tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-117249872024-03-12T16:11:51.269-07:00Darth Weasel Jedi Mind tricks youIt runs the gamut from philosophical musings to historical observations to comedy writing to news commentary and more.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger2213125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11724987.post-58898443628316391892023-12-07T17:57:00.000-08:002023-12-07T17:57:39.895-08:00On "Cambridge Round Table on Science and religion: Dr James Tour and Dr Lee Cronin" from 2023
The origin of the video to be discussed can be found on youtube but looking up "Cambridge Round Table on Science and Religion: Dr James Tour and Dr Lee Cronin"
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here have been a lot of bold claims made about Origin of Life Research.In a recent study wherein 84% of the people were college educated with most having degrees, the following two claims found great acceptance.
1, Have scientists created Frogs in a lab? A third of the public said yes.
2, Have scientists working under simulations of Earth’s early atmosphere mixed molecules together in a laboratory to create single-cell life forms? (AKA bacteria) 67% of the public said yes.
There has been an ongoing battle over whether these claims are true and whether the claims being made harm science. Lets meet some of the players.
Dr James Tour is quite an accomplished synthetic organic scientist and professor. His bona fides are incredible and he is well recognized in his field of synthetic chemistry.
As a rough gauge, scientists have what is known as their “H-index” which takes into account their peer-reviewed published papers, how often those are interacted with, cited and so forth. A score of 20 is 40, 40 impressive and by the time you reach 60 you are exceptional. One study showed that something like 84% of Nobel Prize winners in the science disciplines had a H-index of 60 or better.
Tour sits at 150. I believe the highest ever recorded is 172…so…he is up there.
He brings in a tremendous amount of funding for research to Rice University, in collaboration with his students they have started numerous businesses, hold a bunch of patents and they have invented some really cool things. Check out his “nanocars” as just one example.
A few years ago he started to fall out of favor with a certain segment of the Origin of life scientific community. He had the temerity to notice that some claims that were being made were not what the papers being published said and he pointed that out. Repeatedly.
As he began to object more strenuously, pointing out that the chemical interactions were impossible it drew the ire of an internet personality who calls himself “Professor Dave” on Youtube, and his name is Dave Farina.
Things escalated to the point they had a public debate at Rice. The debate is hard to watch. Farina, completely out of his depth in the chemistry portion, resorts to ad hominem, profanity laced bromides while Tour, upset that Farina cannot see the chemistry Tour has written on the board for all to see, responds with an escalated voice and shouting.
They then fire shot after shot on youtube. And from an informational and factual standpoint Tour absolutely destroys Farina. He goes into the papers that Farina has taken the abstract and point by point by point shows that the papers not only do not prove the claims in the abstract but often contradict them.
Farina responds by calling Tour clueless and a fraud without showing an iota of evidence. He then manipulates some videos to make it look like experts in the field agree with him.
Tour talks directly to the experts who mostly have never even heard of Farina much less talked to him and who universally say that Farina’s claims are wrong.
Tour also goes and shows how each of Farina’s experts actually confer with Tour. And then he reaches the moment of truth. He lays out a challenge to 10 leaders in the research field, primarily those whose papers are the bulk of the debate.
He selects 5 questions and the ten experts. Questions he weights heavily in their favor. He lays out 5 questions and suggests that if any of the ten key researchers can answer any of the 5 essential questions they are allowed to decide if they answered any of the 5 questions and if they so decide, he will remove all his content.
He lets them start with a lof of stuff that could not exist in the conditions being discussed (more on this below)
-All 19 canonical chiral amino acids, nucleotides, monosaccharides in 100% enantiomeric purity
You have to make
1) Polypeptides
2) Polynucleotides
3) Polysachharides
4) Come up with the origin of specified information
5) Form them into textbook definition of a cell
Answer any one of those.
Of the 10 experts, 2 sort of engaged. Steve Benner claimed he could answer one of them in an hour. Tour offered to fly to his office while Benner did the work but he said because of health and time he could not solve it. Bold answer…something that has never been answered he can answer in an hour…but doesn’t have the time to. Okay.
Lee Cronin did answer. This seems like a good time to meet Cronin, who is no slouch himself. He is a chemist professor at the University of Glasgow with an H-index of 81. In case you are curious…that puts him in the top 2% of people in his field.
He is also one who as long ago as 2010 in a Ted Talk said he would make life in his lab within 2 years. (Others in the challenged list made similar time claims.)
He is to be commended because, while he either could not or would not reveal the answer to any of the five questions (spoiler alert: could not as comes out in the video), he agreed to meet with Tour ina Cambridge Round Table on Science and Religion to be held at Harvard.
That just happened and it was illuminating.
So lets take a look at each person’s beliefs and what they are trying to do as it really colors what happens in the video.
Tour makes no bones about it. He believes in God and believes deeply. He also is extremely scrupulous in his teaching, in his scientific research, and in his presentations to speak only from and about science. The only time you hear God brought up is people accusing him of putting God into it.
He believes in the billions of years or “deep time” teaching and believes evolution did occur. He just thinks the research has not only not shown how life began, that it is nowhere close with any number of fatal flaws, but he has explicitly stated many times, “I believe we will discover how it began. We just haven’t done that yet and we need to stop lying to people that we have.”
Cronin on the other hand is a proud atheist whose hatred of God comes out in many of his videos, tweets and speeches. He also believes in deep time, evolution as originator and guide of development of life and will freely admit that we haven't discovered the answer yet.
In a way, that is what makes this Round Table both funny and tragic. These guys believe the same thing but are arguing about it as if they don’t.
When the video begins the moderator is unintentionally funny. There are two rules for this Round Table on Science and Religion.
First, the speakers will only speak from science, no religion allowed.
I mean…it is in the title…but okay. Your show, your rules and I actually think in this case it is a good one. And as the night goes on, Tour speaks exclusively from, by, and about science. Cronin takes at least three shots at God and those who believe and multiple panelists bring God into it, mostly trying to say Tour only challenges the science because of his belief in God.
The second rule is even better. One person speaks at a time, both in the initial presentation, later in the smaller groups at the various tables, and then in the final panel.
I have generally found debates to be worthless and largely because this rule is seldom followed. I have had people show me any number of videos from tabloids like CNN, Fox, the View, or professional agitators like Kendi, Shapiro or Kirk.
They are pointless and valueless. Neither side allows the other to finish their question or expound on it, they almost inevitably devolve into both sides shouting past each other with little to no informational content and the person whose mind is changed by these bits of theater ought to have their head examined.
That goes for the upcoming Presidential debates. Take a relatively simple idea…say what is inflation. Try to explain the causes, effects, and ramifications in an hour. Now condense that to 3 minutes when the opponent is spouting feel-good rehearsed sound bites that say nothing but win the crowd.
Pointless.
Well, Tour makes several excellent points that I will try really hard to condense and highlight without just repeating what he said.
First off is he is looking at the definition of Abiogensis: Life springing from non-living matter taking into account earth as it existed 4 billion years ago and the materials must be pre-biotically relevant so you are restricted to the materials, procedures and conditions that might have been available on early earth.
Well, lets take a look at just this opening salvo.
Assumption 1) life springing from non-living matter
It is shocking that in a world that has seen Louis Pasteur do his famous experiments on spontaneous generation that this is still considered legitimate. Well, not that shocking because as is replete in the scientific literature, the very scientific thought that “the other option is God and we know there is no God so it must have happened” shows why this base assumption is taken seriously.
Assumption 2 “earth as it existed”
Papers are continuously being written on what elements did or did not exist when the earth formed. Papers are constantly being written trying to figure out how the earth formed as…well, in the community it is a well known fact that under the Big Bang model, earth cannot exist as it does because the proximity to the sun would not allow water to stay in those conditions and the “planetary accretion model” that allegedly formed the earth has been disproven but we know the earth is here so even though there is no known way for it to have formed under the models, we assume the models are right. Look at the papers, I am not kidding, that is the situation.
Assumption 3 “4 billion years ago”
I could write so much on deep time but I don’t want to spoil a lot of the work I have been doing in preparation for next year. There are so many holes in the deep time hypothesis that we will just leave it at this; you can throw out whatever number you want and as long as it is long people will not argue it. They can’t show it and it is based on huge numbers of guesses and assumptions, but as long as it is billions you will find acceptance.
Assumption 3 Pre-biotically relevant (sub-heading materials)
This is several assumptions rolled into one.Nobody really knows, if the earth formed out of the elements thought to have been created by the Big Bang, which ones were present in what proportions. You can basically just plug and play and add a dash of this and a pinch of that to your heart's content knowing that since nobody knows, your guess is as good as theirs and is better since it is you and not them.
Assumption 4 Procedures
We think of there being 3 laws of Thermodynamics. This is not accurate but it is a thought. We also know of gravity, atoms, and so forth. When did these laws develop? How? What keeps them in place? These are important questions.
For example, in the planetary accretion model it is thought that swirling clouds of gas and dust became small rocks. These rocks banged together and, improbably, instead of breaking into smaller ones, stuck together. This happened again and again until they became large enough to have their own gravity field large enough to pull in more material and behold, planets formed!
Of course, gravity doesn’t work that way. For that matter, neither do rocks slamming into each other at high speed. So the procedures? Why, those are whatever we think might work and are, by definition, guesses and assumptions.
Assumption 5: Conditions
Not knowing the elements present, or the quantities they are in, or what laws of nature are functioning as they currently are believed to, how can you get to any reasonable facsimile of an intelligent guess at what the world was like? The “Prebiotic Soup” model will come up a bunch…and for good reason. It can be whatever the paper writer wants it to be knowing nobody can prove it wrong. They can’t show it right…but since so many levers can be pulled, it can’t be conclusively shown wrong. As becomes a theme, “you can’t prove a negative.”
As Tour continues, he states one goal: Paraphrased, he says, “We are seeking an experimentally verifiable hypothesis of how life might have originated.”
I can appreciate that. They are not even trying to determine what happened, just one of however many ways it could have happened. They are trying to find out if it is even possible.
That feels like a far cry from “all life arose from a single celled organism to become rabbits, radishes, rhinocereous, and guys named Rand.” Care to guess whether the public believes that is already known as a proven fact?
Tour uses some of Cronin’s statements and it is one Tour agrees with…a shocking theme on the evening I am not sure the two of them even realize. They believe the same thing. HEre is the paraphrase:
The most basic unit of matter that could undergo Darwinian Evolution is the cell. It must exhibit these features:
Genetic code
Mating
Metabolism
Adaptation
Homeostasis
He reiterates his theme, which I emphasize because of how many times he says it and how as we will see people do not understand what he is trying to do.
Tour: “I think that we will one day find out how life began. But I don’t think we are anywhere close.”
He then makes some excellent points: we have learned a lot about the cell, how it is assembled, how it works and functions. But as we learn one thing, it opens us to previously unknown questions. Answering one question might give rise to 3, 5, 10 or more questions. Solve one of those and even more are opened up.
As the night goes on at one point he demonstrates that given all the components of a cell we don’t know how to assemble one.
Think of the ramifications of that. A lot of well-funded, very smart people working in teams in sophisticated labs with incredibly powerful computational devices in all their wisdom cannot assemble what they think happened by being randomly put together in incredibly hostile environments that would not allow time for it to survive much less reproduce.
He then addresses another key point that is well worth thinking on. “Chemistry is the language of living systems”.
Most of the rest of his opening statement is pointing out issues that have arisen:
-molecules have never been known to move toward life, either on their own or through deliberate research efforts
- reaction chemistry is really hard to force toward life if even possible
He also points out a basic flaw, and while he cites Cronin you will find this is true in the Origin of Life community as a whole:
“..calls the “Probiotic Soup Model’ a good model without any rationale as to what makes it a good model”.
This is part of a sub-theme. He calls a key Cronin paper, “Formation of Oligopeptides in High Yield Under Simple Programmable Conditions” garbage and has similar words about “Taming the Combinatorial Explosion of the Formose Reaction via Recursion Within Mineral Environments”.
This hurts Cronin’s feelings and as he later says, paraphrased, “Calling a paper garbage without saying why it is garbage is garbage.” Valid point and he is right to be hurt.
But both elements are there: models aren’t good “because I say so” or bad for the same reason. Show the strong points and date or the weak points and contradictions.
He then sets out a series of problems of which any single one is a fatal blow to any claim that we have established Origin of Life and how it even could have happened, much less how it did
Nobody has shown a method to make the 4 elements (Lipids, Polysaccharides, Polynucleotides, and polypeptides)
Nobody has shown a way we can use substances that landed on earth via meteorites
Nobody has solved the mass transfer problem in chemical transformation from small molecules to a cell
Nobody has shown probiotic route to polymerization
You can’t hook the sugars together to get there
Nobody has solved the side chain issue
Nobody has solved the protein folding problem to do even one and you need to have several; it would take 10 to the 95th power to fold one, we think 10/40 is time allowed and 10 to the 19th is the estimated number of elements in the universe
Nobody has solved the polymer stability problem when dealing with single molecules….time is the enemy
Example: RNA molecule lifetime is 4 hours in a pristine lab…if the right Rna and DNA happen to form in “early earth conditions” you need 13 days and you have 4 hours at most
Nobody has solved the problem with half of the amino acids needing side chain protection
Nobody has solved the code problem for ordering the nucleotides/saccharides/proteins
One of my favorites, nobody has ever shown that life could form with lower enantiomeric-excess mixtures which would mitigate the need for chiral induced spin selectivity…
Nobody has made any higher order structures; he lists 12, of which none have been made for even the simplest cell
Nobody, even if given the 4 classes of molecules, in any order desired order and being given the informational code coupe prepare even the most simple cell
He spends some time discussing the 5-question challenge he laid out and addresses Cronin’s email reply where Cronin says, “I don’t even agree with the questions. The emergence of life goes beyond these narrow questions.”
A fine answer that loses a bit when you realize he has published papers on two of them and addressed two others recently in podcasts. So he at the least thinks about them.
Then we get into some sniping where he uses quotes Cronin has made about him not understanding information and making use of a lengthy Cronin quote about Origin of Life research being a scam. Cronin will pass that off as a joke. Read his statement or watch the video where he says it…interpret for yourself if it is a joke.
Whether he meant it to be or not, he makes some really telling points about the gap between what people say they have done and what they have done, between what they say they know and what the research shows is known…
And coming toward the latter portion, Tour spends time talking about Cronin’s recent publication “Assembly Theory”. He then quotes responses to it that pretty much call it a fatally flawed theory that is a pale imitation of Huffman’s coding scheme that counts repetitions in strings of data and quotes a statement, “though, unlike Assembly Theory, Huffman actually counts correctly…”
Ouch.
