JINKSTO

A good author gives the reader something to think about.   A great author gives the reader the ability to say, “Wow!  I could have written that if I only had the skill.  This is about me.  It was written FOR me.” It doesn’t matter the style of writing.  

As I’ve noted before I’m no poet and I don’t really even understand the genre.  I don’t understand the flow of the text or the meaning of the spacing.  I just know when the words penned by the poet have meaning to me. 

My aunt wrote the following poem but, I suspect that if I only had the skills, I coulda…

My Everyday Blessing
Often I get caught up in living.
Burdened, worried, anxious.
Overly concerned about tomorrow.
Wondering about the things
that might have been.
Not seeing the joy in each day.
Foolishly unmindful of my everyday blessing.

~~

I am loved.
Not only loved by those
whose lives are intertwined with mine,
but by a Father whose love for me is,
at times, beyond my own understanding.
Love is all around me.
Yesterday and tomorrow.
Amidst my burdens, worries, and anxieties.
Love is the joy in each day.
It is my everyday blessing.

Jessica C. Ashworth

Police are investigating a “Single Engine Plane Crash!!” near here.  No comment on what happened but it looks like a pretty costly but successful off-airport landing from the single picture in the paper.  Still, I got a bit of a giggle when I read the very brief, locally written article (emphasis mine):

BRUNSWICK COUNTY, NC (WECT) – A single engine plane crashed Wednesday afternoon around 2:00 in Shallotte, according to Emergency Service Director Scott Garner.

The Shallotte Police Department said the plane went down at 1143 Whiteville Road, just west of West Brunswick High School.

There was one person on the plane at the time of the crash who suffered minor injuries.  The police department said the passenger was out of the plane and walking around.

Stay with WECT and WECT.com for more details as they become available.

Copyright 2011 WECT. All rights reserved.

Far be it from me to be a Monday morning quarterback before all of the results are in but in my ever so humble opinion an airplane with only a passenger on board is pretty much destined to crash.  Wonder what he did with the pilot?!?

One of my favorite songs was written and performed by Mr. Paul Thorn.   It’s one of those songs that’s good for long road trips when your eyelids get heavy around 2AM or so.  Pop this one in, roll all the windows down and crank it up to 11.  Better than a gallon of Starbucks in an IV for waking you up.  Here’s a quick view:

You may have heard a later version that was done by Sawyer Brown (with slightly changed lyrics) but Paul’s version has always resonated with me.  Paul released the song on a CD of the same name.  You can find it here.

Seems kind of appropriate given my other post this weekend. 

Some of my favorite lines from this song are highlighted below.  Yeah, there’s more than one favorite line… that’s how you tell you like it, right? 

I saw a black man with a bible and a sparkler in his hand.
He was holding a tent revival and running a firework stand.
He said the end of the world is coming, you better get on your knees.
Today bottle rockets are two for one, but salvation’s free.
He said I quit my job at a big church where the milk and money flowed,
To sell cherry bombs for Jesus in a tent beside the road.
I ain’t in it for the money, most cars they pass on by.
But I pay the rent on New Years and the fourth of July.
Here at the…
Chorus:
Holy Ghost (Holy Ghost)
Big Bang theory (Big Bang Theory)
Pentecostal (Pentacostal)
Fire and brimstone (Fire and Brimstone)
Mission Temple Fireworks Stand
Fireworks are dangerous, they can blow up in your face
So you better read the instructions, light the fuse and get away
These things are made in China so it’s easy to see
How a man who worships Buddha ain’t got no guarantees
This is the…
Chorus
Whoa-o-o-o-o
Bridge:
He said everything I’m selling is all going up in smoke
This world is like an atom bomb ya’ll, it’s ready to explode
When the trumpet sounds and The Lord comes back I promise you one thing
I’ll be a human bottle rocket and I’ll go out with a bang
I’ll leave this…
Chorus
Chorus
Chorus
Chorus

Lots of folks know my deep Christian beliefs.  Over the last few months many have asked me what I thought of this loon claiming the end of the world was coming.  I’ve said repeatedly, that I believe him.  The world shall end.  I truly believe that it will be soon but that is simply a belief.  A wish.   I WANT it to happen. I don’t know when.  I try to live my life every day as if the Rapture were tomorrow.  Not because I want to be taken up but because living my life the way I do is what the Bible commands of me.  It’s not so that I can be saved in the Rapture, it is because I AM saved.  Totally different reasons.

