Thanks, Mr. Gore

It’s 47 degrees out! What a relief! Shorts weather at last!

I’m almost serious. After two days of 44 and below, 47 with the prospect of 51 later seems like Hawaii.

Yesterday I had a problem with the space heater I keep near the birds. I flicked the switch that toggles the heater between 1300 and 1500 degrees. It stuck in the 1300 position. That disturbed me, so I got in the truck and went to four stores, looking for a new heater. A Home Depot employee told me nobody in the area has them. They haven’t had them for three weeks.

Whatever happened to capitalism? Isn’t it supposed to fill needs like this?

Maybe it’s time for a run to Harbor Freight and Northern Tool. If anyone can help, they can. Space heaters are extremely unreliable, and if I lose the one the birds are using, I’ll have to start burning furniture.

No; That Would be Crazy

This week at my prayer group’s Saturday meeting, I learned that our leader had suggested we keep journals. This is pretty funny, in my case. I’ve been blogging since late 2002. If you bound my Internet writing, it would be thousands of pages.

Nonetheless, it makes sense to keep a private journal. I would have a lot more freedom.

He said we should write down three goals every day. One for our church and two for other reasons which I forget. Because I didn’t write them down. Couldn’t find my pen, which was jammed down in the corner of the pocket of my George Bush chore coat. I have to email him and get him to repeat it.

Lists are great. You get things done when you make lists, provided you make an effort to do the things you write down. Three goals…that’s a list.

Back when I was Piano-Obsession Man, at the end of every day, as I lay in bed, I listed the musical accomplishments I had achieved that day. It was a great way to maintain motivation. Unfortunately, I eventually realized I could not remember piano pieces the way I used to remember pieces for guitar, banjo, and mandolin. I quit playing. It seemed pointless. Learn a piece, learn another piece, and forget the first piece, because I wasn’t practicing it. I had a two-tune repertoire because I couldn’t hold the pieces in my mind. I figured it was senility.

A while back, my second cousin (married to one of the finest classical trombonists) suggested I learn to sight-read, in order to compensate for the memory problems. Recently, I decided to give it a shot. I’m making progress. I think this is one of the things I could write about in the journal. It would be nice to be able to compare one week’s entries to those of an earlier week. I feel like I’m getting nowhere, but I know that’s because I haven’t documented the improvements.

Practice is strange. It breaks down into note reading and timing practice. Note practice is extremely tedious. I’m just figuring out which key to hit. I have to be at a keyboard for this, because I have to move my hands around. Timing practice is very different. I just have to hit one note, over and over, at the correct times. I don’t really need an instrument to do it. If I were pressed, I could do it in my head, holding the book in front of me while sitting in a chair.

Timing practice is less tedious, because the beat pulls me through it. I think it’s also the most important part of the venture. Timing is extremely complicated, and you have to be able to do it instantaneously. Notes…there are only nine on a staff. Surely note reading has to come together faster.

Today I realized I can now imagine musical measures in my head and hear the timing. Very odd. Maybe I can eventually practice my timing without piano or music. My head will be like the Matrix. More than it already is.

I have to figure out how to keep a journal in Microsoft Word, without losing my mind. Imagine keeping track of 365 documents per year.

Beware of Imitations

This weather is cracking me up. People like me are only now finding out whether the 3s in the tens columns on their digital thermometers will display. Last night on the way home from church, my truck’s gauge read 39. The last time it read below 40, it was probably being driven onto a truck at the plant where it was manufactured.

I feel great this morning. The illness is lifting. I can breathe. And I probably slept ten hours, which doesn’t hurt. Viruses affect your brain chemistry. I’m sure of it. Sometimes I get depressed or tense when I have a virus. When they go away, you get a natural lift. Your normal state returns, and it seems like euphoria.

I was able to go to church last night. On the way, I started feeling God’s presence again, the way I did before I got sick. I felt him moving during the service and afterward, too. Man, I missed that. What an incredible gift. It amazes me that God saw fit to let me have that, because what I deserved was to be abandoned.

These days I spend half an hour praying in the Spirit before I get out of bed, and I have to admit, I sometimes turn on the tube for a few minutes while I’m doing it. Today I saw a popular preacher in a giant stadium, preaching about self-love. He said you should never insult yourself, because to do so is to insult God’s creation. You know the spiel.

I don’t disagree with messages involving positive thinking and behavioral change. My own pastor talks about these things a lot. But I wouldn’t stay in a church where that was the main thrust. It’s not what Christianity is about, and we aren’t the people to go to for this kind of instruction. Frankly, the Scientologists are probably the masters of positive thinking. If that’s all you want, go to the best.

As for self-love…I am not a fan. We now know that men in prison tend to have very high self-esteem. What does that tell you? It tells you self-esteem is not where growth comes from. In fact, it can prevent growth and cause you to become more evil. If you think you’re just dandy the second you pop out of the womb, why would you want to change?

Look at the Bible. Do we see example after example of God telling people, “Hey, stop beating yourself up. You’re WONDERFUL, just the way you are!” Of course not. Over and over, he knocks people to the ground and tells them to remember their place. Job. Paul. Various kings. Nebuchadnezzar. How long a list do you want? What was the first sin? Eating a piece of fruit? No, it was pride. Inappropriate self-love. Satan committed it.

If you’re a person with good values and good intentions, low self-esteem can be an obstacle. You should not hate yourself. You should not be crippled by the projection of your own self-loathing onto other people. But a certain amount of shame is essential. It’s the warning mechanism God built into your soul’s immune system. It tells you something is wrong. It brings people to altars. It causes us to change course when we’re headed for trouble. It keeps people humble.

