I Didn’t

I just realized it’s Mothers’ Day. Usually, Blue Mountain reminds me. I guess I finally took my grandmother and mother off the reminder list. I did not enjoy having unexpected emails remind me that they were gone.

Let me post something my mother loved. I posted it in 2005, and I’m posting it again. It’s from the book of Proverbs, verses 31:10-31.

“Who can find a virtuous woman? for her price is far above rubies.
The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her, so that he shall have no need of spoil.
She will do him good and no evil all the days of her life.
She seeketh wool, and flax, and worketh willingly with her hands.
She is like the merchants’ ship; she bringeth her food from afar.
She riseth also while it is yet night, and giveth meat to her household, and a portion to her maidens.
She considereth a field, and buyeth it: with the fruit of her hands she planteth a vineyard.
She girdeth her loins with strength, and strengtheneth her arms.
She perceiveth that her merchandise is good: her candle goeth not out by night.
She layeth her hands to the spindle, and her hands hold the distaff.
She stretcheth out her hand to the poor; yea, she reacheth forth her hands to the needy.
She is not afraid of the snow for her household: for all her household are clothed with scarlet.
She maketh herself coverings of tapestry; her clothing is silk and purple.
Her husband is known in the gates, when he sitteth among the elders of the land.
She maketh fine linen, and selleth it; and delivereth girdles unto the merchant.
Strength and honour are her clothing; and she shall rejoice in time to come.
She openeth her mouth with wisdom; and in her tongue is the law of kindness.
She looketh well to the ways of her household, and eateth not the bread of idleness.
Her children arise up, and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praiseth her.
Many daughters have done virtuously, but thou excellest them all.
Favour is deceitful, and beauty is vain: but a woman that feareth the Lord, she shall be praised.
Give her of the fruit of her hands; and let her own works praise her in the gates.”

I Must Learn to Have an Original Thought Once in a While

I have started on the book of Numbers. And I have to say, the title is appropriate. There are some parts of the Bible I just skim. I know I will never remember the names of the tribe leaders and how many people were in each tribe. I admire anyone who can memorize things like that.

I feel the need for a break, so I am perusing my weekly Winn-Dixie ad. As you may recall, Winn-Dixie is the Florida supermarket chain which is NOT funding a lawsuit to make it impossible for people to carry arms in their cars. As far as I know. Wish I could say the same of Publix. I haven’t shopped there in quite some time.

I was busy with nonsense on Thursday and Friday, so I neglected to check this week’s ad. And it breaks my heart, because skirt steak has been on sale. Oh, the ache.

They’re also selling boliche (eye round roast) for $2.99 a pound. This stuff is wonderful, if you do what the Cubans do with it. Open a channel down the middle and stuff it with fat and/or sausage. Brown it and put it in a pressure cooker with various stew ingredients. Give it an hour and a half. It will be excellent. I think you could make it better by adding a beef rib (nearly free) to bulk up the sauce.

Boneless pork roast, $1.99 a pound. Be still, my heart. The things I can do with that.

Rib roast, $5.99 a pound! Oh, yes. Get me some of that. The freezer is already full of aged rib eyes, but I can make room for more.

Lots of good stuff today. I better go grab something that cooks up fast and easy, so as to minimize the impact on my Sunday.

I ate a Cherokee Chocolate tomato and a Dr. Wyche’s yellow tomato today. I managed to grow them, although they were small and not pretty. The flavor was magnificent. Much better than the heirlooms you get at stores. People keep telling me hybrids are the way to go. Whatever. I may never know, because I can’t grow hybrids, either.

I have a new batch of tomato plants going. We’ll see how they do. The Dr. Wyche’s tomatoes are considerably better than the Kentucky Beefsteaks I grew, so in the future, I guess I’ll just try to grow Dr. Wyche’s. That offends my national pride as a person born in Kentucky, but I have to call them as I see them.

Mike tells me his plants grow beautifully INDOORS in NEW HAMPSHIRE with ONE HOUR OF SUNLIGHT PER DAY in TWO-GALLON BUCKETS. I am so mad. I gave him the seeds, so I know I could have done this. It’s time for me to try. I should have known better than to trust the people who claimed plants had to have all-day sun. I’m going to put two plants indoors, even if I have to throw out furniture. In here, there will be no bugs and no fungus.

