Some Prefer Machine Tools

I guess a lot of people already think I’m a kook, so it can’t hurt me to post this.

Last night, I tried to make myself some T nuts from 12L14 round stock. I enjoyed it tremendously. I had to figure out how to position round stock in the vise. I had to decide which cuts to make first and which cutter to use. I had to use the DRO, which is fantastic. I can see why no machinist should be without one.

I used the lathe to cute a short piece of 12L14, and I put it on parallels in the vise, and I started cutting. I took shallow cuts, because the bar was round and smooth, so I was afraid big cuts would apply so much torque it would turn in the vise. I made a flat side, and then I cut two shoulders down from it, and then I flipped the metal in the vise and flattened the bottom of what would eventually be two T nuts.

It worked like a charm. The surfaces were beautiful, and they even had wonderful patterns in them, like woven silk.

I was going to leave the metal in the vise and call it a day, but I couldn’t resist taking it out so I could play with it. Here’s what I have so far.

While I was looking at it, I discovered a surprising and pleasing feature which would force me to scrap the part. How can something good render a part useless? See if you can guess.

Can you believe that? How can I throw that away? I had to play with the Photoshop controls to bring it out, but when you see the actual part, it’s much more obvious. There is an ichthus in the steel. The tail doesn’t show up well in the photo, but it’s there. The ichthus must have been put there by the saw the metal dealer used. I would have ruined it had I continued with the project.

Don’t email me for tickets. I’m not opening a tourist attraction. And so far, it hasn’t healed me or anything. I don’t expect it to start weeping blood, and it hasn’t uttered any prophecies. But it was still a nice surprise, and I would never assume a thing like this happened by chance.

Isn’t that just like God? Present in everything, but you have to know where to look, and you have to want to see.

Incidentally, I just learned that we are coming into the Days of Teshuvah. This is a 40-day period preceding Yom Kippur, the Jewish day of atonement. On that day, and that day only, the high priest used to enter the Holy of Holies and perform actions that covered the sins of the Jewish people.

Teshuvah (that’s the spelling that seems to be preferred, if Google means anything) means “repentance.” Aaron posted a comment recently, explaining it in more detail.

A crescendo of the Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur services is the three-word phrase: “Tshuva [return/repentence], tefilah [prayer], u-tzedaka [and charity] avert the evil decree”.

http://www.ou.org/about/judaism/tw.htm : Repentance, or return to G-d or the G-dly way of life; modifying one’s behavior by the following four steps: stopping the sinful behavior, confession before G-d, regret over past actions, and commitment to changed behavior in the future. If done out of fear of Divine punishment, Teshuvah turns past deliberate sins into “accidental” sins; if done out of love of G-d, Teshuvah has the power to transform deliberate sins into “good deeds.”

This refers to personal sins between man and God. Wronging another requires compensating damage and gaining forgiveness from the wronged party. One can’t steal from another and confess to a third party and expect to be forgiven. Judaism teaches that God won’t forgive sins committed against those made in His image. In cases where it isn’t possible (not merely inconvenient or uncomfortable) to make amends and ask for forgiveness, a competent clergyman might suggest a suitable action to compensate the community. A vandal might devote years to reversing the damages of vandalism in his town. A corporate polluter that harmed the rivers in a community might work in environmentalism.

Obviously, no Christian assumes the Jews are right about everything, but they knew God during tens of centuries during which my ancestors were worshiping trees and eating each other, so when they talk, I listen. I haven’t read anything expressly explaining the purpose of the Days of Teshuvah, but I suppose anyone can see that it is better to arrive on the day of atonement with repentance well under day. It shows respect and gratitude, and it shows you don’t expect to do whatever you want 364 days a year and then show up so God can change your diaper.

Whenever I think of the metaphor of washing our robes in blood, I think of parents changing diapers. I am positive God was trying to tell us something when he arranged for babies to take two years to be toilet-trained. I think this whole life is a lot like a diaper. We soil it and discard it and move on to better things.

The Days of Teshuvah are coming. “Coincidentally,” last night, my pastor preached about lukewarm Christians. That type of teaching necessarily involves repentance. There is no other way to fix the problem. He mentioned Revelation 3:19 and 3:20. I’ll tack 3:21 on, since it makes the message even more pleasant.

19 As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent.

20 Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.

21 To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne.

This family is facing a special need at the moment, and we will be dealing with it throughout the 40 Days of Teshuvah, which start on August 21. Knowing the significance of this time period will surely be helpful to us. I think God alerted me to this, and the series my church is teaching, which is all about turning up the intensity of your walk, is very supportive.

Maybe I’ll give that piece of metal to my sister when I pick her up at the airport today. It’s too small to glue to my car.

Last night, I listened to Perry Stone. He did a series of teachings in the obscure town where I was born, and I bought the CDs out of curiosity. In the session I listened to last night, he talked about the frustration he has experienced, leading his own son into a strong relationship with God. He told his son he only needed to “get zapped” by God once. He needed to see something miraculous, whether it was a manifestation of God’s presence or a miracle. He thought that would fix him. That may be true of his son, but I am apparently not that smart. God physically entered my car, when I was on the highway in 1985. He made another appearance a year or so later. He gave me a healing. He showed me two spirits. But I left the church twenty years ago, with those memories still in my mind! How do you do something that stupid? I don’t understand how I pulled it off. Where would I be today, had I paid attention? People go their whole lives without receiving treasures like that. You can’t buy them. They are more precious than anything any billionaire has. Still, I treated them as though they were unimportant. The Jews may recognize 40 days of teshuvah, but for the especially dense and spoiled, it can take years.

My sister and I need to take full advantage of this time. The warnings are not subtle. I don’t know how it could be any clearer.

Reese’s Ups the Ante

I have to tell you about a diabolical new plot. You know how hard it is to deal with Reese’s peanut butter cups? Sure you do. You have to peel the paper off, and you get chocolate under your nails, and half of the chocolate sticks to the paper, and then it gets on the steering wheel or the surgical instruments or the flight yoke or whatever you’re handling at the time.

