Lethal

I decided to avoid canning my peppers. I am fermenting them instead.

If you’ve ever tried kim chi, you know what I’m talking about. If you ferment vegetables with lactobacillus, they develop a nice sour taste and lots of aroma. Tabasco sauce is fermented, if the label is correct. I thought this would be better than using vinegar to give the peppers flavor.

It took me nearly forever, but I seeded a big pile of Tobago seasoning peppers, and I ran them through a food processor. I added garlic, a little water, some salt, some sugar, and some yogurt with live cultures.

When all is said and done, I think the product I’ll end up with will be inferior to the stuff I’ve made with Home Depot cayennes. Those peppers are naturally sweet and full of flavor. These are hot and less sweet, and the flavor doesn’t compare. The appeal of exotic peppers is not entirely based on reason. Some are fantastic, and some are just okay. If an ordinary cayenne is better, might as well admit it.

I read a couple of interesting things today. First, I saw part of an abstract from a medical journal, and it claimed fermented peppers in very small amounts inhibited weight gain. Wonder if that’s true. In a related matter, I saw a very disturbing article that says being obese or even slightly overweight can cause serious brain damage. Like I need that.

Here’s an excerpt:

A new study finds obese people have 8 percent less brain tissue than normal-weight individuals. Their brains look 16 years older than the brains of lean individuals, researchers said today.

Those classified as overweight have 4 percent less brain tissue and their brains appear to have aged prematurely by 8 years.

I have often criticized smokers who took up the habit or refused to quit after the cancer risk became known. Now the tables are turned. Will I be better than the people I looked down on? I sure hope so. I don’t want my brain to turn into Jell-O. I hope I still have a few working cells in place.

Something to think about, if you’re overweight.

In these Days of Teshuvah leading up to Yom Kippur, I am trying to repent of irresponsibility and laziness. I realize Gentiles are not bound by the Jewish law, but that’s beside the point. You shouldn’t have to be forced to do something which is obviously intelligent and pleasing to God. I see the peppers and limes I’m harvesting, and I feel like my obligation to be a good steward extends to them. I’m trying to put them to use. I managed to give some peppers away, too.

I am starting to remind myself of the old mountain women I knew when I was younger. They gardened. They ran small businesses. They did handicrafts. They went to church. They raised kids. They were like the righteous woman of Proverbs 30. I realize the comparison is a little off, because I’m a man, but the principles are the same. I’ve known a number of women like that, but the men tended to have fewer interests, as they devoted themselves to their jobs.

I am so much better than I used to be. I have a long way to go, but I’m glad I’m not what I was.

I’ll report on the peppers when and if they ferment.

Can’t Keep Up

I am going through one of those times when you have to remind yourself that you will eventually be rewarded if you are treated badly.

As usual, I can’t give details. I find myself in a position where I’m being punished for trying to fix someone else’s mess. Barring divine intervention, it’s going to get much, much worse before it gets better. That’s all I can say. Remembering that someone is keeping accounts makes it a lot easier.

I am here because I wanted to put this up, regarding Heather’s mom:

Penny’s kidney function has deteriorated to 15%!
Her blood pressure has been up slightly today as well.
Please ask for her kidneys to healed.
Thanks & God Bless,
Heather

Reader Ruth says:

I have a prayer request for a friend of mine. She was just diagnosed with stage 4 lobular breast cancer. A devious one that is not seen with mammograms. It has spread to lymph glands and bones. Not a good prognosis.
I hate to lay another cancer on your prayer lists. but here it is. Her name is Sharon W. Her attitude is either denial or complete acceptance, I think the latter and she has a cheerful heart.

I didn’t want to put these up on or near a weekend. No one reads blogs on those days.

Today I’ve been putting lime juice up. The trees will not leave me alone. I put up a cup of key lime juice and over a cup of Persian lime juice. I freeze it in vacuum bags. I don’t know what to do with it.

I read something interesting last week. I forget where. Maybe Robert Morris. In the Bible, Jesus criticized certain people for tithing on things they had grown, like herbs, while forgetting things that were more important. I had not noticed that Jesus approved of the business with the herbs. He said something like, “this, you should have done.” Look it up. All I have ever noticed was the part about ignoring the weightier things. So it seems to me that it would be a good thing if I could give away some of the stuff I grow. I have given some away to the only person I know who can use it, but I am probably pulling 20 limes and a dozen key limes every week, and it piles up. I’m thinking of suggesting my church set aside a place where people can bring excess produce.

I also have enough rosemary to stuff a couch. And oregano. And thyme. And I don’t even want to talk about peppers. My banana trees are threatening to bury me in fruit over the next few months. You can only eat so many bananas without going insane.

I have to do something with the prig ki nu peppers I picked. I think I’m going to go to the store and buy a gallon of white vinegar. I have read that it prevents mold, unlike the lime juice I used to soak peppers in. Maybe I can get away with putting peppers in the fridge in vinegar and salt.

The dragonfruit is trying again. The fruit keep falling off. I hope this latest bud amounts to something. It might help if I took a shotgun and blasted the weedeater out of the yard guy’s hands.

I have papayas coming out of my ears, but they just don’t taste good. I should let the Salvadorans clean off the trees the next time they cut the grass.

Man, I miss the mangoes.

I’m off.

More

I had two bags of prig ki nu peppers. I had separated the red from the green. I just hit the grocery and brought back a jug of vinegar. I mixed it with salt, and I stuck the peppers in separate squeeze bottles and added the salted vinegar, plus some garlic. I didn’t have enough red peppers to fill a bottle, so I went outside for ten minutes and picked 0.0001% of the peppers on the prig ki nu bush. Now I have plenty.

I have a ton of Tobago seasoning peppers and habanero golds that are going to go to waste if I don’t do something, so I’m going to freeze a bunch of them.

Now all I have to remember is that I can’t put my hand anywhere near my eyes for two weeks.

Quiet Christians go to Hell

Guess what the humidity level is here today. ONE HUNDRED PERCENT. I think if I stood in the front yard for half an hour, I’d come back covered with mold. When I run the garage air conditioner full blast, it only gets down to about 80, and it smells in there. Last night I had to use the rear defogger in order to see while the car air conditioner ran.

Man, this is nasty. The whole month has been rough. August is probably a great month for Miami burglars, because everyone goes on vacation to avoid the weather.

I don’t know if you’ve ever had this experience, but it has been so hot and bright here, there are days when I come inside out of the sun and sit in the air conditioning and still feel like the roasting rays are beating down on me. They get inside you somehow.

We are having a bizarre combination of rainy overcast days, and days when there are no clouds and the sun seems to chase you wherever you go. I can’t wait for the middle of September, when things should start to change.

Last night, a preacher named Allen Griffin spoke at church. I don’t recommend you visit his website, because it crashes Firefox. He was very good, but he has a habit which is not unusual with black preachers. Eventually, he starts to yell. I don’t like listening to yelling. It hurts my ears and prevents me from thinking. I believe we are supposed to think in church. I may be wrong.

If you have anything worthwhile to say, people will get excited even if you speak calmly. Maybe the phrase “still small voice” will ring a bell. I am hoping the church will eventually get away from screaming and sweating and raucous music. I know what the presence of God feels like, and it always decreases when the noise gets past a certain point. This is why I can’t stand Christian hard rock. If God is present when they play this crap, you only notice it between songs, when the racket dies down. And rap…rap is just stupid, regardless of the context and content. Christian rap is like Christian abortion. A bad idea no matter how you look at it. Why conform to the worst, most depraved lifestyle the world has to offer? I thought the idea was to get the world to conform to God’s ways.