Mike and I are a lot alike. Neither of us does anything the orthodox way. I tried to follow the rules, and I got nothing for it. He did everything wrong and has tons of tomatoes. What was I thinking?

See you at the meat counter.

Seems That Way

Wow, thank goodness the problems in Myanmar are all fixed. That was fast, huh?

Of course, I am being sarcastic. But it seems like this horrible catastrophe–one of the worst in human history, if the numbers are to be believed–is no longer important enough to attract the attention of the American press. I admit, I don’t stare at cable news all day, but I do turn it on a few times every day, and what are people talking about? Obama and gas prices. Am I wrong? That’s how it seems to me. And Drudgebart.tv.com hasn’t updated the Myanmar situation in a while. Google still has it at the top of their page.

I guess Myanmar is like Afghanistan. Just not sexy. Or maybe part of the problem is that Myanmar’s bizarre, evil government is obstructing aid and press coverage. I thought Kathleen Blanco was the only governing official in the universe who would turn down aid during a major disaster, but apparently, I was mistaken. I should have remembered the leftist regime in Ethiopia, which created artificial famine by refusing food to citizens who didn’t support the government’s politics.

They’re saying 100,000 people are probably dead because of Cyclone Nargis. I can’t grasp the enormity of that figure. Dead bodies are rotting in the sun or clumping together, bloated, in bodies of water. As they did in Thailand and Indonesia. There aren’t enough people to bury them. People are dying of starvation and disease and injuries and exposure. And somehow we have time for American Idol, but not Myanmar. Am I getting a warped picture because I never watch network TV? I can’t believe this.

After Hurricane Andrew, Miami was on TV every day for weeks. Disaster tourists were a major problem. When I finally got electricity and television back, I saw them on the news, standing through the open moonroofs of cars and minivans, shooting footage of downed houses. Slowing traffic to a crawl. That was bad, but ignoring a disaster is much worse.

Maybe it’s not just a human failing. Maybe it’s God’s judgment. Myanmar has an official policy of eradicating Christianity, and as I understand it, Myanmar’s Jews could all fit in a school bus. Perhaps the lack of press coverage is part of the judgment.

It’s peculiar that we are no longer allowed to hypothesize that God punishes nations and cities. It happened in the Bible a number of times. Sodom, Gomorrah, Babylon, Shiloh, Egypt, and even Israel as a whole. How many examples do you need? It’s not offensive for a Christian to opine that a disaster may have been related to God’s anger. It’s common sense. If the God of the Bible exists, persecuting Jews or Christians is a very bad idea. So is afflicting the weak. The Torah said that if Israel didn’t observe the sabbath and sabbath years, the land would spew the people out and give itself a sabbath. And that’s what the land did. Trying to ban Christianity from an entire nation can’t be a wise move.

I think about things like that a lot, in connection with my own failings. It’s surprising, the list of things you can do to mess up your life. Things that don’t spring to mind immediately when you think about sin. Failing to honor your parents. Failing to help the needy. Failing to support ministries. Harming the Jews. Failing to forgive. It’s possible to work hard to be good and still do things that cause you problems. Purely from ignorance. And you may be unaware of proactive things you’re required to do.

The other day I was watching an IFCJ video, and Rabbi Eckstein said Jews didn’t understand how Christians came up with “the Ten Commandments,” since the Torah is loaded with other commandments. True, the tablets from Mt. Sinai only contain ten, but there are many others. The Jews count 613. I don’t suggest that Christians should obey every part of the Mosaic law, but you can learn a lot about God’s desires by reading the Torah. And you can’t say you haven’t sinned just because you’ve obeyed the Ten Commandments. If that were true, things like kidnapping and incest would be okay.

On the one hand, I would not be surprised if the government of Myanmar caused this disaster by persecuting Christians. On the other, it’s clear that we have a duty to help, now that it has happened. Shouldn’t our journalists be doing all they can to provide coverage and keep our attention focused on the suffering? I believe they should. Maybe they are. We can’t expect them to risk doing time in Burmese jails.

I know I’m inconsistent, using the term “Burmese,” but I can’t stomach “Myanmarese.”

If you run over to World Vision’s site, you’ll see a video about their work in Myanmar. Admittedly, they are not being permitted to do much, but they have been there for decades, and they are probably a good bet if you’re looking for a charity that will eventually be able to get something done there. Here’s a link.

Enjoy your Sunday.