But Tour also points out that Assembly Theory abandons reaction chemistry, the underlying point being that reaction chemistry is what these guys believe makes the first non-living cell suddenly become living work. So that is a pretty telling accusation.
Tour is nearing the end of his opening statement and he lays out a series of predictions:
Cronin, a chemist, will not discuss anything tonight about the chemical reaction leading to life’s origin
Cronin will remain silent on polypeptides, polynucleotides, and polysaccharides or any sort of polymerization
Asks will people leave with more understanding of cell assembly.
Let's throw up a big, blinking neon “Spoiler Alert” sign here:
Cronin will not discuss chemical Reactions.
He will not discuss the 4 elements.
He will not explain in any meaningful way how cells could assemble.
He then clearly, explicitly states his goals. This is a huge moment; he has said this repeatedly.. He has said it in published papers. He has said it in his debate versus Farina. He has said it in numerous videos. He said it earlier on this evening.
Stop overambitious projections regarding the state of Origin of Life research.
Don’t Abandon the basic reactions of chemistry.
Concede that we do not YET (emphasis his) sufficiently understand chemical reactions to project toward life. There are enormous scientific mysteries left to unfold and we might still be hundreds of years from understanding.
This last point is one he has mentioned several times in his videos, lectures, and so forth. A favorite example of his has to do with 250 years ago it was not even known there was such a thing as a human genome and now it is mapped. That is a tremendous leap forward in knowledge that has raised even more questions. Consider the progress and how much more we need to learn but what will we know in 100, 200, 300 years from now?
And he concludes with a joke, “I agree with Lee Cronin.” and he shows a Cronin tweet that simply says, “Origin of Life Research is a scam.”
Lee Cronin Opening Statement
So then Cronin gets his time to present his case. He addresses a key theme for him early. As mentioned earlier, he addresses the “calling a paper garbage without saying why it is garbage is garbage.”
Note that he does not defend the paper. In fact, as he goes on he will defend none of his work including Assembly Theory, admitting it “might be wrong” without countering the things that show it to be wrong. His issue is more how the statement that it is wrong is presented.
He interjects this thought repeatedly. As he starts a wandering diatribe on how our galaxy or solar system is now seen as heliocentric. He takes time to talks about “All the problems? Yes, we can solve them” without explaining how or addressing that people believe them solved.
This is the central point of disagreement. He and Tour both know there are problems. They both know the public has been deceived. To Tour this is a big deal and to Cronin the big deal is not even what Tour says but how he says it.
Which brings us back to his discussion of the heliocentric. Without understanding his issue with Tour, the digression makes zero sense. What he is trying to do is show that once perhaps it was thought the earth was thought the center of the universe and then it became known the earth orbits the sun. Progress! The problem was only a problem for a time.
In other words, as per his email, he is taking the time honored tactic of not answering the question asked but rather answering the question you wish was asked.
He takes another shot at the volume Tour delivered his remarks in due to his passion. He cannot assail the content so he makes ad hominem attacks and tongue in cheek insults and is fine with his way of doing it because it isn’t loud.
It is pretty ingenious and a deep level of hypocrisy that he will not be called out on over the course of the evening.
He goes on to make assumption after assumption after assumption…”What we see here is a product of evolution, learning and selection.”
His point is the tables, tablecloths, dishes and utensils are a result of evolution. These inanimate objects were designed and assembled by people who his assumption says are a product of evolution, learning and selection.
Get used to that word selection., It is Cronin’s god within his god of evolution and make no mistake…they are his gods.
He returns to two of his themes: the insults and whether problems are problems, saying Tour says “I am a bad chemist. I am here to say these aren’t problems, they are opportunities. We can solve them.”
Again…he is in agreement with Tour that these things will be solved, it is just not known when. It is hilarious and sad at the same time how much these two agree with each other but don’t see it because of the approach.
Reframing a problem as an “opportunity” is a nice bit of terminology sleight of hand. An opportunity to learn? Sure. Something that investigation may reveal heretofore unknown knowledge, issues and potentially solutions? Yes…but they are still fatal problems as the state of the field now stands and simply renaming them does not change that basic fact.
Therein lies their disagreement. Starting to sound familiar?
He has a very insightful remark when he says of Perceptual Filters that when new “technologies of perception emerge, they allow us to see more of reality.”
This is so true. More powerful microscopes have allowed us to delve ever further into the world of atoms. Particle Accelerators allowed us to find quarks. More powerful telescopes are showing further into space and (as I quite enjoy) causing a spate of new research articles pointing out the new James Webb images are causing a raging debate where some scientists, seeing they new distant images don’t fit the model declaring the Big Bang model dead while others are saying those people don’t know what they are talking about…
See, the new perceptions and seeing more of reality then fall into the realm of interpretation. As many scientists like to say, “science doesn’t say anything. It produces data to be interpreted” or similar phrases.
Well, part of Cronin’s new technology of perception is his recent paper on Assembly Theory. His defense of it is amazing. He doesn’t address the problems, he doesn’t say they are incorrect.
He says, “Yes, there may be problems, but look at the engagement. Yes, it might be wrong, but it might be less wrong.”
As he goes on about it he makes a fascinating statement that, again, shows him in agreement with Tour who in his remarks talks about finding a way life might have begun.
Cronin: “...why I think it is not relevant to look at THE origin of life, is I want to accept that chemistry, and I am a chemist, chemistry does not take billions of years to produce a life form. Evolution does take a long time, but reaction chemistry seems faster. So there’s a quandary here.”
This is as close as he comes to discussing chemistry. Potentially this is a partial response to Tour pointing out all the claimed time in the universe is not enough time for a single protein to fold, that there is not enough time for a cell to form before the elements would kill it, that said cell even if it somehow miraculously formed would not have time to reproduce.
Cronin’s answer? “Well, it is fast.” The answer he gives to it is not fast enough is…”it is fast.”
Color me convinced! No further questions, your honor. I mean, sure, it doesn’t address the problem, just gives a GM Hand Wave and off we go.
He then invokes his god to dismiss any other God, saying, “If we aren’t in a simulation and not some other fictitious creation, then there is another process going on.”
See, some people who have seen the numerous fatal problems the Big Bang has going on have proposed a couple of really fun ideas to explain how we exist. One is the “multiverse” where there are infinite universes where every possible thing that could happen, no matter how unlikely, has happened…including one where I am typing this, exact in every detail except I have one fewer hair in my left eyebrow and another where I have no eyebrow and another where…
And if this is not ridiculous enough, then knowing how hard it is for non-life to produce life, the idea is we are not alive at all. You don’t exist, I don’t exist…except as a computer program. Some hyper-intelligent race has developed such computing power that they are running a program simulating what life would be like under thus and such circumstances.
Not thinking that idea is stupid enough yet? Well, Simulation Theory then posits that inside that simulation is a society so market they have their own simulation so we might be in that one…or the one that one created…
We are well past any even thought of science and into the realm of science fiction with a healthy does of banality. It also just moves the problem of initial life to whoever started the first simulation.
Well, Cronin is not going down the road of simulation. He is not going down the road of figuring out how life started. He wants to talk about the problem of what does exist.
Did you see the sleight of hand he used to completely shift it? He purports to be an Origin of Life researcher. But he is not going to research how it started. He is going to start after life has already developed.
See, he has never left his thoughts on Assembly Theory even as he takes these side trips. See, with Assembly Theory, you assume you have whatever building blocks you want. If say…a saccharide ever existed, the universe has a memory of it.
How does a universe that has no guiding force, no mind, no goal, no end it is working toward, no brain or storage function have memory?
It just does, so stop asking questions. Remember, problems aren’t problems, they are opportunities. There will now be a brief pause as I rolled my eyes so hard they are in the other room.
See, he likes to say the universe is big, but combinatorial space is bigger. And so random peptides and saccharides and lipids form…not all at once…but the universe has a memory of them and with all that time and so many chances at some point they combine and abracadabra, you have a cell.
I use Abracadabra because it is the word he uses to dumb down Assembly Theory for us mere mortals. Count the A’s. Once you have one, why, you can use it as much as you want. Oh, look, AB in combination…we have almost spelled Abracadabra. It is that easy to assemble these parts!
My sarcasm gene is in high gear at this point. And he goes on with a series of guesses.. “If this…if this…if that…then maybe”.
Color me convinced that this incredibly unlikely thing that violates pretty much every scientific principle happened because otherwise how can we explain it? Guesses and saying how it might have happened are enough!
And then, knowing how weak his argument is, he brings in his god while mocking God the Creator in one go.
“...some other designer…NO. It was made by one process and one process alone…selection and evolution. The watchmaker was evolved, was he not?”
Well…no, no he was not. See, Cronin holds so tightly to the idea that this mindless force selection moves things towards success. How do you define success when you have no goal and no intellect pushing it? Well, one process and one process alone…selection and evolution.
Let me do a quick count…selection, that is one, evolution, that is one…yep, the math checks out. I know, cheap shot, but some of his cheap shots really irritated me and this was pretty low hanging fruit. Especially as he would consider selection as part of evolution.
This seems like an excellent time to point out another major problem with his philosophy. Evolution as he believes it to be has no intellect, no mind, no brain, no goal, no structure…evolution to him is a name to explain what he believes we see has happened.
And yet he assigns it every trait one would expect of his mortal enemy (and mine, truth be told), “Intelligent Design”. This selection he harps about…it is not a law of nature. It is, for Cronin, inextricable from evolution as it occurred, and inviolable. It guides and steers, corrects and creates.
And of course he has to return to two of his favorite themes.
“I like making provocative statements to get people to think, not to get people to shout at me until they are hoarse.”
A clear shot at the volume and passion Tour has.
And then, referring to his paper, “When the Creationists got unhappy because it wasn’t creation-y enough, I was like, take a day off, my job is done.”
There may be someone somewhere that objects for that reason. He would know. The objections I saw from Creationists were because of the major, major issues Assembly Theory has. Problems, I repeat, he never says are not actual problems, problems he admits are there, problems he does not try to solve. But that is okay, even if it is bad science, even if it is untenable, if it gets the right people upset then it is good enough for him.
This is a major, major problem in the scientific community we will return to in the panel questions when talking about citations. It is not about their accuracy but who is using them…
I particularly like, in his explanation and definition oAssembly Theory, the very well researched, very well developed, extremely well thought out explanation of how having previously had that building block works.
“You can reuse any memory. You somehow have a memory…so it is not like Hofman coding.”
Well…that settles it nicely. You have memory for the time-honored parental reason. “Because I said so.” Well…he sure told me!
As he is winding down, he returns to a favorite topic.
Paraphrased, he says, “You have a problem. You develop a theory. You experiment. You get an explanation. Yes, you may not be accurate but that is the process. We want criticism.”
The unspoken part is “but just the right criticism from the right people. When we overstate what we know and can do, don’t call us out on that. And certainly don’t do it with a loud voice. And when what we say is pure unadulterated horse droppings, don’t point that out. And if you must point it out, don’t shout.”
He then closes with his picture of a bunch of Lego bricks that have a diagram assembling them to build a man. See? If you just have all the Legos, it is easy to build a Lego Man.
I don’t think he even realizes how this diagram makes Tour’s point, not his. Think about this, for a few moments.
Legos are made of Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene.. This is an engineered thermoplastic created from three polymers. Do you know what a polymer is? Britannica will tell you is is “any of a class of natural or synthetic substances composed of very large molecules, call macromolecules, that are multiples of simpler chemical units called monomers.”(1)
Now, we start out several steps up the chain already in Cronin’s building block example. Worse, think of all the other missing pieces: to build a single Lego pieces, you don’t just need to get these monomers to combine to make the polymers, you then need to mold them.
Go look up the Lego plant in Billund Denmark. It is incredibly cool to look at. Check out all the machines required to get the ABS ready to mold into the various shapes. Consider how those are assembled. Think about how the material for the walls, the nails and brackets in the walls, the roofing material, siding material were made. Consider all the transport vehicles and how much technology and design those have in them. The fuel for the plant, the fuel for the machines, the electricity for the lights…
We are talking millions and millions of things that had to be discovered, researched, experimented on, carefully designed to make the plant that takes a material which itself needs much of that to produce that building block of a brick.
Sure, building a Lego man is easy if you just assume all that is in place. The cell is more complicated than all of these things combined…
Look up some version of “How complicated is a cell”. You will get answers ranging from “more complicated than rush hour in New York City” to “more complicated than the space shuttle” to “the cell is more complex than the biggest city we have ever built”.
But for Cronin…eh, don’t sweat the small stuff. We can’t explain how something so complex spontaneously formed in impossible conditions but we know it did because it is here so we will just jump ahead millions of steps and start with a functional cell.”
So to sum up his opening statement: He is saying yes, James Tour, all the problems you mention and more exist and we don’t know the answers but don’t say it while shouting. We can’t explain it so we will just skip it with a hand wave but anyone who says God did it is a moron. My science may have been shown to be defective but it might be less defective than some other science. Be nice. Criticize, but only in the ways and of which subjects I approve.
The video then moves to the Dinner Table Segment
Dinner Table
The overall moderator is at the table with Cronin and Tour and makes a telling admission. He admits it “never occurred to me that evolution might have its flaws”.
He is, whether advertently or not admitting that when Tour says the overclaims are miseducating the public it is being done and done effectively.
Indeed, even if anyone reads all this that I write, I suspect there will be those among the readers who believe Darwinian Evolution, from non-life to single celled organism to descent with modification into species where all life comes from that initial cell is a proven fact.
It demonstrably is not. It is a patchwork of guesswork, assumptions, overriding evidence, and loud statements. What it is not in any way, shape, or form is proven. Far from it. As Tour pointed out, the more we learn the further we are from being even remotely close to being able to prove any of it and there is not only no evidence of life spontaneously generating, there is no evidence, no observed case, no case reproducible int he fossil record of any species ever becoming another species.
And yet people are hardline convinced it has been proven.
During the table conversation Cronin makes two interesting statements. The first is that Darwinian Evolution “is not about more complex, it is about fitness in the niche” and expounds on it explaining that sometimes it is a move towards the simple that fits the niche rather than something more complex. There are so many ramifications there a book could easily be written about that concept alone.
The second is a scathing indictment of evolution even though he does not realize it. He points out, “If I can’t measure or falsify it, it is garbage.”
Darwinian Evolution has never been observed. It has never been measured. It is never been reproduced. And it is carefully framed in such a way as to make it so it cannot be falsified. Any experiment that is done that shows the impossibility of change between species gets the same generic handwave. “Oh, it may not have happened that way but we know it happened.”