I know you think Jesus was an O.G. I know you’re down with the Holy Ghost and you want to smack the devil up. Word. Really. But rap, by its sonic nature, is inherently expressive of a desire to be violent, arrogant, selfish, and abusive. It doesn’t matter what the words say, if the rest of the sound makes you feel like punching someone in the mouth and holding your gun sideways. Music expresses emotions completely independently from language. You don’t need obnoxious lyrics to make the music itself obnoxious. And telling us Jesus is your homey won’t make up for harsh, provocative sounds. Plus it makes you sound stupid. Jesus didn’t imitate the world. He went to bars, sure, but I doubt he played drinking games or stood on his head while chugging wine. He was there to influence, not to be influenced.

Some people manage to rap about God in a way that isn’t harsh or full of arrogance, but they’re so exceptional, I have to wonder if their success justifies the temptation that brings down the other 95%. Besides, if you perform a certain type of music successfully, you will end up associating with others in the same genre who are not Christians and who will try to make you conform. Then you find yourself in a sex video with Kid Rock, and people start citing your story as proof that Christianity doesn’t work.

I’ve noticed something about Christian performers influenced by rap. They hold their hands right next to their genitals. It’s disturbing. Rappers fondle themselves on stage all the time. It’s mandatory. Obviously, Christians influenced by rap are aware of this, and they want everyone to know they’re serious Christian gangsters, but they aren’t allowed to fondle themselves, so they move their hands two inches to the side and squeeze and pet their upper thighs. The difference may mean something to them, but to me, it says, “I want to fondle my genitals publicly, but Jesus won’t let me.” It’s like the difference between “nigga” and “nigger.” It doesn’t fool anyone. Just keep your hands away from your crotch. Nobody wants to see that in church. The whole time they’re doing it, you find yourself staring obsessively at that hand, wondering if it’s going to move to the center.

I will never understand the “nigga” thing. It’s like saying it’s okay to call a woman a “hore” or a “hoar,” but not a whore, because that’s totally different. Try this. Call the Secret Service and say you want to “murda” the President but not “murder” him. See if they think that’s okay.

A lot of people think getting emotional and screaming is evidence that God is near, but that’s crazy. God’s presence is not an emotional state. It’s something you feel, the same way you might feel a draft or a touch on your shoulder. It makes you calmer, not more agitated. It’s a big mistake to give people the idea that hollering and jumping up and down have something to do with the Holy Spirit. That kind of excitement lasts about ten minutes, and then it goes away, and your fuel is gone. And you can expect to do idiotic, regrettable, embarrassing things in that state. Your antics will offend people and prevent them from coming to church. The real thing lasts and doesn’t take anything out of you. Heathens all over the world work themselves into frenzies and take drugs and beat themselves with chains and whips. That’s human effort. It’s worthless and counterproductive. In Christianity, you don’t have to do those things. And you don’t have to yell.

I get so tired of being told I have to let out a big yell for God, or do a cartwheel, or break dance, or take part in a human pyramid, or bungee jump while playing the accordion with my hair on fire. Give it a rest, Pastor Shabba Doo. Let God do the work. Am I wrong? Sing, play instruments, raise your hands, praise God aloud…isn’t that enough? Seriously, I’m wondering when pentecostal churches will start buying trampolines. He who hits the church ceiling hardest is clearly most holy. Is it church or is it Church du Soleil?

I wish David had never danced. The attention-starved nuts get so much mileage out of that. They like dancing and yelling and acting up, so the rest of us have to like it, too, or we’re not holy. The message isn’t, “This will help you worship.” It’s, “I’m better than you because I carry on like George Michael.” Maybe the old lady in the back row isn’t doing rhythmic gymnastics like the really holy people, but perhaps she prays four hours a day, supports twenty charities, visits prisons and hospitals, takes in orphans, and has all four gospels memorized. Maybe you should quit telling her she’s letting God down by not making an ass of herself. Maybe you’re not super holy. Maybe you just really like putting on a show. Before you talk about the splinter in my eye, take the disco ball out of your own eye, St. John Travolta. Try to get back your deposit on that mechanical bull, cancel the synchronized swimming, and take down the trapeze. I didn’t come to church to see the Flying Wallendas. I have a feeling that 99% of the people who like dancing and acting insane in church are people who really loved doing these things before they became Christians. I doubt God has anything to do with it.

The Psalms say the meek will inherit the earth. I guess “meek” means “inclined to sing way too loud while jumping and prancing like a gay chicken on a hot plate on South Beach.”

Anyway, church was very good, even though they didn’t bring out the limbo bar or the Slip ‘n’ Slide. I guess I can stand a little yelling.

Get Ready for 5770

My sister’s illness pretty much consumed the last few days, but I have two days off, so here I am.

Yesterday I told her something I thought she needed to know, and I think you will benefit from it, too.

The Jewish holidays are still important. Don’t listen to Christians who yammer “We’re not under the law” whenever you mention the Old Testament or its principles or the obligations it lays out. Jesus was crucified over Passover. The baptism of the Holy Spirit took place on Pentecost. Many Christians believe Succoth symbolizes our reunion with Jesus. None of this stuff was ever canceled or rescinded. People who ignore the Old Testament are often the same folks who think the Jews have been discarded, and that we are somehow supposed to replace them. It’s hard to imagine anything more offensive to God.

We’re not Jews. Most of us aren’t, anyway. We can eat pork (thank you, thank you), and we are not required to memorize 613 commandments or cleanse our homes of yeast prior to Passover. But many of the principles in the Old Testament apply to everyone, and the holidays are eternal.

Rosh Hashanah is coming up. So is Yom Kippur. Rosh Hashanah is the beginning of the Jewish year, which, somehow, does not happen in the first month in the Jewish calendar. Can’t figure that out, but that’s how it is. Yom Kippur is the day of atonement, when the high priest used to go into the Holy of Holies and atone for the sins of all the Jews.

Orthodox Jews believe in a concept called “teshuvah,” which means “return.” It refers to returning to God. When you make teshuvah, you examine yourself and determine what your faults are, and you make a decision to change. Jews don’t equate it with repentance, which they interpret as deciding to behave in a new way. They see teshuvah as returning to your true nature, which is good. That can’t be reconciled with the Christian belief that people start out bad and have to be taught in order to become good, but in practice, the difference between teshuvah and repentance is hard to distinguish. To a Christian, “repentance” would seem correct.

Although it is not mentioned in the Bible, religious Jews believe that on Rosh Hashanah, God decides how we will fare during the new year, including whether we survive, and on Yom Kippur, he inscribes his decision in his book. Here is an English translation of a prayer Jews recite. It may irritate Orthodox Jews; I’m not sure. It comes from the work of a Messianic writer.

On Rosh HaShana it is inscribed, and on Yom Kippur it is sealed:
how many will pass away and how many will be born,
who will live, and who will die; who will die prematurely and who will live out his days;
who will perish by fire and who by water; who by sword and who by wild animals;
who by hunger and who by thirst; who by earthquake and who by plague;
who by strangling and who by stoning; who will have rest and who will wander about;
who will be at peace and who will be tormented;
who will be at ease and who will be bothered;
who will become poor and who will become rich;
who will be brought low and who will be raised up.

But repentance, prayer and charity avert the harsh decree.

The word translated “repentance” is “teshuvah,” so right away, you can see fodder for argument. The word translated “prayer” is “tefillah,” which means to attach yourself to God; it doesn’t mean to get on your knees and ask for things. Maybe it’s the kind of prayer David wrote about when he said, “put thou my tears into thy bottle; are they not in thy book?”. The word translated “charity” is “tzedakah,” which means to give to others because it is just and you recognize that what you have is actually God’s. Orthodox Jews consider this different from charity, but to a Christian, this is exactly what charity means.

