Stick This in Your Brain

Someone was asking for a dolphin recipe. I’ll tell you what I like to do with these tasty fish. I adapted the traditional Cuban recipe for fried snapper. Hmm…might as well give you that first. It’s called “pargo entero,” or “whole snapper.”

Take a whole snapper. Clean it. Scale it and remove all the pointy bits. Cut the head and tail off if you want. Make a series of slashes from top to bottom on each side about an inch apart, down to the bone. You can slant them toward the back of the fish as you go down, if you think it looks prettier.

Egg white will make everything stick better, so apply it if you like. Rub salt and crushed garlic into the fish. Pepper too, if you want. Now cover it with cracker meal and fry it in hot oil. Peanut oil is standard. Some people mix parmesan cheese into the meal, but it can burn. Get the fish nice and brown.

Dolphin are bigger than most snapper. For a big fish, you make fingers, which are strips about as big around as a finger. It will be better if you throw out the dark meat. If you do this with a snapper or small grouper, you don’t have to skin it. Don’t eat dolphin skin.

I serve this with lime wedges and tartar sauce. Wonderful.

Deep-frying is best. If you have a turkey fryer with a basket, go for it. Otherwise, pan-fry with enough oil to cover the fish halfway.

Church was wonderful yesterday, as usual. I couldn’t go on Saturday, so I was really ready. I got there earlier than usual. I’m always amazed at the quality of the music. I don’t know where they find these people.

They’re still teaching about Philippians 4:8, which is all about keeping your mind on good things. I made up a mnemonic for the NIV version. “PPLANTER.”

Pure
Praiseworthy
Lovely
Admirable
Noble
True
Excellent
Right

The key is to remember that P is the double letter. You’ll go crazy if you get confused and try to think up two R words.

One of the associate pastors talked yesterday. One of the things he talked about was the problems men face with lust. That’s a tough one, because these days, most women think it’s appropriate to dress and behave provocatively, even at work. Somehow we have turned that into a virtue. Women don’t understand the male mind; if they did, they’d realize what a stupid strategy this is. It leads to problems for both sexes.

He talked about the difficulties men face in certain situations, such as beach outings and web surfing. He said sometimes the best thing is to take a break from the Internet. That’s a great idea. You can’t be tempted if you’re not online. When I got home yesterday, I decided to take his advice. I’ve been overdoing the Internet, so it seemed like a good move. I didn’t turn the computer on once, and I didn’t miss it. I had a very relaxing day, and it was productive as a Sabbath. I got out my Complete Jewish Bible and went through Philippians, Ephesians, Colossians, and some other stuff, making notes in the margins.

Ephesians is very useful. Christians don’t have a clearly defined set of laws to follow, but this book lays out very good guidelines for our behavior. Chapters 4 through 6 will save you a lot of page-flipping. I guess I could make a simple list of the guidelines this book provides. You don’t always have to read the text itself to get the benefit.

The Internet is loaded with temptation, and lust is only part of it. Internet rage is a real problem; Christians are not supposed to be angry and abusive, but try blogging or joining forums, and you’ll see how hard it can be to avoid getting drawn into the corrosive spirit. Then there is gossip. Some of the biggest websites are proudly devoted to it, and it can cause you real problems. The ancient Jews believed it caused houses to literally rot. The “leprosy” referred to in the Bible was not always a human disease. Sometimes the word “leprosy” is used to describe this rot. And how about covetousness? Internet shopping is a fantastic resource, but a lot of people abuse it. It has helped me get into a number of rewarding hobbies, but from time to time I’ve bought things that were pretty stupid, and some people shop just to fill time. Worse, they buy on credit, spending money they haven’t earned yet.

I have a rule about shutting down the PC at 8 p.m. I am not doing a great job of following it, but I’m going to buckle down and get serious. At that time, I should be spending time with my birds or doing something else of value. I’ve been getting to bed early for a long time now, on the theory that nothing I need to be involved in happens after ten o’clock, and I’ve been proven right. Abandoning the web in the early evening is also a good idea. I should quit even earlier.

I suppose it would be a violation of Philippians 4:8 to fail to point out the positive things about the Internet. Let’s see.

1. Biblegateway.com and other sites let you browse your favorite version of the Bible online. That’s very useful, and because you can cut and paste, it helps you share what you find with others.

2. It’s easy to donate to charities online. I have a list in my sidebar. Two favorites: World Vision and The International Fellowship of Christians and Jews. World Vision will let you choose the gift you give, and they’re not all temporary fixes. You can give things like giving pigs or fruit trees to poor families in Africa. Or vaccinations. Right now, they have a deal where you can donate money for medical machinery and get matching funds to multiply your cash by 14. The IFCJ will move a Jew to Israel from a place like Ethiopia or the former USSR, for $350. You can change someone’s life permanently for a relatively small amount of money. You can save up until you’re ready, or you can partner with friends. You may have doubts about giving people temporary handouts, but when you move someone to Israel, it sticks.

