Tower of Pallets Yields Monstrous Machine

The lathe is here! The Rodeway truck arrived while I was trying to eat breakfast.

The palleting was terrifying. Like something out of a Dr. Seuss book. The seller put a pretty lame pallet under the lathe, and the Rodeway guy stuck a second pallet under one side of the first pallet, and when the lathe got here, it was wobbling around like one of those weighted Bozo punching bags.

It looks like I won’t be renting an engine hoist. The Rodeway guy kindly removed the lathe from the palleting and put it within inches of its final destination. He scared the crap out of me, rocking the lathe around and yanking things out from under it. On more than one occasion, it started to fall toward him–all 1000+ pounds of it–and he reached out and steadied it with his hand. I would have been fifty feet down the driveway before it hit the ground.

The minute he offered to get rid of the wood, I started calculating his tip. And every time he nearly got killed, the figure went up. I was terrified the whole time. I can’t believe it didn’t fall on its face.

It managed to hit the wall once, with the corner of the chip pan. But everything is okay.

I can’t say it’s in the condition I anticipated. It has obviously been used a good deal; there is wear around the spindle. There’s a big piece missing from the base of the headstock. But I have no reason to think it isn’t in good functioning condition. I couldn’t find any signs of wear on the ways, although they’re hardened, so I probably shouldn’t have expected to see wear.

I also ordered a set of new NSK mikes with it. It’s very odd. The box is beat-up on the outside, but the mikes are still packed in greasy bags. It’s as if someone had a bunch of boxes in a warehouse and forgot about them. I also got a test indicator. I was expecting some magnetic bases, but they’re not here.

Later today the VFD should arrive. Then I have to figure out how this thing works.

I had him leave it about fifteen inches from the wall, so I could get behind it to fix it up. Once I think I’m in the clear, I’ll back it up to where I can get my car in the garage. Believe it or not, it’s possible to scoot it short distances without too much effort, and without danger of tipping it over.

I guess there will be no need to bolt it down. But I should look into some decent feet for it, because I’ll have to level it before long.

It doesn’t take up as much room as I had thought. That’s a blessing. I guess I chose the right size.

Time to go sit quietly and be amazed at the crazy thing I’ve done.

Freep at Will

I can’t believe the lathe is arriving today. I can’t believe I did this. I have absolutely nothing on hand to put in the chuck! I got sidetracked by an idiotic lawsuit, and I’m also lazy. But I guess getting the lathe set up and getting the VFD attached will be more than enough work for one day.

Somebody sent me a link to an MSNBC poll this morning. The poll is about Ob*ma’s first 100 days, during which he has managed to outspend all of his predecessors, insure a socialist future, nationalize a big chunk of our banking industry, and assume partial control of our doomed automakers. I am trying to think of something worse he could do, but I’m drawing a blank. Oh, I forgot this: he plans to respond to increasing belligerence and military spending in Russia and China by gutting our armed services and killing the missile shield, and he’s not doing anything to counter Chinese infiltration of our computer systems and the onboard electronics of our military planes. And he’s hostile to Israel, as demonstrated by his refusal to meet with Netanyahu without formal notice and his Secretary of State’s unbelievable remarks about Iran.

Great President.

As usual, both sides are trying to Freep the poll. I voted twice already, in five minutes. This is much like Wizbang’s silly award polls. I made a few people mad a few years back by pointing out that there were no safeguards against multiple votes, and I was criticized roundly for not being a good do-bee and all-around team player. I’m not sure why I was obligated to muzzle myself to help someone else’s completely self-serving efforts to publicize his blog, but there you go. MSNBC is apparently a few years behind Wizbang, when it comes to Freep-proofing their polls. They don’t even check your IP. I voted once in Firefox and once in Explorer. I would guess that if I cleared my cookies, I could vote over and over, all day.

Go vote if you want. It’s fun, even if it serves no purpose whatsoever.

I just voted again. I restarted Internet Explorer, and the vote buttons came up. Can’t seem to vote a fourth time, though. How can anyone be sufficiently unenlightened to believe in Internet polls in 2009?

Here’s a new Internet poll.

I better have some oatmeal and get ready for the lathe.

And we Don’t Even Have the Holy Hand Grenade

Mish Weiss has been treated with steroids. I don’t really understand it. I think they help her maintain her appetite.

Once or twice, she has freaked out and started throwing things. This is supposedly related to the steroids, although that could just be her cover story. Since then, others have compared her to the Hulk.