Quibbling aside, Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur are on the way. And the 40 days prior to Rosh Hashanah are known as the Forty Days of Teshuvah. The idea is that God will judging us soon, so we should be thinking about the way we live and doing things to fix it. To “avert the harsh decree” we might otherwise face.

This period began at sundown on Thursday, August 20. While my sister was receiving her first dose of chemotherapy. The following day, on the way to the hospital, I told her about the Days of Teshuvah, and I pointed out that it began on the same day as her treatment. Was it coincidental? I can’t say. But when you have something medical science considers incurable and unsurvivable, what could be more appropriate than repentance, prayer, and charity? Everyone needs these things, but the need is more obvious and likely more urgent in a cancer patient.

I work to fix my faults all the time, whether or not it is possible to detect any signs of that from my behavior. I’m thinking this would be a good time to work on laziness and irresponsibility. I want to be neater and more organized. I want to take better care of things. Christians tend to think being a good steward means pinching pennies and giving to charity, but we are entrusted with lots of things that aren’t money, and I think we need to take good care of all of them. We have to try to be healthy. We have to take care of our possessions. We have to use our time well. You can complete the list yourself.

This is all pretty horrifying to me. Already, I’m looking around, noticing things I should take care of. Arrgh. This means WORK. I’ll have to get the ladder out and paint the soffit in front of the house. I’ll have to fix the door by the sprinkler pump. And it’s AUGUST. It’s like a vegetable steamer combined with a thousand sunlamps out there. Arrgh. I can’t believe I chose this.

But I have to do it, so I might as well shut up.

Charity is a wonderful tool. Nobody does the right thing all the time, and if I understand the Bible correctly, you can avoid punishment by looking after others. That’s a real gift, because doing charity is pleasant. What a deal. Prayer is not too hard. Repentance…that’s the hurdle. Ouch. I have to wire up my compressor. I have to get rid of the dead mamey tree.

In the Bible, forty-day periods seem to be identified with change for the better. With cleansing. Think of the forty days of rain, in which the evil people of the world were destroyed. Think of the forty days Jesus spent fasting in the desert. Moses was on Mount Sinai for forty days when he received the commandments and came down to purify the people. Jesus remained on earth for forty days after the resurrection. Are there other Biblical examples? These are the only ones I could think of. All these examples involve new beginnings.

In case you want to take advantage, Rosh Hashanah starts at sundown on September 18, and Yom Kippur starts at sundown on September 27.

While I was looking stuff up, I came across a Jewish blog which goes into more detail about the significance of the number 40. Maybe you’ll enjoy it.

Hospitals Outdo Resorts

I decided to Google “wee-weed up” to see if anyone had ever said it before Barack Obama, and I can’t find any examples. Maybe it’s a Kenyan expression. I think “wee-weed up” is a good way to describe the way Obama reacts whenever anyone has the guts and integrity to call him on his nonsense. Dictators get “wee-weed up” a lot. It’s one of their defining traits. Something to think about. Stalin used to get “wee-weed up” and have people shot in the back of the head.

I don’t think Obama is going to be the great and powerful secular leader he wants to be. He’ll never be our Castro. He’s too inept and childish, and it looks like health care is going to knock the wheels off the shiny tricycle which is his ego. Hillary got impaled on the same prideful stake, and then Obama took Hillary down, and now he’s finding out he’s no smarter than she was. Obama is starting to fade, and that’s great for America, but he is probably a taste of leaders to come. In the long run, our economy is going to continue to slide, and we are going to continue reacting like spoiled brats who can’t face second-tier status, and we will listen to any fool who says he can turn it around. Then we’ll give up our privacy, our property rights, our independence, and our dignity. I really believe this is our future. When the ancient Jews acted up, God allowed another nation to take them captive. He won’t need to do that to us. We’ll take ourselves captive.

I hope I’m right about Obama’s arrogance and stubbornness. So far, he has never let us down. I hope he rides the USS Single-Payer right to the bottom of the popularity polls. If not, he’ll eventually find some other career-ending position to which he will cling. Or he’ll cling to so many small errors, they’ll add up and sink him.

I was supposed to drive my sister to chemo today, but she didn’t take her nausea prescriptions at the right time, so she can’t stand to be moved. When they kick in, we’ll be on our way. I don’t know when that will be.

I keep marveling at the inexplicable spending I witnessed yesterday. I can’t recall the last time I had my blood pressure and pulse checked, but I’m pretty sure they used a stethoscope, sphygmomanometer, and wristwatch. UM/Sylvester uses digital machines on wheels. I’ll bet each one costs $1500. Let me check. Okay, I just found something similar online for about $2900. Whee. This is the kind of thing that happens when you want “the best medical care in the world.” A regular sphygmomanometer runs about twenty bucks.

The chemo room was really something They had cubicles roughly ten feet on a side. Each one had a big recliner and a TV cabinet with a DVD player. I wonder…would the care be less effective if they had a big open room with recliners, chairs, and TVs? If I wanted to have a cubicle of my own, it would probably cost ten grand to build. I believe some hospitals still have open rooms without fancy cubicles. Do they adversely affect the health of patients? Doubtful.

If you want to see where your money goes when you’re in the hospital, raise a fuss next time. Scream that the tea is too hot, or that you hate the curtains. They will send you a person whose job is to sweet-talk unreasonable patients. It doesn’t matter if you’re crazy. It doesn’t matter who’s right. They will appear and hold your hand and say they love you, while you disgrace yourself in front of patients who are more mature.

I’ll bet these people pull down $75K a year, plus benefits. I don’t know if they’re a tort-law side effect, or the result of the free spending insurance always creates, or a product of liberal happy-happy feelgood medical philosophy, or what. Part of every hospital bill goes to pay them.

We don’t seem to be able to draw a line between giving the best care and spoiling the sick. These are two different things. Spending a pile of money on the best drug available makes sense. Splurging on luxuries which aren’t very helpful seems foolish. I doubt that it’s wise to reward sick people for being passive and whiny. There is such a thing as not wanting to get better. We have a funny habit of rewarding and praising people for being ill; that may look like compassion, but it’s not. We do it in order to feel saintly, and to shut patients up. It’s not for the sick. It’s selfish.

If we really cared about the poor, wouldn’t we steer funding away from frills and frippery? Wouldn’t we be able to apply that money to care for the indigent? Nobody wants reusable needles or dirty sheets, but we’re a long way from that. If you go to a luxury hotel in Vegas, they don’t treat you nearly as well. And kissing your rear end is the primary function of a hotel employee.

She just called. I’m off to the hospital again.

We Approach a Curve

I have two facts I can’t reconcile.

Today my sister goes in for her first session of chemotherapy. She has some problems which may force a delay, but they are trying to get it going today. It’s likely to be a pivotal day in her life, and it’s sobering. We don’t know what the oncologist will tell her today. We don’t know the therapy will start, and time is wasting. We can’t even guess what her scans are going to say.

On the other hand, I woke up with a strange and seemingly inappropriate feeling of enthusiasm and optimism about life. I was very happy. And I don’t know why. For a while, I’ve had the feeling that something wonderful was about to happen to me.

It doesn’t make any sense.

When your family faces a health crisis, you don’t want to fall into the trap of being miserable all the time. You don’t want to lose sleep and be unable to enjoy life, and you don’t want to become depressed and ineffective. But you have to take things seriously and make sure everything is done right.