3. A number of ministries have sites where you can download podcasts and videos. Perry Stone has all his TV shows online, if you’re a prophecy buff. Try Voice of Evangelism. And there’s a big site with tons of canned sermons from various people: Sermonaudio.com.

And of course, there are places where you can go to get prayer. Oddly, this site has become one of them.

I got a little out of hand while I was trying to learn about and acquire machine tools. I had to spend a lot of time looking things up and asking questions. It got me in the habit of spending too much time online; I just realized this yesterday. Now I’m more up to speed, so there is no reason to sit glued to the monitor all day.

Hope you find this helpful.

Another Score

The fishing was great today, although we didn’t make enough of an effort to take advantage. We hit two schools of dolphin in about 2200 feet of water. The first bunch was small. The second were bigger. We weren’t really prepared to deal with a school, so we only boated a few. Val was the only guest, so I didn’t consider it a serious outing.

Here’s the end result:

Got home from sweating on a hot boat…to find that the air conditioning was on the fritz. Man, that hurt. I was really looking forward to hitting that cold air when I walked in, but it wasn’t there. Got a guy coming to look at it. I’m hoping it’s the capacitor on the compressor again. Not sure why they only go out on Saturday.

Other than that, phenomenal day.

Outing Planned

We’re fishing again tomorrow! Looks like Val will be on hand, and he might bring fellow Babalu member Henry Gomez.

The wind is not making me happy. To catch dolphin, you want an east wind. If you can’t get an east wind, you at least want to avoid a west wind. Somehow, the fish know. And one report says the wind may blow from the south-southwest in the morning. That’s almost west.

I consider it a boat ride with my dad and friends. I am too old and fat to do a good job of fishing. I can do a fine job in a small boat by myself, but when you add one or two more people, it’s just too much. No one knows how to rig baits or tie hooks on, so I run in circles all the time, helping everyone else. If something goes wrong with the boat, that goes on my plate, too. So these days I don’t really worry about catching anything. I hope we do, but not enough to pass out from heat stroke.

It’s great to spend time out there with my father. We missed a lot of opportunities when I was a kid. It’s surprising how well you can erase memories like that by doing things together later in life.

Both Cancer

Got two fresh prayer requests. I can’t believe I’m developing a reputation for taking these. Actually, one isn’t that fresh. I neglected a few emails over the last week.

1. A while back, reader Ruth requested prayer for someone named Sarah. You can see the post here. Sarah has breast cancer, and it has invaded her brain. She is not a Christian. Her mother asked for prayer for healing and salvation. Here is part of a recent report:

Sarah is doing good for her condition. She has cancer in the brain which they are treating first. She has started wearing her wig. Her companion is still with her and supporting her. L___ S____has had a fund raising campaign, you may have seen it in the Pilot, to send the family on a dream vacation. She has a doctor that is loving and encouraging. In his words “There are three types of healing, medical healing, miracle healing, and the healing of death.” He has been very straight forward with here but offers encouragement. Asked her if she would like him to meet with her kids, which she did. For someone without insurance, things are going very well. Still a very sad situation.

2. Second, the father-in-law of a friend of mine has some cancerous skin lesions. I don’t know what type, but he is asking for prayer. Generally, you don’t have to worry much unless you have a melanoma and you don’t jump on it right away, but it’s possible to have real problems with basal and squamous cell cancers. I think his name is Carlos, but I asked for confirmation. New information: Gilbert.

That’s it.

Guy from a machining forum sent me some steel, and it arrived today. I may try threading! I can’t wait! Even though it’s a pretty unimpressive thing to do.

You Can’t Eat Bullets

I have new hope that the hoarders are running out of money. I’m only guessing, but I have three indications. First, Classic Arms says business is slow, and they have Wolf ammunition for sale. Second, Natchez Shooter’s Supply has 9mm and .40 S&W at near-normal prices. Third, Outdoor Marksman is starting to build up a good supply of 9mm.

I’m really peeved, because it looks like someone snapped up all the cheap Swiss K31 ammunition from Outdoor Marksman and Dan’s Ammo. Now it’s appearing on Gunbroker, the biggest ripoff site in the universe. I thought I had plenty of time to get more. And there is no 7.62 surplus sniper ammunition anywhere.

I should go ahead and sell the K31. It was fun, but I’m not going to pay $2 a round to shoot a $200 gun. I can get equal accuracy in a Savage .308 and make my own ammunition much cheaper. The PSL was a pleasure to shoot when quality sniper ammunition was dirt cheap, but once the financial advantage is gone, it’s just a bulky, temperamental gun that isn’t all that accurate.

I think the people who cornered the market are going to regret it. The boom is going to bust, and then they’ll have to decide whether they want to sell at a loss or live in homes so cluttered with ammunition they can’t walk.

The price of copper has dropped something like 40%, and with a depression or very deep recession likely, it will probably be even lower next year. I know Obama’s handouts are masking our problems, but like I always say, borrowing against future taxpayer earnings to pump up the economy is like eating your own leg. You’ll stay alive, and you may feel better, but you won’t gain weight.