Mish also likes Pop Tarts a whole lot, although that is not really related to steroids. Today someone sent her this photo:

I didn’t think it captured the Mish I knew, so I fixed it up. And you can see it here.

While you’re there, say hi to Mish.

No One is Safe

For several days, I’ve been noticing that my car smells like cat pee. It has been driving me crazy, because I park indoors at night. You don’t expect cat pee smell to get on a car that stays garaged.

Virtually all cats, nearly all homes where cats live, and even some cat owners smell like cat pee. It is not something I enjoy, and since I don’t have a cat, I never expected it to be a problem.

Today I went out to the car, and I saw a bunch of fibers on the roof. I thought they were from a tree or something, but I don’t park under a tree. Then it hit me: CAT HAIR. Somebody’s mangy cat has been sleeping on my car’s roof, so now the car stinks. Can you believe that?

I left the car outside a couple of times last week, and I guess I’m paying the price.

Help me With the Accommodations

Today I have a challenge. I have to figure out how to take this off a skid and turn it and put it up against a garage wall. It arrives tomorrow.

We are looking at about a thousand pounds here. I can’t lift it by the chip pan; it has to be moved using forks under the bed or some kind of strap.

A while back, I unexpectedly received an enormous used Genie Superlift, but it’s not well suited to this job. It only lifts 650 pounds, so picking up the entire lathe is not an option. And it would be awkward.

People have recommended a rented cherry-picker. That seems like the way to go. The manual has information on how to pick the lathe up, so I can probably rig a strap on the hoist and back the lathe against the wall.

I’ll have to run over to the rental place in a while and yammer at them.

People have recommended putting pipes under the lathe and using them as rollers. That would work, but it would still be tough getting the pallet out from under the lathe. One really pathetic solution some people use is to leave their machine tools on pallets. I really don’t want a giant motorized object rocking around on a bouncy wooden platform, waiting to fall over and crush me.

Maybe I should invest in a couple of HTC mobile bases; one for each end. I put one on my 700-pound table saw, and it works perfectly. But the lathe has leveling tabs that might cause problems.

And Jeff, I am not buying a forklift, so don’t even say it!

Leo will still tell me to get a Bobcat, however.

Load Dropped

I feel like I got my life back today.

My family has been sued. It has to do with a small lot sold by an LLC related to my family. The buyers sued the realtor, and now they’re suing the LLC and all the members. The plaintiffs attempted (unsuccessfully) to serve me this week. Really annoying. It seems fairly clear that the case will die a quick death, and even if we lose, no one will have a large loss, but it has to be tended to, and it has caused no end of strife and division. My dad offered to handle it for nothing, with me as his dashing sidekick, but the family turned that down. I thought I would still have to represent myself as an individual defendant, but yesterday I learned that the family had voted to hire someone, and I decided to cast my lot with the new guy.

Today I had to prepare a document and fax crap to the lawyer, and I’m finished, so I feel like I can relax. There is still some anger and dissatisfaction, to put it mildly, but the person experiencing that is not me. Finally, I can get back to studying machining, fixing up my woodworking stuff, and preparing for the lathe to arrive.

While Mike was here, he got all excited about a mahogany board I had made from scratch, and he wanted to check out the tools. We BSed our way through a mahogany mousepad for his desk. The piece of wood we used was really garbage; it was warped, and the sides were far from parallel. I had saved it, figuring I might be able to use a small piece of it. We put it on the planing sled and took it down from over an inch in thickness to about 0.33″. That’s how much wood had to be removed to get two flat, parallel sides. Mike sanded it with the Dynabrade, and then he used the table saw to bevel the upper edges. He did the sawing while I was in the house, with no safety training. Scary. He put both Danish oil and stain on it. Weird. I suggested he get five rubber feet for it, with adhesive backing. That will keep it from sliding around his desk.

We tried to use the router, but it became obvious that my lack of a real router fence was an impenetrable obstacle. So I am making a router fence. I figure I’ll make a long bottomless box about six inches wide and clamp it to the back side of the table saw fence. I’ll be able to use the table saw measuring scale (or a table saw DRO) for both the table saw and the router. I’ll put a hole in it for the shop-vac.

I’ll need about eight feet of wood, a little over an inch in thickness and five inches in width. I’m not sure what to use. Something stable. I’ll have to buy it. Scrap has its limits.

