Cancer

Sad news from Aelfheld, who blogs over at Operation Enduring Service.

He has a friend named Dan Howell. Dan is a firefighter in Beaumont, Texas. His sister Mary Ellen has cancer. It’s in her lungs and lymph nodes, and it has gone to her brain. Right now she is also fighting an infection. The family is asking for prayer.

Here is a link to OES. Here is a link to Mary Ellen’s page on the Caringbridge website. It’s a nonprofit-owned site that provides individual blogs for patients.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Blog Drama Approaches Crescendo

I have some weird news for you.

A few months back, someone I know voiced suspicions regarding the existence of Mish Weiss. As I recall, this was before the strange twists and turns in her story. According to Mish’s blog, she was fighting leukemia, and things didn’t look good. I don’t think we had learned of her long-lost daughter, who later gave her a bone marrow transplant. At that time, it made for moving reading, but it wasn’t unbelievable.

Out of respect for my friend’s instincts, I did a little research. I couldn’t find any record of a Mish Weiss in New Jersey, which is where she says she was born. I did find evidence of Mish which predated the leukemia story, and it didn’t seem to have anything to do with cancer or drama. I also considered the friends Mish named on her blog. At least one of them, Cary Veech, seemed to check out as a real person. And I knew Leah from my own blog, where she had been commenting for a long time.

My conclusion was that the story was probably real. I figured a fake this detailed would be beyond the reach of a bored blogger starving for attention. I believe what I said was that prayer didn’t cost me anything, so it wasn’t a great loss if it turned out my suspicious friend was right.

I didn’t know as much about the story as many other people. I didn’t keep up with any of the crew on Facebook or Twitter. I just checked in on Mish and posted prayer requests from time to time. I really wasn’t concerned about whether it was real; I figured I would err on the side of caution and not worry about it. Others inquired more deeply.

Now if you go to Leah Friedman’s blog, you will see a bizarre post by her friend Cary. He claims he has locked everyone out of the blog, and he says he and Leah have a relationship, and he can’t get her to confirm her identity, or even that she exists. So there goes one real-life friend who seemed to confirm the story.

I learned something weird today. Supposedly, Mish had an online friend who was an FBI agent, and who claimed he was joining the Mossad. That’s a little hard to swallow. The Mossad is an intelligence agency belonging to another country. That makes it exceedingly unlikely that they would accept American citizens belonging to another intelligence agency with interests that sometimes conflict with Israel’s. A commenter on Leah’s blog says this person, who calls himself “Mason,” has removed his Twitter account and pretty much vanished. This is all secondhand; I have not kept up with this the way others have, so I can only report what they say.

Another comment says no oncology department in Jerusalem has any record of Mish Weiss or anyone resembling her.

On top of that, Mish’s blog is now private. I have no idea what’s going on. I haven’t been invited yet.

So what is the truth? No idea. If it’s a con, it’s very well done. I admit, the story has gotten awfully good lately, which is cause for skepticism, but remarkable things do happen. You can’t just assume unusual stories aren’t true.

I guess we’ll get the answer this week. If Leah and Mish are on the level, they can prove it very quickly, and they will. If not, not.

Do I feel angry or betrayed? No. Like I said, a little bird has been whispering in my ear about this for a very long time, so I knew there was a possibility I was wasting my time. I don’t care. Praying for other people improves me. I got my blessing out of it, regardless of whether the story is true. If it’s a sham, the punishment will not fall on me.

In a way, I hope it’s a lie, because it means there is no sick girl languishing in a hospital bed in Jerusalem. I don’t feel stupid; everyone believes a good lie. It’s not going to make me bitter or damage my faith. I don’t have faith in people; I haven’t for a long time. I have faith in God.

I know my friend the skeptic will be excited to read this. I won’t out that person. They can pipe up in the comments if they wish. If Mish is imaginary, figuring it out so early was pretty sharp, so unnamed friend, my hat is off to you.

