Covered Dish Dinner
JUNE 10, 2023
06/09/23 03:55 PM
This will be a short post because I have a lot to get done.
A bunch of us are meeting at one of the neighbor's houses for a cover-dish dinner. Should be fun to meet some new neighbors and see some we've already met. Going to have to start getting ready very soon.
Spent the rest of the day 1) watching Mike and Kim repair our water leak and 2) heading back to the car dealership to see about a very minor car issue.
My sales guy, Landon, sure was helpful and is such a nice guy.
06/10/23 08:00 AM
Had an awesome time at the neighborhood get together last night.
More later...
Forgiveness
JUNE 09, 2023
06/07/23 07:30 PM
Not too many weeks ago, I was wronged by a guy. It wouldn't have been so bad had I not put my trust in the guys word, only to discover later that he was not going to be good to his word.
He said all the right things leading me to believe he would be good to his word. But as time passed, I began to realize that I had been duped by this guy. Things didn't work out as he thought they would and when it was time to make good on his promise, he backed out.
I could tell he was upset. But not enough to make good on the promise of which he assured me. When it all came down to it, he took the direction that would be to his benefit.
If taking all of that wasn't difficult enough, now God was telling me that I needed to forgive the guy. Forgiveness had always come easy for me, but perhaps I was about to learn that real forgiveness comes with a price and requires a personal sacrifice.
What about those Amish parents who, back in 2006, had to forgive the guy who shot their children? What about the woman (Terri Roberts) who helped care for a girl left paralyzed by her son's bullet in that situation? And what about the girl in that story?
Turns out, God used for good what could have been a bad ending to my story. In fact, another person was involved and pointed out to me that perhaps the story had a good ending after all. I hate to admit it, but this angered me. How could he see anything good in such a deceptive act?
Well, perhaps he was seeing what he knew God would want him to see. And perhaps he was ignoring the deception. My wife is alway so good to look at things in this manner. Me, not so much.
Lord, please forgive me for my selfish pity-party and let me never fail again to forgive.
The Black Car
JUNE 08, 2023
06/07/23 05:25 PM
We weren't sure how long the white car would last, but somehow, we knew we were going to have to purchase at least one more car before this ride ended.
Well, that decision was sort of made for us with the oil leak and the coolant leak. The repair costs just weren't worth it and the risk to more issues was just too great for this one car family.
The new (used - clears throat - pre-owned - LOL!) car is a 2017 Ford Explorer with 85k miles. It's a sweet ride and looks and smells like a brand new car. We're thrilled to have something a bit more dependable. It was also a pleasure to work with Landon Key from Ronnie Watkins Ford.
It's been quite an eventful day with the new car purchase and the water pipe repair that we had done by our handyman and his assistant. I had no idea that they were using PVC pipe these days from the water meter to the house, but an elbow piece cracked not too far from where it all enters the house and Mike and Kim dug it out and replaced it for us.
Glad to have that repaired and especially delighted at how affordable all of the work is that is performed by Mike and Kim. We're really blessed to have them working for us.
The White Car
JUNE 07, 2023
06/07/23 06:20 AM
The grandsons used to ride in our white car with us. And before that they used to ride in it with their dad.
That's because we did a trade with the Snow family - our red truck for their white car. That's what the grandsons called the Cadillac and the truck.
By the way, this will be the first time in a long time that I have written a post on the same day it is to be published. And that's because I spent most of yesterday with our mechanic about oil and coolant leaks.
I'm facing what I'm sure will be a tough decision once he gives us the bad news about what the repair costs will be. To trade the car in or get it repaired and keep it. That will be the question.
I honestly have no leaning at this point.
Great Ham Radio Day
JUNE 06, 2023
06/05/23 08:35 AM
Today is a great Ham Radio Day. I've already worked Thailand, China, Japan, Russia, Germany, and Italy.
Yesterday was an equally great Ham Radio Day. I worked a new country (Georgia) and other desirables like Lebanon and Greenland.
In fact, the day before that was Kenya, Aruba, and another Thailand. It's very nice when conditions are that good. I don't even have to rotate the hexbeam to make some of those contacts.
Conditions have been that good.
On an unrelated topic, Patty and I had a deep time of sharing yesterday and I also received a nice Father's Day invite from Jonathan and Amy. That should be a lot of fun and I've also got a lot of reflecting to do upon my deep chat with Patty. There may be some adjustments to life that come out of that one.
Rain and Revelation
JUNE 05, 2023
06/04/23 08:35 AM
I went searching for a picture to match the post title and was surprised to discover that there is a novel by the same name. The book cover didn't look like anything I wanted to use, and so I found something different.
It's never easy to write a post with two topics and even more difficult to find a picture for the post. I had to do a bit of whittling to make it work.
Only recently there was no call for rain at all. And now, it is supposed to arrive this afternoon.
Interesting how quickly the forecast changes. No rain due, and now all of a sudden we're expecting rain. Bring it, please. We need it.