Now, with that said, do I think that this nut actually could have possibly known the exact time?  The answer to that is no, he could not.  In fact, he is a teacher of lies.  He is a deceiver.  He does the work of Satan.  He tells people that the bible says that he can know and that he’s figured out the secret.  I know that he cant.  He tells people what will happen after the Rapture.  In great detail with timelines and descriptions.  He calls for people to follow him around the country and to donate money to him.  I know that he is wrong.  The Bible doesn’t describe the rapture the way that he did.  It doesn’t have secret codes that will let any person know these things.  Anyone that… hang on, this deserves a new paragraph…

Anyone that says that they do is a liar.  A deceiver.  A flake.  A servant of Satan. 

“But Jinksto”, you might say, “that’s a little over the top, right?”

No and the reason is because that it leads people into discounting the faith.  It leads them to believe that the Bible is somehow wrong.  It is not.  Ever.  Anyone that causes people to believe that it says something that it doesn’t is as evil as any evil that exists except one.  He destroys faith, not in true believers but, in those who aren’t sure.  He destroys the strength and legitimacy of the faith by telling people that he is a Christian Fundamentalist.  He’s not.  He’s no sort of Christian at all in my opinion. Christ Himself warned us of this man. 

But this is the rant that I wanted to avoid. Because Christ said it better and there’s no point in my saying it. This is why I said that we’d have a guest blogger today.  Today’s guest is an old friend.  He has talked with Christ himself.  He has eaten with Him and prayed both with and to Him.  He is a published author in THE best selling book of all time.  He’s not named after a book in the Bible.  The book carries his name.  The highlighted parts in the story below tell the story that I started to tell here but you should read it all.  It’s just that Mathew tells it better than I.  Have a read:

Mathew 24:

1 And Jesus went out, and departed from the temple: and his disciples came to him for to shew him the buildings of the temple.

2 And Jesus said unto them, See ye not all these things? verily I say unto you, There shall not be left here one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down.

3And as he sat upon the mount of Olives, the disciples came unto him privately, saying, Tell us, when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world?

4 And Jesus answered and said unto them, Take heed that no man deceive you. 5 For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many. 6 And ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. 7 For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places. 8 All these are the beginning of sorrows.

9 Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall kill you: and ye shall be hated of all nations for my name’s sake. 10 And then shall many be offended, and shall betray one another, and shall hate one another. 11 And many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many. 12 And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold. 13 But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved. 14 And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come.

15 When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place, (whoso readeth, let him understand:) 16 Then let them which be in Judaea flee into the mountains: 17 Let him which is on the housetop not come down to take any thing out of his house: 18 Neither let him which is in the field return back to take his clothes. 19 And woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck in those days! 2 0But pray ye that your flight be not in the winter, neither on the sabbath day: 21 For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be. 22 And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved: but for the elect’s sake those days shall be shortened. 23 Then if any man shall say unto you, Lo, here is Christ, or there; believe it not. 24 For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect. 25 Behold, I have told you before. 26 Wherefore if they shall say unto you, Behold, he is in the desert; go not forth: behold, he is in the secret chambers; believe it not. 27F or as the lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto the west; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. 28For wheresoever the carcase is, there will the eagles be gathered together.

29 Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken: 30 And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. 31 And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.

32 Now learn a parable of the fig tree; When his branch is yet tender, and putteth forth leaves, ye know that summer is nigh: 33 So likewise ye, when ye shall see all these things, know that it is near,even at the doors. 34 Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled. 35 Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.