Put Away the Umbrella

I have kind of an odd prayer request for you today.

Yesterday I got my hair cut. My barber asked if I had read about his brother in the paper. He showed me a newspaper article about a guy who looked a little bit like him. I assumed he was kidding about this guy being his brother. The man in the story had lost 300,000 pounds of live coral to thieves.

It really was his brother. And this is a big deal. As it was explained to me, aquarists pay $8.00 per pound for live coral, and people who sell it keep it offshore in federal waters, on bits of sea bottom that are allotted to them. He had been cultivating this stuff for five years, and now it’s gone, and it’s the end of his business unless it’s recovered.

At first, I thought it was a joke, but it’s not. It’s terrible. So maybe some of you will join me in praying the coral is found and returned, and that these two brothers will credit God with it and turn to him.

Also, I am pleased to report that my campaign of psalm memorization goes well. I’ll give you the list of psalms I’ve managed to master: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 15, 23, 34, 37, 41, 63, 101, and 141. I’m about to wrap up Psalm 9. You probably thought I wouldn’t follow through with this. I admit, I have missed more than a few days, but I’m doing okay.

It’s wonderful to know this stuff. In the Bible, God promises things, and he gives us guidance, and he warns us about problems we may encounter or cause. It’s all as fresh and relevant today as it was in ancient times. Much of this material is expressed in the psalms, so if you memorize them, you come to understand what God will do for you and what you have to do for him. That brings power into your life. The Bible is like the Constitution. If you don’t know what’s in it, you may fail to get the benefits it confers on you. If you do know it, you can have faith in God’s promises, causing them to be fulfilled, and you can avoid provoking him.

Over and over, I am startled by the good things God does for me, and the way my prayers are answered. It’s funny, but he often does exactly what I ask, and I’m so conditioned to expect the neglect and punishment I deserve, it takes me a while to realize a prayer has been granted. Even when God gives you precisely what you ask for, you can fail to see it unless you’re paying attention.

A few weeks back, I started feeling that, at last, I was walking in God’s blessings. My family has always been under a curse, and I’m very accustomed to it, but lately I have felt my back straightening up. I have started to feel that it’s safe to be less defensive and to expect good things. It’s not an easy thing to face. After you’ve spent several decades being blindsided and cheated and sandbagged, it’s hard to stop bracing yourself as though waiting for a storm to pass.

It can bring tears to your eyes when you see God turning toward you and coming through for you, after half a lifetime of losing when it seemed you should win. I guess this is how a person would feel after being healed of paralysis or blindness. It overloads your understanding.

To me, winning doesn’t mean great riches or earthly power. It certainly doesn’t mean fame. I want a family that works. I want to succeed at the things I do. I want health and reasonable prosperity. I want to have hope and confidence. I want a little purity in my life. And contentment. I believe God wants all these things for the vast majority of us, and that we can get them through faith and obedience. If there is a lack in your life that you just can’t get God to fill, it must mean there’s a blessing that will come from it.

I am conscious of things I need to do in my own life, to help the blessings flow. I have to watch out for self-righteousness, which can take the form of scorn or schadenfreude. I have to be as patient and forgiving with others as I want God to be with me. I have to squelch lust. The Internet is a minefield, in that regard. Even well-meaning people I know will sometimes send funny emails featuring naked women. Before the Internet, that kind of thing really was not part of my life. It’s amazing how the web funnels sins like lust and gambling and hate into our lives.

I can’t expect things to continue to improve unless I continue to improve. That’s the bottom line.

I remember my trip to Israel, back in the Eighties. It was such an odd thing; a Gentile whose life was falling apart, being drawn across the Atlantic to spend four months in the Holy Land. From the minute I left Kentucky until I stepped off the return flight in New York, I felt as though God’s hand was guiding me. I was an even worse Christian then than I am now, but it was as if he knew this was important, as groundwork for something later in life.

I did things wrong. I arrived on a Friday. I didn’t tell Aaron I was coming. He was in Jerusalem, and I ended up on his former kibbutz near Afula. Then back to Jerusalem, where I sat in on yeshiva lectures–where I located Aaron by spotting his horrendous plaid boxers hanging on a clothesline. Then four months on the kibbutz next to his. Working in the grapefruit fields. Chicken houses. Date groves. Almonds. Sleeping on Masada; weekends in Jerusalem. Having a vision on the kibbutz. Witnessing strange behavior from people who seemed to have their strings pulled by spirits.

I was alone, but it was like a guided tour. I trusted God to lead me around and take care of me, and he did. And then I got home, and his guidance seemed to be gone. I tried to get it back by joining a church a few years later, but I got offended by prosperity theology and quit. Then I became a realtor. A college student. A grad student in physics. A law student. A lawyer. A writer. After 911 I began praying regularly, and after a few years, I found that God was willing to guide me again. Now I attend church. I participate in charity. Old sores are healing. New doors are opening. I feel like I’ve picked up the thread I dropped when I left Israel.