The Bible makes it clear, and Christians teach, that God works best though humble people who seek his help constantly and give him credit. Moses and Jesus were humble, and God repeatedly reminds us that he is humble. What better role model could you want? How can anyone question the wisdom of aspiring to have a character trait possessed by God himself? If criticizing yourself is criticizing God’s work, criticizing humility is criticizing God.

What is humility? It’s an attitudinal expression of the knowledge that you are not perfect. What does “perfect” really mean? It didn’t originally mean “flawless.” It meant “complete” or “finished.” If you know you’re not a finished work, you will continue improving yourself. Isn’t that what we’re here for?

Paul had problems with pride, so what did God do? He allowed Paul to have an unpleasant disease (or some other painful problem) Paul referred to as a thorn in his flesh. I don’t enjoy being chastised with misfortune. If I can avoid it by criticizing myself and changing, I will do so, every time. With deep gratitude. I think I’ve been hammered and hindered for crediting myself too much. I don’t want that to continue until I’m 80, because I’m too thick-headed to get the message.

The self-love message is just one example of worldly thinking which can be useful, but which should not be part of Christianity’s primary emphasis. You don’t have to be a Christian to learn worldly wisdom. A Buddhist or a Mormon can teach you about discipline, organization, exercise, eating right…all the worldly wisdom you can imagine. Only a Christian can show you how to humble yourself, obtain eternal life, and receive the transforming power of the Holy Spirit. Those are the important things. This is a supernatural faith. The changes God makes in us are, essentially, magical. We have to learn worldly wisdom, too, but it can’t come first. It can’t save you, any more than your own righteousness can get you into heaven.

The Bible tells us we receive power when we are baptized with the Holy Spirit. It says the Holy Spirit does two things for us. It changes our character by giving us the fruit of the Spirit. It changes our abilities by giving us the gifts of the Spirit. These are the things that make us like God. These are the things that make us powerful. This is what Jesus died for. He himself said it was better that he should die, so we could receive this. This is more important than looking in the mirror every day and giving yourself a Stuart Smalley talk. Positive thinking is a human effort. The power of the Holy Spirit is the work of God, in you. It’s better. That’s all there is to it.

This is what “grace” means. It means we receive things directly from God, and that they are things we can’t and don’t deserve. Salvation is the first gift. Then the other stuff comes along, if you know how to receive it.

Grace is the reason I’m not doomed to be a fat person any more. I was instantly delivered from overeating. It wasn’t even on my mind when it happened. God made the decision, and it happened without warning. Other people have been delivered from drug addiction, anger, covetousness…you name it. And it happens supernaturally; it’s not the result of hard work. If God took this deliverance away from me, I’d be as fat as ever in two months.

I think what happened to me may be an example of the fruit of the Spirit. One of the fruit is self-discipline. When it came to food, I never had any. Or at least I didn’t have enough. I always gave out after a certain amount of time, and then the fat came back. Now it just stays off. I picked up a couple of pounds while I was ill, because I was inactive and I spoiled myself and I had two holiday meals. But that weight is gone, as of today. I have a closetful of smaller pants I expect to be wearing in March.

The other day, reader Ed sent me a testimony from Norm Miller, the Chairman of the Board of Interstate Batteries. This man is an alcoholic. One morning, after he had been an alcoholic for a long time, he realized he needed God’s help. Here’s an excerpt:

At the very instant I realized I had become an alcoholic, I blurted out in a half-yell of desperation, “God, help me! I can’t handle it!” I’ll never forget those words, because He took the compulsion to drink away completely. It was over right then. I realize it doesn’t happen that way for everyone, but it did for me, and I’m eternally thankful. The weird thing is that if you’d asked me the day before if I believed in God, I would have told you that I didn’t know—that I hadn’t given much thought to it.

It’s wonderful if you can complete a 12-step program and force yourself to stay clean until you die. But what Norm Miller got is better, and he’s not the only one. This is what God wants us to have. It beats being a drunk with lots of self-esteem.

Worldly people have no faith in their ability to improve, so often, their answer is to tell you that you should be happy as you are. Fat is beautiful! Homosexuality is diversity! Having your genitals hacked off because of sexual confusion is a glorious breakthrough! A little screaming in a marriage is healthy! Falling off the wagon twice a year and losing your job is no big deal!

That’s no way to live. Never accept defeat. Don’t call surrender victory. If God is God, there is a way out, and it’s not something you achieve by trying hard. Look at the people Jesus healed. Did he tell the lady with the issue of blood to try real hard to stop bleeding? Did he tell the dead girl he raised she could get up if she just believed in herself? Please. Elijah didn’t incinerate any bulls, and Moses didn’t part the Red Sea. God did. When things are as they should be, God does the work.

I’m not saying you’ll overcome every problem you have (or that you won’t). But God’s supernatural power is for everyone. We are supposed to have it and use it. It will allow you to beat things you could never handle on your own.

I don’t need to go to church to hear about self-love and positive thinking. I can get that from any bookstore. It’s great stuff. But it’s not what Jesus died for. It’s not God’s great gift. It’s not the pearl of great price.

More and more, I feel myself changing. I see old problems melting away. The overeating thing happened instantly. Other things improve slowly but steadily. I could think positive all day and never have this happen to me. I knew all about positive thinking fifteen years ago. I can tell you which books work. Only God was able to put me on a permanent positive trend. The other stuff was like Band-Aids for hemophilia.