Day before yesterday I saw a gorgeous pile of logs, beckoning to me from the side of the road. If they still exist, I may get them tonight. Some of them. How am I supposed to resist? The local mahogany seems wonderful. It’s too bad the tree people cut it in such short pieces.

I have to get a few router bits. The collection I have is sad.

It’s wonderful, knowing I won’t have to do this litigation, and it’s great having the fighting over with, even if not everyone is happy. You can’t always please people. When you please everyone, it often means you’ve done something you’ll really regret. Sometimes you have to settle for the knowledge that if you trust God, you’ll get peace eventually.

I do Not Have Graphs, and I Will Not Point at Them

According to Yellow Freight, my metal lathe is on its way to Charlotte, North Carolina. It hasn’t gone very far since leaving Vermont on Monday. They estimate a Friday arrival, but I have my doubts.

I can’t believe it’s almost here. I’m still trying to come up with things to make with it.

You know what occurred to me last night? I should design a garlic press. There are NO good ones. The Good Grips cheap one snaps if you squeeze too hard. The aluminum Zyliss jobs shed grey aluminum oxide into your garlic. The Good Grips expensive ones have handles that eventually slip off. Frustrating. Is tool steel food safe? I should be able to make something that will last forever and pulverize garlic effortlessly. And I think I should make a stainless mallet to use in the kitchen. It would be swell for peeling garlic cloves. I hate reaching into the garlic press to pull out the peels.

I also realized I am not limited to metal. I find myself looking around at round or nearly round objects made from plastic, wondering what warped things I can do to them. I need to get some end cutters and come up with a way to do some milling. I have to make the most of this tool.

I saw something really depressing today. I was changing the birds’ newspapers, and I saw an article about hopeful kids training to do “green” jobs. Can you believe that? None of that nonsense is going anywhere. Sooner or later everyone is going to get out of denial and admit global warming is a fantasy, and the harder times get, the less people care about the environment. Meanwhile these poor deluded children are being trained to be fecal recovery technicians and hygiene discouragement activists. It’s like it’s 1980 and people are choosing to dedicate their lives to disco music. The Environmental Boogie Nights aren’t going to last.

I’ve enjoyed global warming tremendously this winter and spring. Last night it got down to 67 degrees, in late April! That’s magnificent. Summer will be much easier to tolerate this year, because winter and spring were so cool and pleasant. Thanks, Uncle Al. I know a lot of semi-aquatic polar bears–animals which spend half of their lives swimming–have been drowning for my benefit, but I didn’t sweat much this winter, so it was worth it. Keep on drowning, guys. And grow nice and fat so the rugs we make out of you will cover large areas.

I wonder what other semi-aquatic or fully aquatic species will start drowning as things get worse. Penguins, maybe. Walruses. Fish. You may think fish can’t drown, but remember, Uncle Al uses computer animation to make phony videos of animals drowning, so the fact that it never actually happens is no obstacle. I’ll bet he also had his stooges make up a video of him winning the 2000 election. Zaphod Beeblebrox meets World of Warcraft meets Vanilla Sky.

His Nobel Prize win seemed fictional but oddly, wasn’t. His whining about a nonexistent crisis beat out a lady who risked her life saving actual, non-CGI Jewish kids from Hitler. You know what? She should have saved polar bears. That would have been gold. Or maybe Coca-Cola should make warm fuzzy CGI videos of Polish Jews sharing a Coke and a smile on a big iceberg. Then the Nobel Committee might have thought they were cute and therefore worth saving.

Actually, Uncle Al doesn’t make CGI polar bear videos. According to news accounts, he just steals them without authorization and passes them off as his own. If he hadn’t chosen his videos carefully, his audience might have seen polar bears drowning one minute and having a Coke the next.

Coke is a great beverage for polar bears, because it goes great with their favorite meal: raw human being. A polar bear will actually spend a day trying to bash its way into your house to eat you. My guess? They know we cause global warming, so they’re trying to get a square meal and do Mother Gaia a solid, all in one shot.

Here is wisdom for you. Given the choice, avoid green vocational training and learn to drive the big rigs. You’ll be choosing a field which has the benefit of not being based on an imaginary demand.

How to Make Oatmeal Last Half an Hour

I have some great advice for men. Never shop online for underwear while you’re trying to eat.

It turns out that the most amazing underwear in the universe is made by a Colombian company called Mundo Unico. But 98% of their styles are like something Perez Hilton would wear. Horrifying. I don’t know if this stuff is designed expressly for gays or what, but you really wouldn’t believe it. I had to scour the web to find something that looked relatively normal.