The other day my aunt mentioned the stages of grief. Some people claim there are seven, but I’m more familiar with the theory that there are five. They are denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. So far, the theory has not panned out. Not even close. There was depression at first, and since then I think all three of us have been in denial to some extent. There has been regret (including vicarious regret) which isn’t a named stage. I haven’t noticed any manifestations of the other things, unless prayer can be considered bargaining. That can’t be true, though, because I don’t offer God anything I wasn’t offering him to begin with, and my sister doesn’t seem to be changing her approach toward him. I’m doing the things a Christian is supposed to do; I’m praying more and so on. But I don’t have anything new to put on the table.

Denial is a slippery thing. Before the diagnosis, my understanding of denial was it caused people to pretend their problems didn’t exist. The diagnosis is wrong. The call from the ER doctor went to the wrong number. You must have entered the wrong symbol when you checked the price of your stock. Your kid was on the other bus. Things like that. But now I think you can accept the reality of a diagnosis and still be in denial to some extent. You can forget the gravity of the situation and end up taking longer to do things than you should. You can engage in displacement behavior.

If that’s denial, we may be in denial.

When you’re diagnosed with a dangerous disease that progresses rapidly, you have to take the lead, or you have to let someone else take the lead. Your family can’t shoot you with a tranquilizer dart and drive you to the places you need to go. Regardless of who is in denial, only one person’s denial is likely to be damaging. The patient calls the shots. The patient has to plan and execute. That is unfortunate, because they can’t be counted on to do what they should. My dad often says he wishes he could have locked my mother in a closet and deprived her of cigarettes until withdrawal was over, because it might have kept her from dying from cancer. Life doesn’t work like that, and neither does addiction.

I don’t run things, so I suppose my state of mind is not a major factor here. I am doing what I can. I don’t think any harm will result from my feeling good, and if sorrow and grief are coming later, feeling good now is surely a victory. But I find it a little confusing that I can have periods of real happiness, and that I have this feeling of positive expectation about my own life. I feel as if God is up to something, possibly having nothing to do with my sister, and I also believe the degree to which a patient is willing to cooperate and do the right things affects the way family members feel.

There’s another variable in play here. I’ve found that the more I pray, the less I am able to perceive grief. I don’t like to admit that, because it makes me sound like a psychopath, but it’s true. When I found out my mother was on her deathbed, I prayed constantly, and I worked myself up into such a state that when she actually passed, I couldn’t fully feel it. I thought this would be the most unbearable moment of my life, but it wasn’t. Was that the fruit of faith and prayer, or was it my own mind, putting off grief the way a soldier puts off terror? And if you don’t fall apart when someone dies, is it because you don’t care as much as other people, or is it because of your strong belief that death is the beginning of a better life? I think most people see human beings when they look at dead bodies. I have never felt that way. When I look at someone who has died, in my heart, I always feel that I’m looking at something like a vacant house. A place where a person used to live. I truly feel that. I’m not just saying it. And while I’m scared to death of disease and accident, I’m not worried at all about death itself. Part of me looks forward to it, because this life is so defective and tainted. I want to be in a world where things work. My biggest reason for wanting to remain alive is that I want to be here for my dad and my pets.

Keep my sister in your prayers. I think our lives are going to change considerably over the next week.

Who Will Give me $4500 for a Clueless Ex-Bagman?

The other day I sent out my first hurricane email, to a friend on the west coast. The Florida west coast, I should add. I referred to The Cone of Death. We were in it at the time. One of the recent storms was headed toward Florida, and the weather nerds always put up maps with big cones over the areas where the hurricanes are likely to go. I sent a clarification later, changing “Cone of Death” to “Cone of Certain Death.”

That storm fell apart, but now we are having hurricane weather anyway. By “hurricane weather,” I mean we’re getting annoying winds and intermittent rain, day in and day out.

I always love it when a storm falls apart or heads out to sea. I wish I could say I love it because it means no one will suffer, but I’ll be honest. That’s only part of the reason. I also love it because it disappoints hippies. Every year, Al Gore’s ridiculous predictions are proven wrong by the mildness of our hurricane seasons, and there are people out there who find it unbearable.

Maybe I’m just as bad as they are. It bothers me when the stock market rallies. I don’t want the economy to turn around until our immune system kills the socialist flu. If Obama’s Marxist approach fails to prevent a recovery, everyone on the left will say he saved us, and the swing voters in the middle will believe it, because they are the most gullible, least informed people on earth. Then we’ll get more socialism, and the economy will tank, and we’ll be told the answer is even more socialism, and before you know it, we’re Italy or Greece or England.

I still think this is where we’re headed. If we don’t discard this anti-Christian, anti-Jewish leader, and if we don’t change our ways, we have every reason to believe God will stop blessing us. Losing wealth is bad, but if it drives you to church, it’s a small price to pay, and God has a habit of restoring things once we turn to him.

It’s shocking how bad Obama is for Christians. He’s as great an enemy as the unborn have ever had; he believes in letting them die alone on cold tables after incompetent doctors try to kill them. He is very open about favoring barbaric Muslim regimes in their dealings with Israel, the only civilized nation in the Middle East. He wants to tax our tithes and offerings and alms, which, many of us believe, are essential to our blessings. He wants to replace voluntary giving, which is a pillar of Christianity and Judaism, with coerced giving. Men of God will no longer administer the money. Instead, it will go to twisted leftist hacks who will decide which behaviors they want to reward. The givers will not be blessed, because blessings come from righteousness, and there is nothing righteous about having your money taken by force. There is no altruism or piety in it. Nothing worth rewarding.

I will never understand why Jews voted for a man who attended an anti-Semitic church for twenty years. Someone explain that to me. I guess the explanation is obvious. Self-hatred. “Let’s make the Gentiles love us. Let’s give away more land; God isn’t real, and even if he was, we know better than he does. Let’s end black anti-Semitism by electing a black President. If we vote for a secular messiah, people will finally start loving us, and we won’t need to support a refuge in the desert.”

It’s a good approach. It worked great in Germany and Russia and Poland and Spain and Portugal.

I guess I should be more amazed that Christians voted for him. There’s a prominent Catholic out there who runs around debating, trying to prove it’s okay to vote for someone who supports partial-birth abortion and withholding care from live abortion victims. Many Christians fail to realize that we are never going to right the world’s evils through purely human effort, and they can’t see the clear Biblical division between government and religion. In the Bible, God discouraged the Jews from having a secular government in addition to the church, because he knew the church and government would be at odds, and he knew the government would be unpleasant to live under. Now we have a world where people think voting liberal pleases God, because liberals like giving money away. Never mind the fact that a huge percentage of people who vote for liberals do so because they will RECEIVE other people’s money, which is taken away by means of the threat of fines and jail time. I’m not sure how that works out to be unselfish.

There are Christians out there who will eagerly vote for 90% tax brackets for the productive, while refusing to donate 10% to the church. You have to wonder what the world would be like if people tithed and gave offerings. Would government charity exist? There would be little need for it. Right now, we give less than 2% of our income to the church. The figure should be more like 15%. That’s a huge amount of money. Think of what it could do.

Our selfishness created a vacuum, and socialism arose to fill it. And–wonder of wonders–socialism has always denied the existence and power of God, often making Christianity a crime. Coincidence, I’m sure.

I can’t believe I helped create this problem. I used to give, and then someone told me I was already donating to the world’s largest charity via income tax, and I believed it, and I cut back. What a mistake. I cheated God, others, and myself.

How misguided leftism is. Right now, we’re taking nice vehicles, destroying the motors (40% of their value), and parting them out or crushing them. None of those cars will go to the poor. Many would have gone to charity. The government is giving the owners money taken from other taxpayers. In actuality, the immediate source of the cash is foreign creditors, like the Chinese government. Not only will we have to pay for other people’s cars; we’ll be charged interest. Meanwhile, there are people all over the US who have no transportation. What a perfect storm of stupidity. Wealth destroyed. Debt increased. And people are happy about it!