36 But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only. 37 But as the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. 38 For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, 39 And knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. 40 Then shall two be in the field; the one shall be taken, and the other left. 41 Two women shall be grinding at the mill; the one shall be taken, and the other left.

42 Watch therefore: for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come. 43 But know this, that if the goodman of the house had known in what watch the thief would come, he would have watched, and would not have suffered his house to be broken up. 44 Therefore be ye also ready: for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of man cometh.

45 Who then is a faithful and wise servant, whom his lord hath made ruler over his household, to give them meat in due season? 46 Blessed is that servant, whom his lord when he cometh shall find so doing. 47 Verily I say unto you, That he shall make him ruler over all his goods. 48 But and if that evil servant shall say in his heart, My lord delayeth his coming; 49 And shall begin to smite his fellowservants, and to eat and drink with the drunken; 50 The lord of that servant shall come in a day when he looketh not for him, and in an hour that he is not aware of, 51 And shall cut him asunder, and appoint him his portion with the hypocrites: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

… that’s why.

Watching TV this morning I saw some crime story cop clearing a room with his gun.  The whole time he was doing it he had his finger on the trigger.  One would assume that the weapon was “off safe” or, more likely didn’t even have a safety.  But that doesn’t matter a damned bit really and here’s why.   Three different times as he and his partner “cleared” the room this guy pointed his weapon at his buddy.  As someone who has been trained in the use of firearms these scenes make my skin crawl and you see it happening all of the time on television.  Of course, they’re just actors and it was just a fictional show but you would expect some level of professionalism from them.  I mean, really…

The NRA says that there are 4 rules to gun safety but really, there are only three.  Interestingly, none of the rules involve unloading the weapon and only the fourth, the one that I say doesn’t matter, involves the guns physical safety button.

1) Treat all guns as if they are loaded.  This is because they _should_ be loaded.  A gun without ammunition is useful for a very few purposes which include, trotline weights, party balloon anchors and… umm.. not much else, really.  I mean, you could probably club someone with it but if you’re going do that you might as well pick up a baseball bat instead… better reach.   At the end of the day, all guns should be loaded and ready to fire unless you’re using them for something other than what they were designed for.  In some cases, maybe not.  In some cases you need for a gun to be “safe” so you unload it to help with that but that’s all it is, a help.  Which, actually, brings me to a second pet peeve.  Don’t ask me if a gun is loaded.  My answer will always be “yes”.  Even if I unloaded it 5 minutes ago.   I mean, you’ve got the dang thing in your hand right?  Open the breech and look.  That way you’re not depending on me for your safety.  Open it, Look.

2) Never point a weapon at something that you don’t intend to shoot.  This is probably better said as “Never point a weapon at something that you don’t’ mind shooting, killing, destroying or otherwise maiming” because a gun is a physical thing.  It ALWAYS points somewhere.  The trick is to only point it at things that you don’t mind losing.  That means a target, or the ground, or the sky but not your foot. When you pull that trigger it’s going to fire.  Make sure that when you do, no matter what, it’s pointed somewhere safe which is to say, make sure that it is always pointed somewhere safe.

3) Never put your finger on the trigger until you’re ready to fire.  Seriously.  No shit.  All guns are loaded.  All guns are always pointing somewhere.  The trigger is the part of the gun that makes it go bang.  Even 5 year olds know this. So… don’t touch it.  Ever.  Guns these days do not “go off” without warning.  You can cock my Sig Sauer P229 and throw it out the window while doing 70 miles an  hour and it won’t do anything more than bounce merrily down the highway until it comes apart… or stops.  It won’t go off.  In order to fire a round from it, you MUST pull the trigger.  My handgun has been modified to have a lighter than normal trigger pull when cocked.  That means that while you might “rest” your finger on the trigger of a BB gun you’d damned well better not do it on a real weapon.  Trigger “travel” or the distance that you have to move a trigger to cause a gun to fire is highly variable but it’s always something less than a half inch.  Usually it’s a tiny fraction of an inch. Trigger “pull” or the amount of pressure that you have to apply to the trigger to cause it to travel is almost almost always less than 7 pounds but, again, this is highly variable.  With my gun cocked it takes less than 3 pounds of force to cause it to move.  With it uncocked, it takes six.  That’s almost nothing.   DON’T TOUCH IT.

