, it doesn’t help much.

Get yourself a sonic cleaner. Feel the power.

Asphalt Looks Better Every Day

Winter was very disappointing. Where I live, the daily highs should be below 80 from November through March, and there should be a lot of days below 70. This year, we got plenty of roasting-hot days in the 90-degree neighborhood. When that happens, you feel cheated, because while summer can trespass on winter and ruin it, there is no possibility we will have cold days in the summer to make up for it.

Now that temperatures are high and we’re getting occasional rain, the grass has started growing. The lawnmower and I are resuming our romance.

Today the mower would not start. I got a click, and that was it. I put a charger on the battery and went to brush the pool.

When I finished brushing the pool, I tried the mower again. It ran. I mowed most of the yard, and then I got off the mower to move a branch. My mower has a seat switch on it that turns the engine off when I get off, but I bypassed it because it’s unbearable. Because the engine was still running when I got off to grab the branch, I disengaged the PTO so the blades would stop spinning.

When I got back on the mower, the PTO would not reengage. I could still ride the mower, but I couldn’t cut anything.

I guess this is what happens when you mow as rarely as I have been mowing.

I almost shut the mower down to look it over, but it occurred to me that it might not start, and I was at least 100 yards from the area where I park it. I drove it back to its spot and shut it down. Of course, it would not start again. I got idiot lights but no starter, no PTO, and no headlights.

I did what I always do. I checked Internet forums. I found a wide array of problems and solutions.

I found out oxidation could cause the mower to act this way. My battery cables had some kind of hard oxide inside the terminals. I had to remove it with a Dumore grinder and carbide burr. I lost my battery brush, which would have done the job in 10 seconds, so this is what I had to resort to.

I let the mower charge while I had lunch, and when I tried the key again, it worked.

I can never decide whether this mower is junk or not. It’s impossible to work on, and it seems much more complicated than it needs to be. It’s full of engineering errors. On the other hand, I believe it’s 28 years old, and it should run for another 20. The John Deere 430 is hard to kill. It’s way too easy to shut down, but it’s hard to kill.

I was unhappy about the failure to start, because I had a special task in mind for today. I wanted to go to the pasture and cut a bunch of weeds that were in an area where I wanted to shoot.

I shoot into a berm made from sand taken from a pond. On one side of the berm, there are no trees within 100 yards. On the other side, there is a nice wooded area, which is exactly where I want to be when I shoot on hot days. Between the wooded area and the berm, there are blackberry and beautyberry bushes. Today I attacked the beautyberries while trying to spare as many blackberry briars as I could. Blackberries are useful. Beautyberries are pathetic. People eat them, but I think they’re trying to prove something. They don’t taste good.

I found that the beautyberry bushes were not easy to remove with a mower. They fold over so low the blades don’t make good contact. But with persistence, I improved my view of the berm a great deal. I suppose I’ll have to attach the bush hog to the tractor and do it right. Either that or I’ll have to use the brush blade on my gas weed eater.

How much do you want to bet the weed eater starts after several months of idleness? Ethanol gas makes it very difficult to keep machinery running here. Even treated ethanol-free gas lets me down a lot.

When I get my shooting lane cleared, I’ll move my targets. I’ll be shooting from east to west instead of the other way around. Right now, I shoot toward a highway. It’s totally safe, but I would feel better shooting toward the big lot full of trees to the west of my land.

My pasture is dish-shaped, so even without the berm, from either direction, I am shooting toward the ground. That’s a nice feature.

I don’t know how people driving on the road would feel if they knew a guy was shooting a 10mm pistol in their general direction, but then they do 70 with cars coming toward them in the left lane at the same speed, and they don’t freak out about that.

Maybe I should have a policy of restricting shooting to experienced shooters. I will never fire a round over the berm, but women and kids do amazing things with firearms.

I feel as though my enthusiasm for life is returning, 9 days after my personal tragedy. I let a lot of things go while Travis was in the hospital, and my motivation was even worse after he died. I seem to be getting more done now.

As I have written before, I believe joy, as used in the Bible, means something other than ordinary happiness. I believe it’s connected with results and expectations. For example, the Bible says, “Weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning.” That describes a type of happiness which is related to relief. The word “rejoice” comes from “joy,” and it’s always connected to an event. Something hoped for happens, or something dreadful ends, and people rejoice.

The Bible says, “The joy of the Lord is our strength.” That’s literally true. If you have joy, you expect good things to happen. It gives you motivation to keep going and get things done.

Depression is the absence of joy. It’s discouragement. This is why depressed people kill themselves. They don’t expect things to change for the better.