It is a magnificent defense that sidesteps the scientific process, all history of knowledge, and anything that goes against it.
The round table is great as first one of the other people at the table breaks loose with, “since this is a round table on science AND (his emphasis) religion, what are the stakes for you?”
TOur points out, “I did not inject religion into it all,” and starts talking about a relatively recent discovery from the last 25 years about something we did not know about previously, spin-induced chirality.
But Tour also points out the problem with the overclaims is claims that life has been successfully created have made it into text books from middle school on up through university and says this is bad…but not because it is false, but because if people think it is solved they will not go into the field.
Weird bit of reasoning. I understand what he is saying but I think it is a serious problem that things people know are false are intentionally placed in textbooks to deliberately teach lies and falsehoods to kids and the problem is not, “We are lying”, it is “people might not keep doing this thing that leads to lies.”
As the conversation goes on both Tour and Cronin keep going to the “there is a lot we have yet to learn” but the goal of it differs for them; to Tour it is “stop making claims we are close. There is a long way to go.” For Cronin it continues to be “don’t disagree THAT way”
He keeps pushing his “selection guides everything” idea along with “combination”.
They also have an exchange that I wonder how many people caught.
In discussing how molecules decay too rapidly to have a second generation to form in any specific time, the answer is, “Jim doesn’t look over a long enough time scale”.
Sure, it may be impossible in each specific segment of time but if you just stretch out the time long enough you can claim it could have happened at some point in that time frame. It is another neat dodge that allows a monstour handwave…”yes, being able to perform the necessary functions is impossible in any set amount of time but over long enough the impossible can be done because…time.”
Pe3r Cronin’s own words”it is garbage”. What you can measure and falsify says it can’t happen so you just say, “with more time it did happen without being able to measure or falsify it”.
I genuinely wonder if he does not see the logical and factual holes in his thoughts or if he is outright dishonest. I think there are clues in some of his other videos that show a lot of his views and assumptions but I am not in his head so will not go so far as to say I know.
The Panel
They move to a panel with the moderator, Cronin and Tour and three or four people who will be allowed to ask questions one at a time.
Right out the gate Randy Isaac points out it is a round table on science and religion and asks what the stakes are for religion in the debate.
Note how when the science is discussed it was pretty clear…with what is currently known, it is impossible for life to arise from non-life. There is a tremendous amount of work being done with varying amounts of forward progress but the more is learned, the further it ends up from showing any method by which life could have spontaneously generated, how life could have survived, how it could have developed, how it could have learned how to make eyes, lungs, hearts, veins, blood vessels, etc…and the answer is, “but religion”.
Why do they keep going back to the religious question? Because it is obvious that there are two options, life was a random, chance occurrence that defied the odds to exist at all and yet functions as if designed quite carefully…or it was created that way.
The inference is if you point out a flaw in the spontaneous generation, your motivation is not scientific progress but rather trying to prove God even if you never mention Him, allude to Him, or address Him. Even if you speak from and about science for the purpose of advancing science you must be trying to bring in God.
Cronin does, however, respond with some real insight when in his response to it he says “it is about culture. It is about understanding how special or common we are. It is about understanding what life is.”
Tour in his turn states he believes the Scripture that “all things were created by Him and for Him” and then goes right back to talking about, “you don’t have to be a believer to do great science.” His takeaway is the stakes for him are a greater appreciation WHEN (emphasis his) we figure out how life originated and evolved.
Isaac then tips his hand. “Tour, you don’t agree with Intelligent Design, but they use your work.”
They have an exchange where Tour points out his work is published. He neither gives nor denies anyone permission to cite his papers. It is simply there to be read, discussed, cited.. This causes Isaac great consternation.
See, Isaac cannot point out any flaws in the science people are doing but he hates their world view and thinks it is terrible they are allowed to cite scientific work.
This is a key issue. If you don’t think “the right way” then anything you do cannot be real science. You might use real data, perform real experiments, show real results but since you are not coming from their world view, and although they cannot find or point to a single flaw in your work, it is reprehensible in the eyes of people like Isaac that they be allowed to use the work of “real scientists”.
To people like Isaac, the No True Scotsman logic fallacy is their guiding principle. Bow at the altar of and worship Darwinian Evolution or you are not a real scientist. Point out the flaws in Darwinian Evolution and you are not a real scientist. Find data, perform experiments, write papers that do not match up with Darwinian Evolution and you are not a real scientist.
In fact, one favorite attack of people like Isaac…I don’t say Isaac, I know little about him…but for the Darwinian Evolution community, they dismiss Creationists out of hand because “you are not published in these journals”.
That is generally a true statement. What is not revealed is they do not accept submissions from Creationists. So it is impossible to get published in those journals. Pretty neat trick.We don;t let you publish here and since you can’t publish here you have no credibility because you aren’t published here.
Now, that is just another in the many flaws we see in the whole “peer review” process. Tour elsewhere has talked about how many things are submitted to him to “peer review” and freely admits he doesn’t have time to study the research, tables, data etc to verify it, “no one does”.
Even a far-left publication like the Guardian talked about how the nearly 5500 retractions in 2022 was nearly certain to be a vast underrepresentation of the amount of “research misconduct and error”. Look up the article Ivan Oransky and Adam Marcus published in August of 23 pointing out the massive problem.
Remember how Elizabeth Holmes built Theranos, the fraudulent blood-testing business? Blatant fraud in full public view that took years to discover. In this case they did not publish through normal channels…
But Diederiik Stapel did. Repeatedly. And fraudulently. Hwanf Woo-suk ring a bell? 25 articles from Dipak Das telling you how healthy red wine is? You can find hundreds of such cases.
Peer review is a pretty obviously flawed system that gatekeepers use to keep excellent scientists from publishing while allowing outright fraud to go through just fine. Well done.
Melissa Franklin creates a hypothetical on another subject that sums it up nicely. When Tour replies, she says, “That’s not what I want to hear, “ and explains what he should say.
Tour chides her, “you know what you want to hear” indicating she is not asking a legitimate question but instead asking a question that she will only accept her predetermined answer for.
She then switches tacts and says, :Should we be thinking more about time?”
Tour again points out it would take longer than the universe has existed for a single protein to fold, yet there are several proteins that need to fold just to get a molecule.
Cronin, never tired of making the same mistake, says, “I think protein folding is a category error. Proteins do not fold in isolation. Selection promotes molecules that can exist for a long enough time…”
And Later in the statement, :As soon as chemistry could start remember the selection process started”.
Do you see the massive, glaring holes? Proteins make up a molecule. Cronin wants to skip all that and jump ahead, the molecule already developed. It doesn’t matter how. It doesn;t matter that it is impossible to make the steps that lead to the molecule…we HAVE the molecule so even though they are impossible, those steps happened.
Ask yourself, does chemistry have a brain? What is the mysterious, guiding force that has no brain, has no agenda, has no sense of time or reality, yet has memory and guides selection?
This is Cronin’s god. This is his unyielding assumption that defies all logic, that defies all reality. If you just say that “selection”, and undefined process with no purpose or rules, in combination with “memory” that exists nowhere, combined with time, you have the impossible.
In the final word of the evening Tour says something interesting. “I have seen changes, they are a lot more measured.” He is referring to claims of origin of life researchers.
On the whole, it was an interesting evening. I would be shocked indeed if anyone had their mind changed. This is particularly true as both Tour and Cronin do believe life spontaneously occurred billions of years ago in some unknown fashion that led from a single molecule forming everything from a carrot to a rabbit, from a stinkbug to a potato, from bacteria to you and I.
They just disagree on how claims should be presented to the public. I am not sure they see that.
And yet if you just look at what was said on the evening and look at the foundations of what they are saying you can clearly see that in the depths of their belief they themselves show so many fatal flaws in Darwinian Evolution.
https://www.britannica.com/science/polymer
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11724987.post-86805102127583305402020-10-13T18:30:00.002-07:002020-10-13T18:30:03.937-07:00The tragedy of my sisters deathThe real tragedy of Sue's passing is it is hard to conceive of it as a tragedy. She lived as she chose and died the same way. A life of promise and hope ended as what, from where I sit, seems a sad, lonely, miserable, wasted life. But it was her choice.
If you are looking for one of those “preach her into heaven, she is an angel” memories, this is not it. If you think there is going to be some heartwarming moment of reconciliation…you will be bitterly disappointed. My interactions with Sue in the last 3 or 4 decades of her life were almost universally awful.
When I look at Sue’s life, I see little but disaster. The picture of her with her dogs was cool…it is the first legit smile I remember seeing on her since she was maybe 12. Nearly four decades of misery.
It did not start that way of course. There are some home movies from back when we were in Illinois of her riding her trike, me dragging my bum on the ground on the back step. Back in Oregon, there were some great times.
One of our favorite things to do growing up was going to Grandma Aldas and going swimming. The easy way to tell it was a 55 and older park was they had a Fanta soda machine. It was a super special treat when Mom, Sue and I would go to Grandmas, usually get pizza, go swimming, visit for a while, learn to play various versions of Rummy…
In fact, another favorite family memory was going to the Organ Grinder. Watching the old black and white movies, hearing the Organ. There were a lot of smiles and laughs and love. Of course it didn’t last.
School started pretty well. She went to Zatterbergs Kinder College a year ahead of me. Then a couple years at Montavilla Christian , then it became Crossroads. Our years in school give a clue as to how tragic her life became because it could have…and should have…been so different.
To brag on her first I have to brag on me for a bit. The ACE system involves Paces. It took 12 paces to equate to a years worth of schooling. For people who exceeded the basic requirements you got a trophy at I think it was 40, 60, 75, 100 and “most in the school” or something along that line.
At the end of the school year they had a ceremony where everyone who completed 40 paces got a trophy and there were several. Then those that finished 60 got one. Fewer. 75, maybe 3. 100 or more 2.
In every subject I was exceeding 75 paces and most subjects 100. I was doing more than anyone else in the entire school by 25 or more paces.
And Sue was doing that many more than me. When I say “everyone in the school” it really should read “everyone in the school except Sue who exceeded me at virtually every turn”. She was smart. She was really smart.
Well, in 4th grade, for a variety of reasons the finances did not allow continuation of going to private school in Portland. So we were put into public school. This began the downhill slide. Oh, not right away.
She started hanging out with different people. She got sneaky. Just one small example; my friend Carl and her friend Missy lived next door to each other. When it was time to come home, I was to leave Carls’, pick her up at Sue and we would walk home. Lets say curfew was 8. I would leave Carls at 7:50. 4 houses is not far to walk. Well, Sue would be like, “no, they don’t mean be home by 8, they mean leave at 8” and would stretch it out. I knew better but I went along with it. I could lay the blame on her if it came to that. Not a decision I was proud of…I was on my way to being a deceptive, manipulative, potentially dishonest person too.
Well, that is minor and no big deal but things like that became a pattern. Like I mentioned she started hanging out with different people. Many of them were older and none of them were better people. She started smoking the occasional found cigarette, hanging out with much older people. When Mom and Dad would go out, she would sometimes have them over. They were old enough to drive…I was 11 or 12 which means she was no older than 13 or 14 at that point. Yep, we are heading that way.
Sure enough, at some point Dad found out and forbid her from seeing these guys who were too old. Some of my siblings can tell you the name of the school counselors and teachers that caused the problems to get worse. They got her taken out of the home and placed with the older guy she wanted to sleep with.
Things got worse. It became a legal matter with a lot of high powered attorneys involved and it was ugly. At one point they threatened to take me out of the home.
Now, this is my reaction but there is no question it terrified me and impacted our relationship for the rest of our lives. I was in a caring loving home and knew it. Here were people threatening to take me away from my mom, dad and sisters because of my older sister who was doing stuff she shouldn’t?
The lawyers working with Mom and Dad won and the counselor and those evil teachers were banned from contact. They should have spent decades in jail. The destruction they wreaked has carried on to other generations. I hope they found repentance because they were evil. Evil. Evil.
It does not reflect well on me how things got between Sue and I after that. We argued and fought a lot. When I say fought, and it is to my shame…I mean punching, kicking type fights. I have mentioned the penultimate incident before…Sue, Carl, Missy and I were playing in Carls back yard. She incited me and I, being who I was, wrecked everything in my path. She got home first and if I recall correctly, that was the time I broke the front window.
I think that was our last physical fight but we were certainly not the close friends we had been when younger. And her pattern of behavior was getting worse. I have long had a vivid memory of the time she had 3 boys in their early 20s over when Mom and Dad were at an appointment with the twins. There was alcohol involved, and boy she had it figured real close when they would be home and those boys taillights were going down LeMont street as Mom and Dad drove up 7th.
I was no help to her during these years either. I was bitter, resentful and angry at her for nearly getting us pulled out of home. I despised her for her lies and her running around and her drinking. One day a friend was over for dinner. I don’t remember what started it but she and I must have been silently fighting at the dinner table. She started voicing disapproval and Mom & Dad, oblivious to the undercurrents, asked what was going on. She shouted in years, “he is looking at me”. We had reached a point in our relationship where I could anger her just by looking at her and where I could rejoice that she got in trouble for her reaction.
My friend and I laughed about “the look” for a few months. Today I feel shame for it. If I had been a better brother would she have kept down the path she took? Probably. But I did very little to stop it and that lies at my feet. I am not responsible for her behavior…but I very much am for mine. And where it was shameful, like this, I am shamed and repentant. It was wrong and I wish I could change it.
Once she got married and moved out I had only brief flashes of interactions with her for the rest of her life. And it did not make me sad. Because every time I did see her things got worse. I wanted to see her less than I did.
A few years after she left, about the time she goaded some bad behavior from someone else that has led to their life being more difficult than it needed to be, it came to my attention she had made some horrific accusations against me. The first time I saw her after that we had a loud screaming match about it and by the end she admitted she lied and said it because she was mad. But she made no apology. In fact, she blamed me. For her lie and horrid accusation.
I don’t remember seeing her from about the time I was 17 or 18 until Mom was on her death bed in 1995. I would hear dribs and drabs of info about her. None of them were good. I remember how badly Mom was hurt when Sue changed her name. She had been named for Mom…Paralee Suzanne. She changed her name. The story on why seems to have changed. I was there when she told Mom she changed it because she didn’t like it. I have seen the story that will appear at the memorial and it is much nicer. It is also much more recent.
It was something that bothered Mom until the day she died, whether right or wrong she took it as a rejection and it hurt deep. Well, as some people know, Mom had a lengthy battle with various cancers. She spent the last few months of her life bedridden as the cancer ravaged her body.