Well now Reese’s has gone medieval on us. They are selling enormous BARS of their trademark confection. Yes, you have to gnaw through the paper, but after that, it’s pure uninterrupted pleasure.

Stay away from these things. Reese’s was never intended to be this easy.

Get the Brillo and Lysol

Yesterday, I went to a dealership and drove an F150 with an eight-foot bed. I was pleasantly surprised. The truck was slow compared to the Thunderbird, which is not a big shock, but the ride was very pleasant. Not like a truck at all. I instinctively slowed down for the speed bumps in the parking lot, being used to the Thunderbird (bottoming out), motorcycles (jumping in the air), and Explorer (jumping then rocking), but when I hit the bumps, nothing happened. The length of the truck doesn’t seem to be a problem. It’s 18″ longer than the next size down. That’s not a real burden when you drive, but it would be a big help at Home Depot. They had extended-cab versions that were the same length, but you lose some payload.

This truck was an XLT which means “cheap but not scary-cheap.” It had cloth seats and power windows. I thought it was fairly luxurious for a truck. In the showroom, they had a $43,000 truck that had rain-sensing windshield wipers and–you may think I’m kidding–motorized running boards that extend when you touch the door handles. I like nice stuff. No doubt about it. But when you’re too lame to turn on the windshield wipers or get into a truck without a boost, you need to be euthanized. It would be humiliating to be seen getting into that atrocity.

The guts of the truck seemed very good. The base V8 plus the towing stuff. This means a better suspension and more cooling capacity. That might mean the air conditioner works better, now that I think about it. I guess it depends on whether the radiator limits the air conditioner’s cooling capacity. I assume that is not the case, since cars don’t run hot in Miami with the air conditioning on. The air conditioner worked very well, and if it cooled on August 7 in Miami, with no clouds, it will cool in hell.

The truck was not much to look at. I didn’t realize it from the photos, but white pickups are somewhat better looking than silver ones. I don’t like these “colors,” but anything else will be a heat magnet.

The dealership was empty. Do not believe the Cash for Clunkers PR storm. There were maybe two other customers there. Ford sales have increased 2%, which means they are still in the process of going out of business.

They had a funny sales setup. The first Internet sales contact was a man. Then they palmed me off to a Latin girl with lots of cleavage and tight pants. When I showed up, she came out to greet me. All I can say is, I doubt she was hired for her LSAT score. Very spicy addition to the showroom decor. I don’t think she was Cuban. She seemed South American. Cubans will be mad when I say this, but South American girls tend to run a little hotter. But she handed me off to a third guy, who was a regular floor salesman. So it’s not the same deal I got when I got the Thunderbird. The other dealership, owned by the same conglomerate, had a separate Internet crowd, and they were much nicer to do business with. I think I’m going to contact them. They may be able to get me this same truck. I hate to do that to the guy who rode with me today, but his boss was very pushy, and he added $1500 to the price they quoted me, so they’ve had their chance. His behavior was not respectful. I realize they’re supposed to try to make money, but I’ve done some negotiating myself, and I know something he doesn’t: being obnoxious doesn’t help. You can be polite and take someone to the cleaners.

My dad has finally concluded he doesn’t want to go the Obama route, so I don’t have that option to worry me now.

I think I finally…FINALLY…have a viable milling project. Enco wants $15 for a proper set of nuts and studs to mount my vise. I used stuff from my clamping set, but I would rather have a separate setup. Today I realized I had enough stuff to make my own T nuts and studs. I don’t think I can make a flange nut, but life isn’t perfect.

I figured I would make a bar shaped like a T nut and bore and tap holes in it and then slice it into nuts. Then I realized I didn’t need to slice it. I can make a single bar a little wider than the vise and put a hole in each end. A T nut can be a hundred feet long and still work. There is no reason you do it this way, and it would save time.

A guy on the Chaski forum made an incredible ball cutter for his lathe. The ones you see for sale are very simple. U-shaped tool holders that pivot on steel bases. This baby has a table on ball bearings. Totally unnecessary, I’m sure, but who cares? He’s selling plans. I might take a whack at it. I would probably end up spending fifty bucks on materials, but a premade cutter would cost something in that neighborhood anyway.

I don’t have a lot to say about other matters that are going on in my life; don’t expect to read much about that in the near future.

Two things:

1. Dan Howell’s sister is not doing well, so keep her in your prayers:

Steve, will be Praying for your sister. God is control of everything and we just have to let him have His way. We need to let go and let God work. My sister, Mary Ellen has been put back into Hospice House and is her last days of the beast, cancer. Thank you for your Prayers on her behalf, we will miss her, but I will not judge God for not healing her in my way. She will be Healed and we will see each other again when I am healed of this world. Touch her now God and make Steve’s sister whole.

2. Heather’s mom is in the hospital.

Praying for your sister.
My mom was admitted to the hospital last night.

Uselessness is Not a Virtue

I hope people will not fault me for returning to blogging as usual. Things will continue to go on behind the scenes, whether or not I write about them.

I guess I can mention one thing. It’s something I’ve written about before. In 1987, I received a miraculous healing, and last night my sister asked me how I got it. I tend to assume all Christians know these things, but I guess that’s dumb. I’ll go back over it. Maybe it will help someone.

I decided I had to find a church. When I started looking, I became ill. I thought I had a cold, but it would not go away. It wasn’t like an allergy; I know the difference. It persisted for weeks. It drove me nuts.

I had been watching a number of TV preachers. Somewhere–maybe it was from Kenneth Copeland–I heard that if you wanted to be healed, you had to “confess” your healing orally and stick to it, no matter what. You prayed for healing, then you announced aloud that God had healed you, and you continued to do that, without waivering, until your healing came. I gave it a try. I was sick for days after that, but I never once permitted myself to say I was not healed.