I’ll point out one other thing. God gives you favor, and he fights your supernatural and natural enemies. Will Scientology do that? Will Tony Robbins do that? Of course not. These things happen outside of you; changing your attitude has no effect on them. You need supernatural beings out there working to change things. God supplies them. He sent ravens to feed Elijah. Think positive right now and see how many ravens you can conjure up. He sent an army of angels to fight on David’s side. Tell yourself you’re beautiful and successful for a while, and see how many angels show up to kill your enemies. Probably not many.

Pray in the Spirit, pray with your understanding, fast, and walk by faith. That’s where the power is at. This other stuff has fleeting value. If you put your faith in it, it will only misdirect you and slow you down.

I Venture Outdoors

My viral symptoms have decreased greatly. Last night I got all excited and texted the leader of my Saturday prayer group, saying I would be there if it didn’t rain. Then I got up this morning, and it was about 50 degrees out and drizzling. This never happens in Miami. We get rain. We get cold weather. We get them three months apart. We don’t get them on the same day.

I considered the prospect of having a relapse and having to lie around doing nothing for another week. Then I thought about the prospect of missing another prayer group. And I pictured myself all bundled up in the spacious, toasty cab of my giant diesel pickup. And I got my fat behind in the shower and got ready to leave.

Two missed meetings are enough. I can’t sit around for another week, missing out. I had to take the chance.

I could not believe the experience I had driving to Hallandale and back (that’s where we meet). On the way up, the truck’s exterior temperature gauge read 44. On the way down, it sunk to 41! Am I on Mars, or what? This can’t happen here.

I don’t care. It was well worth it. Seven of us met at Denny’s, and we talked about our goals and testimonies, and we all got on the same page. I needed that. If all you do is sit in a service for 90 minutes a week, you’re barely getting a toe in the water. The fight is on, all day, every day. Your enemy doesn’t take time off. You need all the support you can get.

Appropriately, we talked about warfare today. That’s what Christian life is. We often make that comparison, saying we are like soldiers and that our lives are like war. But that’s backward. Earthly soldiers are like Christians and angels and demons. Earthly war is like the battle in the heavens. The real war–the first war–is the one that started when Lucifer rebelled. All the wars we’ve seen here are pale imitations. We mistake the copies for the original. The spiritual war is more important. The stakes are higher. The injuries are greater. And only the spiritual war can cause death. Earthly war can kill your body, but spiritual war can cause the permanent destruction of your soul. That’s the only true death there is.

Our group leader, John, went back to something he discussed with us three weeks ago. He had a book called A Warrior Culture, by Donny Prater. In that book, Prater compares Satan to a lion, and he describes the way lions hunt. They carefully evaluate their prey so they can focus on the weakest individuals. They stalk the chosen victims patiently, for hours. They gang up. And the best defense is unity.

I thought that was interesting, because it reminded me of the things I’ve read about snipers. The greatest American sniper was a man named Carlos Hathcock, and I read his biography. I learned that snipers like to wound careless, exposed people from cover and then leave them alive, screaming in pain. Why? So their buddies will come out from concealment in order to save them. Then the sniper shoots them as well. That way, he can turn one wounded soldier into a pile of bodies.

This kind of thing is happening in my family. One person is more vulnerable than the others, so that person is the primary object of attack. The enemy is able to make that person behave in ways that are extremely exasperating. What happens when a family is attacked in this way? It can give rise to unforgiveness and anger in the other family members. It may make them question God, because it seems as if he’s not helping. It may make them drink or take drugs to relieve the stress. It makes it a challenge to focus on compassion. It’s Satan’s way of jimmying their temple doors open, so he can attack them with the same force. He wounds one of us, and he uses that person to snare the rest of us.

It’s an interesting strategy, and it’s not always easy to know what to do. Jesus himself told the disciples that if the people of a town would not listen to them, they were to shake that town’s dust off their shoes and leave. Paul abandoned a perverted Christian to the destruction of the flesh, that his suffering might turn him back to God. Longsuffering–even God’s–has limits. On the other hand, you have to be sure you show enough patience and understanding. It’s wrong to turn to harsh tactics too early. It can be self-righteous and judgmental.

I suppose the test is to examine your intentions and the likely outcome of your actions. If they pass inspection, you must be doing the right thing.

Christians aren’t the only ones who have to perform this balancing act. Over and over, both testaments refer simultaneously to mercy and judgment. God is just, and God is merciful. At the same time. He can do that without error or contradiction, but I know I make mistakes. I wish I were smart enough to know when I’m going too far in either direction.

Satan always has a trite response, if you screw up. If you’re too soft, you’re condemned as an enabler. If you’re too hard, you’re selfish and uncaring. Funny thing about Satan: unlike God, he’s pretty predictable. He’s not as smart as God, he does not know the future, and he’s always playing catch-up. He uses the same worn-out tricks, over and over. God, on the other hand, has an endless well of new ideas to trip him up and make a fool of him. God gave us the last book of the Bible about two millennia ago, and thanks to his brilliance and the revelation power of the Holy Spirit, we are still finding new truths in it, catching Satan flatfooted. He never knows where the next punch is coming from.

This is why prophecy is so hard to understand. It’s not to keep men in the dark. It’s to humiliate the enemy and prove God’s sovereignty. The truth is in front of Satan and has been for ages, and he can’t discern it, but a ten-year-old kid full of the Holy Spirit can see it when God is ready to let it be known. Look at the second psalm. It lays out the plan of the crucifixion, but Satan wasn’t bright enough to figure it out. When he got Jesus cruficied, he thought he had won, but he was actually shooting himself in the belly! He destroyed his own kingdom on that day, and he gloated while he was doing it. He’s very smart, but his intelligence is limited.