Now it’s over. At least I’ll be able to enjoy lunch.

More Prayer

Mish Weiss has this to say about Leah Friedman:

Leah needs prayer. ?? ?????? ???? ????? ??? ?? ???? Leah Meira bat Rina. She went in for tests and a minor procedure and there are some serious complications today. My hands are shaking so hard right now it’s all I can do to type this.

I apologize if the Hebrew (which may or may not display correctly here) contains profanity; with Mish, you never know.

Seriously, remember Leah today. If you go to her blog, you can find out just how delicate her situation is.

Mish also says:

Infected central line CVC. Not fun. Fever has an origin now. Their debating removing my CVC and placing this one in my internal jugular vein. Will know more later tonight. Antibiotics are on board. Fever is up and down, I have intense pain around the CVC line.

For what it’s worth, not all of Mish’s signs are bad; her hemoglobin is at 6, whatever that means, and for her, that suggests an arrested decline.

VFD

I’m still scrounging around, trying to get things ready for the lathe’s arrival. I didn’t want to order a VFD until I knew the lathe was on the way and that all systems were “go,” so I had to do my shopping today.

The issue of VFDs and motor derating is complicated. VFDs are rated in horsepower; this refers to the horsepower of the motors they are intended to drive. For motors over 5 HP with single-phase input–check this yourself, because I may be wrong, and I am almost certainly missing some of the nuances–you have to double the rated horsepower. So for a 5 HP motor, you need a 10 HP VFD. I’m not exactly sure how this works; it may only apply when the VFD is made for three-phase input and you are forced to use single-phase. For smaller motors, there may be no derating at all. I called Hitachi (914-333-2900), and they told me that I didn’t need a giant VFD for a 2 HP motor. I got a 3 HP job; that’s what they recommended.

Had to pay a little extra to get it here on time, but I think that was better than taking a chance on shipping it back and paying a restocking fee. The lathe had not been thoroughly checked out when I ordered it, so there was no guarantee that it would be okay to ship. It would be no fun at all to have a VFD here in a box, with no lathe on the way.

I considered getting a Chinese VFD, and maybe I should have, but this is my first VFD, and everyone says the Hitachis are easier to work with. The instructions are better, and the tech support is very good. I’m going to have enough headaches without having to decipher instructions that still contain literal translations of Mandarin idioms, as well as odd cultural references. “Esteemed customer are to find these VFD having all of Chairman Mao’s Thirteen Industrial Virtues. Death to the Gang of Four.” No, thanks.

I may have screwed myself out of a hundred bucks, but I’m a little fatigued from dealing with tech puzzles. Especially those which commence on Fridays; if you’ve been there, you know what I mean. I’m fairly sure all integrated chips are programmed to fail between Friday afternoon and Sunday night. When you can’t get support. The lathe will probably be here Friday, so I am trying to prepare wisely and avoid being bitten in the rear end by George Santayana.

One great thing about a VFD is that it will stop a machine tool quickly. You don’t have to sit there and wait for the tool to spin down. Bridgeport mills have brakes on them, but not all tools do. It’s my understanding that for heavy braking, you have to get additional resistors or circuit boards, and boy, are they expensive. Luckily for me, the Hitachi folks recommend seeing how the VFD does without the extra stuff, before making the added investment. I think braking would be a great convenience and a nice safety feature. It’s always tempting to grab a moving tool while it takes forever to stop. And a lathe can roll up an operator’s arm like an old sock. You can find photos of this on the web, but I recommend you avoid it.

Pray that Yellow Freight doesn’t mash my prize.

UPS Brings Obama-Era Treasure

Want to hear some unbelievable news? I have small pistol primers! I guess Midway USA found some under a desk or something, because for a while they were advertising them as “in stock,” and I just happened to be using their site at the time! Some creeps are selling these for $50 per box, because of the Obama gun craze. Midway was charging the usual price, and I got a discount on top of that.

I didn’t go crazy, like some people have. I got enough primers to keep me going for a few months; that’s all.

Oh, this is wonderful. This is just what a wannabe far-right possible kook terrorist needs. I think I’m going to make some ammunition, go to the gun range, shoot at paper targets, and pretend they were made by union workers!

Fulfill Them, Hippies, or You Will Rue the Day

As a potential possibly likely could-be right-wing terrorist, I felt it was necessary to come up with some demands. Here they are.