I can’t root for the economy while we’re doing such stupid things. It’s like hoping your teenage son makes good money selling dope.

When God called us sheep, I think he was flattering us. Surely no other mammal has judgment as bad as ours.

Bad Seeds

I just mailed some pepper seeds to Dan from Madison. I emailed him and told him to try not to touch them unless he had to. Yesterday, I used a cutting board to seed two peppers so I could dry the seeds for mailing. Later on, I felt a sharp, burning pain in my finger, and I couldn’t find any injury. I think I grazed the cutting board when I put it away. The pain lasted for hours. I’m pretty sure it was the Trinidad Scorpion. Suddenly I understand the name. It was like a really nasty insect sting.

The other day Jim from SOTW informed me that his dad had had heart surgery. I should have posted a prayer request. Don’t know where my brain was. I’m posting it now. Says he has two stents, but no heart damage. Still has lung issues. Sorry, Jim.

I’m trying to get all serious about the “good steward” business. The limes and Key limes keep piling up, and I have been giving them away and throwing them out. Finally, I decided to freeze the juice. I cranked out half a cup of key lime juice and one and a quarter cups of Persian lime juice, and I divided the Persian lime juice into two portions, and I put everything in vacuum bags. Now I’m freezing them before I suck the air out and seal them.

I better go out and cut down a hand of bananas so they’ll ripen and I can get a start on eating the bunch.

My dragonfruit has a flower on it, but it doesn’t look like the fruit part is going to make it. I can’t wait until that thing starts bearing. It would help if the Salvadorans would stop attacking it with the weedeater.

I propped the limbs of my ponkan tree up with stakes because the fruit are overwhelming it. The tree is healthy but very scrawny, and it is determined to bear lots of fruit. It looks kind of stupid right now, but I know the limbs won’t tear off.

I have to prop up the pepper bushes before they rot. I guess I’ll tie them to the trellis they grow next to. They grew too big for their own good.

This is much better than the days when everything rotted and blew away.

WTB: Hazmat Suit

Just got an update from Heather, RE her mom’s cancer:

Nojo

Church was great last night, as always. But it was also disturbing. In the sermons and videos I’ve seen lately, and in my studies, I have seen a thread that suggests something bad is up ahead, and that I may not be able to do anything about it. I feel like I’m being prepared. But I’m not sure.

The thing I’m concerned about primarily involves someone else, not me.

Pentecostals always strive to get the gifts of the Spirit and the fruit of the Spirit. We’re told to “covet” the gift of prophecy, although it’s not clear that the thing identified as “prophecy” in this context is the same thing that word describes in the Old Testament. Ancient Jewish prophets were supposed to be stoned if they ever prognosticated wrongly; they had to be infallible to be considered prophets. I have heard people describe the New Testament “prophetic” gift as something different. An ability to exhort and instruct people, with God’s guidance. If that’s true, it’s unfortunate that we use the same term to describe it.

I always ask for the gifts called the word of knowledge and the word of wisdom. If we understand the word of knowledge correctly, it means God informs us of things we otherwise could not know. For example, a prophet told Paul he would be bound and imprisoned. This is a good gift to have, because we always profit from knowing bad things are on the way. Very often, we can avoid them through prayer and repentance, or just by taking the appropriate action, such as taking a different road or changing a flight. Other times, we can’t avoid them no matter what we do, but we can be prepared, and we can find whatever blessings follow in the aftermath. And we can avoid being offended. People who live by faith get used to having God solve their problems, and on the occasions when he doesn’t, it’s easy to get angry at God and question his goodness, and that’s worse than the problems themselves. If you see things coming, you’re not as likely to take that attitude.

God has never spoken to me. A lot of people like to yap about how God told them this or that, and I am always highly skeptical. It’s not that I don’t think God tells people things. But I think it’s unusual to be completely certain that God has told you something. I’m sure God has put ideas and motivations and so on inside my mind, but I would never claim God had “spoken” to me unless I clearly perceived words, either written or spoken, which I knew came from God. I would have to hear a voice or read something. That has never happened to me.

Many times, I’ve felt that something I was considering doing or an idea I had had was right and inspired, and then it has turned out I was wrong. What if I had stood up in church and hollered, “GOD TOLD ME THIS,” and then rattled on about something God had nothing to do with? People do that all the time. I’ve seen ministers do it. They say extremely stupid things, and they attribute them to God. Isn’t that taking the Lord’s name in vain? You claim you speak in his name, and then you say something dumb. Is there any better example of violating that commandment? Think about the harm a person like that can do. They can convince their followers to commit suicide, for example. That has happened. What if Moses had made up the thing about God directing the Jews into the desert? “God said we’d be fine. Those dried-up corpses are an illusion.”

I absolutely refuse to say God has told me things. It will never happen, unless I have experienced miraculous events I know I can rely on. God sent Joseph an angel. He sent Mary an angel. He spoke to Moses and Abraham. He sent an angel to the father of John the Baptist. He doesn’t need me to sit down here guessing. My guesses are often wrong. If he wants me to know something, he is well able to tell me. I think God illuminates the Bible when I read, and he gives me wisdom when I need it, and many times, during prayer, I’ve felt sudden rushes of faith that I considered confirmation that I was going to receive what I had asked for. But that’s not “God spoke to me.” It’s wrong to confuse these things.

I saw a preacher the other day, stating that Jesus appeared to him after his daughter’s death. He said Jesus explained some things to him, and he related it to the audience. This is a guy who can say “God spoke to me.” But if you’re trying to quit drinking, and you suddenly have a feeling that God won’t mind if you have one more bender, it’s probably not God, and whatever it is, it’s not someone “speaking” to you. If you’re defaulting on your loans, and you think God is telling you to give him a big offering which you could be using to pay your debts, you may be hearing from somebody, but I doubt it’s God.

I have known someone who claimed to give generously to ministries and charities. I later found out that this person was a financial train wreck, with huge debts and a negative net worth. How can that be, if we are promised time and time again that God will provide for people who help the poor? It had to be because this person robbed men to give to God. If you rip off your creditors to give to charity, aren’t your creditors the real givers? Surely, when this person told me God directed the giving, those claims were untrue.

That’s something I need to think about, actually. I avoid incurring debt, but there is one matter involving debt which I should look after.

I always hope I’ll reach a state where God will supernaturally inform me before bad things happen, in a very explicit and direct way. That would sure be nice. Because I have not been taken in by the liars who stand in the pulpit making highly questionable statements about people who “refused” to let bad things happen to them, “by faith.” I am used to experiencing deliverance and God’s generosity, but I am not a complete idiot. If Peter was crucified, and if Paul was shipwrecked, stoned, flogged repeatedly, and beheaded, bad things are going to happen to me and the people I care about from time to time, and it’s just plain stupid to think I can run around squalling, “I’M STANDING ON THE WORD” and avoid misfortune every single time.

The neat thing about many of the bad things that happened to Biblical figures is that they knew about them in advance. Nobody wants to be beheaded, but if it’s going to happen, it looks much more like a defeat if it happens unexpectedly and they drag you off kicking and screaming. It’s really not the same, when you take it calmly and get your house in order first. For the enemy, there is no real victory in harming you. The victory is in stealing your faith and your dignity.

So this is a gift I would like to have. It’s good to say, “I don’t understand why this happened, but my faith is not shaken.” It’s better to be able to say, “I am grateful I knew about this and was able to get all the blessings out of it.”

