Archive for the 'Personal' Category

You may have noticed that I’ve been “out of pocket.”

I’ve been very ill. Hopefully in recovery now, but posting may still be a bit slow.

Thanks for dropping by to my regular readers. I have been out of town at a professional conference and presenting a publication.

I will probably be a bit more regular with postings.

I’m recently back from a business trip and professional conference in Idaho Falls.  At the end of the conference I decided to do a bit of hiking.  I headed up to the Tetons.  Here is one picture of a less snow covered area.

At least the path is worn well enough that it can be seen.  Everyone else turned around a short time after this photo was taken.  I kept going, and seemed to be the only one up there.  On up the trail I passed a really nice Asian dude who talked to me and recommended that I not move forward unless I had AllTrails on my phone.  We happened to have connectivity where we were at the time, and he assisted me in loading it up, downloading maps and getting the right trail (there were some trails with similar names).  Soon I lost connectivity.  It’s a good thing (and providential) that I ran into him.  This was the next scene a few miles further.  The trail had utterly disappeared.  Were it not for AllTrails, I would still be wandering in the Tetons.

The snow was five or six feet deep in places, and while I could make decent progress at times staying on top of the pack, I was “post holing” a lot.  A few times I fell into tree wells and had to claw my way out.  That’s an awful lot of work.  The Asian dude had not only trekking poles, but snow shoes as well.

Also, I’ll comment that with more unenlightened among us sometimes I often have wondered why a man doesn’t just “swim” out of snow (e.g., during an avalanche).  Yea, that’s impossible.  Put your leg into snow hip deep and it’s like cement.

The trail was the Taggart and Bradley Lake trail in the Tetons.  I wasn’t properly prepared for the hike.  I did make it, but not without a slog.  I didn’t pack my trekking poles because I didn’t want the additional space and weight in my luggage.  That was a profoundly stupid decision but I didn’t know at the time that the trails would be in this condition.  Going up there without snow shoes made it very difficult.

The second day I decided to do something a bit tamer and stay closer to Idaho Falls (within about an hour of the city).

The Idaho and Wyoming area is beautiful country for sure.  But the Northwest had a very deep snow pack this year.  Be prepared when you go into the bush.  I wasn’t.  I could have gotten into trouble in the Tetons.

Thanks for all the notes.  TCJ was down for some maintenance.

Light posting tonight.  Please see PGF’s post on inflation.  Discuss other issues as you see fit.

I buried my mother today.  I’m not feeling the urge to post and analyze.

Be back tomorrow, maybe.

I hope you had a great Christmas and celebrated the advent of our Lord with your Family.  I also hope that you grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ in the coming year.

For one special reader out there – you know who you are and I won’t mention your name because you wouldn’t like it – I am left completely speechless and dumbfounded by the gift.  I am certainly undeserving of it, but that’s what grace is all about.  Being undeserving, having done absolutely nothing to earn it.  That is perfectly exemplary of Christmas and redemption.

Thank you.

I cannot say enough about the value of you and your wife’s friendship with my wife and me.

Info.

Food Poisoning turned out to be a MAD infection. His diabeetus didn’t help the issue, so they had to lop off his foot, then his leg, as the infection was/is spreading. They’re fixin’ to make it even MOR stumpy as the infection still isn’t under control. He’s in critical/ICU level condition …

Mike will need prayers.

Pinnacle.  With daughter and middle son.  They hike like gazelles.  But I kept up with them.  Mostly.  I was ready for dinner.

I’ve wanted to post this for a while, but just didn’t get around to it.  This is a double burger from Fletcher’s in Gastonia, N.C.  A full pound of beef.  It was awesome.  What a good day.

I said coming changes, and actually, the changes I intend to make are ongoing and current.  Please read the entire post so that you understand why this blog is changing, both in the posts and in comments.

For some time now I’ve been exhausted at the loathsome duty to post more political content.  I do hate it so much.  It bores me, and it drags me down, and I think it does with readers too.  I think I have been sucked into the morass that defines where America is today.  In fact, I have actually come to dread posting content.

America is a country of ten second sound bites, screaming, impatience, ignorance, lack of intellectual focus, poor attention span, poo-slinging and name calling, with comments by even me and over this web site by readers more outlandish by the day on what should be done, what someone else is going to do, or what must happen in order to save America.  None of the things we’ve been discussing will save America.

As Paul directed, I intend to lead a quiet life, work, take care of my family, teach them, be a good neighbor, and most of all, follow my Lord and savior Jesus Christ.  I don’t do any of that perfectly, but it’s my goal.

I also have a lot of focus on necessary things around the home, such as repair, painting, yard work and so forth.  This will take some time.  For too long now I’ve devoted too much time to this blog and too little to the necessary things.  I’ve have literally thousands of books on theology, and they need my attention.  I want to replace by dear Heidi-girl at some point, whom I still grieve, and get another female Dobie, and as you know, it takes intense focus the first half year of their lives to have a good companion.  My posting in 2021 will probably be less frequent and more focused when I post.

I am making some changes.  I will revise the “About” page, dump the blogroll, and work primarily on my own prose and thoughts rather than hitching a ride on the backs of others.  I intend to focus in the coming future on God, family, guns and survival (to include everything outdoors).

I am an engineer, and I love well-designed, well-built, well-functioning machines.  I always will.  I will discuss the mechanics of firearms and ballistics.  I love God.  I love my family, and I always seem drawn to survival and the outdoors.

I’m dumping politics.  I will discuss politics only sparsely if at all (and then only as it comes up in the context of theology, Jesus is King), I will not “endorse” candidates, I will not engage in name-calling or claims about what I intend to do about anything.

Nor will I countenance outlandish comments that make this blog (or its author) or the readers more at risk in the troubles surely to come.  Understand what I’m about to say.  This web site uses the WordPress overlay.  It is not a WordPress blog and it is hosted on a secure location, not servers owned by WordPress.

But since it uses WordPress, it keeps email addresses and IP addresses.  I don’t know how to make it not do that, and I don’t have the time to figure that out.  Any web site can be hacked.  I am watching out for readers too.  I truly don’t think readers understand the trouble to come, based on the ridiculous, outlandish comments and blog posts I’m seeing at other sites.

Besides, as I said before, this web site has sunk into similar behavior, and I won’t let it.  The only other option is to shut it down.

I want this to be a web site of thinking men, scholars, men who are slow to react or opine, judicious with their words and observations, and excited to read and discuss the things I want to: God, family, guns and survival.

Finally, I’m convinced that America doesn’t fully understand how much trouble it’s in.  We need a theological reformation and spiritual revival before any revival of America can occur.  Currently it’s just another pagan nation, and God’s judgment is upon us.  A basis and foundation in faith and family will give men a sure substratum on which to build their lives in good times and bad that guns and patriotism can never supply.

I hope you understand my decisions.  I expect to lose readers.  That’s okay.  You don’t need me or my prose to see the next bit of “news.”  It’s everywhere.  You don’t need my ten second synopsis involving name-calling or poo-slinging.  That demeans me and readers.