JINKSTO

At work we use a chat tool to communicate.  We use this more than the telephone or even email.  By a long shot.  If I call someone they have to stop what they’re doing and answer the phone to focus on what I’m saying.  If I email someone they might not get to it for an hour or more.  But if I chat them with a quick question they can fire off an answer even if they’re on the phone with someone else.  If they’re really busy they can just move it to the side for 5 minutes until they have time to reply.  It’s a wonderful tool that gives us a LOT more time to work than we used to have. 

Still, the side effect of this is that it’s a lot less formal than email is and so you tend to get a few really funny messages come across.  Here’s some just from the last couple of days:

(Names changed to protect the innocent, the guilty and the criminally stupid)

5:06 PM Jinksto       righto.  Bob should be by in a sec.
5:59 PM Richards    He never stopped by
5:59 PM Jinksto       screw’im
6:00 PM Richards    i’d rather not i don’t go for the “pee standing up” type
6:00 PM jinksto        he doesn’t
6:01 PM Richards     lol

2:16 PM Lex           you are smart
2:16 PM Jinksto     I was raised on Corn Flakes 
2:16 PM Lex            manipulative,  i like it
2:17 PM Jinksto     I’m only manipulative because I can’t spell Machiavellian

2:25 PM Bob        have installed Mgmt Studio…Where is TSIS editor?  looking to do some “DTS”-type of work
2:30 PM Jinksto    What’s a TSIS?
2:32 PM Bob          ever use DTS in SQL 2000?  it’s the 2005 equivalent
2:32 PM Jinksto     I think you’re making shit up.
2:33 PM Jinksto     SSIS?
2:34 PM Jinksto    We don’t do Integration Services or DTS w/ MyApp. 
2:34 PM Jinksto    At this point YGWAWAMG applies.
2:36 PM Bob           Meaning?
2:37 PM Jinksto      Your Google Works As Well As My Google
2:39 PM Bob           TSIS..SSIS…whatever!
2:40 PM Jinksto      No clue.  Don’t use it.  It’s evil.

6:10 PM Jinskto      Error: The operation completed successfully
6:10 PM Jinksto     there’s probably only three applications in the world where that error is appropriate.
6:10 PM Jinksto      MyApp is one of them.
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
8:19 AM Mike        MyApp runs on Windows, right?
8:19 AM Jinksto    yes
8:20 AM Mike        Then that error counts doubly

2:28 PM Lex           Hey, are you there?
2:28 PM Jinksto     No. 
2:29 PM Lex            Ok, let me know when you get back. 

I buy American when I can which isn’t to say that I avoid buying non-American.  I just buy American.  If i see or know that a product is made here and there’s an equal product made somewhere else I’ll try to buy American.   Partly because it’s patriotic but mostly because it’s good stuff.  I don’t really care what your left-wing anti-American superhero set have to say. 

Let’s take a quick inventory of the big stuff…

* House, built here.
* Truck: Ford Made Here
* Car: Ford Made here.
* Boat: Tracker Made here.
* Camper: Jay Flight, Made here.
* Motorcycle1: Honda
* Motorcycle2: Suzuki

AH HA!!!!  You might say, You bought them overseas motorcycles you fibbin redneck you!! But, well no, I didn’t. 

You see, the Honda is made in Marysville Ohio.  At a plant that employs over 300 Americans.   I’ll tell you another little secret too.  If before you buy you ask people that ride different brands what problems they have had with the bike they’ll tell you.  I share a message board with hundreds of other folks that ride the same bike that I do.  Want to know what they’ll tell you if you ask about common problems with the bike?  Nothing. It doesn’t break down.  It doesn’t have problems.  They’ll tell you it’s a little hard to start on very  very cold mornings but other than that… it’s a solid bike. 300 people and I can only think of one that ever had his bike in the shop for a failure.  I prefer to believe that it’s because it was made in Ohio and not because it’s a Honda but it’s a tough argument.  In the end, it IS made in America and while some of the money might go overseas a lot of it goes right back into the Marysville economy…. so bite me.

The Suzuki, ok, you’ve got me there.  She wanted it, she got it.  I’m a failure, I’ll admit that.

But, you won’t catch me with my nose in the air.  You won’t hear me self righteously saying, “I bought the best product” or “I bought the most fuel efficient car… I don’t care if it was foreign.” and you won’t catch me complaining about the fat cat auto bailout….