More

It gets even weirder! Now Leah’s blog has been changed to invitation-only!

Medical Insurance = License to Cruise

What a fantastic day. I didn’t always think I was having fun, but in retrospect, I realize I was.

I decided to organize God’s Own Garage, because it was starting to get cluttered, and I still have to stick a 2400-pound milling machine in there. I really opened it up. It felt wonderful. An orderly room is like a beautiful woman. It gives you pleasure just by existing.

Then I decided to clean the mildew off the Harley’s saddlebags. It grew during the roof-problem era, when the garage was damp. I got on the web and looked, and I saw a lot of stupid ideas for killing mildew on leather. Then I realized I already had something that would probably do the trick: iodophor sanitizer. Unlike bleach, it won’t damage the leather, and as far as I know, iodine kills EVERYTHING. So I cleaned the mildew off with rubbing alcohol, hit the leather with iodophor, and followed up with leather conditioner. And the bags looked great. I was shocked.

I never thought that bike was all that good looking when I bought it. The black tins disappointed me, but at that time, you bought the Harley the dealer showed you, or you did without. Today I realized it’s actually a very nice looking bike. It has grown on me.

One thing led to another, and I found myself trying to get her started. I had to drain all the fuel back when I installed the new petcock, so the tank was literally dry. I figured it was time to fire her up. But I had no gas. I did something really stupid. I had a truly ancient container of gas on hand. I decided to put a quart in the tank. I figured it would get me to a gas station, and if it wasn’t the greatest gas on earth, it wouldn’t matter, because I’d be diluting it twenty-to-one with new gas.

I had to use a MAPP torch to get the silly thing started, aiming the nozzle into the carb. When it started running, I thought my problems were over. I decided to take a short spin to see if it was in shape to get me to the gas station. And the bike died three blocks from home. Worse, the place where it conked out was a good two feet lower, and you really can’t push an 800-pound bike uphill. Even a slight grade is bad news.

I walked back to the house, got the torch, and drove to the bike. Got it started. Then it died again. Finally, I had to call my dad. He was the only person available on short notice. He graciously abandoned his dinner, drove to a gas station, bought a gas can, bought a gallon of good gas, and brought it to me. Thank God, it did the trick.

I got the bike home and fiddled with it, and I went for another spin. The acceleration was weak, and it tried to stall at low speeds. I figured it was either the gas or corrosion in the slow jet, which happens when a bike sits. I went and got gas, and on the way home, the bike got worse, surging and farting. Surging is embarrassing. It makes you look like an idiot in traffic. Like you have no idea how to work a throttle.

I got home and ordered some new slow jets on the web (the dealer near me probably charges fifty bucks each for a two-dollar item). Then I decided to play Dr. House. I thought there might be crud in the carb, but I did not want to take it apart and hit it with carb cleaner. But I realized I had a bottle of STP fuel injection cleaner and some Sta-Bil. I figured carb crud had to be just like injector crud. And if the bad gas had water in it, Sta-Bil would get rid of it. I made an STP and Sta-Bil cocktail, poured it into the tank, and hit the started. The bike ran! I got a screwdriver and adjusted the idle speed, and away I went.

It ran like a dream. Great low-end torque, good acceleration, no backfiring, no hesitation, and no surging. It probably didn’t run this well new. Against my better judgment, knowing I was very rusty, I decided to go for a longer ride. I put on my helmet and horsehide jacket and boots, and I tooled through Coconut Grove and onto I-95.

Riding at highway speed is very intimidating when you’re a new rider, and every rider who has been off his bike for months feels like a new rider when he gets back on. So I was nervous. I felt stiff, and every seam and reflector in the road seemed determined to knock me off the bike. I stuck with it, having no choice, and I went all the way to Northeast 95th Street (over 10 miles) and got off. I rode by the house where I grew up, across a busy intersection from Mike’s old house. I rode down by the bay, where we used to waste our time gigging inedible fish.The bike never gave me a second’s trouble.