I wish I could tell other people how to get this, but I know I’m not ready or worthy to do it, and I know almost no one listens. I certainly didn’t. I was terrified that I’d become a fanatic and sabotage whatever progress I had made in the secular world. I guess I’ve done that, but none of that really belonged to me anyway. It was just bait, to keep me off track. “Vanity,” the Bible calls it. “Leasing.” Nothing I could claim as an eternal asset, or which could not be taken away from me by my enemies. The one you serve in order to get things can usually take them away when you stop serving him.

It’s working. That much, I can tell you. I hope what I write here will help some of you maintain or renew your enthusiasm.

Crack is Cheaper

One of the frustrating things about trying to learn machining is the constant search for cheap metal. You would think metal would be inexpensive, given the low prices of many large metal objects. But you would be wrong. Seems like metal is the only thing that loses value after you use it to make something.

I’ll give you an example of the kind of problem I’ve come up against. I wanted to make some brass knobs for a bathroom cabinet. The best size brass cylinder for my purposes is about 1.5″ in diameter. I need four knobs, so a foot of brass is a good safe amount, to allow for waste and leave a little extra for chucking. Let’s check Onlinemetals.com.

For 360 free-machining brass, which is a brass machinists like a lot, the cost is over forty bucks, before shipping. Add shipping, and it’s over $53.00.

Now, what do knobs cost at Home Depot? I don’t know. But less than $53.00 for four. Granted, you get way less metal, and it’s probably the worst metal available. Still, it takes some of the fun out of making the knobs for myself.

You can do better on Ebay, right? Wrong. Well, okay. Right. But not a whole lot better. Ebay used to be a true flea market, packed with finds. Now, many of the sellers are ordinary retailers who charge near-retail prices. This includes the metal dealers. So it ain’t that great.

Luckily for me, I found a guy who is liquidating the inventory of an aircraft business. Up side: cheap metal, cheap shipping. Down side: metal very weird.

There are certain metals machinists use all the time, like 12L14 steel, T6 aluminum alloys, and the brass mentioned above. Then there are metals from Mars, like “Greek ascoloy,” “Inconel,” 660 stainless, and “Waspaloy.” The liquidation dude has lots of this stuff. If you want to buy from this guy, you have to spend forty minutes Googling each alloy to find out what it is.

I got some good stuff from him. A little tool steel, some stainless, and a mysterious round bar which might make a good tool holder, provided I can machine it. But by the time I found him, the really useful items were gone.

I also found a metal dealer that sells drops. These are like carpet remnants. Example: somebody who makes locomotives orders x hundred feet of mild steel 3″ by 3″ bar, and you buy the remaining 16 inches cheap. You can save maybe two-thirds of the ordinary price. You get dinged on shipping, but if you order a large amount, it still pays off handsomely. I got some mild steel I hope to cut into lathe tool holders, plus the brass I wanted. Plus something else I do not recall.

People say, “Go to the local scrap yards and ask if they sell drops.” I guess I can do that. I already put in a word at a boatyard. But Miami metal dealers don’t seem all that interested in that kind of business. They sell new metal cut to order, and they buy scrap, but if they are letting people come in to wander around and look for goodies, they are definitely doing a bad job of advertising it.

One nice thing about joining forums is that forum members help each other out. I bought a drill chuck with a useless taper in it, and it turned out another guy needed that kind of taper, so I sent it to him for nothing. He’s going to send a mystery package in return. Another member offered to send me some steel rods for nothing, as long as I paid shipping.

So now I will have the beginnings of a useful scrap pile. I won’t be totally helpless.

Steel rod suitable for turning and threading is not readily available around here. A reader recommended a local dealer to me, and they’re great for angle iron and aluminum rod, but they had no idea what leaded steel was. Seriously. Did not know what it was. I had a dowel I got from Home Depot for a welding project, and I tried turning it, and wow, is it lame. Imaging trying to turn cold cheddar cheese in a lathe. The tool jumps. The metal tears. The finish is horrendous. Cutting fluid made no difference. So I guess I can forget Home Depot for turning stock, even in emergencies.

I was using a round-nose tool I made myself, intended mainly for finishing things I make using cobalt. A round-nose tool with a big radius gives a better finish than a pointy cobalt tool. I tried it on the Home Depot dowel, hoping to create a surface I could use as a basis for threading. Upon witnessing the cheese effect, I concluded that I make really bad tools. Then I chucked a piece of aluminum and tried it, and the finish was beautiful. It shocked me. So it’s not me; it’s the metal. Fine for welding. Useless for turning.

I’m keeping an eye on Craigslist. Sometimes a liquidation takes place.

Can you do anything useful with machine tools? Sure. Here’s a link someone just sent me. A guy made a 1/6-scale Chevy 327 that runs. The perfect thing to have on hand when Stuart Little goes through puberty. Or it would make a great power source for a blender.