I’m really getting sick of this victim mentality… “those fat cats ran those companies into the ground and we had to bail them out!”  or “the unions are causing all of the problems!”… good arguments and yet, when was the last time YOU bought and American car.  Not because it was better and not because it had better fuel economy but just because it was American made.  When?

You can argue, of course that it was cheaper.  I’d argue that if you bought last years model on some cars that it’d be the other way around.  Hell, I’d even argue that equivalent cars would be within a $1000 of each other.  Be honest.  You bought the latest Hyundai not because you couldn’t afford a contour but because that’s what you wanted.  You bought it to impress your friends with how “Globally minded” you are.  I’m ok with that, in fact I encourage it.  If that’s what you WANT and you can afford it then go for it but get over the high minded crap and admit that America going broke is your fault. 

Here’s a few facts:

My truck is paid for.  I bought it new and have had it for about six years now.  I follow the manufacturers recommendations and do all of the recommended maintenance at the recommended intervals… including oil changes.   I’ve towed a 30 foot camper almost 10,000 miles.  I’ve towed my boat at least that far with it.   I’ve driven it in downtown Chicago and in backwoods Mississippi about as far off road as you can get.  I’ve had it axle deep in red Louisiana mud and fender deep in Illinois snow.   I’ve driven it through ocean salt and road salt and I’ve hauled enough crap (including more salt) in the back to fill several tractor trailers.  I’ve moved people with it and loaned it out to people that needed to move or needed to tow something.  The truck has almost 80,000 miles on it and in all of that time it has failed to start exactly once…. when I left a CB radio that I direct wired to the battery on and ran the battery down.  I Jumped the truck off that once.   The truck has been in the shop exactly once…. when the radio got jacked and I had the door lock replaced.    A month ago I was trying help a friend pull up a concrete post and pulled a half inch chain in half.  The tires didn’t spin, the truck didn’t die.   It just drove to the end of the chain and when the post didn’t come out of the ground it pulled the chain in half.  Oops. About five months ago I hooked it to 70 feet of deck and jerked the deck off of my house… See:

You’re insane if you’re going to try to tell me that you have a vehicle that can take more punishment than that and still start every time.   My truck starts in under a second and it doesn’t cause trouble. 

Before this truck I had a Chevy Silverado.  It ran perfectly until the day I traded it in on this truck and I only did that because I bought a new camper and needed something bigger to pull it with.

Before that, I had a Chevy Blazer and I only traded that in on the Silverado because I bought a new boat.

All during that time we had a Ford contour that ran perfectly.  We loaned that one out to my sister in law for a long long time.  It had a silly amount of miles on it when we sold it after almost 10 years.  After that, we bought a Ford Edge and it rocks too.

They never stop.  They never blink. They never break.  If you tell me that American vehicles aren’t dependable you’re going to have to prove it to me because honestly, I haven’t seen it.  I also haven’t seen that they’re “OMG MORE EXPENSIVE” than foreign cars.  When I bought the first few vehicles it was because they were cheap.  They were last years models or just on some sale.  They were all brand new with less than 50 miles on them and they were cheaper… by far … than foreign equivalents.

So, tell me again why American car companies are going broke?  Tell me again why YOU had to bail them out?  Tell me again and again and again how it’s all their fault and then tell me how much you paid for that Hyundai.

…Uncles who are Jerks.

You’ve heard me mention Rob a few times on the blog.  I’ve known him a long time now which means that  I’ve known his kids for most of their lives…. well, over half of their lives anyway.

Rob and I both grew up in areas where there were big families around.  During the “Great Darkness” (also known as the time that both of us lived in Chicago) he felt like his kids were missing out by not having family nearby.  To make this somewhat better we spent a lot of time at each others houses in order to help the girls feel like they were more a part of a family.  It worked.

His two girls have always called me Mr. Tommy and my wife gained the “Ms.” title.  In the deep south this is fairly common but I haven’t seen it in regular use elsewhere. 

Until my mother died everyone simply knew her as Ms. Glenda.  Everyone.  From the Sheriff, to her peers, to convenience store clerks and the guy who washed her car, to my wife and my brother’s wives.  Everyone knew her simply as Ms Glenda.  I like that.  It makes things feel like home for me and it shows a level of deference and respect that was certainly due for my mother.