On the way home, I felt loose, and my Motorcycle Safety Foundation training came back to me.I threw the bike around a little, just to get used to moving the weight. It was wonderful. I had really missed riding, without even realizing it.

Also, I came up with a name for the bike. It made me laugh. Can’t tell you now, though. I’ll spill it eventually. Not all of you will get it.

I plan to ride more in the future. I was always reluctant to ride, because I was worried about having an accident, and I was too cheap to get medical insurance. Actually, I was afraid they’d make me get an exam, and I didn’t want to show up fat and out of shape, and I never seemed to get into the kind of shape I thought would impress the insurer into giving me a ridiculously low rate. When I finally got insurance, all they did was ask questions. I could have told them I was a giraffe. They would have bought it. So I said my blood pressure was 75 over 40 and I had just won a gold medal in the Decathlon.

Not really.

Anyway, I have insurance, so I’m not as scared of the road. Oddly, the thought of paying medical bills scares me less than the possibility that I will be turned into a giant meatball.

It was a magnificent day, all the way around. I realized my milling dreams were doable, and I got the Harley on the road. I can’t ask for more than that. I’ve been thinking I should ride it to church. It’s a long trip on the interstate, on a low-traffic day. Perfect for riding.

I’d look like a freak with that jacket however.

The pastor’s son has a chopper. I guess I would be excused.

I had a problem with the insurance people. Somehow they got the idea that I had smoked fairly recently, and they jacked up my rate. It’s a lot of money. A hundred bucks a month. I called and complained, and they said I could get a blood test and prove I didn’t smoke.

I’ve been thinking about it. I may just let it go. I keep thinking it’s wasteful to spend that kind of money for an occasional cigar. Then I think about the more fundamental issue: freedom. Do I really want to live like an uptight, irrational, self-righteous, liberal smoke Nazi, just to save money? Wouldn’t I be letting them control me?

For a long time, I thought I might want to give cigars up altogether, because I had read a few things that worried me, and I was concerned about using a product which had been a curse to my family. But last week I read up on it, and here is the truth: smoking a couple of cigars a week is one hundred percent harmless. It’s not addictive. It won’t hurt your heart or lungs. It won’t give you cancer. The Jews believe asceticism is evil, and I think they’re right. Maybe it’s wrong to live like a fanatic in order to keep the insurance company from ripping me off. Liberty–even small, nonessential liberties–is worth something. Pleasure is important. Christians forget that. You’re not supposed to be a slave to it, but if you deprive yourself more than you should, you just store up temptation for the inevitable day when your willpower breaks, and you weary yourself of trying to be good, and you reject gifts God intended you to enjoy. One purpose of the sabbath was to teach man he occasionally had to get off the hamster wheel, stop punishing himself, and enjoy things.

I don’t think John the Baptist was a true ascetic. His diet was limited when he was in the desert, but no self-respecting ascetic would even consider eating honey. It’s an extremely decadent food. And we have no idea what he ate when he was in Jerusalem, where he had access to real grub. You can’t compare him to true ascetics, like the Buddhist and Hindu nutjobs who wander the jungle for decades in diapers, living on dirt. We know Jesus and the disciples enjoyed food and wine, and Jesus even let a woman perfume his feet.

I still have time to think it over.

Garbage In…

Church was fantastic last night. It doesn’t seem to matter what the subject of the sermon is; it always turns out to be just what I need. On this occasion, the pastor started out by asking us if we had ever known anyone who just could not tell the truth. I exhaled loudly. I could not help it. He really hit a nerve. This is a problem I’ve been dealing with a lot lately.

The sermon was not really about liars. The bit about lying was his way of moving into a discussion of Philippians 4:8, which I will now paste:

Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.

Here’s the NIV; I think that’s the version he used.

Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.