4) The most used and least “safe” part of a gun.  The safety is just that a safety, a backup, a last ditch effort to keep you from killing yourself.  It only comes into play when you break one of the other rules and it’s completely fallible.   Safety’s are not safe to begin with and the more you depend on them to be something that they’re not intended to be the less safe they become.  It’s a useless feature.  Heck, they’re so useless (and so dangerous) that many manufacturers have stopped installing them altogether.  Our Sig’s are a good example of that.  As I said, it won’t fire unless you pull the trigger but if you DO pull the trigger it’s going to fire.  No matter what.  There’s no backup, I’m a moron, safety switch.   If your gun has one, hey cool, use it.  It’s a good back up but don’t dare assume that it’s going to work.  Ever.

So here’s the short form of the safety rules:

1) Yes, it’s loaded.

2) Don’t point that thing at me.

3) Do you want me to break that finger?

4) What safety?

It’s mothers day and all…

This song by Jack Williams always reminds me of her.   Partly because of her middle name I guess but mostly because the song reminds me of a place where I knew her. 

For Glenda Lou Leonard. Miss you.

My weatherman is awesome.  He’s on twitter and Facebook.  He’s even got his own, very interesting blog.

During a weather emergency like the recent tornado’s that leveled the south and the ones just before that which destroyed much of North Carolina he posted updates to twitter, I kid you not, every 3 minutes for two days.  The guy doesn’t sleep.

As a super geek, I have to appreciate that.

This morning WXBrad posted the following update:

To which I responded:

That’s the trick really.  WXBrad says that it’s unbelievable that folks still die (or that this many folks die) with the advanced warning that he and his peers put out. And it is. But from the other side, there’s only so much one can do.  I make good money.  Actually, I make really good money and I can’t afford it.  Most folks that I know can’t.

I suppose that it’s easy enough to point out that I’ve got that bass boat and the motorcycle and the camper and the… whatever and you’d be right.  I SHOULD have spent that money on a tornado shelter.

Didn’t.

But that’s me.  Most of the folks killed in the recent storms think that buying Blue Bell Ice-cream over the WalMart store brand is an extravagance.  For many of them a $7,000 underground tornado shelter would cost more than the car that they use to get to work every day.  To spend $4-10,000 on something that you only get use of once or twice a year, or more likely, never use is simply unheard of.

It’s frustrating.  I want my family to be safe.  I want them to not have to worry but I also have to deal with everyday realties.  WXBrad has told us three or four times to seek shelter this spring.  I didn’t because, well, I couldn’t.  There are only so many options.  I suppose that I could have packed everyone up and found a hotel every time. But that’s $80-100 a pop so almost $500 on hotel rooms just for this spring.  I could probably swing that but most folks couldn’t.

Still, even that isn’t a guarantee.  If an EF4 or EF5 comes down the road you need to be underground or in a VERY stable structure like one of the uptown hotels.  That, of course, doubles the price if you can even get a room on short notice with thousands of others who are seeking shelter.

I dunno… frustrating.

Don’t get me wrong though,  I’m not faulting WXBrad.  Not for a second.  Every time he’s told us to find shelter this year he was absolutely right.  The guy knows his stuff and he works insane hours to make sure that everyone in the area is safe.  He stresses every time he gives the warning because he knows the dangers of “over warning” folks.  He knows what it costs.

He gets frustrated and tired when he thinks that people are ignoring him because he works very hard to only warn us when he has to, but we’re not ignoring him.  Not for a second.  During these last storms I stayed up until almost 2:30 AM watching every tweet and broadcast.  My wife was back up at 3:00 AM checking in with him and then I was up again at 5:00 watching his forecasts.