In the time before we met Rob and his family they had grown apart from the girls’ godparents.  One day Rob and his Wife sat my wife and I down for a serious conversation and offered us the job.  Though not technically God Parents in the religious sense; more of a legal guardian backup plan sort of thing.  I tend to be a guy that takes responsibility like that seriously so I gave it a few weeks to sink in before we agreed.  Once we did, papers were drawn up and I became an unofficial uncle.  I also became the guy that makes sure that everyone wears seatbelts so that I don’t have to exercise those rights.

In the last few years the girls have started calling me Uncle Tommy instead of Mr. Tommy.  That one still hasn’t stuck and they still occasionally fall back to Mr. Tommy.  I’m ok with either one but it does give me reason to pause sometimes and thank God that I’m so lucky.

Rob sometimes calls me for advice on various topics or when he needs to think something through in his own head.  This gives me a unique perspective into the children’s lives that I wouldn’t otherwise have.  But it also presents a problem.  You see, I’m not an actual Uncle.  I really don’t have a say in the way things go in his household (and I shouldn’t) but at the same time I have an obligation to remain a respected adult in the extended family.  I have an obligation to support my friend when he asks for advice and I have an obligation to be right when I do it.  As much of an obligation to be right as he does as their father.   Because, honestly, it’s that damned important.  I also tend to have a more strict view of how things should be done than Rob does which can lead to me saying something along the lines of, “well, can’t you just beat it out of them or something?”  He tends to be a little more lax than I would be (though his kids would NEVER admit that).  That’s not wrong, in fact, it’s right more often than I would like.  He tends to focus on the important bits while I focus on details.

Here’s a few examples:

• I think the older girls should live on the top floor of the house with bars on the windows.  Electrified bars.  Oh, and a mounted machine gun, cleared firing lanes and  a spotlight. He thinks the younger kids need to be upstairs where he can watch over them which means one of the older girls has to sleep in the bedroom downstairs.  I guess I can see that… but I’m still pushing for the electrified bars on the windows.
• I want to smack the 13 year old when she thinks she’s all grown up and calls me by my first name in a too familiar way.  That one really grinds on my nerves. He’d rather focus on keeping her from becoming a stripper.  I can understand that too I guess… but I still don’t like it much.
• I think the 5 year old boy should be put to work doing whatever we are doing on any given day.  He doesn’t have to swing a hammer all day but there’s no reason he can’t be handy to fetch nails.  Thankfully we agree on this one and the kid really is a good helper if you keep him focused.
• I think he should tell them that I’m mean.  He thinks he’d rather keep them believing that I’m the nice uncle who’s on their side.
• I think all of their friends are either crackheads or sluts, should be on the “do not talk to” list and possibly banned from the county if not the country.  He understands that they’re going to talk no matter what “I” say and focuses on keeping his kids from following the crooked path.  There’s one exception to this list.  A girl that’s very sweet, extremely smart and always extremely polite.  She’s welcome at my house any time and she’s  a very good friend to Rob’s daughter.  Of course, she’s probably the worst of them all when no one is looking… the little… *sigh*

I found a niche that I liked not long ago.  It was playing the part of the crazy childless uncle who still wakes up in the middle of the night to the sound of choppers and Haji’s coming across the dunes.  This is an especially useful character to have on your side when young Casanova comes knocking on your 15 year old daughters door.  And it’s fun!

On the potential suitors first night “meeting the family” I showed up with long hair and unkempt beard wearing a Carhart jacket and work boots.  I made sure to park my Heavy Duty F250 Extended Cab truck next to his car.  It was the typical “I’m a teenager with a restricted license and I found this car on ebay for $200” model car.

After dinner Rob and I invited Junior out for coffee.    It went quite well actually… “here buddy,  sorry about the camouflage in the back seat.  Yeah, that’s a shovel why? Oh and just step over those guns there… Careful! I think one of them is loaded!”
I kid you not…
It wasn’t loaded though…
Promise.

The coffee shop is in a shopping center with a Grocery store.  On the way to park I took the shortest path which, by pure chance, is through the alley behind the Grocery store and which is also, again by pure chance, rather poorly lit and smells of sour milk and rotting vegetables.  I don’t know what Junior thought during that drive but he was very respectful all night long.

He later fell out of favor and now, apparently, I can run over him if I see him.  Cool.

In the end, we love them all very much (the family, not the boyfriends).  It takes patience sometimes and other times it takes a bit of extra fortitude.  It can be extremely tiring when you have your space invaded by five rambunctious kids and two tired parents  but I love every minute of it.  Even while I’m watching one of them climb a tree that I planted last year or clubbing my bird feeders with stick “sword” I think about how fantastic it is to have family around.   