One day I was standing in my dad’s kitchen, and I looked in the freezer. While the door was open, I saw a dark transparent shape travel from me into the freezer, and then it made a turn and went out through the back door of the house, which was closed. I was instantly healed. My mother and father were in the next room. They didn’t see what happened, but they both saw that I was healed when I came out of the kitchen. My father forgot it. My mother never did. Oddly, my father has forgotten it several times, and so has my sister. I’ve had to tell them more than once. I’ve told my sister at least twice this year, and there is nothing wrong with her memory.

It wasn’t a leg growing back. It wasn’t cancer. But it was a miracle anyway, and it was a big relief to me.

Today I would do more. I’d add fasting and repentance and offerings and prayer. But what I did in 1987 worked. I think sometimes God does more for a new believer than he would for someone who knows the ropes. Just a guess.

I don’t endorse Kenneth Copeland, but no evangelist is wrong all the time. Maybe this story will help someone.

Back to normal life.

As time passes, I am more and more inclined to get a pickup and sell the T-bird. I was sitting in church the other day, thinking what I always think: “I wish I were of more use to these people.” I have all these tools now, and I have time. But I drive a car with two seats and a trunk the size of a lunchbox. The trunk is amazing; it may well be the reason this car was not popular. You can get two suitcases in it, and that’s it. Period. I would guess that it’s impossible to put anything more than 14″ tall in there. If I take this car to the gun range, I have to put my range box in the passenger seat.

It’s starting to look like we’re going into a deceptive plateau in the decline of the United States. That means cars will start selling, and prices will go up. I’m thinking I should snap up a truck before the dealers develop a false sense of confidence. Then I can hold onto the convertible for a few months to see if the used-car market gets a boost. If not, I unload it. Or I drive it occasionally. The only problem with that scenario is clutter. The positive side would be that I would not have to drive a huge vehicle all the time. I find that when I drive a big vehicle, every once in a while, I really miss driving small cars I can turn and park easily.

The picture is complicated because my father unexpectedly announced that he might want to take advantage of the Obama handout. I can’t blame him. The IRS treated him like a slush fund all his life. He will never break even. He’s thinking of getting rid of his old Explorer. The best truck he can extract from Obama’s udder is a Toyota Tacoma. It’s smaller than I would like, but it will work. I can’t put extremely heavy objects in the bed, but it will pull a rented trailer just fine. You can’t rent a trailer if you have an Explorer. Uhaul’s attorneys have seen to that. And the Explorer’s odometer died at 109K, so I wouldn’t trust it with a trailer now.

He has an idea about getting a travel trailer; I don’t know if that’s a great idea, but the Tacoma will pull it. It’s not the best choice, but it can be done. If he gets a Tacoma, I’ll be a good son and borrow it constantly. No need for an F150.

Either truck would be a good move. I would like to have something practical. When I got the T-bird, I didn’t need a utility vehicle, because I could always borrow the Explorer. Now the Explorer is old, and it’s not an ideal vehicle for hauling things, and I have more reason to haul. Maybe I’ll run up to the Ford dealership and take a look at the F150 I have my eye on.

I was practicing law when I got the T-bird. I thought it would be fun to have a car with a little style, and I am addicted to ragtops. You don’t need a big car when your payload consists of a briefcase and a laptop, and it wasn’t a bad car for a single man to have. You know how women are. But I am shedding the upscale trappings I started to accumulate in law school. I wish I could burn my suits. I wear sneakers and cargo shorts all the time. I have given up on expensive sunglasses. The people in the better men’s shops used to know me by sight. Those days are long gone. And the women I am likely to meet now are not going to have a lot of interest in flash. A woman who will not let you take her out in a pickup is going to be trouble eventually. Like a man who expects his wife to give him an itinerary whenever she leaves the house. Or a guy who drives with no shirt on. I am convinced they always make bad husbands. It’s a hunch.

If I have a truck, I’ll be better able to pursue my own hobbies, and I’ll be in a position to make myself useful to others. If the church needs a sliding miter saw or a table saw, I’ll be able to pop it in the bed and get on the road. I won’t have to sit in the congregation feeling like a doofus because I drive a self-indulgent roadster.

If they know I have tools and a truck, won’t they bother me all the time, asking for favors? Probably. That’s what I’m hoping for.

I should go look at that thing. I dread meeting a salesperson. I’d rather have a snake thrown on me. But I guess there is no other way.

Trust

Here’s an update, although it won’t be very informative. I am not ready to say anything about my sister’s condition, but I will reiterate–I can’t remember if I’ve said this already–that I think it’s remarkable that she went in for treatment of a fungus and ended up learning she had a more serious and unrelated problem, which may well have been caught at the earliest possible stage.

God is unfathomable. Sometimes he blesses us by preventing misfortune. Sometimes he blesses us by ameliorating misfortune. Sometimes the misfortune is not remedied, yet it carries tremendous collateral blessings. Believers who suffer disease or injury will point to the good things that came afterward, as proof of God’s love. Nonbelievers will ask why God allows disease and injury to happen in the first place. One of the hardest lessons in the Bible is the teaching that we must always continue to trust. Job lost his fortune, his children, and his health, but he said this of God: “Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him.” His mistake was in following that up with a declaration that he would convince God he had earned a better fate. Nonetheless, in the end, his trust was rewarded.

My hope is that we will find out that the fungus was a gift, because it brought the cancer to light early enough to allow it to be cured. But I am not going to make a prediction.

I think sometimes you can pray a person well, and sometimes you can’t, and maybe it all hinges on that person’s relationship with God. It is probably easier to get healing for yourself than anyone else, because while you ask, you can also search your heart candidly and turn from anything that might stand between you and God’s power. That would seem to make sense.

Sometimes people get angry with me when I suggest our behavior can cause our misfortunes, but I apply the same principle to myself, so I have no reason to apologize. I am very aware that I fall short, and whenever something goes wrong, I look at my own actions and attitudes to see if I can find a cause. How can that ever be the wrong approach? You can’t cure unless you diagnose. Self-criticism is essential to growth. If I treat myself this way, and I profit from it, shouldn’t I encourage others to do the same thing? Maybe my sins aren’t always the cause of my problems. So what? I profit anyway, do I not?