It’s a mistake to underestimate Satan, but it’s a mistake to overestimate him, too. Most of the time, there is no subtext to what he’s doing, and defeating him is generally not that hard. His tactics become more and more foreseeable as you grow; you improve, but he does not. He can’t grow. He can’t adapt. His nature was fixed before the earth existed. The numbers and powers of his army were fixed. The numbers and power of God’s people will increase until the end of creation. No wonder he hates us. His development is over. His time has an end. We will improve and grow stronger forever.

Sometimes he wins a battle in spite of everything you do. But far more often, he loses. Maybe that’s because his resources are limited. If he had an unlimited supply of extremely powerful spirits to pit against us, maybe it would be a different story. As it stands, it appears that he has to allot them carefully, because we win many, many battles.

One of the things I pray for is that God will use me and my family to break Satan’s heart the way he breaks the hearts of human beings. I want to be used to blight Satan’s crops and crush his plans. I even want the church to have better music than the secular world, because music was Satan’s special gift. I want him to see himself forgotten and outdone and frustrated, before we assemble to watch him burn. He already hates me. I’m sure he’s doing all he can to destroy me and my family. I want to return the favor while I live. If you want to make a malicious person hurt, you just have to prevent him from doing harm. If I can hinder Satan the way he hinders human beings, I will consider my life well spent.

Global Warming Apparently Comes in Spurts

WE’RE HAVING A HEAT WAVE! IT’S 58 DEGREES OUTSIDE! LET’S ALL GO SKINNY-DIPPING! FINALLY THE AGONY IS OVER! IT’S GOING TO BE 74 DEGREES TODAY! AND THEN TOMORROW NIGHT, IT’S GOING TO BE A WARM AND TOASTY 34!

WHAT?!?!?!?!?!?!

Thirty-FOUR? FAHRENHEIT? Did I wake up in Minnesota?

I have to check Weather Underground again. This can’t be right.

It is right! And we’re going to have an eighty-percent chance of precipitation! I’M BUYING A SLED!

I guess Al Gore doesn’t have to worry about being tarred and feathered while it’s too cold to pour the tar.

I can’t recall a single winter when we had weather like this. It sounds like it’s going to be snowing in Orlando. I am so tired of wearing long pants and real shoes INDOORS because the central air can’t cope with anything lower than fifty-five degrees.

Maybe this would be a good day to get another space heater. Surely Home Depot has restocked after the initial terror.

Will this kill any of the bugs or animals that have been driving us nuts? It’s too late to help the citrus.

Thank God I’m getting over this disease. I am desperate to attend my weekly prayer group again. Tomorrow I’ll put on my liberal-mortifying George Bush Carhartt chore coat and drive up to Denny’s to see the other guys.

Oh, man. I have like thirty grapefruit ripening. I may have to freeze ten gallons of juice. My bananas! I have to pick the bananas!

At least we’re having a real winter. It’s kind of a bummer when you go a whole winter with no good sleep weather.

I’ll enjoy this warm and muggy day while it lasts.

Help us Out

My family has a problem that has to be confronted. For some time, my father and I have been working on it, making preparations. Barring unforeseen hindrances, today is the day we will put the plan into effect.

I wish I could tell you details, but I don’t think it’s appropriate. I can say this: the problem is extremely severe, and it has been with us for nearly thirty years. In the process of arriving at a strategy to fix it, I have seen God’s hand very clearly, and I think he is helping us, and I believe our approach will work. At the very least, it will put an end to one aspect of the problem, which is that it bleeds outward from the affected person and harms others very badly. I credit God with fixing that, and boy, am I grateful. In reality, the people suffering as collateral damage are already assured of freedom. The only real issue is whether the person at the center of the storm will benefit, and that will come down to free will.

If anyone feels like praying that we will be guided and protected and led to success, I would be extremely grateful. I’m sorry to say that I probably won’t be able to come back later and thank you while providing an explanation. That’s just the nature of the problem.

We are going to need strength, unity, and God’s favor in this fight. I am confident that he will be beside us, and that we will get the best results possible.

Onward and Upward

I don’t remember who suggested using cheddar in pizza cheese, but it works. I added two ounces of cheddar to six ounces of mozzarella/provolone mix, and it came out very well. I was afraid there would be an odd conflict between the cheddar and the tomato sauce, but it worked out fine. The cheese laid down nicely, and it was chewy and had a little more flavor than usual. I couldn’t even see the cheddar in the finished product. The orange color disappeared into the mozzarella.

A place near me uses Muenster cheese, but it’s not nearly as good. Mike says his kids insist on cheddar.

I should have started mass-producing frozen pizza components long ago. It’s the only way to avoid wasting cheap Costco and Gordon Food Service ingredients.

I weighed out a bunch of two-ounce portions of sauce base, depositing each on a square of foil. I’m going to freeze them and vacuum-seal them. It’s a lot of aggravation, but I can get almost 50 portions from a $5.25 can. Let’s say they cost 12¢ each, which is an inflated figure. The cheese runs about $1.25. The flour is about 20¢. The olive oil is about 20¢. Add it up, and you get $1.77 for a better 12″ pizza than anything available in a restaurant. The cost of the yeast, sugar, salt, and seasonings is negligible.

The danged vacuum bags aren’t free, but they would have to cost a ton to make this anything other than a steal. You can always use foil.

I suppose women who have raised families will be amused to see someone so excited about home economics, but you know how men are. We order, we pay, and we tip generously. We go through the checkout line without coupons. We have no idea what’s on sale. Carping about pennies…that’s downright effeminate. Plus it’s work.

This is why cab drivers and waiters can’t stand women. It’s why a cab driver will drive past five women and pick up a man. But I guess it costs men a lot of money.