Sometimes I think that they believe that they impose too often.  Phhttt, I say.  I’m honored to have them as friends and I love teaching the kids things when I have the chance.  We even go out of our way sometimes to get them to come to the house.  Over the summer we invite them over every weekend to swim in our pool.  We grill thousands of hotdogs and hamburgers and occasionally even have chicken nuggets.  I spend hundreds of dollars and hours of work keeping the pool clean and “balanced” so that it’s ready any time they want to come swim.  I keep hamburgers and hotdogs in the freezer and we buy an extra gallon of Ice Cream on grocery day.  Sometimes I even pretend not to be grumpy and mean and let them bring their slutty, crackhead friends. 

Which reminds me… New Rule: If you’ve bought your 14 year old daughter a bikini swimsuit to wear this means three things:

1) she can’t swim in my pool.
2) she has to leave her crack pipe at home.
3) You’re an asshole

Here’s a very old post to a message board where I described my first flight going cross-country in an airplane by myself.  You’ll have to forgive the airplane jargon, it was originally written for other pilots.

I’m at a loss for words. There is no way that I can describe the what a fantastic day yesterday was and not because of the Solo XC… that’s sorta become secondary in my thoughts of yesterday.

The day started at about 4:30. I had scheduled a plane from 8-12 in the hopes that I could get a cross country in. I had planned a short XC (51 miles) earlier and had been planning a longer one for yesterday. I was a little behind at work on Thursday so Friday morning I logged in to finish that off. One thing led to another and I simply didn’t have time to plan the trip before my 8am reservation so I whipped out the older plan and updated it with the weather just to get up in the air. When I walked out to the truck and dew swamped everything so heavily that you could get soaked just leaning up against something. The temp was a crisp 5C and everything was perfectly still. A huge orange sun was just rising and turned the dew on everything to gold. Truly fantastic. As soon as I walked out the door I completely forgot about the fact that I should have been at work and didn’t think about it again until 5 hours later… Nice.

My instructor was about 10 minutes late so I called FSS while I was waiting for her and got a Standard VFR Brief. The briefer was nice and went through the motions but eventually said, “everything is clear, everything is going to stay clear for 500 miles in every direction, the wind will be 5-10 knots out of the east later but for right now it’s screaming out of the east at a blistering 3 knots. About the only thing I can tell you about is unlighted towers at your destination if you want those.” I declined the tower information and thanked him for his time. About then my instructor arrived and quickly went over my plan. She set up my endorsements and signed me out of the flight school.

I had 4 hours to do 62 minutes of flying so I wasn’t in any kind of a rush. I spent an extra 15 minutes doing preflight and setting things up in the cockpit. There wasn’t really anywhere that I had to be so it was nice to just spend time outside at the airport with an airplane under my care. After a while, things sort of came together to the point that I couldn’t find anymore buttons to play with so I taxied over and called on the unicom for fuel. While the lineguy refueled for me I wandered over and had a smoke with a few non-pilots in the observation area. It was pretty cool to just nod nonchalantly when they asked if I would be flying that plane at the fuel dock and then add that I was just going to hop over to Peru for a little sight seeing. There were a couple of kids there who seemed really interested in the whole thing and asked me a bunch of questions about the airplane. After that grilling (the checkride will be nothing compared to those kids and their questions) I wandered back over, thanked the line guy, checked the fuel caps and climbed back in. As I was taxiing out I gave the folks in the observation area a little wave which the kids really seemed to love. I grinned at the thought of the kids telling people how the airplane pilot had waved at them before he took off.

By this time the early fliers had already departed and there really wasn’t anyone on the ramp but me and the line guy. The dew was starting to burn off of the pavement and little wisps of steam were rising all around me and being lit up by the early morning sun. It was almost surreal to be out there on the taxiway by myself. I spent a few extra minutes doing my runup and pre-takeoff checks because I could and then called departing and eased onto the runway. In the cold, smooth air the airplane fairly jumped off of the runway and I flew a little lower and faster than I normally would just because it was great to be flying. When I got even with the observation area I looked over and saw the kids waving like crazy again so I wagged my wings for them and pitched for VX to climb out into the sun. Way, way cool.