Moms friends gathered round. They were super helpful and a comfort. Then along came Hurricane Sue. Suddenly realizing her Mom was dying, she came charging back from California. She worked so hard and so obnoxiously to keep anybody but herself away from Mom that one of Moms two closest friends stopped coming around and left the house the last time in tears because of Sue’s behavior. Again, this is not something that was told to me…I was there. I watched it happen.
At one point not too many days before Mom died, Sue and I had a screaming match in which I told her, and this is not a direct quote but it is not far off, “We have been here all along and you have no right to come barging in here and run the people who actually care about Mom off”. I later learned that Mom had heard the whole thing.
It was typical of the Sue I had known for 20ish years. Selfish, caring about nobody and nothing except herself. Causing pain, misery and heartache wherever she went. Estranging those she shouldn’t. Someone she had influenced to move away from home had by this time reached the very justified point they would not be in the same room with her.
I don’t even remember her at Mom’s memorial. I assume she was there. Next time I saw her was at Greg’s memorial. I was inspired to attempt to make peace. I was a better person at that point than I had been when younger and was willing to forgive her and wanted her to get straight This was in no small part because of Greg’s example of not just forgiving people who had wronged them but trying to help others.
Well, Sue elected to stay up in Oregon for a few days. A couple of us went over to talk to her and try to make peace and reconciliation. Not long into it, she started the same accusations against Dad and myself and started making them about others. Things went horribly sideways, my wife (at the time) and I left in anger and tears after me having told her I would never be in the same room as her again. And I meant it. Nor was it undeserved. She remained the same evil, lying, manipulative, self centered individual she had ever been.
It was so bad that when Dad and I talked about it he said something I would never have believed. He had given up on her. This is a man who pretty much would have found something good to say about Judas. Even he had enough. He thought she was beyond hope and redemption. He would later revise this, but to even hear it once was something I have never forgotten as it was so surprising.
I believe the next time I saw her was at Dad and Arlene’s wedding. I kept my distance from her. I would not sit in the same row or be within any appreciable close proximity to her. But she proved too crafty and figured her way into seeing me walking where there was nobody being within a few feet of me and cornered me.
She was crying and apologetic…and begging. She did not have enough money to get home. Could I please find some way to loan her some money. To me the real danger was her being in Oregon any longer than necessary. I wanted her gone so I gave her more than I could afford at the time just to ensure she would be gone. Literally every penny I had on me at the time. And I used to carry however much cash I could afford to spend for two weeks. Crying in gratitude (allegedly), she said, “I just don’t want you to think I am pathetic.”
There were not many better words she could think of for how I considered her at that point in time. Maybe a better word would have been contempt still at that point. Some combination of those two would have been applicable. Please note; I am not saying that was right. It wasn’t a Godly attitude and I have come to repent of that. But if I am not going to gloss over wrong done, that includes mine. I have thought about it and prayed about it countless times in the intervening years.
I do remember at one point somewhere in these years when I was going to most likely Great America and she was living in Pleasanton CA at the time. I was asked to drop something off to her. There were very few things in life I would have been less interested in but because of who was asking I did.
She could not walk but a couple blocks at the time and yet she lived in a nice apartment. I did not understand it. Where did the money come from? I have heard rumors but that is all they were to me and I shall not repeat them here. But it did mystify me.
As the years went by from time to time she would call Dad and he, being ever the optimist, would say, oft with tears in his eyes, “Sue has come home, she figured it out” and would tell how Sue made some oblique reference to a passage, often something along the lines of “doesn’t it say in Proverbs that a good kid will be good again?” by which she meant “train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it”. He was always hopeful, always thinking she was on the right path.
Then she would worm her way into visiting his friends with him and steal their medications.
Then she would find repentance again allegedly…he was the only person I knew who saw that side of her. Well, in recent years there has been one other.
She had lived such a hard, miserable life that although she was just a couple years older than me, she looked 30 years older than me. You could have told me she was in her late 60s when in her 30s and I would have believed you if I didn’t know any better.
She hit it off pretty well with Arlene and one of Arlene’s daughters. She became a semi-regular presence at Dad’s place. I made sure to seldom show up. Our encounters were few and rarely pleasant. To her credit, she was starting to show some signs of becoming a better person.
The first thing I had seen her do that was not completely selfish since she was like 15 was when Dad and Arlene were away on a trip and she painted a room or two and tried to put some wallpaper up around the top of the kitchen to make it look nicer. It was a genuine attempt to do something nice.
And there were certain indications she might still have at least some of her early life brilliance left. I have been told she invented several things. I don’t know what or when so can neither confirm nor deny…but I will say that it would not surprise me. She had been very, very smart. She is one of the very few people I have met in my entire life who were better at school than me. It is a small pool of people. Very small.
Arlene’s memorial was one of the last times I saw her. She showed up at the pre-memorial breakfast. Then, in a series of events that mystifies me, she found a way to be part of the dinner that we siblings and our spouses were having. Nobody will admit to having told her about it much less invited her.
Because she had expanded who she made false accusations against in one case and an occurrence between her and another sibling it is not my right to divulge, two people absolutely refused to be seated near her nor were children allowed to be seated next to her. She earned every bit of that.
Because I was the oldest responsible person, she ended up sitting next to me. And I had to tell her multiple times to stop rubbing my knee. It was repulsive, disgusting, and her refusal to stop ensured she would not be allowed to any other gatherings even if she found out about them. It was bad enough I was paying for all her meals. I didn’t need her of all people creeping on me.
Some time in the last couple years she caught…was it pneumonia? Dad wanted to see her so I drove him down to the hospital she was in. I saw her from a distance, laying unconscious in the hospital bed, full of tubes to keep her breathing.
It was soon obvious she would not recover consciousness any time soon and there was nothing we could do to communicate with her, although Dad being Dad and the ever-eternal optimist, he may still say she squeezed his hand when he asked her if she had considered her salvation. Maybe. I hope so for her sake.
There was really only one good thing we could do. I found one thing where she was growing as a person. Her dog. Later dogs. She really cared about and loved those dogs. In my experience…other people’s experience may vary, I can only speak for myself…those dogs were the first living beings besides herself that she had cared about since she left home.
Dad and I spent a fair amount of time trying to get her room secured and the dogs cared for. Because she had separated herself from pretty much everyone nobody could get a hold of anybody who knew anything. We were not successful.
Interestingly, even at this late date she was not done causing trouble. After Dad and I got home, the kids were having a family meeting discussing possible routes of getting her cared for. We talked about funding a care home. We talked about hiring a personal care worker. At some point the conversation drifted to if she moved up to Oregon to live at Dads.
People who have sacrificed a great deal in order to be able to take care of Dad made it clear if she came they would move. She had sunk so low even recently as to accuse a kid who lived at Dad’s place of improper behavior. She had gone to that well so many times I doubt anyone would believe her…but the risk is too high. Some things you just don’t take chances with.
This led to some internal dissension where at least one person was defending her behavior whereas three of us who had been directly victimized by her either in physical attacks or false accusations were pointing out “forgive but still keep yourself safe”. And by her own behavior, repeated, and never apologized for or even admitted fault…she had put herself in a position where I wholeheartedly concurred with the idea that being around her was dangerous.
This led to an argument over what actually constituted forgiveness. Fair question. Worth thinking about. I have seen or heard nothing that changes my mind. When someone has for nearly 40 years demonstrated a pattern of false accusation, lies, theft, manipulation, and complete lack of sorrow for their deeds or forgiveness, it behooves one to be careful of their interaction.
That was never resolved and we did not happen. We were going to find a way to get her taken care of because regardless of all else, she was still family and still in need. It was a discussion about how to get her cared for, not whether she would be cared for.
We also had some pretty extravagant plans in place to make sure that, if they could be found and she was still stuck in the hospital, her dogs would be cared for until she was ready to have them back. I have made no secret of the fact that those were the only things in her sad life that brought her genuine pleasure and that she truly seemed to care about.
Regardless, it never came to pass. Despite our asking, it was not told us when she was released from the hospital. Her social worker never returned a single call. Her behavior, rumor has it, had her go through multiple care workers in the last few months of her life top the point I know of nobody who knew who had her in their care. We could not find anyone who knew anything.
At some point Dad actually reached a point he just assumed she had died and due to how hard it was to get information we just had not been informed. He came to peace with it.
So when we got actual, legitimate news of her passing, it did not have the impact you would think it would. As one person who was closer to her than I ever was said, “She died the way she wanted…alone”.
Now, my experience with her is just that. My experience. It is entirely possible others had different interactions. At least one sister has been a staunch supporter of hers for years. People who grew up with her probably see her in a different light.
In fact, when I was discussing her with one of the very few people who had any sort of regularity and mentioned how Dad kept having hope for her, she said that yes, there was a change in the way Sue talked, the things she said…that there were signs she may have legitimately been trying to find God.
Another person suggested that certain results from the autopsy may suggest other things.
Each person has to look at their own interactions with Sue and make their own decision. For me, I have prayed multiple times that God have mercy on her soul. I have looked long and hard at myself and looked at places I need to work on. I have worked on many, I have many more to go.
I think it is a common phenomenon when someone dies to look at things and wish to have talked to them more or reacted differently the last time(s) a person saw them, to have regret. I have none of those.
I tried, at least for the last 10-20 years, to help her when and where possible without having to have interaction with her. I felt sorry for her on one level but on another level looked at her as someone who consistently, repeatedly made bad choices, had no sorrow over those choices and was living with the results they had earned. When given chances to change the direction of her life she refused intentionally, repeatedly, and often.
I did not pull a lot of punches in this. A couple in regards to things told me in confidence or where it might needlessly hurt someone. But towards her and myself? None. I was no angel in our early year relationships. The fighting was inexcusable and wrong, I bear the shame of that behavior and definitely grieve over it. I cannot change it but I can sure repent of it as I have done numerous times and work hard to improve myself so it is never in danger of happening again. I like to think that people who have known me for any length of time have been able to observe changes in my behavior, thought processes, and actions.
I made my attempts to make peace with her and when those were rejected I simply kept my distance. But even there I was ready to help her where and when I could, preferably with an intermediary between us.
I think Emily was a little surprised, kept waiting for me to have a grief-stricken breakdown. The only people I grieve for are those whom deserved better from her and did not get it. That is their story to tell if they choose, not mine. From where I sit, she made decisions repeatedly that led her to where she ended, did so knowing the outcome, not caring and ending up having lived a sad, lonely, pain-filled life but being unwilling and undesirous of changing anything.