It was a weird transition. It went like this. He said when people lie to us, we are likely to sputter something like, “That’s not TRUE. That’s not RIGHT.” And from there, he went into the rest of the verse. I don’t know why he started that way, but he really woke me up when he asked that question. It got my ears working.

The basic message was that the things we think about determine what we are and what happens to us. I think that’s accurate. And I have found it to be true.

One of the big problems with participating in the Internet is that you are exposed to society’s collective id. You will be confronted with cruelty, perversion, and hatred, the likes of which you would be very unlikely to encounter in real life. I don’t have to give you examples, unless you just bought your first computer. And we also come across a lot of negativity and sin when we watch TV, read books, go to movies, or listen to music. It has an impact. It can make a Christian feel left out. It can trigger the herd instinct and make you want to conform to the standards of the unsaved world. If you spend too much time thinking about these things, they will degrade your faith and steal the pleasure you take in life.

In order to be a realist, a Christian has to be an idealist, because we live in more ideal world than the rest of humanity. To most people, the world is an unfair place where there is no hope of justice. It’s a place where there is no arbiter to right wrongs. There is no one to pray to. Often there is no reward for doing right, and doing right may actually bring punishment. But Christians know God hears them, and that he is stronger than the world, and that very often, he will intervene in their lives and make them work. This is why leftists often attack us with the claim that we live in a fantasy world. Their world has no meaning and no order, and they assume ours is the same way, so when we persist in praying and trying to do right instead of abandoning morality to achieve our goals, they think we’re idiots.

Example: if a teenage girl gets herself pregant (and women DO get themselves pregnant, unless it happens without their consent), a leftist will propose a mechanical, worldly remedy: tear the baby apart in the womb and suck it out with a hose. Because raising kids is hard for unwed mothers, and unwanted babies never amount to anything, and so on and so on. A Christian, on the other hand, will say God rewards people for repenting and taking responsibility for their sins. A Christian will say a girl who turns to God and refuses to harm her child will have doors opened for her, and that her curse will turn into a blessing.

You can’t think like the godless and expect to have faith. You have to believe that morality works. It’s easier to think that way if you don’t spend your evenings watching porn and listening to rap and generally exposing yourself to primitive, immoral thought.

A few years ago, a friend of mine suggested I watch the Horatio Hornblower TV series on DVD. He said it was good entertainment, and he also said it presented wonderful morals. I took a look, and he was right. After you watch one of these shows, and you witness the hard moral decisions the characters make, you feel improved. And there are plenty of other examples of good moral models in entertainment and literature. Many older movies carry good messages. That’s something I’ll think about in the future, when I decide what to put into my mind.

They gave us rubber bracelets last night, with “THINK 4:8” stamped on them. The pastor told us to print out the verse and post it where we could see it. I think I’ll do that. I’m not a bracelet guy, but I am okay with putting scripture where I can see it. I find that thinking about this verse gives me strength. It makes me want to be a better person.

One of the benefits of marriage is that it gives you someone to whom it is your duty to improve yourself. But not everyone is married. Not everyone has kids. Maybe it’s possible for single people to find the motivation in verses like this one.

Modern culture is nothing but mental pollution. It’s crippling. Like sprinkling poison on your food. I need to recognize that and use this knowledge to shape myself.

Things are going so well for me, I don’t understand it. I spend more and more of my time in a peaceful, optimistic state that comes from knowing God and letting him work in my life. Things are working out. My problems are shrinking. I almost feel as if it’s unfair to talk about it, because it’s hard to believe that it’s reasonable to expect other people to get the same results. I don’t want to be like a freak success story in a diet commercial, claiming everyone who tries the product will be like me and lose 90 pounds in three weeks. But what is happening, is happening. I can’t keep it a secret or lie about it.