1. From now on, Nancy Pelosi has to wear a mask or ring a bell before she approaches a camera.

2. I want to be able to deduct the money I spend on ice cream on my tax returns.

3. I want Glenn Beck to do a special show where he cries just for me.

4. O’Reilly and Olbermann have to settle things the old-fashioned way. Mud wrestling. With the Fox girls of my choice as cheerleaders. Color commentators: J.R. and Jerry “The King” Lawler. Either them or Danny Bonaduce and Johnny Fairplay (or his remains). Wait…is J.R. still alive?

5. Glenn Reynolds has to take a photography class.

6. NO MORE LOLCATS.

I only had about four minutes to come up with these, but that’s okay, because I reserve the right to alter them capriciously, retroactively, and without notice, much as if I had given 800 billion dollars of someone else’s money to a bunch of banks and then attached the strings later. “Hello? Citibank? Today the Anointed One says Wednesday is All Pink Shirts Day.”

My lathe has shipped. Now I get to spend at least a week on my knees, praying no forklift drivers will decide to use it as a puck in a game of forklift hockey. I worry most about what will happen on the in-town leg. Miami is a place where things get done fast, but it’s also a place where things get done in a very sloppy way, by morons who only care about getting your money as fast as possible and can’t be bothered with things like training.

I haven’t decided on which acts of terrorism I should do first. I was thinking I might mail a letter with the stamp attached UPSIDE-DOWN. Would that be crazy or what? That would drive “The Man” nuts! To warm up, I keep calling Senator Burris’s office, burping into the receiver, and hanging up. He probably thinks it’s Jesse Jackson, Jr.

Forget Al Qaeda; Stop the Serial Worshipers!

Last night I had the strangest dream. For some reason, I was forced to move to South America. I had a little house there, and it was built in such a way that you could be inside it and still have a clear view of what was going on in the yard. As if some of the walls had been left out. The place was a mess; my junk was everywhere, because I hadn’t gotten the house together yet. And because I am a slob.

While I was in the living room, I saw some clown in the yard aiming a gun at me. I don’t mean he was dressed like a clown. I just mean he was a stupid person. I drew my Glock and shot him in the forehead. Then it turned out he had friends. They kept showing up, and I kept popping them. I thought, “Wow, this really works.” I was so glad I had put in time at the range.

I shot several of them, and I realized I still had enough ammunition in the Glock to take care of a few more, but I thought I ought to look around for other options. Due to my housekeeping style, which was fairly true to life in the dream, guns and bullets were not hard to find. The main problem was that I didn’t keep them together, so I found myself dumping .38 Super rounds into my pocket and then looking for the gun, and I located my .45 and then had to look for bullets.

I don’t know what these idiots wanted. Maybe they were mad at me for defacing an Obama poster. Turning the “H” in “HOPE” to a “D.”

It was very enjoyable. And it drove a comforting point home: this house is one of the most dangerous places in Miami! IF you’re a criminal. I feel great about that.

This dream clearly confirms the worst fears of Janet Napolitano and her left-leaning thoughtcrime squad. My terrorist inclinations are beyond question. I read the Bible, I go to church (like that other terrorist, Jean Assam), and I am willing to use force, in my home, to defend myself from violent criminals (terrorism of the worst kind!). I should be taken to Gitmo and gently interrogated by sensitive vegan operatives trained by the late Leo Buscaglia. We don’t waterboard now, supposedly. Maybe they could threaten to withhold Joni Mitchell music until I snapped. They could deprive me of bad leftist music, altogether. “IF YOU DON’T SPILL THE BEANS [SOY], IT WILL BE A LONG TIME BEFORE YOU HEAR MIDNIGHT OIL AGAIN!”

It has occurred to me that maybe the thoughtcrime squad has a point. Granted, almost all terrorists in the US are Muslims; they dropped the ball on that. But most of the rest are probably far-right nuts. And why is that? Because the left-wing nuts got what they wanted. They have nothing to terrorize for. Hey, maybe appeasement works. All you have to do is let the kooks choose your President. That means we can get rid of right-wing terror by electing Glenn Beck and Ann Coulter.

If we want to see left-wing terrorism rise again, all we have to do is pass laws making bathing mandatory and forcing the cops to take marijuana laws seriously. Cut off their dope and deprive them of their soothing layer of grime, and in no time, the hippies will be bombing Colgate-Palmolive factories.