Only Heathens Have Hangovers on Monday

Once again, thanks for all the reloading info. I hope everyone realizes that when I write posts complaining about the press, I am in a homicidal mood. Imagine dealing with a problem with Microsoft software for about three days, having to reboot your computer a thousand times and getting utterly inadequate information from the boys over in Calcutta. Remember how you felt the last time that happened (shut up, George Moneo)? That’s the state I’m in when I write these things. So if I seem unhinged, consider what I have been going through all day.

On top of that, I have always had a problem with bad teaching, which is what you get from a bad manual. Back when I was studying math and physics, I vented my spleen constantly on bad teachers and the authors of bad books. Very often, I ignored the text for a course as much as I could, in favor of better things I found at bookstores. Schaum manuals, in particular, were fantastic. Fifteen-dollar paperback manuals often blew away seventy-dollar hardcover doorstops.

For some odd reason, people in math and science feel entitled to write text books just because they’re good at what they do. Sometimes they’re right. A few Nobel winners have managed to write excellent books. Generally, they’re completely wrong. The skills it takes to be a great scholar are utterly unrelated to the skills it takes to be a good teacher.

Part of the problem is that math and science people have gigantic egos, and many are a bit hostile, and they like making things hard for other people, because then they can swoop in and show how obvious the answers are. It’s an insecurity thing. You spend your childhood with a perpetual wedgie, and you get used to mommy patting your head every time you say something smart in front of company, and you grow up with an insatiable need to prove your superiority. So you deliberately explain things badly and then express pretend surprise when intelligent or even brilliant people have no idea what you mean. The other side of this equation is the insecure students who sit and nod approvingly when they don’t have the faintest clue what you’re talking about. I assume they grow up to be textbook authors.

One physicist at the University of Texas said he considered something “obvious” if a graduate student could figure it out in a day and a half. Boy, I’ll bet he has great friendships and romantic relationships. You can tell he’s a joy to be around. Richard Feynman said that if you can’t explain something to someone who isn’t as knowledgeable as you are, you probably don’t understand it yourself.

I think math and physics students should develop a practice of raising their hands and saying, “I realize you are a towering genius and I am a moron, so let’s get past that and get straight to the explanation of what you just said.”

I don’t think bad manuals are driven by insecurity. Just bad business skills. If you punish your customers, they punish you right back, and they always win.

Sunday was great. If you’re religious, let me urge you again: try it. If you’re Jewish, take Saturday off. If you’re a Christian, pick the weekend day of your choice. It really works.

Let’s see. I finished Exodus and got started on Leviticus. I read more of Rabbi Eckstein’s How Firm a Foundation. I stayed away from the reloading press. And I discovered one more benefit of observing the sabbath. I got to bed at a more reasonable hour.

I have come to the realization that almost nothing worthwhile happens after ten p.m. It’s too late to play music. TV is like toxic waste mixed with junk food, and the older you get, the more boring it seems. It’s too late to use noisy tools. Too dark to do anything outside. You can’t eat, unless you want to lie in bed with a giant lump in your stomach. It’s too late for me to take Marvin and Maynard out. Best choice? Hit the hay and get up at a better time the next day. The early morning, horrific as it is for the first half hour, is nothing like as useless as the hours after ten p.m. You can get your prayers done properly. You can have a decent breakfast. You can leave for work at the correct time and not drive like a maniac. All around, getting up early is a good idea.

Last night I managed to get in bed not long after ten, and it was due to the nature of the day. You can’t observe the sabbath and then sit up websurfing or watching R-rated cable movies. So it’s easier to get to bed early and reset your internal clock.

While reading Rabbi Eckstein’s book, I was surprised by the attitude he takes toward the suffering of the Jews. He seems to think Christians believe Jews are supposed to suffer, and that this drives anti-Semitism. And he believes Man has the tools to end Jewish suffering, as well as suffering in general. I know Christian ignoramuses have come up with a lot of insane rationalizations for anti-Semitism, but I think Rabbi Eckstein is mistaken. For one thing, anti-Semitism is not a Christian idea; it’s more pervasive than that. I think the Rabbi focuses too much on Christians. Right now, the worst offenders are Muslims. And the atheists who ran the USSR were also extremely damaging. As were the Nazis, who hated Christianity as well as Judaism. For another thing, I believe the world is manipulated by evil supernatural beings hostile to God, and the Jews are special to God, so they will always be targets. I think the same beings drive the persecution of effective, faith-filled Christians. And I don’t think Man can put an end to any of this, under his own power. Seems to me that Christians and Jews have to stand together in faith.