“At the Age of Nine, I Realized Wrestling Alligators was More Than a Casual Hobby…”

I have been finishing up my 2011 continuing legal education obligation. It’s a tough ordeal. There are hard choices.

The way CLE works is like this. Other lawyers cover part of their own requirement by performing in CLE lectures, and then the Florida Bar charges you insane amounts of money to watch them. The cost for this stuff is outrageous. You need 30 hours, and one hour can cost $40. There is other CLE out there. Why not use it? Because the bar places its videos in courthouse libraries. I’m not sure why they charge $1200 if you buy it, while sending it to libraries that give it away, but hey, it’s government in action.

To make matters worse, you can’t order 30 hours. You have to take it in chunks. If you take three courses, and the closest you can come to 30 hours is 34 hours, tough. Consider the extra money a donation.

You can find very short, cheap courses to pad the list. This is very helpful. The bar has a one-hour online ethics program for nothing. That will put me within half an hour of my goal.

Guess what I’m choosing to fill that half hour? It’s gut-wrenching. They offer a $35, 23-minute “historical video” about…Janet Reno. The woman who presided over Dade County’s criminal justice system when you could hardly walk out to get your newspaper without getting shot. The lady who was responsible for Waco.

I don’t care. It’s SHORT. The other ones are an hour long. That’s just too much. And a lot of them are about liberal judges. They would just give me ulcers.

This stuff is nearly worthless. When I practice, I don’t rely on superficial videos. I research until I am convinced I can’t be bitten in the rear end by ignorance. There is no comparison. Any lawyer who relies on CLE in a lawsuit deserves to be sued into the dirt. I hope no such person exists. And if you don’t know this stuff from your own research and simply from talking to the lawyers you work with, you should probably turn in your license.

Maybe the ethics stuff is useful. After all, what lawyer, in the course of his practice, researches the counterintuitive and seemingly capricious reasons the bar uses to punish its members? CLE taught me that you can actually be disbarred for rudeness; I would never have guessed that from what I’ve seen. Most lawyers behave just fine, but jerks are not rare.

I’ve noticed a difference between doctors and lawyers. Maybe I’m wrong; I don’t know too much about medical education. Lawyers almost automatically lionize any low-life bottom-feeder who makes money in tort cases. If you win lawsuits and make big money, you are considered worthy to teach other lawyers. I don’t think doctors idolize other doctors just because they’re rich. I’m pretty sure a doctor has to be good at what he does in order to be asked to teach. You don’t have to be a great lawyer to make money; aggression, narcissism, and a strong stomach will take you a long way.

I did a few tort cases when I worked with my dad, but I don’t think we would have gotten rich from it, had we continued. The reason is that we automatically turned down unsound cases. That’s no way to build a tort practice. Tort lawyers don’t just make money from winning good cases. They make money scaring innocent defendants with bad cases. Like I heard a lawyer say in a CLE recording today, these days, a trial lawyer is lucky if he does two or three trials a year. Most cases are settled. And a really bad case will often get you some “get lost” money.

I had a case where I told the client to go away, as soon as I learned he was lying to me about what happened to him. I could have held on and tried to squeeze cash out of the defendant; it was a losing case, but they would probably have paid me several thousand dollars, in order to avoid paying more money to their own lawyer. As John Edwards demonstrates, not every tort lawyer cares whether a case is well grounded.

I can’t believe I’m going to pay to watch Janet Reno. I may need to spend a little extra. On a pint of tequila, to get me through it.

Fish Fotos

Got some more photos from last weekend’s fishing trip. Note my stylish boating garb.

Even I Can do Better Than a Computer

Will someone please get Speed Date out of my life?

I have a Facebook account; don’t ask me why. I log in about once a month. Facebook has weird features called “apps” that help people annoy each other. One is called “Speed Date.” I do not understand how it works, but somehow I got signed up for it, and it likes to send me possible matches in the Miami area.

You can probably imagine how eager I am to make use of this information. If there is anything worse than an unsuitable woman you choose for yourself because you have no judgment, it’s an unsuitable woman a computer chooses for you, based on variables chosen at random, by the kind of well-adjusted males who work in the IT industry. Today’s menu item: Stestesteph. She lives in Miami and is 99 years old. I am quite sure she has been vetted thoroughly.

I keep getting these annoying matches in my email box. I thought I had deleted this “app,” but it still popped up today. I killed it again. We’ll see if it took. I killed a bunch of my apps. I was tired of waking up in the morning and finding 15 emails saying people I don’t really know had TAKEN THE “WHAT’S YOUR FAVORITE DECONGESTANT” QUIZ or whatever.

It’s nice to sort of get to know people online, but the truth is, I don’t care what movies you like or whether your imaginary zombie can beat up my imaginary zombie. And I find it a little creepy when another man “Superpokes” me.