In case the Ministress of Propaganda or whatever she is still has doubts, let me give her probable cause to haul me in. I’M GLAD I HAVE A SEPTIC TANK, BECAUSE IT SAYS EXACTLY HOW I FEEL ABOUT MOTHER GAIA! I SET MY THERMOSTAT TO 68 DEGREES…IN AUGUST! I BUY MEAT AND THEN THROW IT OUT, JUST TO INCREASE GLOBAL WARMING AND KEEP THE SLAUGHTERHOUSES IN BUSINESS! I FILLED MY BATHTUB WITH AMMUNITION, STRIPPED COMPLETELY NAKED EXCEPT FOR AN NRA CAP, AND TOOK A “BULLET BATH”!

Oh, I am bad. The Angel of Change passed over my house! I didn’t cook a lamb, but there are usually a lot of pig bones in the trash.

Incidentally, rural Southerners use the verb “change” as a euphemism for castrating livestock.

I can’t believe I postulated the existence of sensitive vegans. Have you ever known a vegetarian who wasn’t consumed with rage? They’re the angriest people on earth. They make the Taliban seem laid back. When are we right-wing terrorists going to start setting fire to SUV dealerships and throwing fake blood on people? I have not received my orders yet, and the vegans are getting way ahead of us.

Why are vegans so peeved all the time? Maybe it’s the gas and bloating. If we really want to protect the atmosphere, we should make hippies eat more meat and lay off the legumes.

I saw an interesting Perry Stone video last night. He seems to think God is going to deliver a beating to areas of the world that displease him. Isn’t that happening already? Miami is a fairly evil place, and we got mashed by a whole bunch of hurricanes. New Orleans has an economy based mostly on sin, and it’s the voodoo capital of the US, and look what happened. Remember the tsunami? Thailand is famous for child prostitution. Indonesia is the biggest Muslim nation, and they persecute the daylights out of everyone else. Burma has an official state policy of eradicating Christianity, and they ran off all of their Jews, and a typhoon wrecked the whole country.

And think of the most sinful places on earth, and consider their vulnerability to natural disasters. It’s interesting. San Francisco could disappear in about ten minutes, and Manhattan has two faults under it.

Stone thinks God is going to help Christians relocate, so we don’t end up like Lot’s wife. I find that fascinating, because this is something I pray about every day. I want out of this place. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life in a city where half of the population worships Santeria demons and another twenty percent practices other types of voodoo. They have “churches” where they sacrifice goats and chickens here! Seriously, look it up. Doctors and accountants and schoolteachers and all sorts of seemingly normal people are caught up in this filth. Oh, yeah. That will end well. For them and their kids.

I guess I’ll close. I have all sorts of potential-terrorist things to do. Grocery shopping. Straightening up the garage. No end of subversive activities. I may actually pray! They can’t stop me! I may get in the car so I can deliberately pray WITHIN A THOUSAND FEET OF A SCHOOL!

I’m not joking, here! I am totally capable of doing this. If my demands are not met.

That reminds me. I have no demands. I better write some up.

Pounds of Cheese, Discarded

Mike has taken off. Which is good, because I feel sure I gained 15 pounds during the time he was here. I just threw out what had to be six pounds of pizza cheese, because I could not face the danger of having it in the house. Tomorrow I’m going to buy a whole bunch of fresh vegetables to eat at lunchtime. I have to detox.

Here’s the great thing about Mike’s time here: we went to church together. At last. I can’t remember when I started praying for his family; it must have been a couple of years ago. Every time he came to Florida, we talked about religion, and I shared my experiences with him. Somehow I was still surprised when he said he was interested in going to church; as far as I know, he’s the only person I’ve ever convinced to attend a service. I can’t say it was a challenge. God has been on his mind for a long time, and he was already an occasional churchgoer.

Yesterday we decided to go to the 6:00 service at Trinity Church. During the afternoon, I checked their website, and although I was sure I had heard them mention 6:00 over and over, the site said 7:00 p.m. So we showed up a little bit after seven, and naturally, Pastor Wilkerson was nearly at the end of his sermon. The site was wrong. This has happened twice this month, but last time, I was able to get the right information in time to avoid missing the service.

When we arrived, he was teaching about signs of the Rapture. He was on the tenth of ten signs. That sign was the blossoming of the fig tree (somewhere in Matthew 24). He explained how the fig tree symbolized Israel, and he said the blossoming was the restoration of the Jewish homeland, which occurred in 1948.

He gave an altar call and blessed the crowd, and that was it. We started walking out. Mike said he wanted to talk, so we met up at a Dunkin’ Donuts a few blocks away (we were driving separate cars). I was frustrated. I was hoping he had gotten something of the feel of the church, but what can you get in fifteen minutes?