The air was crystal clear as I climbed up to 2500 and turned back around to the west to get out from under the ORD Bravo. After I cleared the bravo I pushed it up to 4500 and realized that I could see forever. A little checking and I saw that not only could I see my next checkpoint, I could see the one after that too! So, like a good little pilot I punched in the numbers, kept track of my waypoints and pretty much just did nothing for the whole trip because navigation certainly wasn’t an issue. As you approach Peru from the east you have to fly over the larger part of the city. The early morning sun on the parking lots and quarries in the area was throwing up turbulence that reminded me of flak bombs in the movies. You fly along smooth as can be for about 4 seconds then hit a big bump and repeat that for a while. After I cleared the city and got back out over the corn field things calmed down a lot and I made a sweet landing on 18 at Peru (KVYS).

I took a few minutes to dig around in my bag looking for the camera that I didn’t have and then went inside to use the facilities and grab a coke. I realized that when doing XC trips I need two additional things in my flight bag. First is, of course, the camera that I didn’t bring and the second is cash. I had absolutely no money and no way to even buy a soda from a Coke machine much less anything else that I might need in places that don’t have credit card machines. Lesson learned. I spent a few more minutes outside the Peru airport while I called my wife for a quick chat and then headed back to the plane.

I had agreed with my instructor that for the flight back I would ditch the flight plan and use Pilotage along the river to get home. The river runs from just south of Peru almost all the way home and I’ve wanted to fly it ever since I started flying. I kept up with where I was on the chart and generally had a great time identifying bends in the river and cities and towns that I’ve been to along the way. I flew over the lock and dam and watched the flood waters from our recent rains roar over the spillway and then followed a barge and tugboat up the river for a while. I was flying about 1600 AGL and barely noticed when one of the barge hands walked across the deck and waved at me. There’s a section in “Flight of Passage” where Rinker Buck talks about the same thing happening to him with a riverboat on the Mississippi. In the story, he dove at the riverboat and did a low pass over him while waving and wagging his wings. I remembered the first time I had read that passage and how it had brought the idea of flight alive in me. I’ll be honest and say that I thought about dropping down to get a better look at the boat and maybe just accidentally do a low pass while waving and wagging my wings just like ole Rinker did but I didn’t. Those were different days and I think he had a little more time under his belt when he did it. I just wagged my wings at the guy to let him know that I had seen him and continued on my merry way thinking about other things I had read in that book that I wouldn’t be comfortable trying for a while yet.

As I continued on I hit a few bumps a little earlier and climbed up to 1800 AGL which seemed to work (though it was probably just because I had crossed over whatever caused the bumps). On the chart ahead of me I saw a “tall tower” symbol and thought, hmmm that’ll be cool to see, let’s see if I can find it. A few seconds of looking and I found the tower. It was about 4 miles southeast of my flight path and it was higher than I was. I was shocked. I’m flying at 1800 AGL and some guy on the ground had the nerve to build something tall enough for me to hit! I double checked the numbers on the chart and sure enough, it was listed as 1900 feet tall… jesus crimeny. The tower was a few miles away and really no threat to me but I climbed up above it anyway and continued on. I can’t imagine being the guy that has to change the lights on that sucker… that’s a looong climb.

The rest of the flight really went the same way. With me plodding along over the river, waving at river boats and generally enjoying the scenery (and looking for super tall towers that might not be on the chart). As I passed Morris airport and was into our practice area which is pretty much home sweet home for me by now. From there it was an easy ride into the pattern and an absolutely horrible landing at home base. The wind had picked up to a direct 11kt crosswind and I didn’t carry enough extra speed on final so ended up doing a lot of fighting to get the plane down safely.

I parked, cleaned up the airplane and turned in the log book. The kids were gone from the observation area, several planes were at the fuel pumps, one training flight was coming in and several new ones were getting ready to depart. There was a helicopter practicing hovering and a champ doing landings on the grass strip… it was back to being just another day at the Airport but I had been there for the good part and I’ll carry it with me for a long, long time.

I had an issue with my computer this morning.  Nothing major.  Just one program that seemed to be hung and I needed it working.  I fixed it with the ubiquitous reboot but it got me to thinking about the relative troubleshooting procedure.