I do not understand the objections. Perhaps it seems cruel to suggest that a person who is already suffering search himself to see if anything about him is not pleasing God. But it’s better than telling them everything is fine, when a little introspection might turn things around. You wouldn’t give a diabetic pound cake. When did enabling ever help anyone?

Sometimes you pray for someone to get a certain outcome, and it doesn’t happen. When that happens, there has to be a reason, and it can’t be God’s fault. Maybe it’s their sins. Maybe it’s your faith or their faith. Still, you have to trust. Whatever suffering you may experience while serving and trusting God, you will be infinitely better off than a person who abandons him.

The more I suffer, and the more my family and the people I care about suffer, the closer I will draw to God. That’s the way it’s supposed to be. That’s the only way to win.

I don’t know if I’ll be able to write about this from here on out. With that in mind, I am going to try to move on and write about life the way I always do. I hope that doesn’t offend anyone. I will still be grateful for everything you have done.

Sorry

I don’t have any news about my sister yet. The doctor said he would talk to her this morning, and it is 1:43 p.m. where she is.

I’ll post something as soon as I know what’s happening.

More

I just spoke with my sister. The biopsy is positive. I don’t want to say any more than that, out of respect for her privacy. Hopefully, I’ll be able to write more about this challenge in the weeks to come. Thank you again for your help.

Overwhelmed by Fruit

I am getting mixed results with the gardening.

With the increased rain, the peppers are thriving. My prig ki nu bush is nearly as big as my lime tree. I am going to have to prune it back before it kills the tree and the pepper bush next to it. The Trinidad Scorpion bush is so big it fell over. I am going to have to tie it up. I have a number of pods on my Fatalii bush. My only weak bush is the yellow habanero.

I have two bunches of Orinoco bananas going, with several big trees nearly ready to fruit. I’m going to try to manage them better, cutting off hands instead of bunches. As soon as you cut a bunch down, the bananas get ripe, and then you have a problem.

My nam wa bananas are finally nearing bearing size. I expect a bract any day now. The PHIA 21 plantains are growing well, but not as fast. The French Horn plantain is in third place, and unlike the other trees, it only has one pup.

The bigger of the two Carrie mangoes is getting huge. For a while, it had new pinkish leaves on it nearly every morning. The smaller tree is healthy but it’s about a third of the big one’s size. I am hoping for a decent harvest this time. I’m pretty sure the demented mango-cutting squirrel that terrorized the neighborhood has been called home to paradise.

My ponkans are fantastic. This little Home Depot tree looks wonderful, apart from a small spider mite problem I can’t get rid of, and it has so many fruit on it, I can’t see how it remains upright. My Sunburst tangerine has never recovered from the weedeater attacks, but it’s getting better all the time. The tangelo tree is healthier than it used to be, but I should still replace it. My cara cara tree looks swell, but it dropped its fruit. Maybe next year. The grapefruit tree looks great, but the fruit are small, so far.

My dragonfruit has two new buds. I am hoping the weedeater maniacs will manage not to gouge it again, so the fruit won’t fall off.

The lime and Key lime trees are out of control. Every day I harvest one to six limes and at least two Key limes. I have maybe three dozen fruit slowly drying up in the kitchen. I am literally throwing them out. Sometimes I try to leave them on the tree longer than I should, and they start to rot and have to be dumped.

The mamey is completely dead. Never buy a tree that doesn’t look happy at the nursery. The lychee is healthy, but I didn’t get fruit this year.

I keep seeing funny little green lizards wrapped around my fruit, waiting for bees or something. I should photograph a few.

I may as well dig up the mamey and replace it. What a gyp that was. I might plant black congo and yellow congo peppers, since they’re rare, and I happen to have seeds. I should kill the peppers I have in pots. The maintenance is too high, and they grow fine in the dirt.

I think I’m going to have to learn to love bananas, starting this fall. I sure hope so. It would be great to have a steady supply of fruit better than the stuff they sell at the store.

Plus Fun with Chinese Tools

While I am sitting here waiting, I thought I’d write some tool-related stuff.

First, I read my mill’s manual the other day. It’s not fantastic, but it’s much better than the manual for the DRO, which might as well be a Jackson Pollack painting. The manual says the mill is built so the front of the table (toward the operator) is supposed to be higher than the back. How much higher? Uh…guess. They say it should be around 0.005″ higher, but that’s as close as they’re willing to get. So I have no idea what to do. I trammed it with all four sides at the same height. I guess I can do it again and assume 0.005″ is the right figure.

Second, I got a quote on a pickup. I suppose I shouldn’t be looking while the socialist, wealth-destroying, deficit-increasing clunkers disaster is ongoing, but I doubt full-size pickups are moving well right now. I don’t know if big pickups with V8 motors are ever eligible for handout money; if they are, it wouldn’t happen very often. You would have to drive a tank in order for a full-size pickup to be an upgrade under the Obama plan.

This morning it occurred to me that this is sort of like the Fannie Mae mess, except it applies to cars. My dad pointed out yesterday that Obama is encouraging new buyers to go further into debt, and that will take money out of circulation. My guess is that many people who own cars worth turning in under this program are poor loan risks. If your trade-in is worth substantially less than the handout figure, you are probably not well off. And car dealers are notorious for writing bad loans and dumping them on GMAC and other institutions. It’s an accepted practice. It can only get worse with this plan in place. Maybe next year we’re going to see a wave of repos.

I got a quote because I wanted to see how desperate the dealers are, and my effort was rewarded handsomely. They took something like six grand off MSRP, right away. I suppose I should be able to chisel another two thousand off.