I don’t have that gift, but I think just about any believer will routinely receive subtle–or not so subtle–clues about the future. God tends to prepare us for things, and sometimes we realize it as he’s doing it. I hope I’m misinterpreting the things I’ve seen lately.

In other news, I think I’ve made a wonderful discovery. When I started getting into tools, I got myself a big pump jar full of Gojo, because ordinary soap is useless on the kind of greasy dirt you pick up from working on machinery. And the Gojo did not work very well. In the old days, it was great. It took just about anything off, and you didn’t even need to add water to it. It was miraculous. So I was disturbed to see that the new stuff didn’t do the job.

Finally, I pinpointed the likely culprits. Hippies. Who else routinely removes great products from the marketplace? I knew the old Gojo was full of scary chemicals. The new stuff says “natural” on the bottle, and “natural,” like “eco-friendly,” is often a synonym for “more expensive yet totally ineffective.” Like the pathetic pyrethrin-based bug sprays South Florida insects cackle at. I don’t know what the hippies didn’t like about the petroleum-based chemicals in Gojo, but they must have found fault with them, because Gojo is worthless now. I will never buy it again. I also tried Zep, and it’s also worthless.

Yesterday I went to Northern Tool to look at a band saw and a chain hoist. Because I am crazy. And while I was there, I spotted some obscure brands of hand cleaner. I figured the hippies had probably banned all types of good hand cleaner, but I checked the labels anyway, and I saw some very promising references to “petroleum distillates.” I bought the smallest size of a product called Permatex, and I took it home and did my best to grease up my hand, and I applied the cleaner. Seems to work. It has that same mysterious vibrating quality the old Gojo had; remember watching the can shake after you slapped it down on the sink? And it took the crud off my hand.

My advice is to run to Northern Tool and buy several crates of this stuff before the hippies find out about it. They think we should all be free to take street drugs full of lye and baby laxative, but they can’t bear the thought of allowing us to have bug spray and hand cleaner and breast implants. Yoda might have put it this way: “The dark side clouds everything. Impossible to see the logic is.”

I’m going to empty my Gojo can and fill it with Permatex, which doesn’t come in nice pump bottles. Life is too short to spend with black grease smears on your hands.

Plus Thoughts on Giving

Ammunition is starting to reappear in stores! Hooray!

Don’t you wonder how much money the ammunition and firearms makers raked in because people stocked up after the Marxist Messiah was elected? I hope they piled up huge profits they’ll be able to use for R&D, retooling, and lobbying.

Some people claim wars were a big cause of the shortage. Hogwash. I admit, I haven’t sat down and added up the number of conflicts going on at the moment, but things haven’t changed much since the Bush era, and there were plenty of bullets to go around back then. This shortage was caused by the election of a leftist with “Potential Dictator” stamped all over his forehead.

You can actually buy small pistol primers now. And they don’t cost $60 a box, either. They’re back down to 30 or so. I’ll bet they go lower. A saturated market is not good for prices. There are profiteers and neurotics out there whose houses are packed full of guns and ammunition they will never use. Even relatively reasonable people stocked up to some extent. I won’t need small pistol primers for at least three years, and I have no gun purchases in mind, which is amazing, for me.

I paid $600 for my Saiga 12 shotgun. Last time I saw them for sale, the price was $500. You can once again buy Wolf AK-47 ammunition for 30¢ a round. Even 9mm is starting to show up. I’ve seen it for $14 a box, which is still insanely high, given commodity prices and the economic slump. I’ll bet you can buy it for $9 in three months. It is conceivable that I may be able to get more Swiss GP11 ammunition at a reasonable price. I never thought that would happen again.

I wonder what it’s like to be in the firearms industry right now. They must be on their knees every morning, thanking God for their amazing luck.

If there is one silver lining to the country’s tragic willingness to elect unqualified, immature Marxist egotists, it is that we are not nearly as willing to give up our guns. This is one area where leftists aren’t making the headway they hoped for. I have said that I think God is behind that, and I still think it’s true. I think he’s willing to punish this country for greed, cruelty, abortion, sexual sin, and abortion, but I don’t think he is ready to disarm individuals yet. There are too many people here who serve him.

I am hoping to use my machine tools to improve my guns. I need to fix the scope mount on my K31, for example. It’s skewed to one side, causing it to shoot about 6″ to the right at 100 yards. And I have to put all the aftermarket doodads on my Saiga, to turn it into an ergonomic, laser-guided living-room sweeper.

My dad’s concealed carry permit arrived this week. I paid for his course, as a birthday present. When he announced the card’s arrival and showed it to me, instead of saying, “Look at this,” or “Guess what I have?”, he said, “I’m putting you on notice.” I told him I’d watch my back.

Concealed carry is great, but it can be a pain. I get tired of the weight of the gun, but I force myself to do it every day, because it’s a great privilege and blessing, and because safety measures are worthless if you don’t use them. A seatbelt you don’t wear can’t save your life when you need it.

When I joined my church, they gave me a copy of Robert Morris’s The Blessed Life. I’ve been reading it this week. It’s somewhat self-serving to provide new members with this, because the book is about giving, which includes tithes and offerings. And I am extremely wary of greedy preachers and overblown “name it and claim it” prosperity preaching. Still, it’s a wonderful book, and I believe the fundamental message is right. It is true that we are obligated to give generously; not just monetarily, but in all ways, and not just to churches, but to people in need. And it is also true that withholding generosity will cause your life to be cursed. I believe those things wholeheartedly. I don’t believe every Christian can have a private jet, but I believe we are supposed to have “shalom,” which means a very general type of success. Good relationships, good mental and physical health, spiritual growth, and more than enough wealth to cover our needs. A perfect life? No, but a good life which always moves forward toward better things. A life for which each of us can’t help but be grateful, in spite of the challenges.

This is a very tough message for churches to preach, given the shameful and disgusting excesses we have seen in this area. The distinction between valid teaching on generosity and self-serving teaching intended to stimulate gullible people to make preachers rich is slippery, and it will be lost on many Christians, especially those who were victimized in the past. The crooks and psychopaths who took us in didn’t just take money; they poisoned the well against godly teachers who would come later and remind us of the power of generosity. Stealing money is bad. Stealing another person’s willingness to do right is much worse.

The neat thing about this book is that I keep seeing little confirmations of things I came to believe before I read it. The Holy Spirit teaches us, and it’s always amazing and humbling to see how our “brilliant” conclusions have already come to other people.

Pentecostal churches are still going a little heavy on God’s promises to us, and maybe a little light on our obligations to him, but I think they’re headed in a better direction these days. I bailed out about twenty years ago even though I thought they were mostly right about God. I don’t want to repeat the mistake of refusing to go to a good church because it appears imperfect. And I don’t want to give anyone the wrong impression. It’s not like these churches are packed with fools who only show up because they think God will fix all their problems and give them big houses. The people are wonderful, and they are very concerned with doing what is right.

One of the things I like about the book is that it defines “covetousness” as setting your heart on things. This is something I’ve thought about a lot, although it opened my eyes to see it used as a definition of that term. We have natural, normal, righteous desires in this life, such as sexual desire, a desire for wealth, and a desire for food. It’s sick to starve those desires. God never intended for us to do that. It’s sick to call them “lust,” “greed,” and “gluttony,” no matter how they manifest themselves. It’s not wrong to have desires. What’s wrong is overindulging them, serving them, and allowing them to cause you to sin. Fundamentally, it’s wrong to see the things you desire as replacements for God. They become idols. Contentment comes from God, not from sating your desires. It’s okay to see someone else’s house and think it would be nice to have one like it. It’s wrong to resent that person, or want him to lose his house, or set your heart on having his house or one like it, regardless of what you have to do. And it’s wrong to think a house will fix your life. That’s idolatry. It’s the error that keeps socialism alive. Expecting blessings only God can give, from things other than God.