I think I may cut back on the white vinegar in the sauce. Next time:

2 ounces (weight) Stanislaus Super Dolce sauce
4 teaspoons cheap olive oil
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon dry oregano
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon sugar
1 teaspoon white vinegar
water

I still think I’m on the right track when I say pizza sauce is more like salad dressing than pasta sauce.

Life is sweet. It’s good to succeed at something as important as pizza.

Best Pizza in Town, for Pennies, ON DEMAND

The Prefab Pizza Project is going well. I have three dough portions in the freezer, two on the counter, and two in the food processor. I kept one aside so I can have pizza for lunch.

I couldn’t find shredded white cheddar for the cheese test, so I bought orange cheddar. I don’t see what difference it makes. I got the sharpest shredded cheddar they had.

Olive oil was on sale for not too much more than the Costco price. Hard to complain about that.

This is going to make life so much easier, and boy, is it cheap. One cup of flour, two tablespoons of oil, two ounces of sauce concentrate, and eight ounces of $2.50/pound cheese per 12″ pie. It’s virtually FREE. And so much better than any pizza I can buy.

No single human being should have this much power.

This morning I got an earful of negativity and unbelief over the phone. It depressed me for a while, because I was already (in my opinion) under attack. I was concerned about it. I thought maybe I should fast for a day. But the good Lord cleared it up before I could do anything. I found new resolve and new joy, out of nowhere. I am not going to allow myself to be offended by two weeks of illness and the bad attitude of one other Christian. I have been given the strength to rebound, and I am accepting it with gratitude and relief.

Have you ever been in a position where you had to tell another Christian, “Shut up and go home. I’m going on without you”? Ultimately, every one of us is alone with God and the angels. Never rely on another human being unless you have no choice. It’s too easy for the enemy to take them down or turn them against you. Working with others and accepting their help is essential, but it’s dangerous to be dependent on them.

I guess the new batch of yeast is ready. Back to the Cuisinart.

I Feel Like I Invented the Freezer

Once again, I am drawing from Mike’s vast well of culinary expertise. I am making pizza dough and freezing it. It’s too cold to do anything else. I’m letting the dough rise partially, and then I’ll freeze it, and that will make it suitable for storage in vacuum bags. It’s hard to vacuum-seal soft food, but freezing will firm it up.

I also plan to break my sauce into two-ounce portions and freeze it. Each one is enough for a 12″ pizza. I won’t put any water or oil in it. Just the sauce base. Then I can staple the sauce bags to the dough bags, and I’ll have frozen pizza, ready to rock!

I may also break the cheese into 8-ounce portions. I’ll oil it before I freeze it. I made pizza with oiled cheese yesterday, and I’m sold on the idea.

This should be fantastic. Frozen dough is better than fresh, and oiled Gordon Food Service cheese is very good. And I won’t have to buy a gallon can of sauce every time I want a small pizza for lunch. Stapling the bags together will assure that everything is there when I need it.

Sadly, I have to go out in the chill to get more oil. But I think it’s worth it.

A reader suggested putting white cheddar in my cheese. I think I’ll try that today at lunch. The cheese I’m using is excellent (when oiled), but the flavor is not absolutely perfect.

Not Found in Stores

Wondering why people become home machinists? Take a look at what this guy built: LINK.

Isn’t that a beauty? He says it’s legal, too. I think this would be a great thing for dads to show young men who show up to take their daughters out.

Eventually They Have to Let me Up

I have a question. How long do you have to be on Nyquil before it stops being medicine and starts being heroin in a bottle? I’ve gone through two jugs of Nyquil and one bottle of disgusting Tylenol warming cold stuff, and I’m now on Nyquil jug three. If my sinuses were clear, I’d probably dry it and snort it. I can tell I’m developing a tolerance. It takes one and a half of those little cups to get me to sleep now. Soon I’ll be making Nyquil daiquiris and sucking them through a straw.

I’m like 92% cured, but the remaining 8% is very frustrating. I would describe the symptoms, but they would ruin your breakfast.

It’s amazing how being ill interferes with prayer and other aspects of my relationship with God. I don’t get up early any more, because sleeping longer seems to damage the illness, so my whole morning prayer routine is on hiatus. And I feel like the distance between me and God is greater. Concentration is part of prayer, and illness ruins it.

Perry Stone says hindering spirits come our way when we make progress for God. I’ve seen spirits, and I know people who have seen or perceived them in other ways. I have no doubt that he’s right. I feel like I’ve been shoved onto the sidelines for two weeks, and things were going great before I got sick. This is one of those times when a wife could be handy, to take up the slack. Very often, when you fall, you can pick yourself up. But it’s better to have someone else help you. If any of you want to remember me the next time you talk to God, I would appreciate it. I have my weekly prayer group on Saturday, but that’s two days off.

I know I sound kooky when I talk about the spiritual realm, but I have been drawn into it my entire life. When I was three and four years old, I used to wake up and see hideous creatures crawling up and down the walls and across the ceiling and bed. Night after night, I dreamed the same white-skinned, grinning demon was after me. One night I felt something put its hands on me while I was in bed. I think these things happen to kids more than adults, because the enemy knows no one listens to kids. When you get older, you will doubt what you saw. We can talk ourselves into disbelieving what we know to be true.

We, ourselves, are spirits attached to flesh. Why should we find it hard to believe that other spirits exist? It’s crazy, if you think about it. Even if you’re not a Christian, you probably don’t believe you’ll cease to exist when your body dies. If you can exist without a body, why can’t God? Why can’t a demon? Seems like no one ever asks this obvious question publicly.