We got a couple of totally unneeded doughnuts and some coffee and sat down, and he told me he was glad he had heard about the fig tree, because it was something he had been wondering about! On Thursday, mother of one of his employees died suddenly, and Mike had to go to the funeral the next day. The deceased was Jewish, so the funeral had to be fast, as dictated by Jewish law. At the funeral, the rabbi said something about fig trees. I can’t recall. Maybe a Jewish reader can guess for me. Mike had wondered about that for two days.

Many established denominations think the Old Testament is nearly worthless. “Obsolete” would be a better term. It’s hard for me to relate to that, because when I first became serious about Christianity, it was in an Assemblies of God church, and they realized that the Old Testament was just as important as the rest of the Bible. I don’t think Mike came from that kind of background. I’m used to thinking of my religion as something that grew from Judaism, so I was able to talk to him a little bit about the validity and importance of the Torah and the prophets and the psalms.

He said he had always had an interest in prophecy. As it happened, I was very well prepared to talk about that with him. I’m much more concerned about things that are directly applicable to my daily life, but prophecy is very entertaining, and it contains all sorts of evidence proving the existence of God and the validity of Jesus, so I’ve learned a good deal about it. I was able to direct him to Perry Stone; I can’t imagine a more engrossing teacher.

So the small amount of preaching Mike heard (which didn’t seem exciting to me) turned out to be relevant to a recent experience of his, as well as an interest I didn’t know about. And the prophecy videos I had been watching (in spite of not being an eschatology buff) turned out to be the ideal thing to recommend to him.

Funny how those coincidences keep happening.

He said he wanted to go again, so we met for the 10:30 service today, and we heard the whole sermon. On the way out, we stopped near the entrance to try to decide where we should go to sit down and talk about the service, and while we were there, we caught Rich Wilkerson’s eye, and he yelled to us and shook our hands and started talking to us. I thought, “Hey, this would be a good time to ask him to recommend a church near Mike.” And before I could get it out, he had found out Mike lived near D.C., and he had recommended Mark Batterson’s church.

Okay, I guess you could say that worked out well.

Now Mike is up in Delray with some other friends, and tomorrow he’ll go back to D.C. I have to wonder what his situation will be a year or two from now. Mike is an extremely sincere and open person; my guess is that he’ll make progress in a hurry.

The strangest thing happened last night, as I was driving home. I felt the presence of God sweep over me. Not as powerfully as it did on the two occasions when I could actually pinpoint its location, but still, it was very strong. I felt almost as though the car were flying above the road; it almost seemed to drive itself. I don’t mean it literally steered itself, but I felt as though guiding it took almost no effort.

I thought of a story someone told me about ten years ago. This person claimed she was driving to her mother’s home, and she said a light filled her windshield so she couldn’t see the road, and she sat back while the car literally drove itself. I think that story was probably a ridiculous lie told in order to manipulate me, but last night I could not help thinking about it.

Are we really in the times the prophet Joel described? A lot of people think so. The things I’ve seen lately make it hard to dispute.

Church was nearly unbearable when I was a kid. The churches I was dragged to were lifeless and faithless. Churches are so different now. Some are, anyway. I wonder how many Christians realize that. I’m thrilled with the things I see happening, but sometimes I think the vast majority of Christians have no idea what God is up to.

Lie Down With Dogs…

Washington sources added that the Obama Administration would not be continuing the tradition that had developed during the Bush years of hosting Israeli prime ministers whenever they showed up in town, sometimes with just a phone call’s notice.

That’s a fun little quotation, isn’t it? It comes from a Drudgebart-linked story about Israeli anxiety over the Obama administration’s attitude toward Israel.

It seems like Jews are starting to realize they made a big mistake. I don’t know how the average Israeli viewed Obama before the election, but I know that American Jews in Israel do not like him; they were overwhelmingly against him. Jews in the US supported him by a wide margin, but a few are starting to think MAYBE a far-left nut who spent twenty years warming a pew in an anti-Semitic church MIGHT not be a great ally to Israel.

WHO’D HAVE THUNK IT?

Honestly, sometimes I think the best thing that could happen to the world’s Jews would be if Jews were not allowed to vote. They constitute the single biggest anti-Israel, anti-Jewish faction in the US. Black anti-Semitism is at an all-time high, and no one has the guts to say anything about it. Hispanic anti-Semitism has always been very bad. Plain old vanilla American anti-Semitism is nothing to sneeze at. But Jews themselves do more damage than their enemies. They were instrumental in putting this idiot over the top in the general election. How could they be so blind? It’s astounding!