I had been expecting to rejoice when Travis left the hospital. Instead, joy was taken from me, and I didn’t have the strength to do all the things I should have done.

It may seem strange to get this upset by the death of a friend. I may not have written enough about Travis to give people an understanding of how close we were. I would feel bad if any of my friends died, but Travis was like a family member.

This morning I asked God for joy. It appears it worked. I got the pool in order and mowed the yard, and had the lawn tractor behaved, I would have gotten more done.

I’m coming back to life, and I guess most of the world feels the same way. COVID-19 is going away. Leftists are unhappy about it, because they think the disease will put Biden in the White House, but it’s happening. People are going to work. We can’t play hooky forever.

Leftists say there will be a huge second wave. If that’s true, where is it? Right now, the epidemic is disappearing in places that reopened, and areas that are locked down continue to have problems. Reopened areas are not getting second waves, but locked-down areas seem to be prolonging the first one.

If there’s going to be a second wave, why hasn’t China had one?

Right now, the main reason the numbers look as bad as they do is the local epidemic in Brazil. I don’t know if they got the bug later than the rest of us or what, but their figures are very bad. The numbers keep rising. The other major nations are doing great.

I am determined to keep cutting back on looking at the news, but I still see things. I saw that leftists were going after Trump for using hydroxychloroquine, the quinine substitute some countries use to treat covid. They’re furious at him for taking it. They keep citing studies which suggest it doesn’t work. They don’t seem interested in the opinions of competent doctors who think it does.

Why do they care what he takes? What possible reason could they have for objecting? These are the same people who think we should all be able to get marijuana prescriptions for anxiety. Not just marijuana, but cigarette marijuana which damages lungs and gives off secondhand smoke. They think drugs should be legalized. All except one, I guess.

They excoriated Trump for not wearing a mask. They wanted him to wear something they thought would protect him, even though they certainly did not want him to be protected. Now he’s doing something to protect himself, and they’re angry about that.

One of the great things about Trump is that he knows it makes no difference at all what he says or does. When he goes against the left, they pour vitriol over him. When he does what they want, the response is the same. The result: he pays no attention. He actually needles them to make it worse. Needling people is a vice, but it shows how little their raving bothers him. I think he enjoys it.

Trump gets annoyed in the short term, but you can tell he forgets all about it 15 minutes later. I guess that’s why his blood pressure is good.

Leftists are all over the web saying Trump lied when he said the White House physician gave him the drug. The physician had to write a note, correcting them. He took responsibility and endorsed the use of hydrochloroquinine in Trump’s case. I wonder what they’re saying now. They’re probably calling him a quack.

Maybe they’re saying the note is forged.

Watching Trump reminds me of my own experiences. God knew before I was born that I belonged to him. Whatever my faults were, I was not cut out to be a child of darkness. No matter how much I tried to fit into the body of Satan, I couldn’t do it. I was always rejected, trolled, and mistreated. I have often wondered why people constantly popped up to attack me. I didn’t always know my status as a child of God was the reason.

What Trump goes through is very similar. There is absolutely no way to make the people who hate him happy. They will never make peace, admit fault, or forgive.

Sooner or later, you have to quit worrying about being liked. Jesus never worried about it. He said incredibly harsh things to people. He was extremely rude. I don’t think Christians should make rudeness a goal, but we ought to be truthful. We should lead instead of following.

I just read a book by Anthony Bourdain, the chef who died by his own hand in France two years ago. People said it was suicide, but he was found alone in a bathroom, hanging, and Bourdain was a lover of the pleasures of the flesh.

He was a wonderful writer. His book is very entertaining.

As I read, the thing that struck me about Bourdain was that he was the perfect child of darkness. He was a complete follower. He accepted every vice you can think of. He devoured the corrupt ethos of the people around him like a starving dog on a bowl of chicken livers. I don’t think he ever had an original thought, and maybe that’s why he was not a great chef. Running a kitchen well is only part of being a great chef. You also have to be creative. Bourdain was not. He admitted he was a very ordinary chef.

His description of culinary professionals is revolting. According to him, big-city kitchens are full of sexual deviants, criminals, drug addicts, alcoholics, men who molest other men on the job, thieves, and liars. They are astonishingly nasty to each other. They hurl filthy insults at each other all day. They brutalize each other physically. They enjoy abusing and breaking each other.

Bourdain wrote about this atmosphere with tremendous enthusiasm. He couldn’t get enough of it. He savored it and wallowed in it. When he was a newcomer, he saw how vile older cooking professionals were, and instead of choosing another job, he was filled with drive to become like them. It’s as though they were father figures and he was trying to live up to their debased standard in order to prove something to himself.