People choose to believe that God and other spirits don’t exist, because if you accept their existence, you have to accept the notion of sin, and that means giving up your dirty movie channels, weed, drunkenness, greed, pride, and casual sex, among other things. It means you have to admit you didn’t generate your own wealth and accomplishments. If you choose not to believe, you can convince yourself you’re not going to be held responsible for what you do or don’t do. You’ll be wrong, but it will ease your mind and help you avoid change, and avoiding change is one of our biggest motivations.

In that sense, every human being is an addict. We enjoy things we know or suspect are bad for us, and we know that if we admit they’re bad for us, we’ll have to give them up, so we cover our eyes and ears and persist in defeating God’s efforts to help us realize our potential. We’re afraid to take the red pill. I certainly am. When I turned to God, I knew I was giving up friends and opportunities in exchange for a bundle of unrealized promises. I have to renew that decision all the time, and it’s not always easy. I think this is one of the purposes of communion. Which I haven’t taken in several days.

Christianity means emptying your hands of pretty, shiny garbage so God can fill them with lasting treasures. To get the treasures, you have to be willing to suffer with empty hands for a time. Generally, you’re not going to get the good while you’re holding onto the bad, because God requires us to have faith, and if you never lack, you never have a chance to use faith.

Something very good is waiting at the end of this illness. All I have to do is keep breathing until it’s over.

Plus Frozen Dough

Time to bless you with more pizza information.

A week ago, I was interrupted while making pizza. I took the risen dough and wrapped it in foil and stuck it in the freezer. Today I needed lunch, and I remembered the dough. I thawed it out and used it.

In the past, I’ve noted that dough improves with age, but I was too lazy to experiment and give definite results. This week I experimented accidentally, bypassing laziness. And the results were excellent. The crust had more flavor and a better texture than my usual one-hour dough. So I’m going to do what Mike does. I’m going to make a pile of dough portions and freeze them. This will make pizza more convenient and less messy, since I’ll only use the food processor once.

I plan to freeze the dough in disks, not balls. A disk will thaw faster, and it takes less work to turn a disk into a pizza. Mike uses balls. He also hits them with microwaves for about 45 seconds to thaw them. That probably won’t work as well with disks, because they have thinner parts which may overcook. I went 40 seconds today, but that was as far as I was willing to take it. I had to leave the dough out for maybe an hour and a half before I could turn it into a pie.

The dough was coated with olive oil twice. First, when I made it. I put it in a Pyrex dish with a light coating of oil, and I let it rise. Then I was interrupted, and I froze it. When I took it out today, I applied a little more oil to keep it from drying while it thawed. It worked great.

It seems like pizza dough gets better and better the more it rises. If you go too far, you can always punch it down.

I think I made this pie with bread flour. I can’t remember.

Second thing: I have new information about improving bad cheese. I’m using Gordon Food Supply’s mozzarella/provolone mix, which is fairly good but too low in fat. In the past, I’ve added a small amount of butter to improve it. This keeps it from burning, makes it chewier, and prevents it from tasting like vinyl. Today I added butter to one half and olive oil to the other half. I used between a teaspoon and a tablespoon of fat for four ounces (weight) of cheese. Just enough to coat it. I didn’t use a real measuring spoon, but I would guess I used two teaspoons per four-ounce half, and it was ample.

The olive oil side was better. Butter can make the cheese too rich. The olive oil added flavor without making the cheese too greasy. And the cheese laid down better when it melted. So I highly recommend it. Just don’t overdo it. This will be a lot easier than driving to Costco to get their flawless mozzarella. I have a feeling it will also work on supermarket cheese.

This pie was truly excellent. I think I got my mojo back.

I may also divide my sauce into two-ounce portions and seal it in vacuum bags. It’s almost a month old, and it’s going to go bad if I don’t do something. Those gallon cans are so wasteful. The Stanislaus people should wake up and start selling small retail cans.

Falling Faster Than Support for Global Warming Hoax

It’s under 50 degrees. Wow. For Miami, on a sunny day, that’s freakish. All over Florida, ill-designed central heating systems are failing at their jobs. People are wearing bizarre cold-weather ensembles that look weird because Miamians don’t know how to put the look together. I guarantee you, if you drive around Miami this morning, you will see at least one person wearing a wool hat, a heavy coat, and shorts.

I wouldn’t mind the cold weather at all, but for the fact that I’m recovering from a viral illness, and one of the symptoms is a low body temperature. Every night I pile on three blankets and crank the heated mattress pad up. Last night, it was merely adequate.

I’m one of the few people who has witnessed snow in Miami. When I was in high school, we had a really nasty day, and while I was standing in what we called “the quadrangle” (a yard surrounded by school buildings), I looked up and saw a few flakes in the air. I guess everything is okay as long as that doesn’t happen again.

I talked to Mike this week, and he predicted dead iguanas would be flopping out of trees. I guess that will happen. And some of our fish will float up to the surface of canals.

I wonder if the pythons will suffer. We have loads of them out in the filthy bug-infested ugly swamp majestic Everglades. They come from India and Burma. I don’t know how cold it gets there.

There are worries about the citrus crop. I don’t know if there is any point in trying to save Florida citrus. There is a new disease out there, and many people think it will end Florida citrus (maybe all commercial citrus growing) permanently, or at least until resistant trees are developed. It’s called Citrus Greening. A bug from Asia bites your tree, and that’s the end of it. I have several trees that aren’t doing well. I’m going to have to kill them. Limes and grapefruit seem to be immune, but everything else is looking bad.

I don’t know what to plant to replace the citrus. Mameys are okay. Mangoes are a reliable standby.

Citrus is in trouble, and there is a banana blight out there somewhere. I don’t think it has hit Florida yet, but experts fear it will wipe bananas out. They’re all descended from the same ancestor, and they don’t have enough genetic diversity to develop resistance. Supposedly.