Desire for sex isn’t automatically lust, and desire for wealth isn’t automatically greed, and so on. Stupidly equating all earthly desire with sin leads to warped, unhealthy, self-righteous asceticism. We’re not supposed to be free of these things. We’re supposed to be in charge of them. That’s how I see it.

I think money moving into and out of a person’s hands is like electricity moving through a circuit. It passes through, and along the way, it’s used to do good things. But if charges get stuck in the circuit and accumulate too much, you end up with a destructive disaster. The key is to avoid bottling it up. Or you could think of it as food going through a warehouse. If you shut the “out” door and stop distributing it, it rots, supports rats, causes harm, and benefits nobody. If you shut the “in” door, you have nothing to give others. If you get used to giving and denying your impulses, you learn not to set your heart on things, and they become less dangerous to you.

Living right is complicated. You have to be generous. You have to be responsible. You have to control yourself and be logical. You have to know when to rebuke and when to suffer other people’s faults quietly. You can’t sum it all up effectively in a paragraph or learn it all in a day. Jesus gave a very brief summary of the law and the prophets, but he never suggested we rely on that summary and throw the other stuff out.

Morris gave an interesting interpretation of the confusing verse reading, “Make to yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness.” He believes it means we are to help others in this world with our money, so that in paradise, they will greet us in gratitude.

It’s a pretty good book. I recommend it.

By the way, World Vision now has a special area in their Gift Catalog, listing gifts that carry matching funds. You donate X to some cause, and they get 3X or 10X or whatever in matching funds, so it’s almost as if you donated much more. Very neat idea.

Machining Woes

Heather’s mom is having kidney problems, and Heather is asking for prayer. Here is the link.

I had an interesting day. I was determined to check my Parlec vise and see if it needed adjusting. The parallels were sliding out from under parts when I tightened it. I went out and started moving the table to an appropriate position, using the power feed. The power feed slowed down. I figured it was defective. Then I heard a noise, and I looked up and realized I was trying to move a workpiece past a cutter which was not rotating.

Naturally, I lost my mind for several minutes. I could see that I had knocked the head out of tram. No dial indicator needed. I assumed I had destroyed the mill’s entire head. But it turned out to be okay, and I got some more valuable experience in tramming. Man, I felt like an idiot.

I put the vise back on the table and aligned it, and I put two 123 blocks in it, one on top of the other. I centered them in the vise and tightened it, and the lower block didn’t come loose. So it appears that the vise is okay, although it doesn’t work that great for parts that don’t press against the lower parts of the jaws.

I finished up one T nut. Had a couple of issues. First, I tapped the nuts by hand, because the alternative was to spend a year putting each one in the lathe and centering it in the 4-jaw chuck. The mill’s lowest speed makes me nervous, so I didn’t want to use it for tapping. When I was done, it turned out the threads were not perfectly perpendicular to the top surfaces of the nuts. I don’t think it matters when they’re in use, but it’s a bummer. Second thing: I made a subtraction error and made one of the nuts the wrong size. It will work, but I wanted it to be right. Guess I’ll make new ones.

It sounds nutty, but while I had no problems with advanced math and physics involving tons of variables, addition and subtraction of actual numbers drive me crazy. In higher math and science, mistaking plus for minus is usually a trivial error which is easily fixed. If you make the same error with numbers, it can cause real problems.

I will make nuts until I get them right. You watch.

Four Days

I wanted to give a little update on my sister’s situation. I can’t say a whole lot. Maybe I’ll never be able to write about it in any detail, but I can give a few general facts.

This has been a perfect storm for her. I wish I could explain, but I can’t. There are a number of problems we will have to deal with. It’s not just the cancer itself. I would almost draw a parallel to the story of Job, although his situation hit harder and faster.

It would have been great to get her into chemotherapy this week, but there were reasons it couldn’t be done. So we’re hoping to get it going on Monday. I believe we are looking at over four months of treatment, and I suppose I’ll be driving her to and from the hospital three days a week. It depends on how she reacts. My mother didn’t get very ill from chemotherapy, but people are different, and the drugs may be different.

There will be more work to do. I know about the three weekly trips now, but we’ll find out about other needs and obligations as we go. We’re hoping to give her house a going over this weekend, for example. Maybe it’s good that I’m not working on a project right now.

The suffering cancer causes concentrates at the beginning and end. The first couple of weeks are very hard, and if things don’t work out, problems ramp up later on. That’s a general observation from a person who has seen several relatives endure this disease. I’m not predicting anything regarding the outcome in my sister’s case. These last two weeks have been difficult. Some days have been especially heavy with upsetting information. I think things should level off somewhat now that we’re about to begin the treatment routine. We’ll have to get proficient at living with cancer.

I recommended she find a support group. The assistance of professionals is no substitute for the fellowship and insights of other sufferers and their families.

We are hoping to end up with a powerful testimony of God’s power. No one is ceding the battle.

I felt I owed this update to all the folks who have prayed for her. I would write more if I thought it was wise.

Non-Tool Stuff Starts About Halfway Down

I’m trying to figure out whether the stuff I’ve learned in machining videos is correct.

A long while back, I ordered an “as new” OSG carbide end mill off Ebay. Seemed to work okay, and it was really cheap, so yesterday I ordered two more. I also looked at roughing mills. I have a 3/8″ roughing mill, but now that I know about the fun of changing collets, I realize I should try to put together a few mills with the same diameter. I found a 1/2″ roughing mill, and I noticed that the tolerances were not impressive. I think the diameter was listed as within 0.003″ of spec.

That confused me, because–I have not confirmed this yet–I’m fairly sure some of the videos suggested using an edge finder to locate the spindle relative to the work, and then popping in an end mill of known diameter, and using that diameter for calculations when moving the table. If you’re a machinist, you know that a diameter that’s off by 0.003″ is going to give you errors half that big in your work. And that’s more than big enough to be a concern when you’re trying to be precise. It doesn’t matter with a roughing mill, but other end mills have the same issue.

On top of that, I’m almost sure the ATI videos I watched endorsed carbide end mills. Carbide is really hard, and it’s expensive. The benefits are that it lasts a long time and performs well and cuts faster. Now I’m being told it should not be used on manual mills, because you’re supposed to climb-cut when you use it, and that will make a manual mill flex. I hope I have this right. I believe I was told that if you cut conventionally with carbide, it breaks up over time, and you get bad finishes.

The upshot seems to be that edge finders are worthless for some of the uses I hoped to use them for, and I was dumb to buy carbide. Apparently cobalt is a better choice for me. A lot of people tell me not to get cobalt, because it costs a little more, but it seems to work way better than HSS. At least in drill bits.

I guess I won’t regret spending $10 each on two carbide cutters, since they’ll definitely work long enough to be worth the money.

If you can’t use an edge finder to locate a cutter precisely, you have to do it some other way. I believe that sends you back to the rolling-paper method. You embarrass yourself by buying rolling papers like a depraved stoner, and then you find edges by holding them between the work and the cutter. The edge finder will tell you where the spindle is, relative to the work, but that’s not the same as telling you where the edge of the cutter will be.

I’ve been trying to find a good used rotary table, but it’s not that easy. You also need indexing plates and a tailstock, and by the time you get done looking for this stuff, you’ve been shopping for six months. It may be time to bite the Enco bullet and go Taiwanese again. You can often save three figures by getting old American tooling, but what does that savings cost you in lost time you could have been spending machining? It amazes me that people brag about shopping a year for a taper attachment or a steady rest. How long do they expect to live? These are usually middle-aged or older guys. A year can easily be five or ten percent of their remaining time on earth. When you decide to dedicate a lot of time to something, you need to ask yourself how much time you have left. I find life so interesting, I want to live a thousand years. That seems unlikely, however.