Here’s the way I think it works (this really is the procedure I followed):

The Geek Method:

• Realize that there’s a problem.
• Restart application and realize that the error still exists
• Open server application and check configuration options.
• Set “DEBUG” level in the server application as high as possible
• Set “DEBUG” level in the client application as high as possible
• Connect and catch the error message in the DEBUG log that relates to problem.
• Search Google for the error message to see if anyone else has had this problem and get a resolution.
• Realize that no one has had this problem before. 
• Search Google and find the source code for the application.
• Find the error message in the source code to see what’s generating it.
• Follow the program logic until you find the bug in the program.
• Fire off a quick note to the application developers with a description of the problem.  The Location of the bug in the source and a “recommended” fix.
• Reboot
• Write Blog post about it.

The Elderly Relative Method (female):

• Realize that there’s a problem.
• Install Yahoo and look for Geek nephew.
• Install MSN and look for Geek nephew.
• Call Geek nephew and tell him he should be  on the Internet so you can chat.
• Ask what Gchat is.
• Ask what “Google” is.
• Explain that you are really sure there’s a problem with your printer.
• Agree with Geek nephew that since you’re not trying to use the printer it’s probably not related.
• Explain that it’s probably another virus because that Norton thing is always popping up on you.
• While Geek nephew tries to fix problem from 900 miles away (see Geek Method) click randomly on the screen to take control of the remote desktop session.
• Apologize repeatedly for bothering Geek Nephew who is really busy. (at least 27 times)
• Disconnect remote desktop session while Geek Nephew is working because, “it’s not that important and I know you’re really busy”.
• At recommendation of Geek Nephew reboot
• Call friends to tell them that your Geek Nephew is smarter than their Geek Nephew.

The Elderly Relative Method (male):

• Explain to Geek Nephew that this used to work but stopped.
• Turn off computer.
• Go hoe beans.

The Non-Geek Brother Method:

• Explain to Geek Brother that this used to work but stopped so you unplugged the thing.
• Go work on truck.

The Wife Method:

• Explain to Geek Husband that you tried to get him to fix it for three weeks and that you finally just gave up…
• Reboot.
• Call sister to tell her that your Geek Husband is smarter than her Geek Husband anyway.

“Can I get you something to drink?”
“Sure, I’ll have something!”
“No problem.  What would you like?”
“I’ll have a Pepsi if you have it.”
“You drink that crap?”
“Well, I uh…”
“You uh?!  Don’t you know that it’s completely evil!?”
“I…”
“How ignorant of you! Don’t you know that it’s been linked to cancer later in life?  Are you Godless?  Are you an atheist or something?  Aren’t you aware of the damage that you cause!!!  What kind of self serving attitude is it that lets you drink that crap?!  How stupid can you possibly be?”
“Hang on… it’s just a bloody Pepsi!”
“JUST A PEPSI!?!?!  You ARE stupid aren’t you?  I hope you rot in HELL!! No, I don’t have to hope.  You’re already on your way buddy.  You’re going to hell and there’s nothing you can do about.  Get out!  Get your Pepsi drinking Godless attitude out of my sight you unhealthy  wretch!  I’m a CHRISTIAN you bastard; I can’t stand the sight of you!!”

With “FOCA” looming I’ve been seeing more than a few instances of the above conversation and I’m sickened by it.  As a Christian I hold other Christians to a standard.  The Bible is clearly worded as to how a true Christian should conduct themselves.  Jesus set a great example of that conduct and shows us how to apply the concepts in every day life.  Christians, or wanna-be Christians are failing in that. As a Christian our role is to be an ambassador for Christ.  I don’t believe that one has to be a true “Disciple” of Christ to be a believer.  You don’t have to hold conferences and teach at prayer meetings to be a Christian but you do need to display God in your life in word and action.  You don’t have to swing Christianity like a club every time someone does something that doesn’t agree with your values.  Don’t wear Jesus as armor, don’t wield God as a sword.  Act.