Imagine not being able to order orange juice in a restaurant. Some people think that day is coming. They think orange juice will only be available in small quantities, as a mixer. I think we’ll have resistant trees. But until they show up, we’ll have problems.

I can’t believe the diseases and bugs we have here. You can’t have a tomato plant. You can barely grow peppers. Beans get rust. The Jamaican Tall coconut palms are long gone. The banyan trees and ficus hedges are dying. If it weren’t for poison, no one in South Florida could keep the ants and roaches at bay; cleanliness doesn’t do the job. Now we’re losing our citrus. In a couple of years, we’ll be eating MREs.

Why can’t the diseases hit fruit nobody cares about? I wouldn’t miss Surinam cherries. They’re disgusting. Guavas are very overrated. Papayas smell like dog poo. Loquats…a lot of people don’t even know what a loquat is. I’ve only eaten about eight longans over the course of my life. Sea grapes are pretty useless. The dates here don’t get ripe because of the climate. Take that stuff. Leave the tangelos.

I don’t know what to do with my papaya trees. They’re big, and they produce, but the fruit smells like dog excrement. It seems like you can avoid the smell by picking them early, but that practice hasn’t proved reliable.

Time to move to southern Tennessee. That’s the ticket. Tomatoes grow just fine there. Corn. Potatoes. Apples. Tasty pigs.

I’ll bet yankees are going to the beach today. This is one of the funnier things about living in Florida. People who spend money on vacations are so determined to get what they paid for, they’ll subject themselves to incredible suffering. They go to the beach when it’s 50 degrees. They go fishing in six-foot seas. They literally blister themselves on their first day here, and then THEY GO BACK AND LIE IN THE SUN THE NEXT DAY. That’s so horrible, I don’t even like typing it. Have you ever seen sun poisoning? It’s painful just to be near it.

When it comes to traditional South Florida pursuits, I’m no fan of the cold. If the water is under 80 degrees, I have no interest in swimming. If the air is below 72 degrees, count me out of the fishing trip. Cool weather is great for yard work and barbecue, but you won’t see me near the water.

If you’ve never had a pool thermometer, you probably don’t know how cold 75-degree water is. It sounds pleasant, because 75-degree air is pleasant. But it’s pretty cold. Water has to be much warmer than air to have the same feel. I’ve seen canal water hit 94 degrees here.

One of the interesting things about cold snaps is that they’re the only times we have cold running water. The rest of the year, we have hot and warm. The cold water tap comes out at about 80. It does a very poor job of cooling beer when you’re homebrewing.

If we ever had ice, there would be bodies all over the streets. Miamians can barely drive when it’s dry and clear. They are the least skilled drivers outside of Asia. Italian driving philosophy combined with Chinese ability and Somali judgment. If there was anything to slide on, the feds would have to bring refrigerated trucks in to hold the dead.

When I was a kid, we had a place in North Carolina. A lot of people from Miami have invaded that area. They make people crazy, because they can’t drive on hills. They have no idea what low gears are for. They ride their brakes until they give out. They creep along in terror, with long lines of better drivers behind them. I learned to drive in Kentucky, so I don’t have the local disease. I still remember my mother cursing at them.

I would never want another place in North Carolina. The whole point is to get away from Miamians, and they’re already there. It’s like the scene in Alien where Ripley finds out the creature stowed away with her on the shuttle. It’s not fair! Go be rude and loud somewhere else! If I wanted to see your Lord of the Flies kids running around screaming in restaurants while you yell into your cell phones and pretend not to notice, I would have stayed home!

Maybe it’s time to cut back on caffeine again.

Warding Off the Prince of Persia

I am trying to figure out what to do for the next 40 days.

Every year my church has a 40-day thing. You can fast for 40 days or make some other sacrifice during this time. You’re supposed to sign up. I was sick all week, so I forgot about it until I went to church on Sunday. They had a form to fill out, and there was no way I was going to come up with something during the service, so I held onto the form. I guess I can turn it in this weekend.

I decided to spend one hour in prayer every afternoon until February 12. That’s a good one. This illness has wrecked my prayer routine, and I am desperate to get it back in shape. Mid-day prayer is very powerful. But that still leaves the question of fasting.

I considered doing a “Daniel fast.” This means you cut out bread, flour, rice, meat, wine, sweets, and all beverages other than water, for 21 days. It was tempting at first, but the more I think about it, the more it sounds like a giant bummer. And I don’t have a lot of faith in partial fasts. I got fantastic results with a water-only fast this summer. I was relieved of some self-control issues, including a lifelong tendency to overeat. But would I get that kind of payback from a Daniel fast? Not sure.

I already have regular fasts built into the month. Maybe I should add one day a week.

Fasting with no particular goal seems like a dubious practice.

Maybe the prayer-hour thing is enough. You can make yourself crazy with unnecessary asceticism.

In my opinion, this stuff means nothing unless accompanied by prayer. Perry Stone seems to agree. He says that when you fast, you’re not supposed to lie around watching TV, waiting for the day to end. The point of the exercise is to enhance your communication with God, so I guess it should be obvious that the prayer part is more important than the fasting part.

Now that my illness is fading, I’m going to get back on track. I’ll be able to get up earlier and resume my morning prayer routine. That will set me up great for the afternoons.

My Fein Multimaster arrived. I have no idea what to do with it. It was really just a way of avoiding letting credit-card points expire. I should find an excuse to plunge-cut some holes in something.

I guess it was a reasonably smart buy. There is no way I would have spent actual money on this thing, so this is the only way I would ever have gotten one.