I got a couple of questionable friend requests recently, purportedly from women. One was from an English blond. In her Facebook photo, she wore a white tube top with nothing underneath. Am I a bad person for suspecting this is actually a fat guy who runs a phone sex business? Probably a grizzled Alexei Sayle lookalike who sends friend requests while lounging around in his living room, wearing only the kind of peculiar underwear European men think is normal.

Maybe it’s Alexei himself. I think times have been a little lean for him since “The Bride.”

The guys who pump out bogus Myspace and Facebook friend requests need to understand something. It has probably been 38 years since I realized that really attractive women rarely talk to me or even acknowledge my existence unless they want my money or, maybe, need me to throw water on them because they’re on fire. So when I get gushy friend requests from scantily clad girls named Brittnee or Suzee, I know immediately that I am being scammed.

If you want me to “friend” your imaginary girl, make her fiftyish and more than a little on the heavy side, and put a cat in the photo. Give her a wispy little moustache. Make her about as attractive as I am. I won’t call her for phone sex (or anything else), but I might think she’s real.

Oddly, drawing closer to God has made dealing with women less stressful, primarily by making 99% of them off-limits. I’m all done with non-Christians, and among Christians, I have no interest in the mainstream types who go to churches that preach homosexuality, watered-down Buddhism, and divestment from Israel. And since I don’t really know any women whose beliefs are compatible with mine, in practice, the pool has been reduced to a nice, relaxing zero. The big benefit there is that I get to treat women like men. I’ve often said that as far as I’m concerned, a married woman is a man; for me, she has about as much romantic potential as a hog. The more women you can exclude from your pool, the more women you can consider men. You don’t have to flirt or pretend they’re interesting. You don’t have to lend them money or do favors you wouldn’t do for men. You never have to dance or be subjected to dance music; that’s a huge blessing. You can dress comfortably and inexpensively. You can drive a plain white pickup truck with very few options. Seeing women this way really clarifies your thinking and streamlines your life.

It probably makes bad matches way less likely, too. The more you struggle to make yourself attractive, the less you are yourself. You can’t spend your whole life holding in your gut and pretending you care about whales and that you like Kenny G. I think you’re better off if the woman who chooses you (that’s how life really works) knows what she’s actually getting. And the marriage won’t be based on the sick, destructive idea that she is entitled to tell you what to be. In a relationship, the man is supposed to be the authority. How can you be in charge and do what’s right if you arrange your whole life to suit your partner’s highly dubious notions? If Adam were still alive, he’d have a lot to say about that.

I am wearing $15 cargo shorts and a $5 softball shirt I bought online. I buy lots of these shirts because they’re cheap and comfortable and reduce my sun exposure; I’d say I wear them four days out of every week. I’m about to go put on the great $39 tennis shoes I bought this weekend. I quit putting crap in my hair quite some time ago, and I threw out my stupid-looking upscale sunglasses, replacing them with polarized Ray-Ban aviators. My next car will be a cheap truck. I live in a fashionable city that attracts shallow people, but sooner or later I’m going to get out of here and get a place outside a town where there are still lots of peeling Bush stickers on the cars. At this point, if God wants me to have a wife, he is going to have to have an angel bring her to me tied to a handtruck.

If I pop up in your Speed Date emails, click “ignore.” It has to be a computer glitch.

Brass & Threading

Made myself a couple of new lathe tools. Not sure how well they’ll work.

I started with brass. I used 1/2″ HSS, and I just eyeballed it. I used the grinder and finished on a diamond stone. Here it is.

I wanted to make a tool for internal threading, so I needed a small piece of HSS to start with. I decided to use 1/4″ HSS with 10% cobalt. To get the angle, I put Dykem on the tool, clamped a fish to it, scribed outside of the fish, and ground to the lines. The Dykem turned brown from the heat. I had no idea that was coming. I had assumed it was made to stand up to heat.

Let me know if you see anything wrong with these.

The mill’s delivery date got pushed back a week. Imagine my shock. Should be here about a week from now.

That Felt Wrong

In an earlier post, I referred to a problem that made it impossible for me to drive to church, and I said there had to be a blessing in it. And I was right, so I’m going to blog it.

There was some kind of screwup with my insurance confirmation when I renewed my car tag this year. I didn’t find out about it until two months later. I couldn’t drive until I cleared it up.

I attacked the issue about nine different ways, faxing, calling, and emailing person who could conceivably help, in Tallahassee and also at the company that insures me. I was a bit crabby about it, although I did try to stifle it. You know how motor vehicle departments are. Draconian and perpetually wrong. And when they do wrong, sometimes you’re the one who gets punished.

Today a lady at the department called and said there was inaccurate information in my record. I’ve had a chronic problem with my car insurance failing to register in the records in Tallahassee, and judging from this lady’s remarks, the problem was worse than I knew. Even though I had cleared it up over and over, there were erroneous records of suspensions. This can affect the price you pay for insurance, and your ability to change companies. Knowing the incompetence of the credit bureaus, I would not be surprised if it can affect credit ratings.

I had my insurer fax the government approximately a ton of documents today, and soon this incredible nonsense will be off my record. I was inconvenienced for a couple of days, but something good came of it.