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11724987.post-64304995931559307282020-03-29T12:00:00.001-07:002020-03-29T12:00:19.354-07:00I don't Believe in Fairy TalesIf you frequent scientific blogs, news articles, and research sites, it will not be long before you come across some sort of the following in the comment section.<br />
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"God did thus and such".<br />
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Instantly there will be numerous responses which are some form of (if not the exact words) "I don't believe in fairy tales. Keep your superstition off science sites."<br />
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It is an interesting claim. Most often these threads are on astronomy, biology, chemistry, environmental discussion, or something to do with evolution. The inference is that science has proven whatever point and God is a made up thing from a book of made up stories (dismissed as myth most often), that the claim being made for science is iron clad and backed up by facts whereas any and all claims about God are of course made up and devoid of evidentiary backing. <br />
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Is that true? A lot of it comes down to one question; is evolution true or is creation true? At this point it is important to define both terms.<br />
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<a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/evolution" target="_blank">Definition of <em>evolution</em></a></h2>
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<a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/evolution" target="_blank"><span class="sn sense-1 a"><span class="num">1</span><span class="letter">a</span></span> </a><span class="dt hasSdSense"><a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/evolution" target="_blank"><span class="dtText"><strong class="mw_t_bc">: </strong>descent with modification from preexisting species <strong class="mw_t_bc">: </strong>cumulative inherited change in a population of organisms through time leading to the appearance of new forms <strong class="mw_t_bc">: </strong>the process by which new species or populations of living things develop from preexisting forms through successive generations <span class="ex-sent first-child t has-aq sents"><span class="mw_t_sp"><span class="mw_t_wi">Evolution</span> is a process of continuous branching and diversification from common trunks. This pattern of irreversible separation gives life's history its basic directionality.</span></span><span class="ex-sent aq has-aq sents"><span class="aq"><span class="auth">— Stephen Jay Gould</span></span></span><span class="sdsense"><span class="sd">also</span> <span class="dtText"><strong class="mw_t_bc">: </strong>the scientific theory explaining the appearance of new species and varieties through the action of various biological mechanisms (such as natural selection, genetic mutation or drift, and hybridization) </span> <span class="ex-sent first-child t has-aq sents">Since 1950, developments in molecular biology have had a growing influence on the theory of <span class="mw_t_wi">evolution</span>. </span></span><span class="ex-sent aq has-aq sents"><span class="aq"><span class="source">— <em class="mw_t_it">Nature</em></span></span></span></span> </a><span class="ex-sent t has-aq sents"><a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/evolution" target="_blank">In Darwinian <span class="mw_t_wi">evolution</span>, the basic mechanism is genetic mutation, followed by selection of the organisms most likely to survive</a>. </span></span></div>
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<span class="dt hasSdSense"><span class="ex-sent t has-aq sents">Creation is defined as</span></span></div>
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<span class="dt hasSdSense"><span class="ex-sent t has-aq sents">"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." Genesis 1:1, NASB</span></span></div>
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<span class="dt hasSdSense"><span class="ex-sent t has-aq sents">A couple of things to note. In the definition of evolution, I went with Merriam Webster dictionary. I had to choose one of the hundreds of choices out there. They reference Stephen Jay Gould but could have referenced numerous others, there are competing ideas of what evolution is, how it was accomplished, and they are often mutually exclusive. We will look at that more as we go along.</span></span></div>
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<span class="dt hasSdSense"><span class="ex-sent t has-aq sents">In the definition of creation, this is not all the Bible claims on behalf of God. Hebrews 11:3 discusses a key creation principle, several Scriptures discuss Him stretching out the Heavens, Proverbs 8:28 discusses the springs of the deep which the submarine <em>Alvin </em>discovered in 1977...several thousand years after the Bible writers claimed they were there. But that is getting ahead of the story. </span></span></div>
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<span class="dt hasSdSense"><span class="ex-sent t has-aq sents">Lets take a look at some evidence and see if we can figure out who believes in fairy tales.</span></span></div>
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<span class="dt hasSdSense"><span class="ex-sent t has-aq sents"><strong>The Truth Claim</strong></span></span></div>
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<span class="dt hasSdSense"><span class="ex-sent t has-aq sents">1) How things came into being</span></span></div>
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<span class="dt hasSdSense"><span class="ex-sent t has-aq sents">God claims to have created the Heavens and the earth.</span></span></div>
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<span class="dt hasSdSense"><span class="ex-sent t has-aq sents">It is hard to source this as chasing this claim to its source is impossible. Again and again you find statements along the lines of "most scientists believe" or "reputable scientists know" or something along that line. The claim is approximately 13.8 billion years ago nothing exploded into something via the Big Ban and everything in existence came from that event.</span></span></div>
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<span class="dt hasSdSense"><span class="ex-sent t has-aq sents">Most of these scientist hold to Naturalism; only observable, reproducible events that can be tested and falsified are genuinely scientific. </span></span></div>
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<span class="dt hasSdSense"><span class="ex-sent t has-aq sents">2) The means of things coming into being</span></span></div>
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<span class="dt hasSdSense"><span class="ex-sent t has-aq sents">This one is a tricksy Hobbit. </span></span></div>
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<span class="dt hasSdSense"><span class="ex-sent t has-aq sents">God claims to have neither beginning nor end. He is self-existent, outside time, space and matter. This is untestable and unknowable. Seemingly the only way of gauging this claim is to take the provable claims we see and verify their truth or falsehood. Knowing His accuracy on knowable claims can offer insight into the credibility or lack thereof of claims we cannot examine.</span></span></div>
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<span class="dt hasSdSense"><span class="ex-sent t has-aq sents">Science claims nothing created something. Nothing existed (or alternatively, everything that exists was compressed into the space of, depending on who you believe, the size of a pin or a peach are the two I come across most commonly; in both cases you have the same problem; where did the something come from? we can grant the same self-existent to it I would think except there is no way for it to claim that for itself) and then suddenly exploded outward in the Big Bang. </span></span></div>
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<span class="dt hasSdSense"><span class="ex-sent t has-aq sents">3) The means of development</span></span></div>
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<span class="dt hasSdSense"><span class="ex-sent t has-aq sents">God claims things were created as they are. </span></span></div>
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<span class="dt hasSdSense"><span class="ex-sent t has-aq sents">Gen 1:11 Then God said, "Let the earth sprout vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees on the earth bearing fruit <em>after their kind,</em> and trees bearing fruit with seed in them<em>...vs 12 </em>bearing fruit with seed in them <em>after their kind...</em></span></span></div>
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<span class="dt hasSdSense"><span class="ex-sent t has-aq sents">The whole of Genesis 1 is a claim for how things developed. God created them in finished form. The sun and moon, the stars governing day, night, signs for seasons, days and years. This is also a claim for God inventing time. </span></span></div>
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<span class="dt hasSdSense"><span class="ex-sent t has-aq sents">Verses 20-21 are animals being created to reproduce after their kind. Vs 24 is more of the same. Vs 26-28 say man and woman were created as humans. </span></span></div>
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<span class="dt hasSdSense"><span class="ex-sent t has-aq sents">Evolution claims as the universe cooled stuff started sticking together and became planets and stars.</span></span></div>
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<span class="dt hasSdSense"><span class="ex-sent t has-aq sents">As the universe developed planets, on earth a primordial soup came into being, there is still debate of where, chemicals interacted and somehow started life. Random events caused that life to become carrots and dinosaurs and man and bacteria and lettuce and everything we see and everything that has gone extinct. These happened by random chance with no guiding force other than the oft made claim of natural selection wherein the things most fit to survive did so.</span></span></div>
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<span class="dt hasSdSense"><span class="ex-sent t has-aq sents">4) The source of the claim</span></span></div>
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<span class="dt hasSdSense"><span class="ex-sent t has-aq sents">Moses is the claimed author of the first 5 books of the Bible. This is important to note; he was not an eyewitness. To believe Moses wrote is the believe the Biblical flood occurred. There is one obscure claim that the Book of Jashur predates the flood and was claimed to be on the ark and Moses somehow to have used it for reference. I bring this up because this is almost assuredly a fraudulent claim made by someone so desperate to prove God true they had to invent something.</span></span></div>
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<span class="dt hasSdSense"><span class="ex-sent t has-aq sents">Moses lived approximately 2260 years after the claimed date of creation. In his writings, it is repeatedly claimed he spoke with God face to face. Exodus relates this repeatedly. It would seem fair to claim that God guided his writing. If God created, He would have the power to do so and it would seem He would want to guide His people in truth and did so by relating to and/or guiding Moses in his writing of how creation happened. However, this claim is, to the best of my knowledge,, nowhere made in Scripture and is something arrived at by logic. </span></span></div>
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<span class="dt hasSdSense"><span class="ex-sent t has-aq sents">Evolution has a much older source than you might think. Ancient philosophers in Egypt, Greece, and Phoenicia to name three, discussed forms of it as potential sources for the meaning of life. To be fair, they also had the world on the back of a turtle, or Atlas or similar devices. </span></span></div>
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<span class="dt hasSdSense"><span class="ex-sent t has-aq sents">More recently it was highly popularized and became part of scientific inquiry following the 1859 publication of Darwin's <em>Origin of the Species. </em>This claim would come 13.8 billion years into the claimed development, a hair longer than the 2260ish years between origin and claim of Scripture.</span></span></div>
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<span class="dt hasSdSense"><span class="ex-sent t has-aq sents">5 The credibility Question</span></span></div>
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<span class="dt hasSdSense"><span class="ex-sent t has-aq sents">Pierre -Simon Laplace, a French polymath who had a huge impact on the development of science, famously said, "The weight of evidence for an extraordinary claim must be proportioned to its strangeness." You have heard a modern version of this. Carl Sagan popularized it as "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence."</span></span></div>
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<span class="dt hasSdSense"><span class="ex-sent t has-aq sents">For example, if I tell you that this morning for breakfast I consumed 4 pieces of French toast, 2 scrambled eggs, a glass of orange juice and 2 pieces of bacon, you might nod and say "There is a reason your stomach exceeds your hips."</span></span></div>
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<span class="dt hasSdSense"><span class="ex-sent t has-aq sents"> Conversely, if I claim for breakfast I ate 400 pounds of steak, 6 gallons of milk, 4 dozen eggs...you might want to see pictures or video of the deed and even then would likely not believe it. If you saw multiple unedited videos of me performing this epic task and heard from 200 hundred people who had gathered in an auditorium and actually watched me do it, then you might believe it. </span></span></div>
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<span class="dt hasSdSense"><span class="ex-sent t has-aq sents">So lets check some credibility of both claims. For years people have claimed the Bible is a book of fables and myths. The flood is claimed false, Sodom and Gomorra being destroyed an example of Biblical falsehood, the walls of Jericho falling outward, and many more. To this day people claim Jesus never existed. </span></span></div>
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<span class="dt hasSdSense"><span class="ex-sent t has-aq sents">Here are some other things the Bible has been accused of getting wrong that we now know it was right about (I held this to the Old Testament and just a few because if I covered them all there would be no room for anything else)</span></span></div>
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<span class="dt hasSdSense"><span class="ex-sent t has-aq sents">When Abraham has dealings with camels that was a demonstrable error in the Bible as camels were not known in his time. Except...they then discovered camels actually were there prior to Abraham and after him as well. There is a figurine dated to 3000 bc of a man by a kneeling camel and another dated to 2600 bc that was found at Lagash among other evidence. </span></span></div>
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<span class="dt hasSdSense"><span class="ex-sent t has-aq sents">It was long claimed Moses could not have written the first five books of the Bible as he lived in pre-literate times. Then it was discovered not only had writing existed long before Moses came round but being educated in the court of the Pharaohs he would have been among the best educated people alive. </span></span></div>
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<span class="dt hasSdSense"><span class="ex-sent t has-aq sents">It was long claimed the Hittites did not exist. This would be a major problem as they play a massive role in the Old Testament. Then we found their library in Turkey. Not only did they exist, they were a major power. </span></span></div>
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<span class="dt hasSdSense"><span class="ex-sent t has-aq sents">It was long claimed David did not exist. David was a key player in the line of Christ, the source of His claim to kingship. No David, all of the New Testament falls apart. In 1994 at Tel Dan they found pottery with inscription referencing the House of David, one of several references since discovered. </span></span></div>
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<span class="dt hasSdSense"><span class="ex-sent t has-aq sents">We could talk about Jericho, Lions in Ninevah and Babylon, the existence of Belshazzar, Moses writing law code, the paths of the sea, the fountains of the deep, the prophecies of Daniel (including stories of Darius the Mede being shown the prophecy of himself, called by name) but to what point. </span></span></div>
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<span class="dt hasSdSense"><span class="ex-sent t has-aq sents">The Bible has often been accused of being false but been proven true. This has not caused a reconsideration of its accuracy by those who were wrong. Stunningly, despite the Bible showing true and them being shown in error, they use this as proof they are right about the Bible being wrong elsewhere. "See, our inquiry led us to the truth, it works, therefore we are right". Uh...the Bible was right all along.</span></span></div>
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<span class="dt hasSdSense"><span class="ex-sent t has-aq sents">Sadly, some people have performed fraud trying to prove the Bible true. Catholicism is a fountain of this. During the Crusades so many slivers of "the true cross" were dispensed you could build a cathedral from them. The Shroud of Turin. Oded Golan and his awfully suspicious looking things like the Joash Tablet and the James Ossuary. </span></span></div>
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<span class="dt hasSdSense"><span class="ex-sent t has-aq sents">Here is an important distinction. The Bible itself has zero frauds and forgeries in its pages. People looking to profit from people seeking to prove the Bible true have many. </span></span></div>
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<span class="dt hasSdSense"><span class="ex-sent t has-aq sents">Evolution on the other hand has a massive credibility problem. Consider Ernst Haeckel. Famously known as "Darwins Bulldog on the Continent" (also as "the Huxley of Germany" he was an early and important force in the spread of belief in evolution. His fraudulent recapitulation drawings have been in textbooks as recently as Donald Protheros <em>Bringing Fossils to Life; An Intorduction to Paleobilogy (Columbia University Press, 2013)</em> despite having been known to be frauds almost since their inception. This is not an outlier, this was a major figure.</span></span></div>
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<span class="dt hasSdSense"><span class="ex-sent t has-aq sents">I emphasize that because when looking at these things, we don't want to look at the people who are of limited knowledge. As an example Ken Ham, a noted Creationist, debated Bill Nye, a noted clown. This debate lessens seriously the credibility of Ham. If you want to engage in a scientific debate, debate a Neil De Grasse Tyson or a Kevin Leland, a Gerd B Muller, someone reputable. To debate a pop culture figure indicates A) he is credible and B) you cannot debate a serious scientist. </span></span></div>
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<span class="dt hasSdSense"><span class="ex-sent t has-aq sents">Contrast that with someone like astrophysics scientist Jason Lisle who debates astronomer Hugh Ross. Ross believes in evolution guided by God. He is a strong and reputable opponent who acquitted himself well for what he believes. If we are to seek truth, we don't want the softballs, we want the best each side has to offer. </span></span></div>