I’m taking a break from sight-reading practice. I think I finally figured out how to practice correctly. I should have listened to my piano teacher. He said he would open books of sheet music at random and just play. I tried software and sight-reading books instead. For the timing, the programs and books are fine, but they don’t work for note-reading. Why? Because they’re repetitious. Sight-reading is playing music at sight, which means “not by memory.” If you play a sight-reading exercise twice, the third time, your memory kicks in. That renders the exercise useless. You need a continuous supply of unmemorized material. That’s why random sheet music is better.

Boy, was I stupid. I didn’t understand the importance of what he was telling me. I don’t think he did, either. When you’ve always done something right, maybe it’s hard to guide people who do it wrong.

Memory doesn’t seem to interfere with timing practice. I guess it’s easier to memorize pitch patterns than time patterns.

If this works, I won’t have to break the piano up for kindling. I’ll be able to use it. That would be a dream come true. I am hoping God will help me become a competent musician so I can make use of my gifts. Wasted potential is an ugly thing. It would be a thrill to compose some decent songs. I’d love to be able to write music fluently instead of one note every five minutes.

I was insanely gifted at languages when I was a kid. I barely worked, but I won prizes. My college French instructor asked if I had lived in France. Then I got old and my memory weakened, and memory is a big part of it. If I can get my memory working halfway right again, I should regain a lot of my ability to learn symbolic systems. And music is a symbolic system, very much like a language. Maybe ability will trump old age to some extent. I seem to be picking sight-reading up pretty quickly now. Tonight I found myself skipping pieces because they were too simple. These were really easy pieces, but still.

I’m hitting the B1 and sleeping long hours and losing weight. I memorize psalms every day. I can’t think of anything else that might help, except for gingko biloba, and I’m afraid to take it because I have no idea what it does.

You can’t cry about lost opportunities. You have to strengthen what remains and keep moving. I managed to do a good job of maximizing my writing ability. That’s worth something. A lot of people would be happy to do one thing well. Maybe some day I can find a young person who is wasting his talents, and I can kick him in the rear end until he realizes what he has. If you can’t be a success, you can be a warning to others.

I make a great cheesecake. When I question my self-worth, I can always remember that. And maybe music will still pay off.

Start Here

Someone asked me to post my pizza recipe. I am getting rusty, but I think this will work.

CRUST

1 cup flour
1 tablespoon dry yeast
4 oz. water
1/2 teaspoon pepper
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons olive oil

Warm the water to make the yeast happy. Dissolve the yeast in it. I usually dissolve half a teaspoon of sugar in it to give them something to feed on. When the yeast foams up, you’re ready to make dough.

Put everything except the water mixture in a Cuisinart with a regular blade. Turn the Cuisinart on. Dribble the water mixture in until the flour forms a single big glob. Continue to process for one minute. For bigger amounts (over two cups of flour), you may want to use the special dough blade.

At this point, you should have a dough that is squishy enough to work, but not sticky. If it’s too sticky to work, blend a little flour in. If it’s too dry, add water.

You can use ordinary all-purpose biscuit or bread flour. If you love gluten, you can use bread flour and add a spoonful of gluten flour. If you hate gluten, use biscuit flour.

You don’t need fancy 00 flour, but there is no reason you can’t use it if it makes you happy.

You don’t have to put oil in the dough. If you don’t, however, it may be impossible to toss, because the outside will dry and crack while you work it. This doesn’t matter if you roll it. A tossed crust will usually be a little better than a rolled crust, and it’s easier to get the flour off of it.

Form the dough into a disk. Coat the disk with a thin layer of olive oil. Put in a covered dish to rise. I oil the dish lightly. When the dough has at least doubled in size, it’s ready to form into a pizza. This amount of dough will make a thin 12″ pie with a half-inch lip. Toss it or roll it. Put it on a pizza screen.

If the dough holes while you’re working it, you can smoosh the edges of the holes back together and keep going.

SAUCE

4 oz. Stanislaus Super Dolce sauce
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2-1 teaspoon sugar
1 tablespoon white vinegar
dry oregano to taste
1-2 tablespoons olive oil

Add enough water to the sauce to make it loose enough so it won’t form peaks. This is probably more sauce than you need for a 12″ pie, but you don’t want to err on the light side. Put enough sauce on the dough to make it red, but don’t bury it. The best tool for spreading sauce is your fingers. They are less likely to weld the dough to the screen.

Almost all supermarket tomato products are bad.

Use 6 ounces (weight) of Costco shredded mozzarella. You can also use sliced whole-milk mozzarella from the deli counter at a grocery. If you want to go all-out, find a place that sells Grande brand cheese. When the cheese is on the pie, sprinkle about half a teaspoon of oregano on it.

Scamorza cheese is also good, and you might enjoy a blend of mozzarella and provolone. Be careful about using part-skim cheese. It may burn too fast. If you end up with cheese that doesn’t have enough fat in it, you may be able to save it by tossing it in a tablespoon of melted butter before you put it on the pie. You can add flavor by adding grated cheese.

Almost all shredded supermarket cheese is bad.

Dump the pizza on a stone in a 550-degree oven. Cook for four minutes. Using an aluminum peel, remove the screen and leave the pizza on the stone. Bake for 2 1/2-3 minutes.

That’s it.

This may not be your favorite type of pizza, but it will give you a safe place to start. If you can stand to make dough a day in advance and refrigerate it, it will probably be better. You don’t have to use a screen, but it’s easier than using semolina and a peel.

Cheese pizza is the real test of a recipe. Any pizza tastes good when you cover it with crap. While you’re trying to get your recipe right, your best bet is to make cheese pizza over and over before you use toppings.

Enjoy.