The truck I looked at was a fairly basic F150 with an eight-foot bed and no back seats. It has the towing stuff, and the payload capacity is about 3,000 pounds, which means it can move heavy objects such as milling machines. I ought to go take a look at it. The Thunderbird has been fun, but I’m starting to feel like it’s no longer in character for me to drive it. It’s a party car. The resale value is surprisingly low; I would be lucky to break even on the truck buy. I am tempted to hold it for six months and see what the economy does, but I think Obama is steering us into the toilet, and we are probably experiencing a deceptive lull before the storm. I can’t believe God would reward socialism and hostility toward Israel.

It would be nice to have a vehicle that can carry things. Many times, I’ve had to borrow my dad’s old Explorer, and it’s getting creaky, and it’s no substitute for a truck with a bed.

I don’t want a backseat, but my lifestyle may not always be as solitary as it is now, so maybe I should rethink that.

I’d like to get a truck made by a company that did not accept the tainted Obama nipple, so Ford is a good choice.

I don’t know why I should hesitate to buy a new vehicle. We’re all buying new vehicles for other people now; might as well buy for ourselves. I need to get a shirt that says, “Kiss me. I paid for your house and your car.”

Fateful Day

This is the day my sister gets her diagnosis. On Tuesday, she was told there was a high probability that she had some type of non-Hodgkins lymphoma, but it was not a firm diagnosis. My prayer has been that upon further analysis, it would turn out to be something other than cancer.

Last night I went to church, to get prayer for her. My church only has one Wednesday service a month. They call it “Breakthrough Wednesday.” Last night was my first time.

I thought it was excellent. On Sundays, we show up, and there is music, and then there’s a sermon, and from time to time during the service there are prayers, and then there is a blessing, and we go home. Nothing wrong with that. But on Wednesdays, the music is more intense, and there is a bigger focus on entering God’s presence. Before the speaker starts, altar workers go to the front, and people are encouraged to go to them and receive prayer. They also have a table at the front where people can take communion. I would say this lasts around half an hour. I am assuming it’s like this every Wednesday; I’ve only gone once.

It seems like a very good arrangement. The congregation is more involved. All over the church, people are praying and so on. By the time the speaker shows up, a lot has been accomplished, and the congregation is in a very receptive state.

I went up to the front and explained my sister’s situation to an altar worker, and we prayed for her. It’s wonderful to know another believer is with you. This is probably the primary reason God encourages us to marry.

The speaker was Bishop Harry Jackson, from Washington, DC. I had been planning to go to this service before I got the news about my sister, so I could check this man out and see if I could recommend him to Mike, who lives in the DC area.

As it turns out, he is a cancer survivor. He had a tumor in his esophagus. He talked about it last night. He said the survival rate with conventional treatment was low, but that he had undergone a potentially lethal new treatment with a higher cure rate. And as a result, he was in remission or cured.

It was a horrendous story. They removed the part of his esophagus that joins the stomach, and then they put him on a chemotherapy regimen that combined two harsh drugs. At one point, he had a stroke and lost control over the right side of his body. But he made it. Now he’s strong and healthy, and he’s busy making a name for himself as an opponent of gay marriage. He’s getting death threats from the patient, enlightened people who disagree with him. Last night he pointed out that it’s hard to scare a man who has survived cancer.

His sermon was a little strange. It meandered a lot, and although he had talking points, it wasn’t always clear what he was getting at. Nonetheless, he imparted some valuable teaching. I think sometimes the Holy Spirit will permit a speaker to have failings yet will still see to it that he teaches a valuable message.

He made an interesting point about gays. He said no matter how wonderful sex is, it takes up a small part of your day, and it is therefore odd to define yourself by the type of sex you have. He said gays defined themselves by their sin, which is interesting. It’s a little like calling yourself a bank robber. Or a player.

I remember someone telling me that a gay acquaintance of his had made the same complaint. I can’t recall who it was. He said gays were boring because their whole lives were centered on being gay. I guess that makes sense. That would be true of any person who only has one interest. Even bowling. Actually, it can make religious people a little taxing, now that I think about it. Even Noah had a hobby.

I’m going to call Mike and tell him my impressions. I think this guy is worth a look.

I’m starting to wonder; will I ever go to this church without encountering a strange “coincidence”? Mike is looking for a church in DC, and my sister is in the midst of a cancer scare, and look who shows up.

Thanks again for all the help.

Vigil Starts

I want to thank everyone who is praying for my sister. I take it very seriously. Elijah prayed, and God sent fire from heaven which completely consumed a slaughtered bull, the wood it lay on, and the water that had been poured around it. A negative result on a biopsy is a much smaller order, and I know your prayers and mine can get it done. Human efforts, on the other hand, can’t accomplish it.

Ordinarily I think it’s wrong to let people know when I fast, but on this unusual occasion, I think there is some benefit to be had by acknowledging it here. I know of three things I used to fail to take notice of when I needed an answer to prayer. One is the need for repentance, the second is fasting, and the third is the wisdom of making an offering when you receive what you need. I never pray for anyone to be healed, without praying that they will examine themselves and turn from anything that could impede their recovery, and recently I learned that it is good practice to follow up with some kind of offering or alms, when a prayer is granted. This is good information to have, so I’m presenting it. I’ll be fasting until the lab results come in.

I don’t know what else to do. I’ll be going to church tonight, and I’ll get them involved. I’ll pray on my own. Other than that, I guess I’ll go on with life as usual.

Two Days

I just received some shocking news.

My sister developed a problem in her lung, and she was afraid to have it treated locally. There was a small possibility that it could be cancer, and she was afraid a clumsy biopsy would cause it to spread. So she went to the Mayo Clinic to have it done. The overwhelming likelihood was that it was a fungal infection, but she did not want to take a chance.

She has been gone since Friday. As part of her diagnostic treatment, they biopsied a lymph node in her shoulder. While it appears that her lung problem is a relatively harmless and completely curable fungus, the doctors now believe she probably has lymphoma. She had no symptoms whatsoever, and it does not appear to be related to her lung issue. She is devastated. You have to imagine how this worked. She went to her doctor today to get a report on a fungal infection, and instead, he told her she probably has cancer. The oddest thing about it is that she has smoked heavily since she was a teenager, and our family has a history of lung cancer, yet she may have a cancer which is not in her lung and which is unrelated to smoking.