I spent most of that time trying to figure out the cost/benefit ratio of whether I should be in the Ritz Carlton in uptown charlotte, and if I were to try that, which of the pets I could maybe sneak in and which I’d have to leave.  Not an easy thing to think about.

A few times the other night I thought about stuffing everyone into the culvert under the driveway… it’s big enough, probably, and doesn’t flood even with the biggest storms so it’d probably be safer than my manufactured housing… but it’s a long way down the drive and cold, and wet.   Spending hours down there with the weather radio would suck.

Thanks Brad.  We really do appreciate the work and effort that you put into keeping us safe.  You’re just an expensive date. 

I work.  A lot.  Usually between 60 and 90 hours a week.  My boss is cool and doesn’t require those hours he just gives me enough to fill 40 or 50 hours and leaves me alone.  Along the way I pick up other things to do in order to help folks out with various things and one thing leads to another until… I work.  A lot. But I do it from home.

How we manage that level of work in the home is quite a trick and it mostly has to do with Mrs. Jinksto being the only sane one in the house. 

She wakes me up with coffee every morning.  Usually sometime between five and six.  I gratefully accept it and thank her every morning.  As the mental cogs slowly spin up to speed I check my work email on my phone.  Usually, there’s not too much going on at that hour so I put the phone back and deal with the email later.  If there IS something going on that I need to fix then it’s off I go to the office.  This gives me 3 or 4 hours to work on whatever is “broken” before anyone gets into the office.  Sometimes if an email is urgent but not critical I’ll tap out a quick reply on the phone.  If an email requires only a few lines or a yes/no answer then that’s easy.  If it requires more I head to the office to use the big keyboard.

Most days, though, there’s nothing in email that I can’t deal with later so I take a few more minutes to get the engine started and then wander outside.  I sit on the patio with a cigarette and my coffee and wonder at the gift that I’ve been given.    In the spring, I can’t see my neighbors house through the trees that surround my yard.  It’s quiet. That early morning quiet that’s quiet enough that you notice the planes on final to KCLT when they fly over and notice when the neighbor fires up his truck to go to work.

After a while I go back into the house and head for my office.  Mrs Jinksto has gone back to bed for a while by now so it’s quiet in the house. I quickly sort through the overnight emails, clean them up and then. Check my calendar for the day to get an idea about what my call schedule looks like.  If I’ve got enough time in the middle of the day I’ll send a friend a chat to make plans for lunch.   Once my calendar is straight, I work on anything that’s handy until my first call of the day. The rest of the day is a constant switching between email, phone calls and actually doing work.  I tend to work on a lot of different projects so describing even one of them would give you the wrong idea about what I do.   I know what my role is… I just can’t explain what I do.  “Everything” is a poor description.

Occasionally, when there’s a hole in my schedule I’ll drop everything and go out to the shop.  I invent things, or make things that we need or spend an hour building a pen from a block of wood on the lathe.  Anything to decompress and get my mind off of work.  After several years of practice I’m pretty good at this and can switch work on and off at will.  Sometimes if I’m working on a particularly hard problem I can put it on the virtual back burner while I’m working in the shop and after a while the answer to my problem will come to me.  When that happens I drop what I’m doing and head back to the office.

My boss doesn’t care if I disappear for an hour.  He knows that I’ll be back and that I’ll get everything done on time (or mostly on time).  If I’m going to miss getting something done he knows that I’ll let him know before it becomes a problem and that I’ve given it my best.  Most times he just accepts the new estimate without comment, sometimes he’ll ask me to follow a different path to get the work done.  Like I said, he’s a good boss.

Most of the tasks that I take on throughout the day are small things.  Quick tasks that I can get done in a few minutes.  Usually, they’re not even something that relate directly to my job.  Just things that I can do for other people quickly to make their lives better.  It might be a bug in a bit of code that someone’s been sweating over for days or  I might be chasing down an approval for work that has been sitting for months with no action.  It might even be 30 minutes of career counseling for a friend.  Whatever is needed really.