Rob and I helped a friend move recently before he became a friend.  I didn’t really even know the guy well at the time but that didn’t matter.  He mentioned having to move between working hours.  He was moving a family of four between two houses using a mini-van as his only transport. He didn’t ask for help, he just needed it.  I hooked the trailer to the truck and we went to help.  We carried boxes most of one evening but didn’t finish moving his stuff.  When we left for the day I left my truck with him for the rest of the week.  When he was done I went to pick up the truck and he asked, “Why would you do that? Why come to my aid when I didn’t ask for it.  Why offer the use of your truck for a week?  Why carry boxes for someone you don’t know.”  What a great opportunity that would have been to stand up straight, slap a badge of honor on my chest and proclaim with self-righteous abandon, “because I am a Christian and that’s what my God demands of me!?” Instead I looked away, a little embarrassed, and said, “That’s just what we do.”  There was no need to slap him with my Christianity… I was just setting an example by doing the right thing.  With time he recognized that I am a Christian and made the connection.  At the time I didn’t think, “this is an opportunity to share Christ with someone.”  I thought instead, “that person needs help and I can provide it.”  It’s the way I raised in the deep south.  It’s the way I was raised to glorify God.  It’s so ingrained in who I am that I don’t think twice about it or consider it a “Christian act”.  It’s just the way it is.  Many Christians would hold me at fault for failing to keep God in the forefront of my life and yet… they weren’t there acting in the way that Jesus taught us.  They had a ball game or something else deadly important to do at the time.

When I meet people that think that abortion is “ok” in some cases (or in any case).  I don’t slap them with God.  The same way that I don’t slap them if they claim to be an atheist.  I try to help them understand that I believe it is wrong.  If they come to respect me for my other opinions and values that will cause them to rethink the position on abortion.  I’m clear that I find it a disgrace.  I am clear that life begins at conception (note the lack of “I believe here”.  I don’t consider it a belief, I consider it a fact).  I am clear that I believe it to be murder.  As much of a murder as if another person were sitting in the chair beside you.  I don’t accuse them of ignorance and cast them out. I don’t call them murderer and show them horrid pictures of partial birth abortions.  I just share my opinion and move on.  You can’t club an atheist into submission and call them Christian.

The Bible doesn’t SAY that abortion is wrong and any Christian that twists the word of God to make it mean that is telling a lie.  He is violating another proscription in that Holy text.   The concept didn’t exist. 

The Bible does help us define a child and refers to the unborn as “children” in many instances.  It does provide proscriptions against harming innocent children and details Gods retribution for those acts.  It does not define an instant in time, after conception, that represents a line between a “growth of various cells” and “life”.   I take that lack to indicate that the time is inclusive rather than exclusive.  If God wanted a line drawn he would have drawn it and I, poor dumb country boy that I am, can’t hope to do a better job of it.

When we lived in Chicago there used to be several “anti-abortion” groups that would set up on the bridges out of the city at rush hours.  If you don’t know Chicago there’s no way out of the Downtown where most people work without walking (or driving) over one of the bridges.   These demonstrators would hold up signs with horrible pictures of dismembered baby corpses and claim that all abortions looked like this.  Many of the signs had “Christian” sayings and condemned people to hell.  I was disgusted.  If I held weaker beliefs I might have changed my position just to spite them.  As it is, I am horrified that they are “on my side”.  I want nothing to do with those activist.  They damage the cause and use God in a way that creates an adversarial relationship with non-believers.  Those people disgust me.  They use hate and violence to argue their point and turn as  many  people away from the proper path as they turn to it.  They are wrong.

So there you have it.  That’s my opinion… actually, that’s several opinions all wrapped into one.  It should also be fair warning that asking for a Pepsi at my house is very much the wrong thing to do.

If you haven’t read my Trail Camera post feel free to have a look. 

It’s here.

Those were all taken with an automatic trail camera and, for what they are, I think they’re really good.  They can’t compare, however, to photographs taken by a skilled photographer.  The following were taken by wife with a decent camera. 

I love watching deer and Ms Jodi does too so after Christmas I put up a feeder to get the deer to come in.  I originally used one of those “magic” deer collector feeds that cost about twice the price of feed corn.   In order to stretch the expensive feed I mixed it with corn at a rate of about half corn and half magic feed.  The first few deer to approach the feeder loved the stuff!  They had so much fun separating the expensive feed from the cheap corn and stomping the expensive stuff into the ground. It wasn’t long before they had all of their little friends over help.

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Not wanting to waste money since they weren’t eating the expensive feed I replaced it with pure corn.  When we polled the deer about how they liked the food without the discarded “expensive but fun to stomp food” here’s the response we got:

There are a couple of family groups that come, sometimes they all converge at once as above but mostly it’s one group or the other.

Both have yearling deer with them and one has a young fawn that hasn’t been without his spots for long.  Here’s one of the yearlings (essentially any deer over 1 year old).

Here’s a shot of mother and son browsing together.  In some of the photographs you can see my feeder off to the left.  The deer will eat directly out of that if forced to but they really prefer to have it spread on the ground.  My daily chores include keeping the feeder full and tossing out several handfuls of corn for dinner.