I should not have been grumpy with the government people. It serves no purpose, and in the end, they did much more for me than they had to. I always try to remember to be nice to low-level people who have to answer for problems they didn’t cause and/or can’t fix, but I fail sometimes, and it’s an ugly thing to do. Other people in my family have this habit, to a much worse degree than I do, and I am very aware of the pointless suffering it causes.

I was furious about this, but it looks like God’s hand was in it. So maybe I was angry at other human beings over something God put in motion to help me. That’s not good. That was stupid.

My life used to be under a curse. I don’t care how crazy I sound when I say that. It’s true. Things went wrong over and over, even when I did my best and deserved better. This insurance problem is a great example of the kind of thing that happened to me. I didn’t even know it had happened, and I had done everything right, and it should never have occurred. But there it was, waiting to jump out and bite me in the future.

These days I see the curses rising off my life. My existence is not like it used to be. It’s hard to get used to it–hard to trust it–because I’m so accustomed to being blindsided. I’ve done plenty of stupid things in my life, and I’ve caused problems for myself, but many, many things have gone wrong when the facts said they should go right. Not just little things. Important things.

According to what I have been taught, virtually anyone can receive salvation without a great deal of effort. But getting God to bless you in this life is another matter. You have to change what you do and what you think. Works and feelings are important. And you have to look back at your family and see the things your predecessors and contemporaries have done wrong, because in doing so, you will see that you do some of the same things, even if you don’t realize it. You have to repent. You have to ask to have curses removed. You can’t just sit in a pew once a week and expect things to be okay. That is my belief.

This is one reason Jesus told us to consider our own faults when rebuking others. It’s not that it’s wrong to point out other people’s failings. We’re required to do that sometimes. When we don’t tell people they’re doing wrong, and they continue, we share their guilt. The bigger point is that when you examine yourself, you find things you can repair, and if you do, you will be blessed. More and more, when I pray for other people to realize what they’re doing wrong and stop doing it, I find myself saying, “While you’re at it, please give me a dose of the same medicine.” I think that it you can’t ask God to give you what you ask him to give others, you are usually asking for the wrong thing.

This weekend I read about the story of Cornelius, in Acts 10. He was a Roman centurion. He worked for an empire that did a great deal of evil, including oppression, wholesale murder, and torture. He was a Gentile. But God noticed him because he prayed regularly and was generous to the Jewish poor. An angel came to him and told him as much. And he and members of his household became converts to Christianity without the usual Judaic background,and they were filled with the Holy Spirit. You can’t earn your place in God’s kingdom, but how you live and what you do still matters a great deal. You can attract curses and blessings. And if your ancestors attracted curses, you can expect some of them to befall you as well. People dispute this all the time, but the Bible is packed with examples, and so is my life, and I have seen it in the lives of others. They don’t just fall off the first time you enter a church. You have to put out an effort. When you do, the curses become gifts. The effort of working to undo them improves you and gives you power.

I am free to drive now. I might take the Harley out just because I can.

By the way, I started practicing the piano again. I quit because my memory was not adequate to allow me to remember the pieces I learned. That may have been caused by sleep deprivation, and now I sleep better. It may just be another example of something going wrong in spite of my own best efforts. It was exactly like many other failures I’ve experienced. Whatever the explanation is, my life is different now, so I’m giving it another shot. I’m going to practice sight-reading and nothing else. It’s supposed to be the best way to compensate for memory problems, and you can’t really understand music without it. We’ll see what happens.

Yesterday I bought a tin whistle, after listening to the Uillean pipes. I could not help myself.

In Case You’re Wondering

I’m a little creeped out.

When Mike came down here and we went to church together, the subject of the sermon was signs of the Rapture. I don’t get all that excited about the Rapture, because there is no reason to. You can’t do anything to stop it or make it happen. It causes a lot of venomous arguments, so talking about it isn’t much fun. And knowing it’s coming isn’t all that helpful. You should be ready, but how do you prepare? By living a good Christian life. Which is what you should be doing, regardless of whether the Rapture is coming. I don’t understand the fascination many Christians feel about this subject.

I figure the Rapture is probably real, based on the Biblical references to it. Some are pretty literal and some are prophetic hints. But I don’t have any plans to try to figure out when it’s coming, or to try to convince anyone what they should believe about it.

To get back to Mike, he came down here, and we went to church. And there were some odd “coincidences” surrounding that set of events.

First of all, the mother of one of his employees died while he was here, so he had to go to a Jewish funeral the day before he came to see me. At the funeral, the rabbi made references to “the fig tree,” and Mike started wondering what it was supposed to mean. Just curiosity; nothing beyond that.

The next day, he had to drive down from Delray, and he was supposed to have a meeting in downtown Miami before meeting me. He ran out of gas, which is ridiculously unlikely, and he had to meet the guy up in Miami Gardens. He then came down to see me. He didn’t mention the business about the fig tree.