THE LEFT OWNS ANTI-SEMITISM. How many times do we have to point it out? Sure, there are right-wing anti-Semites. But the best friends Jews have are conservative, and the left is almost uniformly anti-Semitic, and it’s getting to the point where they think it’s something to be proud of! Can you believe a dirtbag like Jeremiah Wright can show his face on the street, let alone on national television, without being driven out of the pulpit? Man, how this country has changed! So much for Jewish control of the media.

Obama thinks we have shown partiality to Israel. Of course we have! They’re our only real allies in the Middle East, and Israel is the only civilized nation in the region! Why wouldn’t we show them partiality? The Saudis finance Al Qaeda, and they just sentenced an old woman to be flogged because two young men brought her groceries! They’re utter savages! What possible reason could we have for according them the same respect we give Israel? And as partiality goes, ours has been pretty weak. Basically, it amounts to insisting that Israel be permitted to exist. Cutting parts out of it…that, we have no problem with. And we arm Israel’s enemies. Some friends, we are.

America’s support for Israel is finished. At least until 2012. I think it’s finished, period. Liberals are getting bolder and bolder in their attacks on Israel, and I think it’s likely to get worse, until people think it’s open season. Oddly, the large number of Jews on the left seems to exacerbate the problem. People feel free to attack their own kind, and Jewish liberals can be very hard on Israel, and that gives other liberals the idea that permission has been given to air out their own dark, twisted notions. I don’t think self-hating Jews realize this: criticizing Jews and Israel does not cause people to think favorably of them. It merely makes them feel justified in spewing hate. Now that I think about it, Obama’s sick, treacherous habit of apologizing for America is going to work the same way, fanning the flames of blind, moronic rage. If our President says America is evil, who can contradict Hamas and Hugo Chavez and Ahmadinejad?

I think our support for Israel is going to dry up, and I think anti-Semitism is going to get worse here, and I am positive that American Jews will handle it the wrong way, because that is their curse and their habit. They’ll apologize and curry favor, and to show how sorry they are, they’ll vote for leftists who hate the Jewish homeland. And that will be great news for leftists everywhere, because without America behind her, Israel–the world’s tumor–will wither and die, right? Wrong. That’s what her enemies are hoping, but that’s because they don’t believe in God. If our government abandons Israel, God will support her some other way. Probably through the financial help of Christians. Perhaps more directly. I don’t know how he’ll do it, but I know that America is not what keeps Israel going. It has been our privilege and blessing to be used for this purpose, but our participation has not been necessary. And once we stop helping as a nation, we will stop being blessed as a nation. We thought we were so smart and so powerful and so special. It was all a pathetic, bigoted, nationalist illusion. We are exactly like other human beings. When we give up on Israel, we’ll be like Samson without his hair. Ordinary and vulnerable.

Like a lot of Gentiles, I believe that many Jews blame themselves for the Holocaust. Somewhere deep inside, they think, “We were too proud and too successful in Europe, and look what happened. We’ll be safe in America if we vote for handouts and high taxes and we never miss a chance to criticize ourselves.” They’re wrong on both counts. The Holocaust was wholly irrational; Jewish behavior had nothing to do with it. The problem wasn’t how Jews lived their lives as Jews; it is that they were Jewish at all. And if the same spirit seizes America, no one will care what Jews have done for us or how much they’ve castigated themselves. No Jew or perceived Jew will be spared. The Germans and Austrians didn’t spare decorated Jewish veterans. They didn’t spare Jews who had become Catholics. Americans would behave the same way.

The more time passes, the surer I am that Obama is a punishment. We brought him on ourselves. How else can you explain the election of an obvious fool with no qualifications, no experience, and no political clout? We’re finding out how stupid we are. This is how we vote when God doesn’t save us from our own ignorance. The incredible photos of Obama bowing to the Saudi king and sharing a warm handshake with Hugo Chavez are like something you rub a puppy’s nose in. Our ineptitude is constantly shoved in our faces. I can’t wait to see him on TV, hugging Fidel Castro. Obama is just that dumb.

God is not looking out for America the way he used to. It used to be possible to gain protection by living within this protected nation. Now you have to get it on your own. Directly from the source. I am glad I’m going to church these days.