O-Dark-Thirty

The Rules to Live By in this life are pretty simple. I like the Ten Commandments. Follow them and you’re probably going to be okay. I mean really follow them; don’t just pretend. If your heart’s not in these, then you might be in trouble. You could resort to the shortened version of Rules to Live By from Luke 10:27. “And He answering said, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbour as thyself.” (KJV) From The Life of Jesus Christ by J.J.Tissot, 1899 That isn’t all that easy either, though. Sometimes it’s all I can do to love myself. For Rules to Live By, though, I was most excited to find Micah 6:8, my favorite verse. “He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the LORD require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?” (KJV) The nice thing about that one is that there are three simple things to do and you can fulfill God’s req...

Though I don’t watch the HBO series The Game of Thrones my oldest son persuaded me to read the books. I bought the first four books for the Kindle™ so I can read them on my phone and iPad, anywhere. Each device keeps track of my latest reading location. Fantastic! From Wikipedia, the books so far The novels are collectively referred to as A Song of Ice and Fire by George R. R. Martin. The five available books are A Game of Thrones, A Clash of Kings, A Storm of Swords, A Feast for Crows and A Dance with Dragons . The novels are captivating, and the writing is good, but I find myself wishing it was a tighter story. This isn’t the first time I’ve thought that. From Wikipedia. I loved this cover. In 1990 a book called the Eye of the World captured my imagination. Written by James Oliver Rigney, Jr under the pen name of Robert Jordan, this book catapulted me into The Wheel of Time universe and in the following two years I read the next three books with delight. Then I st...

About a year ago I read an article about Maine. The author, Bob Wasserman, is a fellow Mensan, though we’ve never met. The tagline on the article was “After 25 years of losing himself as an engineer stuck in cubeville, it was time for this Mensan to rediscover the joys of being alive, even if it meant going it alone.” He says he loves to write, that writing is his passion. I was looking in a mirror, darkly. I’ve been working so long now that I know of a lot of people who died before me, though only a few at the workplace. As I listened to the air recirculation motors and squinted my eyes at the fluorescent lights above me, I thought, for just a moment, that I was in the beginning of the movie “ Joe versus the Volcano” and could feel my life sucked out of me. A Volcano freed Tom Hanks When he stated in his article that he had a serious case of Nature Deficit Disorder, I understood exactly what he meant. So I read his article and looked at the dust-colored cube walls that sur...

Over the years I have written a lot of stuff , most of it just bits and pieces. Now that I am committed to a schedule for posting blogs, there will no doubt be some days when I have little to say - I'm out of words. On those days I'll reach back into my archives and pull out something that was salvaged from my past, or partially salvaged. I've done that twice so far, one with a post about Deming and one with a post about the unknown continuation of Jabberwocky (by me). Jabberwocky Creatures, from Wikipedia I have written accounts of most of my school years. They may not interest anyone (except me and possibly my children) but since I'm the only one reading this blog (hello? Anyone there? Anyone? ... Anyone at all?) it doesn't really matter, so they are potential grist on those lean days. This isn't my old schoolhouse in Burnside, MI, but it could be   I won't post any today. Well, except for this. And since it is less than 300 words , it...

Before coming to work on the International Space Station (ISS) I worked in one of the specialty chemical companies along what is affectionately known as “Chemical Row,” a section of highway not far from where I currently live. This section of the Gulf Coast is a major petrochemical area, so a lot of people work in the industry. I worked there for seventeen years, as a young engineer in a lot of different areas. One of my bosses from there, a very clever guy, is now CEO of the Corporation and is about to make about a hundred million dollars on a buyout, give or take a few million. Crazy stuff.  But the ISS had appeal for the glamour of the job as well as the technical challenges. I was here when the first part of the Station went up, when the first section was manned. I am still here now that the Shuttle isn’t flying any more.  That won’t last long, I guess. NASA won’t need most of us, and they’ll downsize more of us. This area really is full of rocket scientists. The rea...

A few years ago I came up with some rules for writers. Since the age of ten I've written things. Usually snippets. Most are lost in the waste left over from too many moves, too many new destinations, too few fresh starts. When computers came around I used the new technology to accumulate some writings, but most of those are lost as well, vanished in crashed drives or moved computers.  My daughter writes. She writes well. My youngest brother writes. He writes well. His stories captivate me. At this time neither one is published. Neither am I.  Somewhere in my fuzzy brain, after one too many discussions of stories and plots, I drafted some rules to follow when writing. I have one rule when discussing writing with other writers. Our pact as writers - give the honest appraisal and be nice. (The short form: No BS)  I also crafted three simple rules for developing a good story. It's generic, but it works. 1. Create a great, but imperfect main charac...