I keep looking over my shoulder, wondering if it’s supposed to be like this. Christians do have problems. When you go without a real problem for a certain length of time, it’s hard not to get antsy. I remember what Robert Duvall said in the movie Tender Mercies: “See, I don’t trust happiness. I never have. I never will.” Maybe it’s okay to trust it, when it’s built on a solid foundation. I seem to remember a verse or two that support that notion.

If this is what Christianity is supposed to be like, I can understand why people like the Apostles were so in love with it and why they wanted other people to try it. Maybe the yoke really is easy, and the burden really is light.

I suppose I should trust the person who said that.

105

Mish Weiss is not doing too bad, for a person who was not expected to be around at this time. Her white blood cell count keeps going up. If her platelets catch up, it will be a whole new ball game.

Of course, the battle never stops. Now Leah Friedman is having problems. She has two artificial heart valves, and she has a fever of 105. Please say a prayer.

While you’re at it, look at this email I received this morning:

Guys,

Please pray for the family of Major Kevin Jenrette. I found out he was killed today by an IED in Afghanistan.

Kevin was one of the finest men I’ve ever known. A loving husband and father. A devout Christian. A dedicated servant to his country.

Thanks for giving this blog a purpose.

Confirmation?

A huge pile of machining stuff will arrive today. Enco shipped the vise separately, so I don’t know when it’s coming, but at some point during the day, I will find myself in possession of things like parallels and 1-2-3 blocks. I can’t believe I did this.

There has to be a reason for this. It’s so strange; it doesn’t seem natural. I hope the purpose eventually becomes clear. In the meantime, I can’t wait to get started.

I started reading Josephus yesterday. He wrote a short autobiography, a history of the Jews, and a history of the wars between the Jews and Romans. The bio was like something Barack Obama would write. “I first realized I was a gift to the world when my mom told me the nurses in the maternity ward had used my halo as a reading lamp.” I skipped it and went to The Antiquities of the Jews.

This is interesting stuff. Josephus was the son of a priest, and he was born at around the time of the crucifixion. He had to be familiar with the Babylonian Talmud and the Jerusalem Talmud, as well as any other bits of history and wisdom the priests passed down to their sons.

Josephus says the angels had sex with women and gave rise to a race of evil people.

The modern Jewish position is that angels can’t do things like that. Most Christians agree. The book of Enoch, Josephus, and the book of Jasher contradict the current view. So who is right? Maybe the answer can be found in a principle of Jewish theology, which says–I hope I’m stating this correctly–that older authorities generally outweigh new ones.

Josephus presumably had some reason for making his assertion. A Jewish priest who was proud of his scholarship wouldn’t throw an item like that out without some basis. He must have received his information from those under whom he studied.

The Talmud is supposedly nearly impenetrable without experienced guidance, and presumably, a lot of orally relayed information that was known in ancient times has been lost. But it makes sense to assume that it can be accessed indirectly through the writings of people like Josephus.

I have to wonder what he left out.

Anyway, this tends to confirm my own suspicions, and it certainly helps the Bible (both testaments) make sense.

I better get started, wiring up the garage for the mill.

Reward Repentance With Self-Righteous Excoriation

I just saw Obama speaking at Buchenwald with Angela Merkel beside him.

Did I hear him right? I believe he listed the Germans’ evil deeds, including “using rape as a weapon of war.”

The memory of the Holocaust has to be kept alive. No doubt about it. But there is such a thing as tact. What does this amateur hope to accomplish by speaking in such pointed terms? The Germans have nearly turned repentance into an industry. The Holocaust ended sixty-five years ago, yet they are still gracious enough to promote its remembrance by allowing foreign heads of state to speak from the sites of concentration camps. Am I crazy, or could Obama have taken a more constructive tone?

It’s like Louis Farrakhan had a baby with Karl Marx and Steve Urkel. Obama can’t do anything right. Isn’t this exactly the kind of nationalist “arrogance” he himself complained of?