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<span class="dt hasSdSense"><span class="ex-sent t has-aq sents">Evolution meanwhile has often been claimed true only to be shown false.</span></span></div>
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<span class="dt hasSdSense"><span class="ex-sent t has-aq sents">Lamarckism was long thought true until in the 1930s it was shown false by new discoveries. Yeah, I know, seems weird to lead with something 90 years out of date. But you will detect a trend. </span></span></div>
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<span class="dt hasSdSense"><span class="ex-sent t has-aq sents">Recapitulation.</span></span></div>
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<span class="dt hasSdSense"><span class="ex-sent t has-aq sents">Preformationism.</span></span></div>
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<span class="dt hasSdSense"><span class="ex-sent t has-aq sents">Telegony.</span></span></div>
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<span class="dt hasSdSense"><span class="ex-sent t has-aq sents">Some guy named Darwin and pangenesis. (Gemmules)</span></span></div>
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<span class="dt hasSdSense"><span class="ex-sent t has-aq sents">Darwins Tree of Life.</span></span></div>
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<span class="dt hasSdSense"><span class="ex-sent t has-aq sents">Furthermore, in trying to figure out how life began a dizzying array of things have been suggested.</span></span></div>
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<span class="dt hasSdSense"><span class="ex-sent t has-aq sents">RNA first</span></span></div>
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<span class="dt hasSdSense"><span class="ex-sent t has-aq sents">DNA first</span></span></div>
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<span class="dt hasSdSense"><span class="ex-sent t has-aq sents">formed on land</span></span></div>
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<span class="dt hasSdSense"><span class="ex-sent t has-aq sents">formed near hot springs in the ocean</span></span></div>
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<span class="dt hasSdSense"><span class="ex-sent t has-aq sents">struck by rock</span></span></div>
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<span class="dt hasSdSense"><span class="ex-sent t has-aq sents">struck by meteors and/or comets</span></span></div>
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<span class="dt hasSdSense"><span class="ex-sent t has-aq sents">struck by lightning</span></span></div>
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<span class="dt hasSdSense"><span class="ex-sent t has-aq sents">various atmospheres</span></span></div>
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<span class="dt hasSdSense"><span class="ex-sent t has-aq sents">note the sheer number of guesses, assumptions, and other violations of their claim that science is only that which is observed and reproducible. </span></span></div>
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<span class="dt hasSdSense"><span class="ex-sent t has-aq sents">Most if not all have been discarded or should be due to insurmountable problems. Yet I still see people discussing the RNA first or DNA first paradox. </span></span></div>
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<span class="dt hasSdSense"><span class="ex-sent t has-aq sents">Perhaps the most famous is the Miller-Urey experiment which purports to have created life. Now, remember a few things; 1, they are trying to recreate what happened by chance by 2, carefully designed and refined experiments they continually adjusted to get the results they wanted. </span></span></div>
<div class="sense has-sn">
<span class="dt hasSdSense"><span class="ex-sent t has-aq sents"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="sense has-sn">
<span class="dt hasSdSense"><span class="ex-sent t has-aq sents">They decided what they thought was in the atmosphere during the formation of life. It could not be the current atmosphere. The presence of oxygen would prevent the chains of amino acids to hold together. (Also notable is his mix of methane and ammonia are no longer believed...not many think it was a mix of carbon dioxide and nitrogen...in other words, they keep guessing what was there and claiming it as fact). However, to survive it would require oxygen...which didn't exist.</span></span></div>
<div class="sense has-sn">
<span class="dt hasSdSense"><span class="ex-sent t has-aq sents"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span class="dt hasSdSense"><span class="ex-sent t has-aq sents">Regardless, in an impressive bit of science, they did in fact create amino acids. Amino Acids combine to produce proteins, the so-called building blocks of life. </span></span></div>
<div class="sense has-sn">
<span class="dt hasSdSense"><span class="ex-sent t has-aq sents"><br />Ah, but wait; the amino acids this carefully designed experiment produced could not, in fact, produce life. See, amino acids are "handed". They are either right handed or left handed. The original experiment produced almost 50% of each. Yet to form proteins requires only left handed amino acids. So Miller tweaked his tubes and contents and did manage to get to about 60% left handed. Not nearly enough. </span></span></div>
<div class="sense has-sn">
<span class="dt hasSdSense"><span class="ex-sent t has-aq sents"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span class="dt hasSdSense"><span class="ex-sent t has-aq sents">Look very long and you will see Miller's experiment referenced as proof of life being able to develop by chance. It is off by orders of magnitude. There are fascinating mathematical models showing the probability of forming even the smallest chain of proteins by chance. </span></span></div>
<div class="sense has-sn">
<span class="dt hasSdSense"><span class="ex-sent t has-aq sents"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span class="dt hasSdSense"><span class="ex-sent t has-aq sents">This has led to a hilarious counter. Let me sum up; the smallest known modern life sequence is 400 proteins which leads to the chance of it forming by chance to be a staggering 10 to the 164th power. That would be 10 with 164 zeroes after it. So the reply is to make up "well, there were simpler organisms (that we have zero proof for) that could have needed only 256 or even fewer".</span></span></div>
<div class="sense has-sn">
<span class="dt hasSdSense"><span class="ex-sent t has-aq sents"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span class="dt hasSdSense"><span class="ex-sent t has-aq sents">Further, a frequent claim is that "well, that would be sequential but this was happening all over the place with billions of things bumping into each other so the chance is much higher."</span></span></div>
<div class="sense has-sn">
<span class="dt hasSdSense"><span class="ex-sent t has-aq sents"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span class="dt hasSdSense"><span class="ex-sent t has-aq sents">Ah, okay. So lets examine that claim briefly. Lets say that, against all odds, of the 20 necessary amino acids needed for life (of the 300 different types), did actually assemble and not only that, assemble in the correct order to create a protein. That protein has to survive and reproduce. Multiple times. Then the corruptions of that have to turn into everything from a carrot to you. All these steps surviving and reproducing. </span></span></div>
<div class="sense has-sn">
<span class="dt hasSdSense"><span class="ex-sent t has-aq sents"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span class="dt hasSdSense"><span class="ex-sent t has-aq sents">Really? that does not strain credibility, that a harsh atmosphere (required for a comet or meteor or lightning strike to move some combination of chemicals to beat fantastic odds to form the first protein) is gentle enough for it to survive, reproduce and change?</span></span></div>
<div class="sense has-sn">
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<div class="sense has-sn">
<span class="dt hasSdSense"><span class="ex-sent t has-aq sents"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span class="dt hasSdSense"><span class="ex-sent t has-aq sents">We then have to have mutations occur. We know overwhelming numbers of mutations are harmful. Yet we are to believe a single cell bacteria, surviving in a primordial soup that could not support life as we know it, reproducing, experiencing primarily negative mutations, somehow have enough beneficial mutations to become fish and fowl, plants and people. Where are the numbers of these amazing survivalists coming from? How, after surviving that, did they manage to die out without leaving some record of their existence? (See the fossil record)</span></span></div>
<div class="sense has-sn">
<span class="dt hasSdSense"><span class="ex-sent t has-aq sents"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="sense has-sn">
<span class="dt hasSdSense"><span class="ex-sent t has-aq sents">Knowing there is no explanation for the beginning of life, many evolutionists then claim "we don't know how life started, but it doesn't matter because what we know is evolution happened, how it started is not important." This nonsense strains credibility, but we will give a look at that under point 8.</span></span></div>
<div class="sense has-sn">
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<span class="dt hasSdSense"><span class="ex-sent t has-aq sents">6) Could the claimed methodology have happened?</span></span></div>
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<span class="dt hasSdSense"><span class="ex-sent t has-aq sents"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span class="dt hasSdSense"><span class="ex-sent t has-aq sents">The God created claim relies on a couple of assumptions and likely numerous others we will not; first, that what we have been told is accurate, and that He has the power He claims. These two are intertwined.</span></span></div>
<div class="sense has-sn">
<span class="dt hasSdSense"><span class="ex-sent t has-aq sents"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span class="dt hasSdSense"><span class="ex-sent t has-aq sents">The question of whether what we have been told is vital. Claim after claim in Scripture references the act of Creation as the source of its validity. Spiritual authority, historical accuracy, the meaning of Christianity itself hinge on the truth claim that God created.</span></span></div>
<div class="sense has-sn">
<span class="dt hasSdSense"><span class="ex-sent t has-aq sents"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="sense has-sn">
<span class="dt hasSdSense"><span class="ex-sent t has-aq sents">Does He have the power? He certainly has demonstrated supernatural knowledge. Things such as man being of one blood, the uncountable stars, the circle of the earth, the earth hanging on nothing, the paths of the sea, the fountains of the deep, the life is in the blood, the hydrologic cycle, the idea of quarantining (check out Leviticus 13:46 and surrounding). </span></span></div>
<div class="sense has-sn">
<span class="dt hasSdSense"><span class="ex-sent t has-aq sents"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span class="dt hasSdSense"><span class="ex-sent t has-aq sents">Essentially the question of His power comes down to how we view the evidence in front of us. </span></span></div>
<div class="sense has-sn">
<span class="dt hasSdSense"><span class="ex-sent t has-aq sents"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span class="dt hasSdSense"><span class="ex-sent t has-aq sents">Evolution relies on guesses and assumptions for how the universe started, how life began, how it developed far enough to survive and differentiate. Like the creation claim by God, change between species has never been observed even with careful experimentation (check out the fruit fly experiment). Mathematically it is impossible, logically it makes no sense. Its strongest argument is that if evolution did not happen then God created, a thought that cannot be allowed. </span></span></div>
<div class="sense has-sn">
<span class="dt hasSdSense"><span class="ex-sent t has-aq sents"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span class="dt hasSdSense"><span class="ex-sent t has-aq sents">The second strongest claim for evolution is something along the lines of "God does not exist, we are here, therefore evolution happened, it is just a matter of figuring out how."</span></span></div>
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<span class="dt hasSdSense"><span class="ex-sent t has-aq sents">7) The Logic Question</span></span></div>
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<span class="dt hasSdSense"><span class="ex-sent t has-aq sents">Richard Dawkins wrote the <em>The Blind Watchmaker </em>in 1996. On the very first page he stated, "Biology is the study of complicated things that give the appearance of having been designed for a purpose."</span></span></div>
<div class="sense has-sn">
<span class="dt hasSdSense"><span class="ex-sent t has-aq sents"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span class="dt hasSdSense"><span class="ex-sent t has-aq sents">In fact, we see a lot of evidence that if things were not exactly as it is life on earth could not exist. This ranges from the distance of the earth from the sun to the proportional difference in difference of the earth to the moon in relation of the sun. Gravitational pull. </span></span></div>
<div class="sense has-sn">
<span class="dt hasSdSense"><span class="ex-sent t has-aq sents"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span class="dt hasSdSense"><span class="ex-sent t has-aq sents">We also see a lot of evidence that there are actual laws of nature. Mathematics works because it always works. If you have 2 apples and someone gives you 2 more, you will always have 4 apples at that point in time. I saw an argument not long ago that this is not true.</span></span></div>
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<span class="dt hasSdSense"><span class="ex-sent t has-aq sents"><br />Essentially it went like this: you have a rock in a bag. Someone drops another rock in, it breaks the first into 5 pieces. You now have 6 rocks."</span></span></div>
<div class="sense has-sn">
<span class="dt hasSdSense"><span class="ex-sent t has-aq sents"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span class="dt hasSdSense"><span class="ex-sent t has-aq sents">Nice sleight of hand. they changed the unit of measure. one in the bag, a second enters the bag. There are two rocks in the bag. Then, they collide and split. You have now changed the circumstances. Splitting 1 into 5 will always result in having 5. Those five added to the one not split will always be 6. </span></span></div>
<div class="sense has-sn">
<span class="dt hasSdSense"><span class="ex-sent t has-aq sents"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span class="dt hasSdSense"><span class="ex-sent t has-aq sents">Why am I pointing this out? If the universe generated by chance...where did rigid, reproducible, incontrovertible laws of math come from? Why does 2+2 not sometimes equal green? Why would we not believe them subject to change at any moment? There is nothing holding the laws we rely on together and no reason to believe they will continue to exist. </span></span></div>
<div class="sense has-sn">
<span class="dt hasSdSense"><span class="ex-sent t has-aq sents"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span class="dt hasSdSense"><span class="ex-sent t has-aq sents">If things arose by chance they should change by chance. If a single celled organism became all that we see today why do we never see change between species today? we see change WITHIN species. In fact, there is some beautiful work being done showing how fast we can get from a Chihuahua to an English Mastiff. But if chance guides, why would we not see two chihuahuas mate and a tanrantula come out? </span></span></div>
<div class="sense has-sn">
<span class="dt hasSdSense"><span class="ex-sent t has-aq sents"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span class="dt hasSdSense"><span class="ex-sent t has-aq sents">The common answer is that ironclad laws of nature have guided evolution...but logically, if things arose by chance, then ironclad laws make no sense. They should be chance.</span></span></div>
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<span class="dt hasSdSense"><span class="ex-sent t has-aq sents"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span class="dt hasSdSense"><span class="ex-sent t has-aq sents">Instead, everything we see shows evidence of a very careful design. Indeed, when the Scripture says in Psalm 139:14 "I am fearfully and wonderfully made" it is on my mind every time I take medicine. I love modern medicine. It can do some great things. I had high blood pressure. They tried various meds until they found one that works. And it does work. It also doesn't work. While it controls my blood pressure, it "breaks" other things. After being on it for a while, it caused some water problems, causing me to take a second pill to fix that. Which it did...but it dropped my potassium levels. So then I had to take potassium pills. The human body is put together in such intricate detail that everything is intricately connected and we are still learning more about things.</span></span></div>
<div class="sense has-sn">
<span class="dt hasSdSense"><span class="ex-sent t has-aq sents"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span class="dt hasSdSense"><span class="ex-sent t has-aq sents">Note that I am unequivocally not a believer in intelligent design. That movement tries to straddle the line between evolution and millions of years and believing Gods claims. The aforementioned Hugh Ross is a prime example of this belief system. </span></span></div>
<div class="sense has-sn">
<span class="dt hasSdSense"><span class="ex-sent t has-aq sents"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span class="dt hasSdSense"><span class="ex-sent t has-aq sents">But that is an aside. Logically, if we are put together by chance and random happenings mystically selected for advantage, all the body should not be so interdependent. </span></span></div>
<div class="sense has-sn">
<span class="dt hasSdSense"><span class="ex-sent t has-aq sents"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span class="dt hasSdSense"><span class="ex-sent t has-aq sents">8_ Upstream or downstream</span></span></div>
<div class="sense has-sn">
<span class="dt hasSdSense"><span class="ex-sent t has-aq sents"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="sense has-sn">
<span class="dt hasSdSense"><span class="ex-sent t has-aq sents">If God created, we can easily go either direction. God created Adam. We have near continuous records from that moment until now. We know how man was formed. We know how animals were formed. We know how plants were formed. We know how the universe itself was formed.</span></span></div>
<div class="sense has-sn">
<span class="dt hasSdSense"><span class="ex-sent t has-aq sents"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span class="dt hasSdSense"><span class="ex-sent t has-aq sents">Conversely, we can work backwards. We can start today and go back to the beginning.</span></span></div>
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<span class="dt hasSdSense"><span class="ex-sent t has-aq sents"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span class="dt hasSdSense"><span class="ex-sent t has-aq sents">Contract this with evolution. It cannot start at the beginning. Indeed, I may do another of these showing the complete guesswork underpinning belief on how the stars and planets formed. Nor can it start at the present and work backwards, showing evidence each step of the way. The furthest they can go back are Neanderthals...a group that has the same appearance, structure, anatomy, habits, and dna as we have...in other words, humans. It is amazing when you see the claims that humans and Neanderthals co-existed and mated , recent discoveries show they had art, tools... they are indistinguishable from humans right down to skeletal structure falling within norms of humans. They are different because...we are told so.</span></span></div>