I am not doing too badly right now, but I was reeling a while ago. This is my only sibling, and we have been trying to build a relationship in middle age. Now this happens.

There is still a possibility the biopsy will ultimately come up negative. We won’t know until Thursday. Obviously, that is what I’ll be praying for.

The negative side of this is very obvious. But the positive side can’t be ignored. She had no symptoms. She had no reason to think she might have cancer. But she took extraordinary measures to have a minor problem treated, and as a result of what could reasonably be called irrational behavior, this problem was discovered. Think how much worse it would have been, had she done things differently. Months or years from now, she might have developed symptoms, and she might have been diagnosed with a late-stage cancer. It’s remarkable, when you think about it. You can’t say she has been lucky overall, but finding this problem now was a real blessing, and it was highly, highly unlikely.

I do not ask why God “lets” things happen to me or my family. I refuse to question him. This is a time to draw closer to him and gain his assistance and look for solutions. I am not going to ruin that by reacting like a spoiled child.

I would appreciate it if people would pray for her. I am going to pray that the biopsy result will be negative. I’ll get people at my church to pray. I’ll be fasting. We should have the answer on Thursday.

It’s funny, but during my prayers today, I felt positively enveloped by the presence of God, and I did not understand why. At the moment, I feel an inexplicable sense of warmth and comfort, and it disturbs me a little, because I was so upset earlier, and it doesn’t seem right to feel better. I hope what I’m feeling is God’s hand and not the result of some deficiency in my makeup.

Thanks in advance. I know a lot of you will come through with prayer, and it will mean more to me than a stack of gold bars.

Huh?

I’ve been having fun today, trying to decipher my Sino DRO manual. By all accounts, Sino DROs are very good. If you hire a Chinese person to show you how to use them.

“Setting of system. In process of self check, key ‘.’, then the system enter setting mode after self check finished.”

“It is possible to return to zero any point, take the example of X axis display.”

Okay. Isn’t a self check something you do in the shower?

I have been sitting in front of the mill, punching buttons to find out how the DRO actually works. I am taking notes and writing my own instructions. I guess it’s worth it, because an American DRO costs a grand, and this one was included with my mill! God only knows what it would have cost, had they paid an English-speaker to write the manual instead of using Babelfish.

It amazes me that there are Americans who have figured out how to use Sino DROs. They write about them on forums as if everything was fine. I guess they learn on DROs with better manuals, and when they end up with Sinos, they already know everything. I was considering downloading a manual for a different brand, in the hope that there were similarities.

I tried to determine whether I needed a rotary table, a dividing head, a super spacer, or an indexer today. And I finally realized I would never figure it out if I lived a thousand lifetimes. I think I’ll eventually get a rotary table with dividing accessories and see what happens. I really don’t know what else to do. If I keep trying to figure out the best possible thing to buy, I will die before I actually get anything.

Og says I should get a swivel base for my vise, and I’m sure that’s a good idea. Of course, I chose not to get one when I bought the vise, because I kept seeing forum posts in which people said swivel bases were a complete waste of money. It’s nice how everyone’s advice is consistent. I don’t think I can go wrong with a rotary table. And the table on my mill is long, so my hope is that I can have the vise and the rotary table mounted simultaneously, most of the time.

I am pretty well convinced that I should get a 3-axis DRO, put it on my mill, add a z scale, and move the 2-axis DRO to the lathe. It would be nice to have some idea how long parts are, and I cannot figure out how you do it with a dial indicator with a one-inch range. I think measuring a 24″ part with a dial indicator would be challenging, to say the least.

The DRO manual would be confusing even if it made sense. It has instructions for cutting arcs with a straight end mill. How is that possible? It doesn’t move the work; it just tells you where it is. You can’t move all three handwheels at once unless you have CNC, and I’m pretty sure they would all have to move to make these exotic shapes.

I still want an electronic lead screw for the lathe. It does what a DRO does, most of the time. But when it doesn’t, it doesn’t. And a DRO can’t do what it does. It replaces metric gears, a taper attachment, and sometimes, a DRO.

I gave up on making my own dovetail cutter. It’s a very stupid idea. Luckily Enco is having a sale. They must adore me.

I really think I may make something some day. Possibly by Christmas. Of 2011.

Hope Obama hasn’t backed a truck up to the garage by then. When he crowns himself at the National Cathedral and starts confiscating Jewish property, we’ll know he’s almost ready to nationalize our tools and shoot everyone who can read. If you’re Jewish, have a tailor make you a nice silk yellow star right away. Don’t wait for the rush and end up with a crummy one made out of felt.

Liar, Spendthrift, or Both?

The Obama birth mess never seems to die out completely.

Yesterday, I read about the newly discovered Kenyan birth certificate which says Obama was born in Mombasa. Attorney Orly Taitz is using a copy as evidence to try to convince a federal court to get the Kenyans to release the original. I am not a “birther,” and I don’t have a lot of confidence in this document, but I noted that it would be pretty odd for an attorney to present a court with a faked document, in a situation where the truth was virtually certain to come out eventually, and where the attorney’s enemies would do their best to use the submission of the faked document as a basis to ruin her career.

In a comment, Aaron pointed out that Jon Stewart’s staff produced a newspaper birth announcement from Hawaii, printed in 1961, indicating that Obama had been born there on August 4th of that year. I thought that was pretty powerful evidence that Obama had been born in the US. But that’s not the end of it. Mrs. Taitz appeared on TV recently, and she pointed out that it was possible for Obama’s mother to get the announcement published without proof that Obama was born here. She also noted that Mrs. Obama would have been highly motivated to do this, because it would have avoided a lot of aggravation, dealing with the immigration people.

So the newspaper announcement is nearly worthless. IF Mrs. Taitz is correct.