It’s hard to believe that any President would have the gall to be self-righteous about the Holocaust, while allowing Israel’s enemies to build nuclear missiles.

We’ll Teach Those Jews

Am I the only one who is loving the ongoing outing of B. Hussein Obama? He emphasizes “Hussein” when he addresses Muslims, so I guess everyone else is entitled to do it, too. I am distressed by Obama’s hostility toward Israel and his habit of embracing Muslims who support terrorism, but I am enjoying seeing his true nature exposed.

I realize Obama is inexperienced, naive, and undistinguished, but he shocks even me when he says the Iranians should be allowed to have nuclear power, as long as they use it responsibly.

This is like putting Charles Manson on the street via work-release. “Murder one more family, and we’re going to start doubting your sincerity.”

It’s a very simple policy. Let the Iranians have fissile material, and wait to see if they nuke the Jews. If they do, consider sanctions. I’m trying to be sarcastic, but that’s very close to Obama’s actual policy.

Reagan said “Trust, but verify.” Obama says “HOPE.”

Here’s what’s behind all this. Obama’s past as a young Muslim almost surely has something to do with it, but the main problem is that Obama is not a Christian. Sure, he went to “church,” but it was a political and social organization, not a true house of God. Jeremiah Wright very clearly hates Jews and loves socialism, and he thrives by telling black people nothing that happens to them is their fault, that everything they do is justified, and that the rest of us should give them stuff. None of that comes from the Bible. It has nothing to do with faith or obedience to God. It can’t be reconciled with the Old Testament, nor can it be reconciled with the words of Jesus or the Apostles.

Obama doesn’t pray sincerely in Jesus’s name every day. He doesn’t study the Bible. He ignored the National Day of Prayer. He supports late-term convenience abortion, as well as withholding support from abortion victims who are born alive. In all likelihood, he’s an atheist. Most liberal elites are. His church attendance was probably purely cynical; an act to pacify voters. Politicians have to be married, and they have to go to church. It makes winning elections easier. You can try to tell me it’s not right to judge another person’s faith, but you would be wrong. A person’s actions can be a very reliable index of the contents of his heart. Christians are required to consider such matters. It’s not forbidden at all. By Obama’s fruit, we can know him.

If you’re not a Jew or a Christian, to you, Israel is just like any other nation. It might as well be New Guinea. And if you’re a politician, you do what politicians do. You figure out which side your bread is buttered on, and you act accordingly. Israel doesn’t sell us oil. They don’t buy a lot of our goods. They consume aid dollars. And they make a lot of other nations angry, and that anger bleeds off onto us. So cut them loose. If there is no God, it’s the sensible thing to do.

Obama also knows that he has three blocs of voters to whom anti-Israel rhetoric plays well: blacks, Hispanics, and Jews. Blacks have a heavy-duty anti-Semitism problem, Hispanics are not too far behind, and Jews are afflicted with self-hatred and a crippling desire to appease. And modern leftists tend to be anti-Semitic regardless of race. To support Israel would be an act of considerable political courage. Obama doesn’t have that in him. He’ll continue doing whatever he thinks will please the most voters.

Our support for Israel is based on three things. Judaism, the Judaism-independent Jewish fear of facing a new holocaust without a refuge (Jews want Israel to continue to exist, while paradoxically supporting its dismemberment) and Christianity. Obama probably sees our support for Israel as a sort of cultural relic. An unfortunate lingering symptom of our mass delusions. Backward Americans believe in a fictional God, and for this reason, we maintain counterproductive and untenable ideas about Middle East policy. The right thing to do–the thing Saul Alinksy would do–is to make Israel understand that it’s unimportant. Not special. Because we’ve moved past all that silly religious nonsense. From now on, we’ll support Israel in the same way we support Ecuador and Laos. It’s all about fairness, right? Like socialism.