<div class="sense has-sn">
<span class="dt hasSdSense"><span class="ex-sent t has-aq sents"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span class="dt hasSdSense"><span class="ex-sent t has-aq sents">You can neither work backwards nor forwards to see evolution in action.</span></span></div>
<div class="sense has-sn">
<span class="dt hasSdSense"><span class="ex-sent t has-aq sents"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span class="dt hasSdSense"><span class="ex-sent t has-aq sents"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span class="dt hasSdSense"><span class="ex-sent t has-aq sents">This is hardly a comprehensive look at these issues. Indeed, this is a distillation of hundreds of hours of reading books by noted people on both sides of the issues, watching their videos. Thinking on it. Reading more. Finding objections, explanations, counter explanations, counter counter explanations.</span></span></div>
<div class="sense has-sn">
<span class="dt hasSdSense"><span class="ex-sent t has-aq sents"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span class="dt hasSdSense"><span class="ex-sent t has-aq sents">I encourage you to look at these things but don't look at just anyone. I will leave you with the story of one video suggested to me by someone as a "powerful argument that Christianity is a hallucination". In it, this person starts by asking what notable doctrine is changed if only Paul and Peter saw Jesus after the resurrection. He posits none. He then goes on to say that if only two people saw Jesus after the resurrection, consider this; Peter "saw" him from a prison cell and Paul saw a great light. The takeaway is that all of Christianity might depend on nothing but two hallucinations.</span></span></div>
<div class="sense has-sn">
<span class="dt hasSdSense"><span class="ex-sent t has-aq sents"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span class="dt hasSdSense"><span class="ex-sent t has-aq sents">Now, this grade school level error is pretty easy to pick apart; here are a few ways. One, John also claims to have seen Jesus. Two, Jesus appeared multiple times to the apostles, and over 500 hundred people in another appearance, to James and the apostles multiple times. So his argument is "if you ignore the claims to document multiple appearances, and the claims of two people who died for their belief, and all the time they spent with Jesus prior to Hs resurrection, and all the other elements of the Bible proven true, then this might be false."</span></span></div>
<div class="sense has-sn">
<span class="dt hasSdSense"><span class="ex-sent t has-aq sents"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span class="dt hasSdSense"><span class="ex-sent t has-aq sents">A second would be a guy named Aron Ra who attempts to discredit the Bible with wisdom such as "bats aren't birds". Well played. First off, basic textual research tells us that the Bible never claims they are (Lev 11:13 and 19) where the word used was "owph" which means "owner of a wing". One need not even get into the artificiality of Linnean classification to see the flaw in this.</span></span></div>
<div class="sense has-sn">
<span class="dt hasSdSense"><span class="ex-sent t has-aq sents"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span class="dt hasSdSense"><span class="ex-sent t has-aq sents">It is a waste of time to look at people like this; spend your time with the forefront.</span></span></div>
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<span class="dt hasSdSense"><span class="ex-sent t has-aq sents">A couple of resources I strongly recommend are Spike Psarris, former engineer in the US military space program, and Jason Lisle, an "astrophysicist with a PH.D in physics and astronomy (with a minor in Mathmatics) from Ohio Wesleyan University and masters and PhD in astrophysics from University of Colorado at Boulder. </span></span></div>
<div class="sense has-sn">
<span class="dt hasSdSense"><span class="ex-sent t has-aq sents"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span class="dt hasSdSense"><span class="ex-sent t has-aq sents">You will find a lot of back and forth on things if you know where to look. I just encourage you to look at the best.</span></span></div>
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<span class="dt hasSdSense"><span class="ex-sent t has-aq sents">When I look at the body of evidence, on the one hand I find a claim that has been backed up with evidence numerous times and never contradicted. </span></span></div>
<div class="sense has-sn">
<span class="dt hasSdSense"><span class="ex-sent t has-aq sents"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span class="dt hasSdSense"><span class="ex-sent t has-aq sents">On the other hand I find a patchwork of guesses, assumptions, errors, and constant need for adjustment. It is not a hard call. </span></span></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11724987.post-21342036904376672392015-06-18T20:51:00.003-07:002015-06-18T20:51:23.836-07:00Sad AnniversaryTomorrow, June 19th marks 20 years since the world got a little darker. That was the day Mom officially died. I could say passed on, went to a better place, took the next step in her journey or whatever other polite euphemism people afraid of death use to avoid admitting what happened. That would be to demean who and what she was though.<br />
<br />
The last few months of her life were pretty miserable. Bedridden at the end, ravaged by morphine, destroyed by chemotherapy and cancer, she was a shell of her former self.<br />
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Before becoming bedridden there was a time when her life consisted of spending the week unable to get out of bed because of the effects of the prior chemo treatment. She would get just strong enough to walk to the car to go get the next one. She hated it. It was hard to watch.<br />
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As an aside here...it is no secret how I feel about intentional short hair on a woman or why. But you will seldom if ever hear me comment on it because for all I know the person is suffering from chemo or is shorn in sympathy for someone going through it. It was pretty shattering to Mom when her hair went. It wasn't as if there was anything she could do about it or it made her any less her, but it sure bothered her.<br />
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It was just one of many indignities her declining health forced on her. It was an ugly thing. But it was a beautiful thing.<br />
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Watching her friends and family come together to comfort her, comfort Dad, comfort the kids...that was a beautiful and memorable thing that I can never properly express my gratitude for.<br />
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I will never forgot or stop appreciating the conversation she had with Kenneth D. Barton, maybe 12 or 13 years old at the time, on how he could stand performing an odious but necessary task and hearing his response "It is easy because I love you, Mom." I know how much that meant to her and how much it means to me.<br />
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I was blessed to be one of the kids who early on appreciated the wisdom of his parents and thankful I did for she was a true renaissance woman with a vast array of skills.<br />
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Oh, I am not one of those people who thinks my Mom was the best cook ever, etc. She did not cook 7 course dinners. But she did cook nutritious, plentiful and varied food on what was often an essentially non-existent budget. She sewed clothes for us for years. She took tole painting with her friends, did calligraphy, had done some medical field stuff, I cannot even put it into words.<br />
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Until too many bouts with cancer took their toll she was a very funny, caring and generous woman. I am not blind to some of the changes to her personality after years of torture at the hands of the forefront of medicine. The doctors did the best they could with the knowledge and technology they had but it was still torture and it did change her.<br />
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She taught me a lot about life and I miss her still. But I am glad the misery ended for her. The season of pain passed 20 years ago and she went to meet her maker.<br />
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Not everything left behind was peaches and cream. It has been a difficult patch of years from time to time. There are cracks in the family that we need to fix. We are working on them. There are life paths altered, sometimes for good and sometimes for ill. In other words, she lived a real life, not an idealized life where she was perfect and her passing taught everyone lessons that healed the world and lived happily ever after.<br />
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And I am thankful she did. I am thankful for the joy and thankful for the grief. I am thankful for the lifelong friendships that deepened. I am thankful that daily when I am praying for Doris Allen I am not just thinking of her but also of Jerry Allen, Rocky Allen, Emily, Daniel, Amanda and everyone who cares about them because, while I am not there and living close to them, I know some things they are going through and know Doris needs prayers and encouragement and so do those who love her as so many of us do so deeply. It helps me understand and have compassion that otherwise I am not capable of.<br />
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For good or ill, who Mom was and how she lived and died shaped who I am and how I live. Sometimes I am happy for how I represent her. Other times I am ashamed when I know what I am saying or doing is not what she raised me to do. Sometimes it gets me back on the path I should be on.<br />
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Do I wish she was here today? Yes and no. Her death opened other doors for new friendships with Dan Loveless, Don Loveless and so forth, and a marriage for Dad and Arlene.<br />
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I miss her. I miss her guidance. I miss her smile and the joy she took in simple things. Watching her play Mario Brothers was legendary for her incompetence and the wild swings of her hands as she guided Mario to death after death on the first obstacle. And she would laugh and laugh and laugh and have so much fun. Emily Fethkenher Barton can relate from watching me attempt Ninja Dash with pretty limited success.<br />
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I hope her day of judgement has her standing in front of a loving, compassionate God who says well done faithful servant enter my rest.<br />
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I hope those of us behind who love and miss her take the valuable lessons she had to offer and use them to make ourselves better people. I hope the hurt goes away from those still hurting and leaves them at peace because that definitely is something she would want.<br />
<br />
I miss you Mom but thank you for who you were and who you taught me to be. 20 years is too long to miss someone but not too long to be grateful for the years we had and the help you still are. I will love you forever. Thank you for being you.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11724987.post-21938288331864796572014-08-27T20:37:00.003-07:002014-08-27T20:37:40.867-07:00Something I posted on Facebook and do not want to forget<div style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.31999969482422px; margin-bottom: 6px;">
As many of you know, my Aunt Ann passed away yesterday. I have not and will not say a lot about it or her on here. It is enough to know she was family and I love her as I love all my family, including many who, through the years, have been angry with me or because of me, some of whom have not.</div>
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What I will say is this. Because she was a human being with the struggles attendant on that, there will be people at the funeral or thinking about what I am about to say when they should be at the funeral with regrets over the things they said to her or about her or felt about her. Others will be full of regret because she has passed on from this life.</div>
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Those regrets, of course, are too late in that case. But they are not too late for those of us still behind. I beg you. If you have things in your past between you and your parents, you and your brothers or sisters, you and your friends, you and your co-workers, you and acquaintances that you will regret when they are no longer here to make peace with, do not wait. Do something about it now while you are both still alive.</div>
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It bothers me so much that in my own family there are people with so much hatred toward one another that they cannot both be at family reunions at the same time for fear the other one will be there.</div>
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It bothers me I have friends who do not want to be around others of my friends.</div>
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And do not think it is not hatred. You might cloak it under the guise of anger at things done or imagined, at bitterness or numerous other emotions but the cold hard truth is you are making a mistake in not getting right with that person or people while there is time. You are wrong to not find a way to be civil for 1-2 hours once or twice a year. You are wrong to have the opportunity to not have regrets when someone you should have loved is gone and you cannot make right what is between you.</div>
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I have listened for years as people talked about how stubborn and hateful my Dad and Jim Richardson were. All I know is Dad and Jim both have had open doors, a willingness to talk to anyone, including people who have done them much harm, and there is no place they are afraid to go because someone who said something bad about them or did something wrong to them might be.</div>
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They exemplify love as discussed in Scripture far more than those who hate them for how "hateful" they allege them to be.</div>
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I grieve for those of us who grieve the passing of Ann, but I grieve far more for those with things they regret. And I do not limit that to this situation.</div>
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May Ann rest in peace and may those of us left behind have peace with one another. If you are on my friend list you know I love you.</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11724987.post-74647729085207624042014-07-15T21:35:00.000-07:002014-07-15T21:35:36.565-07:00It is a curiosityFor reasons far too numerous and boring to list, I seldom write on here any longer. Some of the reasons are after over 2200 posts there just were not a lot of new thoughts to share...at least, not that i was desirous of sharing.<br />
<br />
Yet I still pop round every once in a while to drop a note about one thing or other. Almost did a couple weeks ago when my ex-wife had the unmitigated gall and blinding stupidity to try to "friend" me on Facebook.<br />
<br />
I have to wonder what the thought process is that leads to that request.<br />
<br />
"oh, I haven't talked to the man I cheated on repeatedly, kept claiming to get pregnant by other men and then mis-carry, then later said I had never been pregnant or cheated on him, then left him with thousands of dollars in phone and dentist bills incurred after we started divorce proceedings...I think we should be friends on Facebook!"<br />
<br />
I mean, seriously, how incredibly idiotic, insensitive and unaware does one have to be to do that?<br /><br />I started to put a much longer rant about it on here, but then did not. Also, for whatever reason this year Mom's death was hitting me hard a mere 19 years later. No idea why. Not a landmark year like the 20th would be, I am no special "key" age...<br />
<br />
did not post that, either.<br />
<br />
Been a few other thoughts I considered. Couple friends...former friends, I guess? stopped answering my texts (I have never been good at making or taking calls, I spend too much time on phone at work), been thinking about them lately but I am sure they have their reasons and I shan't trouble them. And in a sense it is a bit of a relief as I am at a different point in my life than they are in theirs now and it was fair to none of us I guess.<br />
<br />
At a different point than my oldest friends, too, who have all moved out of state except one who moved to Sun River. I literally...and I mean literally, not figuratively as most people use it...see my friend who moved to Washington, DC more than the one who lives in Oregon.<br />
<br />
Maybe it is just old age creeping up on me. It has certainly affected my meandering mind and stream of consciousness post.<br />
<br />
Thing is, the other day I was randomly trolling the web and find I am not unusual. I see a lot of blogs that used to have a daily posting then just...stopped. Seome were going to post part 2 or 3 and just never did. Others stop for a month, a year, three years...then may suddenly post again.<br />
<br />
Just curious why. What motivated me to post this tonight?Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11724987.post-90019194806583132722014-06-14T23:06:00.002-07:002014-06-14T23:06:13.362-07:00Fathers DayTomorrow is Fathers Day and there will be a host of related comments. Already seen a ton reflecting the modern belief that a father is not the guy who contributed the genetic material, etc. It is not something I agree with the way it is presented, and a lot of why I feel that way is because of my beliefs and experiences.<br />
<br />
I am exceedingly thankful I was born to parents who believed the Word of God, who worked through differences instead of splitting over them, who in good times...and we had them...and bad times...had those too...provided as good of role models as I could ask for. Had I not had those I would be in prison or the grave right now.<br />
<br />
People claiming to be much wiser than Mom and Dad would say Dad did not talk about his love enough. People wiser than those people would recognize the love he showed us every minute of every day in the way he treated Mom...friends...acquaintances...strangers...we children...I would say enemies, but that is part of who he is. There are people who considered him an enemy for speaking the truth but to my knowledge, in my formative years he called nobody enemy.<br />
<br />
For decades I have heard him called stubborn, unbending, bull-headed...other things meant not to be complimentary. Thing is, he would always listen to things said by the people calling him those things, consider their arguments, and simply would not compromise. He could listen without agreeing, though when he found areas he could improve he did. Where he did not agree he would try to show them why. Meanwhile, the people calling him those things would seldom reciprocate. As with the words, his displays meant a whole lot more than their words.<br />
<br />
Watching him deal with Mom all the years she had cancer...trying to care for her, keep us provided for, fulfill his duties as a preacher, be a comfort and support to her when needing it himself...I learned things I cannot express in words.<br />
<br />
I honor and respect those who, in todays broken society of fly by night relationships, "committed relationships" that end for reasons I personally find lacking, faithless parents, I am thankful I grew up with a Father who fought through the challenges to be Father in genetics, responsibility, example, and teaching.<br />
<br />
I was no easy child. The stubbornness I had was not offset by the gentleness that is a hallmark of his actions to those who actually take the time to get to know him. We had many battles of will and I am thankful he did not give up.<br />