He was like a kid who went to a “scared straight” program and thought, “THESE ARE MY PEOPLE!”, and did his best to go to prison.

He was a man of the earth. No doubt about it. He was programmed to go to hell. He was made for it. Hell fits him like a bespoke suit. He was Jewish, which means he was descended from Abraham, but he preferred the other side.

When I say hell fits him, I don’t mean he’s not likable. He is. But he lived like a joyous pig rolling in week-old garbage. I don’t think anything could have changed his attitude. Depravity and misery brought him pleasure. He could never have turned to God, because righteousness appalled him.

There are two families on earth, and only two, and every person belongs to one of them.

When people die, they go exactly where they belong. There is no injustice to it. God may not have created hell for people, but plenty of people fit in beautifully there.

As the decline of the world accelerates, we’re going to see huge numbers of people ganging up on God, Christians, Jews, and Israel. They will be more and more direct and bold in their attacks on God himself. We’re going to marvel at them, and many of us will feel that we have to do something. We’ll think something must be wrong because so many people are competing to get into hell. Nothing will be wrong. We’ll be seeing people who belong in hell, establishing their credentials.

I don’t mean we shouldn’t love them or hurt for them. I’m just saying we’ll be seeing something that makes perfect sense.

We’ll be seeing the Bourdain mindset, sweeping over multitudes.

That was quite a digression, but I won’t delete it.

I feel as if COVID-19 were a sorting mechanism, like a cream separator. It’s doing a great deal to divide people into pro-God and anti-God factions. I don’t think the world will be the same afterward. Some people think masks and social distancing will be the big changes. I don’t think so. I think covid is pushing many, many people into the arms of the Beast. It’s teaching them to cling to the government nipple, trust the state without reserve, and jettison their rights as though they were dirty diapers. It seems like far fewer people are being driven in the opposite direction.

I suspect the main changes will be in people’s attitudes toward governments, rights, God, and those who believe in God.

If we’re really getting close to the end, we should expect all the signs Jesus spoke of. We already have one very strong sign. He said it would be as the days of Lot and the days of Noah. Perversion and wickedness abounded in those days. Genesis said a homosexual rape mob in Sodom tried to violate two angels.

Luke 21 contains the description Jesus gave of the end times. It looks like a lot of the things that have to come to pass haven’t transpired yet. It looks like the rapture can’t come this week or this year, but next year can’t be ruled out.

Enough of that. I’m glad I’m feeling more like getting things done.

Anything Worth Thinking About is Worth Overthinking

I don’t feel like being responsible just yet. I think I’ll write about some trivial things.

My reloading efforts ran into a speed bump. I have been trying to create 10mm cartridges with 180-grain Speer Gold Dot bullets, and I want 1225 fps from a compact Glock.

This should be simple. I did it about 10 years ago. I may get scolded for saying this, but I still carry that ammunition. There are people who are afraid of old ammunition, but in reality, it’s extremely stable. You can put it in on a shelf and shoot it 75 years later with no problems, if you can still hold a gun. It’s common to buy military surplus ammunition which is decades old.

I suppose you have to be concerned if you walk around in wet clothes a lot, but that isn’t me.

Yesterday, I fired a few rounds of my old ammunition. Zero issues. The gun itself is the weak link. It appears that lint from my holster and clothing have the potential to gum up the firing pin.

When you make your own ammunition, if you want to do it right and know what kind of velocity you’ll get, you need to know how much powder is in each casing. To do this, you need a good scale. It has to measure accurately within +/- 0.05 grains, and a grain is around 1/15 of a gram, so you’re shooting for about a 1/150-gram interval. That’s between 6 and 7 milligrams, isn’t it? Check my math.

Precision isn’t very important for moderate loads, but when you start going for more velocity, you risk blowing up cases, so you need to be more precise.

I had a Lyman digital scale, and I learned that it couldn’t be trusted. I bought a second digital scale, and I found out the resolution was 100% too big. Now I have an old RCBS beam scale. Can I trust it? Sort of. I use check weights to set it, but I don’t know how good the check weights are. I ordered better ones. I think what I have is fine, however. I’ll find out after the new weights arrive.

I got around the problem with the first digital scale by weighing two charges at once and dividing by two. I figured the powder measure was pretty consistent, and I had reasonable faith in the digital scale. I started getting 24.0-grain double charges, and I wanted 12.0 grains per cartridge, so things looked great. I made several test rounds, and they came in between 1200 and 1250 fps. Perfect.

Then I let the process sit for a few days, and before starting up again, I checked the powder measure on the beam scale. I got 11.8 grains. I guessed I had weighed the successful rounds incorrectly and that the 11.8-grain figure was accurate. I had to find out. I didn’t want to adjust the powder measure, use 12.0 rounds, and end up with 1300 fps. I made some 11.8-grain test rounds and fired them. I got velocities in the area of 1100 fps. Terrible.