There is a new wrinkle, however. According to Wikipedia (sorry), Mombasa was in Zanzibar when Obama was born. It was not part of Kenya until 1963. If that is true, how can the birth certificate be legitimate? On top of that, we still don’t know how hard it was to get the certificate issued. For all I know, it may be even easier than getting a Hawaiian newspaper to print a birth announcement.

Apart from all this, we still have no explanation for the huge stonewalling effort Obama has made. Accounts say he has spent nearly a million dollars, when he could simply have had his Hawaiian birth certificate (the original, which supposedly still exists) released. Is this his own money? What kind of nut would harm his children’s financial legacy by blowing a million dollars for no clear reason? Is it money from supporters? What kind of nut would donate money, when Obama could solve the problem by writing a note or making a phone call?

If Obama can prove he was born here, he must be out of his mind, spending all this money. Of course, he’s pretty good at wasting huge sums of money, so maybe the lawsuit cost is merely more evidence of an underlying character deficiency.

Speaking of deficiencies, I am trying to figure out what items of tooling I need to make my milling machine useful. Yesterday, I decided it was time to try to get moving on my plan to make quick release tool holders for my lathe. These will have 60° dovetails on them. So I’ll need a dovetail cutter. On the suggestion of a reader, I decided it would be fun to make my own one-flute cutter with an indexed carbide insert.

The cutter would be a cylinder of steel with a 60° cone machined from the bottom of it, big side down. You put the insert on one side of the cone, in a notch.

Problem: the notch has to be an equilateral triangle, with the vertical side tilted 30° from the axis of the cutter, to rest against the side of the insert. This means cutting a big chunk out of the cone part, with the mill table traveling at an angle to the axis. Generally, you would use a rotary table or a dividing head to do this, although you can clamp stuff to the table and align it with a protractor, which is not very precise and likely to lead to insert alignment problems.

So I’m looking at rotary tables and dividing heads. A dividing head is likely to be cheaper and lighter and easier to use. But–I am pretty sure–you can’t cut arcs with it. It clicks from angular position to angular position, in discrete jumps, and you machine with the work at rest. Perhaps I’m mistaken. With a rotary table, you can turn the work while the mill runs. But you will not be able to move it quickly in desired increments, unless you buy extra parts. Say you want to drill six holes around a disk, at equally spaced intervals. With a dividing head, you move the work five times, pretty quickly. With a rotary table, you turn it gradually from point to point, and you line up the angular graduations, which takes time.

Complicating things further, a rotary table may be purely horizontal, horizontal and vertical, or tilting. I assume “tilting” means you can position it anywhere between horizontal and vertical. As you might guess, the price goes up as you go from purely horizontal to tilting.

So once more, I am completely at sea. On top of that, I’ve been informed that one-flute dovetail cutters are stupid, because they cut very slowly. And making a multiple-flute cutter is nearly impossible, because the inserts won’t line up. And anyway, when you make three or four notches for inserts, you weaken the cutter a lot.

I checked out Enco, trying to find a dovetail cutter which would be appropriate for making BXA tool holders. It’s very hard to figure out. The height of the cutter has to be right, and so does the width, and it has to work well with whatever diameter cutter you use to make the slots you turn into dovetails, so you have to have the right size shank.

My head hurts.

I can make cubic and rectangular pieces of metal, and I can drill holes and mill slots in them. So far, that’s about it.

Using the mill is a blast, regardless. I stare at it, like I would stare if I just found out I was married to Jessica Biel. I can’t believe it’s here. So far, my efforts have been limited to tramming the mill and facing a metal disk with a fly cutter, but that’s pretty exciting compared to having no milling machine.

I think new machinists probably tend to look like Christians, because the lathe throws oil on us, making vertical stripes on our shirts, and the mill throws oil horizontally, and when it’s all over, you end up with a big cross.

I’m going to make something, starting today, even if I only turn my disk into a rectangular block.

The facing went okay. The work seems to rise when I tighten the vise, which is disturbing, but I have been beating it with a soft hammer while I crank the handle, and it appears to do away with the problem. I faced the disk on both sides, and the thickness, measured at four points, was within two thousandths of an inch. That’s okay for now.

Yesterday I learned that this particular mill has a table which is supposed to be somewhat higher in front than in back. How much higher? That’s the question they don’t answer. They say it may be 0.005″. “May.” So maybe I need to tram the mill again. What fun.

Sooner or later, something useful will be made in my garage. I will notify you when it happens, and on that day, it will be such a big story, no one will care where Barack Obama was born.

I See no Mention of Mother’s Virginity

Sondra K. linked to something hilarious yesterday. California attorney/dentist Orly Taitz has produced a document which she claims is a Kenyan birth certificate indicating that Barack Obama was born in Mombasa.

I really don’t know what to make of this. There are kooks on both sides of the political spectrum (on the left, they are called “moderates”), and the air is always full of BS. On the other hand, I have no respect for liberal claims that the Obama birth kerfuffle has been thoroughly debunked or that it was never anything more than a hoax. They say the same sort of things about respectable scientists and statesmen who doubt the global warming religion, which is losing credibility week by week. Moreover, this type of attack often indicates an underlying fear and an awareness on the part of the attacker that he can’t produce facts sufficient to support his argument. Remember how Dan Rather took this path. Then Les Moonves moved Dan’s desk into the men’s room, and now Dan’s retirement plan consists of shaky lawsuits against CBS.

Hawaii produced an electronic birth certificate, and some official or other stated that he or she had seen the original. The Republican governor of Hawaii said Obama was a US citizen. I was happy to accept that. I’m not all that eager to hear the phrase “President Biden.” But it never occurred to me to think about Kenyan records. I don’t know if Ms. Taitz is the one who came up with this idea, but whoever it was is very sharp. This is the kind of thinking that makes a thorough and effective litigator. People have ridiculed her as incompetent and embarrassing, and for all I know, if I looked at her record as a whole, I would draw the same conclusion. But looking for the Kenyan certificate was a great idea.