On the spiritual front, I've been reading Revelation. However, I'm not sure such reading is very beneficial. My study bible always seems to point out the different interpretations from various scholars.
I'm not sure I'm in a place to benefit greatly from this book. I may go on to the Gospels and consider Revelation at another time. I'm not sensing any positive direction from such diversity of opinions and I have no interest in trying to form my own opinion from what I'm reading.
There are those who seem to enjoy this puzzle. It's not for me, at this time anyway.
Spiritual Posts
JUNE 04, 2023
06/02/23 05:45 PM
If I'm going to post something, my preference is toward the Lord and the spiritual. I guess that's because He is always there for me.
On the other hand, there's a lot in life that may have spiritual overtones but the spiritual element may not be that obvious. Running is a good example. I run for health and I seek health because I feel that is what the Lord would have me do.
Sure, I wouldn't mind living a few extra years and running may indeed make a contribution to that desire, but for me running turns out to be a spiritual thing.
When I run outside it's so easy to talk to God. It's not quite that easy when I'm inside on the treadmill. That's especially true of our short treadmill where I have to hang on to the arm rails due to my balance issues.
But even when I complete a run, there's a spiritual component to that success. That's because it's time well spent, well invested, and God directed.
In fact I picked up weight lifting a good ways back, and while I have yet to grow to love it like my running, there's still that same spiritual component that kicks in at the end of a weight training session. It's the sense and affirmation from God that what I just did was a good thing and a wise investment of my time.
I long for the Lord and He always finds me when I am doing what He has directed.
Decimal Accuracy
JUNE 03, 2023
06/02/23 07:25 AM
I always run a test of the search feature each time I add a new post. That's because it is affected by each new post. And, it's because I like coding and the technical side of things with the blog that work behind the scenes.
While running the test, I noticed that the percentage figure was calculated as a whole number and left off anything after the decimal place. This doesn't make a lot of difference for big numbers but reflects a lack of accuracy when the numbers are smaller. For example: 297 or 297.25 may not be that different, but there's a significant difference between 1.00 and 1.66 or 2.00 and 2.75.
I decided it might be time to adjust the code to reflect a more accurate number for the percentage of posts where something was found against all of the posts on the board.
Keep in mind that when something is found in a post, it is only counted once even if that post contains multiple occurrences of the search term. It is counted this way due to the manner in which the search is coded.
More About Running
JUNE 02, 2023
06/01/23 10:00 AM
I was thinking that with two days under my belt of running three miles, with my running shoes on the entire way, I may be nearing the end of my healing.
Wrong!
Today, my feet started talking to me just before the end of mile one. Even with two white footies tucked in each shoe I tried to shuffle my feet searching for comfort, but to no avail. My feet kept talking.
The only thing I could do was to step off the treadmill at the end of mile one and do what I did before - kick off my shoes and get back on and finish the last two miles in doubled up white footies.
As before, it worked.
No blisters and no sore toes.
I'm not wearing shoes around the house much in an effort to invite toe healing and it seems to be working. It's just not working enough yet, such that I am able to run all three miles in my running shoes.
I'm hoping I can figure out how to put two footies on each foot and in each running shoe in a manner that I find comfort running all three miles as I have done recently.
Maybe tomorrow.
A Lot Going On
JUNE 01, 2023
05/31/23 07:25 AM
At the title suggests, there's a lot going on. On the running front, I made it through 3 miles yesterday with running shoes on. I also had two pairs of white footies on which probably cushioned me very well and allowed me to endure. We'll see what I do today.
Due to some serious yard work, I delayed my Monday weight lifting and did it yesterday just before the aforementioned run. That shouldn't be a problem since there's no back-to-back workouts of the same muscle group.
I want to make a run to Walmart today to pick up some more landscape border and then to Ohatchee Hardware to pick up some long nails to faster the landscape border to the ground.
On the weather front, the rain has been entirely removed from the ten day forecast. I guess Patty is going to be doing a lot of watering in her garden.
On the bible reading front, I made it all the way through the New Testament up to Revelation and pick that up tomorrow on June 1. I'm going to take that book rather slowly in order to see what I can pick up from it.
On the ham radio front, I made it to 5,000 yesterday (Tuesday) and hope to see conditions improve to the Oceania area so I can pursue that award. It seems the best conditions right now still seem to be toward Europe. I worked Qatar yesterday, so distances are getting better.
05/31/23 12:20 PM
On the yard front, I did indeed make the Walmart run and they had both the landscape border and the additional stakes to fasten it to the ground. I purchased what I needed and then came home and installed it. Patty was kind enough to assist and it sure made things go a lot faster and easier.
We had to do a bit of creative engineering to figure out how we wanted to install it, but once the thinking was over, we decided and got it done.
The picture above is the finished product.
I also got in my mid-week workout and run. After the yard and all of that I was a tired puppy. Looking forward to some brain-dead ham radio time. Oh, and no more rain in the forecast for the next week although it sure looks like we could get some today.
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