For those that are thinking that the skill in taking these photographs is mostly built into the camera.  Not so.  For contrast here’s a picture that I took with the same camera of the same deer from nearly the same spot that she uses.  Sad isn’t it?

Yesterday, I was sent pictures of my newest niece.   I started not to post the pictures because to the uninitiated ultrasound snapshots can look rather strange.  Then, I decided that I don’t really care… so  ppphhtttt…

Here’s the first ever photo of Ms Reagan Lynn.

Female children in my family are rare in this generation so this is a bit of a big deal.  Of course, everyone is happy to point out that they would have been just as excited about yet another boy.  Me?  I say, whatever… I wouldn’t.   I am an unrepentant cool uncle.

Her mother (whose gooey bits also appear in the picture) is, I’m sure, frightened that I have already promised to teach Ms Reagan all kinds of “tomboy” things like how to clean fish.. and deer; how to drive a truck and the ever important redneck life skill of finding high things and spitting off of them without getting any on your chin… (though probably without the tobacco… I was mostly joking about that).

To her honestly and rightfully horrified mother I send all of my love and a promise to have Ms Reagan show her all of the neat things her Uncle teaches her.

I’ve stolen that post title from Greybeard, a helicopter pilot.   In fact, this post started out as a comment on his blog post with the same title.

Have you ever looked at those noisy, vibrating, shaking, chopping monsters as they gathered in a flock over the nearest traffic accident and thought, “No way in hell are you getting me into one of those suckers.”

I wonder how many times this lady said, something like that.  How many times has she said, “I couldn’t fly in a helicopter, I’d be scared to death!”

But when the angels of mercy come screaming over the treetops on a cold, wet night to pick your broken, bleeding body up out of the mud and whisk it away to the only place that can keep you alive you won’t be “scared to death” to ride in the chariot that they bring because you’ll be “scared OF death” and that difference is significant.

When I first saw Greybeard’s post title I thought he was referring to himself and his crew.  I guess he’s probably too modest to see himself as the rest of us do, or at least, should.  As I write this I wonder how many lives he’s touched over the years. How many people are still walking today because of the gentle graces that he and his team provide with that noisy beast of an ambulance?  How many families were whole over the recent holiday because he missed holidays of his own to sit on a lonely airport somewhere ready to fly at a moments notice. 

Today’s post was going to be a commentary on another blog.  At first I thought that I might beat Rob up about his birthday post.  Then I thought I might expand on Will’s commentary about the Google Blog Reader.  Then I saw Greybeard’s post for today and it all seemed so mundane.  This guy goes to work every day and worries about whether God will clear the weather at just the right time and in just the right way to allow His guardian angels to save someone’s life.  Kind of makes my worries over the 23 user accounts that I created yesterday seem trivial.  Nice bit of perspective in that.

Most of us will never need your services but I for one am damned glad to know that you’re out there Greybeard.  God bless, fly safe.

A passage in this article on the BBC site caught my eye… it was this:

In central London, protesters – including the singer Annie Lennox and former mayor Ken Livingstone – marched along the Embankment to Trafalgar Square. Some chanted “Free, free Palestine” and “Israel terrorists”.

I wonder if Ms Lennox and her friends would feel differently if Radicals in a very localized area were constantly firing rockets at London?  If her concerts were canceled because of “extremist” activities would she cry and stage protests that her own government wasn’t doing enough to protect her from those attacks?  If the English government moved to strike back at  those affecting her bottom line would she, do you think, throw shoes at them?

A few months ago public outrage at the “unprovoked” attack of a tiger on several youths at the San Francisco zoo died a quick death when it turned out that they might have been taunting the tiger and were all both high and drunk at the time.  “World Outrage” should follow the same path.  You can’t shoot rockets at a sovereign nation and expect them to ignore you because you’re doing it from a school.  You can’t claim innocence if you know that extremists are firing rockets at a sovereign nation from a school and don’t move to stop them. You can’t claim outrage when the sovereign nation in question bombs that school into dust in order to stop unprovoked attacks on its citizens originating from that “school”.  Look, it’s simple, if you don’t want children killed in a war that you started stop hiding behind them.  We all know that you’re just doing it for the publicity… well most of us know that; the rest are over at Trafalgar Square losing their shoes and dreaming about the “good ole days” of Vietnam War Protests.