Lou Dobbs has taken a beating over this. As he has pointed out, people are openly lying about him. He has made it clear that he doesn’t buy into the “birther” view, but frantic leftists all over the airwaves and the web are falsely claiming he questions Obama’s citizenship. The hysteria on the left does not suggest confidence. Quite the opposite. And as Dobbs has pointed out, the main thing driving the story is Obama’s unwillingness to take the quick, inexpensive steps required to end it.

I didn’t realize until today that the Obama response has been expensive. According to various sources, it has cost seven figures. That is incredible. Can it be true? If someone questioned my citizenship, and I thought stonewalling would cost me FIFTY dollars, I’d run for my birth certificate immediately. And like most halfway responsible American adults, I do have a copy of my birth certificate. It’s odd that Obama does not. You would think a pampered kid raised by doting grandparents would have a fairly orderly life.

Some Kos nut says the Kenyan certificate is a fake, because it says something like “Republic of Kenya,” and it was issued in February of 1964, and Kenya (according to a digital image of a newspaper clipping) was not a republic until later that year.

Here:

1. Kos nut
2. Unverified clipping
3. No other evidence, in spite of leftist panic and concerted effort
4. No proof that Kenya was not using the word “Republic” in official documents in February of 1964, regardless of whether the term was correct
5. World Net Daily says it looks like other Kenyan certificates they have unearthed, although they have not given dates.

The debunkers will have to do better.

My sense of this thing is that the Kenyan document will turn out to have some kind of problem. I doubt that it’s a rank fake, as Karl Rove suggested, because Ms. Taitz would be crucified, impoverished, disbarred, and if possible, burned at the stake, should leftists discover that she knowingly submitted a phony document to a federal court. At least, they’ll try to inflict these punishments on her. Maybe she’s as crazy as liberals say she is, but you would have to be nearly insane to throw your career away on a bogus document which would cause you great harm and benefit your enemies. I don’t know what other flaws could invalidate the certificate, but they will likely turn up as leftists work themselves into a frenzy, investigating it. It may be that there is a way to get a Kenyan certificate issued retroactively, based on weak affidavits or some such.

Taitz’s effort has been referred to as “a fishing expedition.” That’s not accurate. Here’s what that term means. I’ll give an example. You sue someone for negligence because you stepped in a hole in their backyard. To prove they knew there was a hole, you ask for every email they’ve sent for the last twenty years, plus all of their letters and phone records, plus all the emails and phone records of everyone they know. That’s a fishing expedition. You have no legitimate reason to believe a certain fact, yet you unreasonably seek tons of evidence which could conceivably tend to prove that fact. Here, Ms. Taitz has a facially credible document on which to base her suspicions. And if she is demanding the right to compel the production of additional evidence (the essence of a fishing expedition), I am not aware of it.

I would be surprised if this fuss amounts to anything. And I am hoping it won’t be necessary to attack Obama in this manner. He is incompetent and immature, and he has an off-putting, tyrannical, condescending personality, and he keeps betraying his supporters and breaking promises, so I’m hoping the American people will continue to reduce their support for him. He shafted the Jews, his grandmother, doctors, the UAW, Caucasians in general, and the police unions. He can’t keep sawing away at his support without consequences. It’s starting to look like the “Carter II” predictions are coming true. I sure hope so.

I can’t believe the Cash for Clunkers program. I looked into it this weekend, because my dad was considering getting rid of his Explorer and getting a pickup. Here’s how it works. If you own a really awful car which is worth considerably less than $4500 as a trade-in, you can take it to a dealer and get $4500 toward the price of a new car. It jacks up the value of your trade-in. The dealer will generally succeed in getting most of this money (or more) from you when you negotiate the purchase and financing. And while you can’t buy whatever you want, you don’t have to buy a high-mileage car. Depending on the mileage your old car gets, you may be able to buy something that gets as few as 20 miles per gallon, combined. Where does the money come from? Ultimately, taxes. In the short term, from debt financed by the Chinese and other fine friends of America, at disturbing interest rates. Which you and I will have to cover. Where do the old cars go? Do they go to charities and poor people who need transportation? Are they sold to junkyards so the parts will go back into the stream of commerce? No, they get crushed, in a ridiculous and obscene destruction of wealth.

So, to recap:

1. Dealers get lots and lots of money from buyers who can’t negotiate and do not understand how interest works.
2. Many buyers end up with cars that get lackluster mileage.
3. Energy and wealth are wasted in the destruction of perfectly good cars the poor could use.
4. We pay for it later, with interest.

It took energy to build the cars we’re crushing and the cars that will replace them. No one seems to think about that. I think it’s safe to guess that building and selling a car require energy equivalent to several years’ worth of gas. And think of all the plastic in cars. That’s oil.

Isn’t this really just another carmaker bailout?

This boondoggle will cost billions. Meanwhile, Obama has decided we can’t affort three hundred million dollars for the best fighter plane available. Remember that years from now when our flying “clunkers” are raining down in pieces (along with the limbs and intestines of our pilots) after superior enemy aircraft blow them to bits. We have cash for clunkers, but not for self-defense. Odd priorities. Defense is expensive, but it’s very cheap compared to defeat.

I better go to Thoseshirts.com and buy my “Welcome back, Carter” shirt before they sell out.

“Does it Come With its Own Wall Wart?”

I blogged Mike’s visit to Miami, but I don’t know if I mentioned his car. He drove a Prius down from DC. This is his SECOND Prius, so he can’t claim it was a first offense.

I will admit that it seems like a practical, comfortable car. However, I came up with a number of useful things you may wish to use if you ever converse with a Prius owner.

1. “Where do you add the detergent?”

2. “I prefer a top-loader.”

3. When they tell you how long it took to drive somewhere, say, “And that was on SPIN CYCLE.”

4. “Your car just made a noise. I think the toast is done.”

You can also refer to the car as “the Maytag” and pretend to look for the agitator.

Hope this is helpful.