In a typical 9 hour day I have between 6 and 8 phone calls for different projects. Most of them are between 30 minutes and an hour long so that eats up most of the ”day”.  I don’t accept calls or meeting requests after 4 PM unless it’s for a very special purpose.  After 4PM is when I get the “hard” work done.   Writing large pieces of code.  Working out the details of a spreadsheet.  Sometimes developing a powerpoint presentation.  Essentially, anything that I can’t get done in the “downtime” between calls during the day.  I generally work on those things until I either complete them or the clock starts yelling that it’s midnight… again.

At midnight I start thinking seriously about going to bed and, usually, do sometime before 1AM.  Four or five hours later I get up and do it again.

All through the day I take little breaks to do various tasks.  Cut the grass, help plant a few flowers, work on a flower bed, build something in the shop… whatever.  I might be away for 10 minutes or an hour.  Occasionally, on a nice day, I’ll take a couple of hours and drive over to Rob’s for coffee and to hang out.  Whatever I can find to distract me for a few minutes and get my mind off of work.

Of course, as soon as I get back, It’s back to answering mails and working on various things until bedtime. 

My work computer and home computer sit right next to each other.  I can punch a button on my keyboard and switch the monitors from one computer to the other.   If things get rough or I’m tired and frustrated and can hit a key and be in another world.  My world.  My facebook, twitter, news, games… whatever.

That’s my day pretty much every day that’s not a weekend.  On weekends I get a little more time off but the sirens call of the work computer always staring at me from one of the monitors is hard to resist. 

The other side of that scale means that Mrs Jinksto gets stuck with most of the other crap that happens.   She handles ALL of our finances (I do get veto power… sometimes), and the housework, and the dishes, and the cooking, and the… well, everything really.    So, my working so much certainly makes her job harder.  I try to mitigate that by telling her that she doesn’t have a job.  She’s not responsible for cooking for me, or taking out the trash, or… any of it.  If she decides that she doesn’t want to cook some nights then I find something else to eat or cook for us.  If she doesn’t do laundry for a few days, hey, whatever…. unless I run out of socks, then I whine a bit but the option always exists for her to tell me to wash my own damn socks.  And I would… eventually…

None of this was by plan really.  Over the years we just sort of fell into it.  I make money, she keeps me alive.  It’s a balance of sorts that’s sorta fair to everybody… mostly me.

The trick, of course, is to make yourself take those breaks.  The company that I work for has a pretty intense training program available for people that work from home.  It goes through, in detail, how to manage your day so that you don’t become a workaholic zombie that’s always frustrated, tired and annoying to be around.  I, of course, am doing it exactly the wrong way but you’d sort of expect that I guess. 

In the end, it’s about balance.  You have to give yourself and your loved ones enough time.  Some folks do that through vacations or the local church or simple community activities. Some folks handle it with hobbies.   For me, it’s the little things.  A quick hug as I walk through the kitchen or 30 minutes planting flowers with her.   Those things are enough for me.  I love being where she can call my name at any time during the day.  I love when she does.   Occasionally, that’s not enough for her and she’ll tell me.  When that happens I stop working and spend time with her.  Always.  Balance.

I kiss her lightly on the cheek and she doesn’t respond so I follow it up with a quiet caress and a gentle hug.

I snuggle with her under the thick, heavy blanket topped by a down comforter and whisper sweet nothings into her ear.

It’s quiet for several moments before she says, ”It’s three o’clock in the morning!  Go back to sleep!”

I sigh quietly and reply, “OK” before rolling over to do as I’m told.

…
…

”Are you sur…”

“YES!”

…

Food for thought:

Until we stop expecting politicians to "bring money home" and start expecting them to "leave the money alone" we are screwed.

I’m sure it’s been said before.  I have no idea by who.