When the Nazi war machine rolled over Poland it overcame stiff resistance in the city of Lodz. On September 8 , 1939 the Polish forces in Lodz were defeated and Lodz became Litzmannstadt. As in many other Polish cities, the German inhabitants welcomed the Reich with open arms, paving the way to become the influential citizens of the city. The native Polish residents were now second-class citizens. The Jewish inhabitants fared even less well. We don't know much about Hertha's life when she was younger. She was a young girl when the invasion occurred, merely 14 years old, pretty and part of a moderately wealthy family. Life for her continued almost normally for a few more years. Only a few times did the change of leadership impact her directly. She told the story, years later, of seeing a young Jewish girl severely beaten by other townspeople and trying to help the girl. Even as an old woman, when she told this story she wept.  Litzmannstadt provided fabric goods for the Nazis...

Humility is a very misunderstood form of Grace in one's heart. Thinking less of yourself than is legitimate is not humility. In a perverse sort of way, it is a pride. Thinking more of yourself than is legitimate is, indeed, false pride. What we want is a balance, or as is stated in Romans "Do not think more highly of yourself than you ought to think, but think so as to have sound judgement, as God has allotted to each a measure of faith." In the sermon today I heard that God won't use someone with the best skills, but will always find someone who is humble. Anything we have can be taken away from us. Our looks (which will fade with time), our intelligence (I knew a brilliant man who could barely tie his shoes after his car accident), and our relationships (and we all know that one). But what cannot be taken away is what God gives us freely, a relationship with Him. So be careful of pride. It strikes the young, who are invulnerable. It strikes the elder, who ha...

There is a post on the Escape from America Magazine site titled “ Do you want to Become an Expat Retiree for the Right Reasons? ” The author offers ten good reasons to become an Expat. I’ll paraphrase. Fascinated by other cultures Willing to leave loved ones Willing to learn another language Willing to use alternative transportation Willing to shop differently Have a sense of adventure, especially for food Willing to deal with cultural diversity, which might seem like adversity You are self-sufficient You love new cultures and being part of them You want to assimilate. Ignoring the political commentary, since I’m not sure I agree, but that’s okay, the author offers a list of NOT good reasons to become an Expat. The USA is headed for fiscal disaster and you want to avoid it The value of the US Dollar is collapsing, and the economy is tanking The USA is becoming Socialist Your white race is being diluted by immigrants The UN is taking over the USA...

I am struggling with our APP submission to Apple. Let me back up. A few months back my buddy Rex and I, along with Darling, decided to venture into the crazy world of application programming. We had an idea that seemed like it would be good - we still have that idea - but it was beyond our meagre programming abilities at that point.  Nevertheless, we came up with a project that uses only a fraction of the capabilities of the iPhone but allowed us to step in and program. We based it on a spreadsheet I wrote years ago. The spreadsheet generates random technical sentences. Every engineer I worked with thought they were funny. Expanding on that idea we created Techno-Jargon. Mathematically it has over 100 MILLION unique sentences it can generate. We have a list of 102 adverbs, 103 subject phrases, 100 verbs and 100 object phrases. So do the math. In practice, though, the adverbs only add a bit of flavor to the phrase. The verb can make it funny, but there are quite a few verba...

Being neglectful of my blog has bothered me somewhat. Not as much as it might, considering I have other things on my plate, but enough that I’ve decided I need a blogging schedule and should stick to it. Therefore, after much consideration and rumination, I will make a post on every day of the month that is a prime number. Not counting the number 1, since by definition, one isn’t a prime number. This will force me to make numerous posts at the beginning of the month, when, supposedly, I have more energy. This is a total fallacy, since the beginning and end of months have little meaning to me anymore. However, one must make some sort of schedule, and this is it, by personal decree. Today is the second, therefore a prime number, hence a post. My workplace has had a thirty-day challenge for physical fitness. Not being the most physically of the fit, I did finish a bit over my goal of five thousand steps a day. That isn’t much, and for younger people out there it is entirely laughable,...