We went to church, but we got there late because the information on the church’s website was wrong. We only got the last part of the sermon. Rich Wilkerson was telling us about ten signs of the Rapture, and we only got to hear one. I thought the sermon was a washout, and I had blown my chance to get Mike interested in church.

I wanted to get Pastor Wilkerson’s advice on a church for Mike, up near his home in DC. While we were leaving church, Pastor Wilkerson buttonholed us to say hi and so on, and before I could say anything, he recommended a church for Mike.

Mike wanted to talk about the service with me. He said we should find a place to sit down. He knew of a Dunkin’ Donuts that was not far away, so that’s where we went. He told me he was surprised that the sermon had contained information about something that interested him. He was referring to the fig tree. Pastor Wilkerson had mentioned it while discussing the last of the ten signs.

In Matthew 24, Jesus said:

32 Now learn a parable of the fig tree; When his branch is yet tender, and putteth forth leaves, ye know that summer is nigh:

33 So likewise ye, when ye shall see all these things, know that it is near, even at the doors.

34 Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled.

Many Rapture buffs say the tree is Israel, and that this passage refers to the re-creation of Israel in 1948. Mike had not been aware of that. He thought it was remarkable that it had come up in the few minutes he had been in church.

Me, too.

Later, he told me a couple more things. He spoke again to the guy with whom he had had the meeting, and it turned out he was a member of Trinity Church. And the reason Mike knew about the Dunkin’ Donuts is that it was where they ended up meeting, after Mike ran out of gas.

Just plain weird, no matter how you look at it.

As I said, I was not able to drive to church this weekend, so I decided to watch it on TV. They carry it on the local Fox station, on Sunday mornings. I recorded it. I didn’t get upset about not being able to go. I told myself there had to be a reason. I was going to find a blessing in it, sooner or later.

Today I turned the show on, hoping to see this weekend’s message. And you can probably guess what I saw. Rich Wilkerson, talking about ten signs of the Rapture. I thought maybe I was supposed to see it, so I watched.

I just sat down at my computer, and I checked my Sitemeter stats. Someone from New York had arrived here via an Excite search. Guess what they were searching for? Rich Wilkerson and ten signs of the rapture. They landed on the original entry, in which I talked about these coincidences.

Wouldn’t you feel weird after all that?

Maybe it’s not all that weird. I suppose it’s understandable that someone out there who saw the show today would search for the sermon on the web.

I should call Mike and see what he’s up to.

Pour Yourself a Shot and Listen

My dad forwarded one of those Powerpoint inspirational things to me today. Very nice nature photos, backed by a Uillean pipe solo. If you are not familiar with Uillean pipes, the best way to describe them is “the kind of bagpipes that don’t sound like a bunch of cats trying to claw their way out of a hot oven.” Depending on which web source you check, “Uillean” is pronounced “illan” or “illyan.”

Found a nice Youtube for you. This is one of those instruments that make you want to run out and buy one the first time you hear it. Check it out.

More

Cheaper way into the same type of music: the Irish tin whistle.

Pressed Down and Shaken Together and Running Over

My old man wanted to fish, so fish we did. Did we have a good day? You could say so.

Maybe a cellphone shot of the blood in the cockpit will give you an idea.

That’s Val Prieto on the right. Evidently he thinks wearing a belt will queer the fishing.

It’s really sad that the sticks in the mud who make the fish rules put a size and bag limit on dolphin. Had they not, we would have come home with maybe 50 of them. I’m not even sure how many schools we hit. At least four. Maybe six. It got to the point where I was secretly hoping the fish would go away. We caught fish after fish, and because the fish know the size limit is 20″, about 90% of them were 19.92″ long. Over the side they went. By the dozen. I think. I’m not sure. I’m still wiped out. I just got back. There is fish blood on every part of me that was not covered, and some parts that were.

The day surprised us. We started with a school that produced one keeper, and then we had like four hours of nothing. We were so desperate, we started casting at a floating pallet, trying to catch ocean tallies and tripletails. The tallies were too small to eat, and here is the pathetic tripletail I caught. I’ve seen oscars that were bigger.

We were sort of heading in when we decided to try some patches of sargassum in about 1100 feet. We hooked a huge cow. Val’s 88-year-old godfather was with us, and he’s not doing well, and he got to reel it in, which was nice. It was well over three feet long. Judging from past fish of similar length, I’d say it weighed 35 pounds. Maybe 30. That’s a big dolphin. She brought a school with her, but they were tiny. When that school pooped out, we hit another and another. By the end of the day we had the cow plus five little fish.

I still have to wrap my share in foil and freeze it. Here’s a photo of the fish. That’s a 50-gallon cooler. The fish had to be bent to fit.

Saw a sailfish and a bunch of tuna jumping, but we couldn’t troll up anything but dolphin.

I have to go drink more water. I’ve been chugging tiny bottles of store water all day and my mouth is still dry. Kind of warm out there, and I’ve been busy.

Better fish photos later.