A few months back, my dad was talking about getting a travel trailer. I’m very, very glad he still has enthusiasm for things like that. But my mother has been gone for 12 years, and he’s 77. A lot of the people we could have visited 35 years ago are dead or elderly. It’s late.

My grandfather once leased a house to a 67-year-old man, tying it up for a number of years. Someone in the family complained, and my grandfather said, “He’s an old man. He won’t live long.” When he said that, I believe he was 72.

He was right, but you can still see my point.

I guess it will sound funny, but one reason I bought a convertible is that we didn’t do anything fun when I was a kid. My uncle Jim had a couple of convertibles in the Sixties, and some family members talked like he had gone insane. That’s how boring most of us were. My dad, my mother, my sister and I were pretty dull. We rarely went on real vacations. We never toured the US. We didn’t have a boat or an RV. We had no regular activities, like shooting or bowling. We belonged to no clubs or organizations, apart from the country club. We didn’t go to church regularly. We never belonged to a church. Golf was the only sport, apart from games my friends and I played in the yard, and my dad was the only one who golfed. We watched TV; that was our main activity. Isn’t that awful? I hate to admit it. That was our life. I went to school, and then I came home and watched TV, and I refrained from doing homework unless I had absolutely no choice, and after that I went to bed. My mother was the only one who wasn’t a TV addict, but she didn’t really do anything with the time she saved. My sister and I didn’t have many toys, which is weird, since we were well off. Mike says the other kids felt sorry for us. I had no idea back then. My mother bought me a banjo when I was 15; that was nice.

I guess I wasn’t as bad as the others. I enjoyed shooting BB guns, fishing for inedible fish, breaking things, and fireworks. Mike and I used to get together and do the kind of stupid, aimless things kids do when they’re on their own. Like Beavis and Butt-head, I guess, except we weren’t that mean or stupid. We tended to do strange, creative things. I had another friend nearby, but he wasn’t bright enough to come up with things like that. We also had CB radios and other passing interests. My sister didn’t do much of anything, but that’s normal for girls.

I remember Mike somehow got ahold of a surplus parachute. We put it in his yard, on a busy corner, and we weighted the perimeter. Then we put a fan under it and put some lights inside. It blew up into a big, quivering white dome, and we went inside and hung out. Cars slowed down so people could see this glowing object and wonder why these two abnormal kids were doing something that wasn’t ordinary.

I got my first convertible in 1980, and Jim was part of the inspiration. His branch of the family had more fun than the others. I’m sure my mother told me the car would flip and burn immediately, and I would be trapped underneath it like a chicken in a roasting pan. Oh, Lord. A convertible. Please, don’t let this happen to my child. Next he’ll be base-jumping. My mother didn’t like electric windows, because she thought any car with electric windows would plunge into a canal at the earliest opportunity, and there she would be, unable to roll down the window and escape. Meanwhile, she smoked at least two packs of cigarettes a day. I was crazy about my mom, but I knew there her logic had its weak points. I’m ancient. So far, I’ve know ONE person who was in a convertible that flipped, and he didn’t roast. I don’t know anyone who has driven into a canal. You can keep a punch in your car to break your windows, if that kind of thing worries you. I think my Glock will also do the job.

Once in a while, you have to do something. Just spend the money and do it. It isn’t going to do itself. I’m really glad I’ve had two convertibles and two motorcycles. I’m glad I lived in Israel for four months. I’m glad I published three books and got a bunch of tools and guns and learned to make beer. I can’t even guess how boring life would be if I didn’t do things like this. By and large, the strange and challenging things you do will be the things you remember with the most pleasure. That’s an extremely important lesson young people should learn. You shouldn’t be a sensation junkie or a hedonistic wastrel, but you should embrace opportunities to shake up your life. You should be conscious of their value and jump on them instead of avoiding them. You don’t want to leave your kids a diary that has entries like, “July 17: I celebrate 63 victorious years of resisting buying a motorcycle. I will celebrate by putting a small amount of real sugar in my oatmeal.”

I think a rotary table will be a real asset. Right now, I can drill holes and make straight cuts, and that’s about it. Not much utility for what I paid. A rotary table will let me cut arcs, and it will allow me to do tasks that require breaking circles up accurately into sections. Circles of bolt holes, for example.

I should take one of the bikes out today. I hope my mom will be too busy in paradise to notice.

I am Wearing my X-Ray Specs

This morning I found myself thinking about a strange trait which is common among human beings. When you try to help them, very often, they respond by attacking you. You expect gratitude, and instead, you are treated like an enemy. This is why we have the saying, “No good deed goes unpunished.” It reminds me of a great lesson my mother taught me. She said to avoid lending money to friends, because they would end up resenting me! Sounds crazy when you’re young and you haven’t seen much of life, but she was absolutely right.

Sometimes in prayer I ramble about things like this, and today while I was doing that, I found myself asking who I knew who had had this experience. And I felt stupid when the answer came to me. The answer was God. This is what he deals with every day, and in the past, he has had to put up with it from me. Seems like every time I think about a particularly exasperating human failing, I immediately realize I have been guilty of it.

Observant Jews avoid putting young single men in positions of authority. Why? Because their knowledge is incomplete. People who have raised kids and dealt with spouses and provided for families know things cloistered, subsidized virgins don’t. In a recent comment, Aaron said this:

Interactions with people are frequent temporal opportunities to improve one’s relationship with God. Judaism, in requiring things like minyans and numerous communal requirements, is opposed to living like a hermit. We don’t have monks or nuns or gurus on mountaintops. There’s a saying “a tzaddik in daled amot”, “a saint within his 4 cubits”.

I tried to think of respected Biblical figures who were hermits, and I drew a blank. John the Baptist had disciples, and he attracted large numbers of people for ritual immersion. He didn’t sit alone in a cave all day. Some say he was an Essene, and the Essenes were atypical Jews who practiced celibacy and asceticism, but rumor isn’t fact. You can find references to the wives of Old Testament prophets. The priests married and had kids. Peter, who is considered the first Pope, was married. Jesus was constantly around people, except when he set himself apart for short periods. Paul had so many friends, he never shut up about them. Greet this one with a kiss. Send my love to that one. It’s half of the New Testament.

Some of the prophets ended up isolated at times, but I don’t know of any reason to believe that was how they normally lived. Maybe I missed something.

What does this have to do with helping people who are hostile? The answer is that parents do it all the time. One of the purposes of parenthood must be to teach us how to love people who don’t deserve it. And by “love,” I don’t mean “have affection for.” We often act against the best interests of those for whom we have the most affection. Consider stalkers. I use the word “love” to describe concern for the well-being of others, which is probably the only accurate definition. John 15:13 confirms this. You can love someone you dislike, and you can love someone while you’re angry at them. God himself gets angry.

I have been ungrateful and stupid, so I can’t let myself feel cheated when others give me the same treatment. This is the job we were created for. It isn’t always fun, but it always brings us blessings.

I guess nobody goes through life without changing a few dirty diapers. Parents get the worst of it, and I think they learn the most, but just about all of us find ourselves cleaning up after others at one time or another, and expecting thanks is just plain dumb. If you do it for gratitude and admiration, you are going to burn out fast.

God promised to give us wisdom, provided we asked for it. I ask. You may know Ronald Reagan’s anecdote about the kid who tunneled into the pile of horse manure, looking for a pony. I guess wisdom is what allows you to see the pony before you start digging.

May we all have good luck with our manure piles today.