Somehow, the powder measure had started throwing 11.8-grain charges, and I had to start calibrating it all over again.

On the up side, it looks like my digital scale was right. I checked some new double charges, and I got 23.6 grains if memory serves.

Why would the powder measure shift? No idea.

The check weights aren’t slated to arrive until Tuesday, so it would be stupid to go ahead and make defensive ammunition before they arrive. What do I do?

I think it’s time to crank out .45 target ammunition. I don’t really care if I know how much powder is in a target round, as long as I know the amount is safe. I have a bunch of old .45 brass and a fresh box of lead bullets.

After I typed the word “bullets,” I had to go take care of a tax matter, and while I was working on it, I heard and felt a loud thump. It was as though a truck had hit the house. I went outside and saw that the big oak in my parking circle had lost a fork. It was lying across the driveway. Had to go out, cut it up, and move it. It’s a beautiful day for working outside. It’s warm, but it’s dry, and there is a good breeze. While I was at it, I went to the pasture and moved some tree chunks from Hurricane Irma so the cattle wouldn’t have to keep walking around them.

I’m glad the oak lost a big branch, because the oak needs to be cut, and this will make it easier. A tree cutter quoted me $1000, which didn’t include hauling the wood. That’s insane. It’s a 30-minute job for him. For $500, I would have taken his offer, but $1000 is not going to work.

The smaller the tree is, the easier it will be for me to cut it myself. I hope more of it falls.

The tree is leaning, and the danger is that it will “barber chair” or split before it falls. If that happens, a part that splits off can swing around and kill me. I have read that you can prevent this by putting chains around the trunk. If it can’t split, you can’t have a barber chair.

To get back to shooting, I have to do something with the ammo I’m creating. I have very few factory-made ammunition boxes. When I used to go to gun ranges, I took cardboard ammo boxes out of the trash cans. They work pretty well, but they don’t last forever, and they fall open if you’re not careful. And the only range I go to is in my yard.

I decided to get some Harbor Freight ammo cans. These are sturdy plastic hinged cans. Like miniature plastic versions of the steel military cans, sort of. My plan is to throw ammo into them for storage, and when I want to shoot, I’ll move it to small plastic boxes with grids inside them. These boxes are made by a company called MTM. I already have some.

When I’m shooting, I like to know how many rounds I’ve used, and I don’t like to count. A box with a grid inside it will do the counting for me, and it will be lighter than a Harbor Freight box with hundreds of cartridges in it.

I’m getting a new chronograph. The Chrony F-1 I have now works fine, and it was a good choice when I only shot a few times a year. Now that I shoot more, it’s a drag. It has a display which attaches via an 18-foot cable. Attaching that to the chronograph and settling it firmly in the utility cart is a pain. I don’t like having to suspend the cable over old cow piles. The chronograph stores data, but it has some kind of primitive 1980’s-style interface for getting the data out. I don’t even know how it works. When I read about it, it was so unappealing, I decided I didn’t care to learn the details.

With my old chronograph, I had to shoot, stop, enter a number into my phone, shoot again, and so on. I’m all done with that.

Also, the company that makes the Chrony F-1 has an extremely backward website. They don’t have an online shopping cart. You have to email orders. On top of that, it looks like they don’t respond. I sent an order for parts the other day, and I haven’t heard a word. There is no conceivable excuse for doing business that way in 2020.

The chronograph has light diffusers which are held on by steel rods, and I shot one of the steel rods because I was twisting and contorting myself so I could shoot at a lower height. If you lose your steel rods, don’t buy new ones. Get some wooden ones. The diameter is 5/32″. The length is 18″. You can also order 5/32″ drill rod from Zoro Tools, which is what I have done. No idea whether the Chrony people are going to send anything.

I’m getting a newer model from a company called Competition Electronics. It has a bluetooth connection, and there is a phone app. You shoot as fast as you want, and the machine sends the velocities to your phone. I believe the app gives averages and standard deviations. Not sure. Anyway, it will be a big improvement. I should be able to use a Fire tablet instead of the phone.

I had been putting the Chrony on the same cheap tripod I use for cameras. That will not be necessary any more. I got myself an Amazon Basics tripod. Not having to remove my camera and attach the chronograph will speed things up, and it will certainly make it easier to shoot bullets and footage simultaneously.

It’s funny that we still say “footage” now that there are no feet involved in video.

I suppose it’s too late to drive to Harbor Freight. Gives me something to look forward to tomorrow.