Obama is busting his butt to make us understand that Israel is not special. He is rubbing our noses in it. His people call it “even-handedness.” If the Iranians have nukes, it’s bad, but America isn’t Israel, so we can survive a Jerusalem atom bomb blast. The Indians and Pakistanis are always on the brink of nuclear war, and we don’t do much about it. I think that’s how Obama views the Iranian threat. American Jews aren’t raising a fuss; they seem to consent to it. So that’s how it’s going to go.

Iran will get the bomb. It’s probably too late for Israel to stop them. It’s not that hard to hide things in tunnels, and the Iranians know what happened to Hussein’s above-ground nuclear site. Bush didn’t have the guts to do anything, probably because of the way Americans betrayed him over Iraq, and Obama doesn’t care. He is probably worried about the possibility of an Israeli raid, which would be “an outrageous violation of sovereignty” or some such nonsense, but he surely accepts the inevitability of an Iranian nuclear arsenal. When the first test goes off, Obama will mumble a few words about what a bummer it is, and then he’ll get back to socializing industries. And we’ll see what happens.

The Bible says nations that slice up Israel will be judged by God. We are among those nations. We are in God’s crosshairs. Not a good place to be. But the more sophisticated we perceive ourselves to be–the less we realize that God is real and that we need him–the deeper into this mess we are going to plunge.

76.Something

I might as well put up the stuff I wrote before I found out Mish Weiss was having a new medical crisis.

I received a funny answer to an Ebay inquiry. I asked a guy selling a mill if he had photos of the ways. He got back to me today: “I didn’t get a chance to take pictures of the table or ways but there is really no reason to as they will appear as new with the exception of a light use patina. No gouges, holes or any sign of wear.”

I love it. I don’t need to see the ways, because he has seen them. That’s what I call service. You don’t need to verify the condition of this guy’s merchandise to keep him from cheating you, because he’ll verify it for you. I’m sure he would be completely honest.

If you think Ebay protects you from crooks, think again. If you read the fine print in the Paypal “fraud protection” stuff, you will find that it boils down to “It is just barely conceivable that we will refund an inadequate portion of your money if you get royally screwed. But we will do our best to avoid it.”

Say you buy a milling machine for a thousand dollars (one of those imaginary low-mileage Bridgeports I keep hearing about), and you have it shipped for twelve hundred, which is a realistic figure (unlike the mill price). If it’s junk, you get a full refund. If you ship it back at your own expense. What a deal! And depending on the language in the ad, you may not get your original shipping fee back. And unless you’re very careful about checking the fine print before you buy, you may end up getting an item with no protection whatsoever.

I’m not sure what the EbayPal folks think “Buy With Confidence” means, but it definitely doesn’t mean you can buy with confidence, unless “confidence” means “confidence that I have no recourse if I get screwed.”

The new insulation in the garage worked. The result, when the AC is on, isn’t so much a lower temperature as a gentler temperature gradient. It used to be cold on one side of the garage and warm on the other, over by the garage doors. Now it’s cool all over.

With no AC, the picture is still very promising. I went in to the garage this morning; the outside temperature was around 85. Inside the garage, it was under 77. Amazing. I always thought the roof was the big heat source, but I guess I was mistaken. I was afraid heat would come in through the roof, and the insulated doors would hold it in, turning the garage into a Bridge-Over-the-River-Kwai-type oven. But that didn’t happen, so the roof must be the lesser problem.

I’m wondering if there is some kind of cheap rigid insulation I could staple to the roof. Putting rolls of fiberglass up there would be a month in hell, but there is probably some board-type product that goes on with staples and does an okay job. I know there are spray-on products. I can just picture that crap raining down on my tools.

Maybe it’s overkill. The roof is white, so it reflects a lot of heat, and hot air likes to rise, so maybe the open space over my head is not a big problem. A guy who worked in commercial real estate once told me that square footage was more important than a room’s height. I don’t know if that’s true.

After I get done praying for Mish, I’m going to go out there and just…not sweat.