Christians believe Satan is evil and has his own agenda. Jews believe he works for God, so I suppose they would have a hard time accepting the idea of legions of fallen angels under Satan’s control, attacking everyone God loves.

Now that I think about it, it seems like Africans suffer more than anyone. Like I always say, compared to Africa, even India looks like paradise. And Jews have fared better than American Indians.

I may attack the reloading press again today. I ordered the fancy Hornady parts that are supposed to make pistol charges uniform, but I would love to make it work without them, just so I could feel like I beat the silly thing.

Place your bets.

Sunday Brings Welcome Break From Struggle With Mechanical Ineptitude

Yesterday I had an experience that helped me understand what Jews go through every week. Observant Jews always go crazy on Friday, talking about the things they can’t get done by sundown. Well, yesterday I had a list of things I wanted to accomplish, and because the reloading press soaked up so much time, I had to cross a bunch of them off my list. I think getting the first batch of pistol rounds out of that thing may turn out to be my most rewarding experience since taking up tools. I felt great when I fabricated a smoker box for the Hoginator, and I was on top of the world the day I finished my outdoor entertainment cabinet, but those tasks were child’s play compared to reloading.

It’s funny how people live in little segregated subsets of society, and how that limits what we do. For example, let’s say I want to redo some ducting for my air conditioning system. I’m screwed. I have to buy books and read websites. I’ll come here and ask my readers questions. It would be a living hell. But a guy from a blue-collar background may have a totally different experience. Someone in his family will know how to do it. One of his friends, maybe. And in all likelihood, someone he knows will be able to “borrow” tools and materials from work.

Similarly, I suppose, people from blue-collar families have it rough when they need professional services. If I have a legal problem, I can handle it myself. I can call other lawyers and get free help. Doctors treat each other’s kids free of charge. Something that might cost you five thousand dollars may cost a doctor’s kid nothing.

I have never had a relative or friend who reloads! Not one! There is absolutely nobody near me I can ask for help. So problems that seem simple to other people are very difficult for me. I can email people or make phone calls, but it’s not the same. It’s like trying to learn machining in Miami. You can either enroll in vocational training and pay thousands, or you can do your best with DVDs, books, and the Internet.

Throw ADD into the mix, and things are even worse. The manuals are just plain bad, and on top of that, they’re boring, so I have to read every page over and over. I can tell my attention span is getting worse with age.

Regardless, I’ll beat it. All I have to do is conquer the powder measure. People are telling me they get consistent pistol charges with the rifle meter. I admire their skill. I’m getting +/- 0.5 grains on a 5-grain charge. I don’t know if it’s humidity, or stubborn bits of the manufacturer’s greasy film, or what. But it ain’t working, and I would rather spend another 70 bucks than keep beating my head against the wall. I do know I’m not the only one who has this problem.

It seems like reloading–like shooting–is an art, and I think that is the source of many of my problems. I expect cut-and-dried solutions, and everyone else is relying on experience and creativity.

Homebrewing was much easier to learn, and I had no help at all. My first batch of beer was magnificent. And I had to invent my own methods.

Commenters are now telling me things which confirm my fears. You have to work the press handle with a consistent motion. You have to have some vibration to make the powder flow. You have to keep the powder measure loaded up so the weight of the powder moves things along. Art, art, art. Okay, I accept it. It’s not a toaster. You can’t push a button and wait for bullets to come out.

I have this thing set up to where it will work, once the powder issue is fixed. From here on out, I’m going to start applying my own ideas. I’ll quit letting it intimidate me. I think I’ll rig something up to vibrate the powder measure. I may put a Dillon powder checker on the press, even though Hornady makes something less sophisticated which is supposed to do the same basic thing.

The goal of saving money is going to have to be abandoned. I am going to have to do what the manufacturer expects and buy items to make the machine work. Maybe over several years I’ll come out ahead, but for now, it’s expensive. To make four different calibers, I’ll end up spending maybe eleven hundred dollars on equipment. I don’t care. I want control of my ammunition, and I want to understand it. And I am not going to let this silly machine beat me.

I am off to enjoy the rest of my Sunday. Even though I am not where I wanted to be by today, I am doing better than I did last week. My preparation is improving.

Maybe by next Sunday, I’ll have a post up telling how well my ammunition worked.