<br />
I hope someday to be half the man he is.I hope to learn to have within me and to show the love he has demonstrated all my born days. I hope to find the patience, the care for others, the willingness to forego my own needs that others might be helped he has always shown.<br />
<br />
There are men out there who have been more financially successful. There are men out there who have become more famous. But there is not one person out there, in the past, present or future, I would rather have for my Father. I love you Dad and thank you for everything you have done. I feel that one not on Sunday, June 14th 2014 but on every day since I was cognizant of what the parent-child relationship was, is, and should be. Thank you for molding me, guiding me, supporting me, loving me and being the man you are.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11724987.post-23521251233066383432014-04-10T18:30:00.000-07:002014-04-10T18:30:33.052-07:00Well THAT Was a Colossal Waste of time:My Two Weeks as a JurorFor the past two weeks my life has been dominated by my civic duties. I was called as a juror on April 1st, and the date would prove monumentally accurate...that is, it turned into a very poorly done practical joke.<br />
<br />
The case I was selected for was a civil case; it was a lawsuit alleging age discrimination, gender discrimination, and unlawful job place harassment. I would say those are serious allegations.<br />
<br />
Based on <a href="http://darthweasel.blogspot.com/2008/01/jury-duty.html" target="_blank">my previous jury experience</a>, I was always going to have a tough time getting deliberately dismissed...I believe people like myself willing and able to set aside personal prejudices in favor of delivering a fair verdict based on presented facts are necessary. So lets take a look at some of the reasons people used to get out of jury duty.<br />
<br />
"I don't believe anyone should ever sue anyone for any reason whatsoever."<br />
<br />
"I think it is ridiculous to ask for 9 million dollars and I am so prejudiced against the plaintiff I could never be fair." (Two people used this one).<br />
<br />
"I am a small business owner and hate all big businesses." (Note: Where do you get the product you supply? The parts and pieces that make it up? Going out on a limb here...you hate big businesses when it is convenient to do so and when you want out of jury duty)<br />
<br />
"Defendant is the evil empire."<br />
"They are not suing Defendant Inc, they are suing Defendant HIM, a subsidiary"<br />
"I hate Defendant so much I could never be impartial towards them."<br />
<br />
A few others nearly as bad. There were a couple I thought were legitimate and several (such as the ones above) I found so ridiculously transparent as not wanting to be on a jury I wanted to hit them between the eyes with their stupidity.<br />
<br />
So the Plaintiff's attorney had his opportunity to ask the potential jurors questions. He had every...single...one of us...28 in the initial batch...18 in the replacement batch...may have been another group added...what something was we enjoyed doing.<br />
<br />
Best/worst answer? Taking care of feral cats. REMEMBER: The question is what they enjoyed doing. Wow. Just...wow. Spoiler alert; she ended up on the jury. She sat at the end of the row in a special chair to accommodate a pillow. It was difficult getting in and out of the row past her. She insisted on being the first one seated. She should have been the last one seated. On a completely unrelated note...I hope to never encounter her again.<br />
<br />
He asked zero questions related to the trial at hand. My trouble flag started its first attempt to raise.<br />
<br />
The defense attorney asked questions about HR experience, difficulties with bosses, discrimination...you know, stuff related to the topic we would spend two weeks investigating. One side has an early lead...<br />
<br />
On the Plaintiff side was jury make-up...including the alternate, 8 women and 5 men, so theoretically sympathetic to a woman being discriminated and harassed.<br /><br />Regardless, by the end of the day 13 of us were selected...12 jurors and 1 alternate.<br />
<br />
<b>Opening Statements</b><br />
Plaintiff's attorney starts out talking about how the operations manager would wander around the plant with a black bat, waving it around, and it made the plaintiff nervous, she once asked to hold it, later he was given a plastic bat. She had to challenge her employee rating three times, once having it overturned. She was victimized by a "Good Old Boys" club, when she was out on medical leave, they replaced her with a younger male. She was on medical leave after being threatened physically and cursed at heavily.<br />
<br />
Wow. Serious stuff. What is the defense thinking?<br />
<br />
Defense makes their statements and I have a pretty good idea the trial is already over. They address every point and already I think it is going to come down to a he said/she said credibility check on one specific meeting and whether we believe he yelled, screamed, and cursed at her.<br />
<br />
So then the judge points out that in pre-trial, the bat and the psychological issue were ruled inadmissible and will not be part of the trial.<br />
<br />
So the first witness is the plant manager. Remember, these are the PLAINTIFF'S witnesses. He praises the plaintiff as a very hard, talented worker who was very effective. The questions are bouncing back from 2005 to 2011 randomly with no discernible pattern and it is very confusing.<br />
<br />
Meanwhile, as he would with virtually every witness, the lawyer had this or a similar exchange:<br />
"When you had a conversation with X, and you talked about Y..."<br />
"Objection. Hearsay."<br />
"Sustained."<br />
"Ok." Pursed lips, look of disgust, letting us jurors know the judge was being unfair.<br />
"Did you have a conversation with X?"<br />
"Yes."<br />
"In that conversation, was such and such said?"<br />
"Objection, hearsay."<br />
"Sustained."<br />
"Did you have a conversation with Z about..."<br />
"Objection. Hearsay."<br />
"Sustained."<br />
"Did you have a conversation with Z?"<br />
"Yes."<br />
"In that conversation, was such and such said?"<br />
"Objection..."<br />
"Sustained. It's hearsay."<br />
<br />Over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over.<br />
<br />
Finally the plaintiff's attorney presents an email. Aha, some actual evidence.<br />
<br />
See, plant manager had a habit of walking the floor and talking to every employee as part of their version of LEAN manufacturing. One day he asked a guy working on a machine a question about it. The plaintiff then sent the branch manager an e-mail telling him if he had questions of people on her team to come to her, not them.<br />
<br />What? Isn't that kind of proving the case AGAINST your client that she wasn't part of their work culture?<br />
<br />
Then followed a series of questions: Have you ever used the F-bomb? Have you ever cursed in front of an employee? No, no, etc.<br />
<br />
Plaintiff's lawyer tries to bring up the bat about 4 times, instant objection, instant sustain, instructions to jury to disregard.<br />
<br />
Asks the plant manager various questions about employee's ages. he doesn't know. Asks who was paid how much. He doesn't know.<br />
<br />
Thing is...the branch manager was showing poorly for knowledge on certain things...but believable. Payroll for hundreds of people, maybe he would or would not know people 2-3 levels down from him...same with age.<br />
<br />
Cross examination was mostly how much input he had on the ratings given. Very little, that was the managers job.<br />
<br />
Most witnesses saw same questions with virtually same response; no, they had not heard the two guys mostly being assailed ever curse, yell, scream, in fact they universally thought the bosses were great but had major communications issues with the plaintiff, a notorious micro-manager who rejected the corporate culture because she wanted total command and control.<br />
<br />
Wait...these are the PLAINTIFF'S witnesses? Because they SOUND like the defense's witnesses...<br />
<br />
The manger is interviewed. And the plaintiff's lawyer, in a major "gotchya" moment, shows a picture of him with a beard. "I notice you shaved."<br />
<br />We all look at each other with that, "What?" look.<br />
<br />
"Yes, I grow a beard every year for hunting season and shave after it."<br />
<br />
And yet the lawyer makes a huge deal of this, showing us how intimidating he looks with a beard. Think a kindly grandfather with a snow-white beard and you get the gist. Wow. Strike 27. And we are just 2 or 3 witnesses in so far.<br />
<br />
So the plaintiff brings in a third-party recruiter. he points out he does NOTHING with internal hiring, he only comes into play if they cannot find a suitable candidate internally.<br />
<br />
Plaintiffs Lawyer: "So did you see my client's resume for job A?"<br />
"No, unless the hiring manager asked me to, I wouldn't."<br />
"Did you interview my client for that position?"<br />
"No."<br />
"Did you see my client's resume for position B?"<br />
"No."<br />
"Did you interview her for that position?"<br />
"No."<br />
"Did you see my client's resume for job 3?"<br />
"No."<br />
He introduces an email sent from the recruiter. It is a form rejection letter. "So you didn't see her resume?"<br />
"no."<br />
"It is attached to this rejection letter."<br />
<br />
Uh-oh...they got him.<br />
Recruiter: "It is a form letter. I never opened the resume because she, being an internal employee, was not someone I would look at unless the hiring manager specifically requested me to do so."<br />
Lawyer: "So even though you had her resume, you never opened it?"<br />
"I had no need to."<br />
"And you never interviewed her for the position?"<br />
<br />
Wow, we are just going in circles here.<br />
<br />
Finally, the defense interviews him.<br />
"Do you know (branch manager)?"<br />
"No."<br />
"Do you know (her manager)?"<br />
"No."<br />
"Co-worker 1?"<br />
"No."<br />
names every co-worker involved in case, followed by no.<br />
"No further questions".<br />
<br />
We jurors are staring at each other. What did this guy have to do with anything? He doesn't work their internal employees, knows NONE of the players...what on earth?<br />
<br />
The plaintiff's call her immediate subordinate who had filed a complaint against her. Subordinate is a great witness...for the defense. Backs up EVERY claim the defense had made...plaintiff was micro-manager who had difficult communication style that did not fit the established corporate culture of open communication between everyone. The clients' boss was easy going, great boss. No, never heard either of them curse. No, never heard of an "Old Boys Network" and never experienced it.<br />
<br />
And so it went. Witness after witness saying the same things. Yes, the Plaintiff was hard-working, a good employee, sure, had a couple issues like micro-managing and could be difficult to communicate with, no, they had never heard the two primary defendants curse, threaten anyone, shout...<br />
<br />
As we turned into week two we were still waiting for the bombshell that would turn all this on its head and tell us what the lawsuit was about.<br />
<br />
Age discrimination? Well, one person had been hired younger than the client...but she was saying her advanced age (48 or 49, somewhere in there) was preventing her from advancing.<br />
<br />
Gender discrimination? Well...2 of the 3 people in her position were female, in fact over half the plant was female in positions on every level.<br />
<br />
Harassment? Everyone was disputing her claims...and they were HER witnesses.<br />
<br />
So we start discussing a fateful moment. After she sent her e-mail telling her bosses' boss to go through her to talk to her people, her boss called her into his office to discuss that e-mail. See, from her very first performance review six years ago, on EVERY performance review he had addressed an ongoing problem; she needed to develop a better work/life balance and needed to let other people have input and communication.<br />
<br />This was documented by the items the plaintiff had admitted as evidence.<br />
<br />
So he was talking to her about it and said, "You just aren't getting it. I feel like I have to hit you between the eyes with it to get you to understand."<br />
<br />
The meeting was supposed to last about an hour. It lasted an indeterminate time (stricken evidence indicated 10 minutes but who knows) she stormed out. She called the HR manager and they talked for 10-15 minutes. She said she felt her e-mail was misunderstood and that was the extent of her complaint.<br />
<br />
Worked the rest of the day. Worked the next day. Talked again to the HR manager who asked her what her complaint about how it was received was and asked for a formal complaint which was never filed. Went out on medical leave and never worked another day there.<br />
<br />
Turns out she was having relationship problems at the same time (the defense was prevented from bringing this up. The plaintiff's lawyer had her intake form admitted which told us this and under problems with job it said "none". Smoking gun evidence...for the defense. But presented by the plaintiff.)<br /><br />After 3-4 months her doctor referred her to a psychologist. 2 months later she decided she had been threatened physically when he threatened to hit him between the eyes, that he had stood over her, pounded his hand on the desk, cursed at her and threatened to hit her.<br />
<br />
The first time this was ever mentioned was 6 months later.<br />
<br />
Oh, one of the Plaintiff's witnesses, whose office was next to the guy accused of this had mentioned if he had ever yelled it would have been heard by them all because the walls were "paper thin". Additionally, every witness the plaintiff called testified under oath they had never seen him yell, curse, threaten or intimidate.<br />
<br />
So finally they call the plaintiff herself to testify.<br />
<br />
And she pretty much repeats everything everyone else had testified, albeit with a couple breaks for tears. In one of those breaks I saw her peak out to see if the jury was looking at her and, seeing most of us were, take her hand away and turn her face so we could see she was crying. It was so stage-managed I could not believe it.<br />
<br />
Anyway, the lawyer goes through this long, complicated deal trying to show how much lower her income is now than it was. Problem: she made, according to her pay statement, 86,000 and change. Her new job paid 91,000 the first year plus paid overtime which this job did not. Interesting math to consider that a pay cut.<br />
<br />
So the cumulative evidence presented by the plaintiff when he was done with his witnesses:<br />
She was a hard-working, valuable and valued employee who did a great job on the business side but struggled to communicate with superiors, employees under her and the people in the same position. There had been a poorly worded e-mail sent that they had addressed and put in place a plan for training that was essentially a promotion according to everyone interviewed. In other words, she took something minor and turned it into something that ended her career.<br />
<br />There was zero evidence of age discrimination, quite the contrary.<br />
There was zero evidence of gender discrimination, quite the contrary.<br />
There were about a dozen people who testified there was no history or evidence of profanity, threatening, or voice-raising.<br />
<br />
<br />
And the plaintiff has rested their case. I am thinking they did a great job of presenting the defense's case and if the defense calls nobody, simply rests, our deliberations will take about this long: "Anyone for the plaintiff? Okay, case dismissed."<br />
<br />
We are saved the trouble. The judge dismissed the case as the plaintiff had not provided sufficient evidence to prove their claims.<br />
<br />
I had the good fortune to talk to him after it; he concurred with my assessment that most if not all of the witnesses had more or less proved the defense case, that there was no evidence on behalf of the plaintiff. I had to admit curiosity about the bat.<br />
<br />
See, in production meetings...which entailed numerous people...the plant manager had a habit of toying with a baseball bat. When a new person came into the company and complained about it, he stopped the habit. Later he was given a plastic bat from someone who knew he was a Cubs fan and had gone to a Chicago Cub game and gave it to him as a gift. He then toyed with that.<br />
<br />
Not one person had ever been or felt threatened by it. It took nearly 6 years after the habit had stopped for it to become an issue.<br />
<br />
Wow. What a colossal waste of my time. I am a dedicated worker. I habitually stayed up 3-4 hours after I got home working, was getting up at 4 to go in to work and stay caught up, was working through the breaks and lunch while at jury duty. I have been short of sleep for two weeks.<br />
<br />
So let me give you the actual timeline devoid of court-speak.<br />
<br />
Employee has e-mail exchange with bosses boss. Is called to account for not buying into corporate culture. Works another day. More than likely has argument with significant other. Stressed her so much she starts taking medication. Things get worse. Doctor forwards her to psychologist. Has been off work for months now. Time for yearly pay statement. Has not been at work, received pay statement with low rating, decides all the fault lies in the meaning. Decides the statement "I need to hit you between the eyes with this for you to get it" means he was ACTUALLY, PHYSICALLY going to strike her, decides he was yelling and cursing, that everything that has gone wrong is because there is a good old boys network that results in age and discrimination, finds a lawyer willing to try and twist the evidence to reflect that, starts looking around for other proofs and recalls the bat from now 8 years ago...<br />
<br />
Wastes several hours of my life over the course of a week and a half in a ridiculous lawsuit with no foundation, no evidence, and that contradicts all available evidence. Wow. Just...wow.<br />
<br />
On the bright side, there were some funny moments...like the defense lawyer objecting to a document....that she herself later submitted as evidence. I guess she didn't really object to it...<br />
<br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11724987.post-45553602780314828532014-01-04T12:25:00.000-08:002014-01-04T12:25:10.484-08:00On AdoptionThe Goose and I worked hard to make sure we were in a good place. She has an excellent, well-paying job. I likewise have a very solid career rolling. We have a spacious house in a good location. We have been getting various things paid of and a savings built up. We have gotten used to living together again after her time at school and getting work experience.<br />
<br />
<br />
We have also spent a pretty fair amount of time planning our future. We have discussed options involving having children and being childless. The first has become very much our preferred condition and ideally we would like 2 children, a boy and a girl, though that is not set in stone.<br />
<br />
We have talked long and deeply about our child-rearing ideals. We both are in agreement we want a well-rounded child/children who takes up an instrument, takes up a sport and is interested in their studies. Naturally we are aware the child's inclinations and abilities have some bearing on this, but our guidance would matter. We want to be sure they have the opportunities.<br />
<br />
Along with this has been the admission certain things have to change. My noted food finickiness would be one shining example. For the sake of our children I have made marked changes and while certain foods will never be on the list of favorites...or even things I like...in the interest of setting an example I consume them on occasion. And if we had children it would be constant.<br />
<br />
That is just an example of the changes we have made or are prepared to make in the interest of giving our kids a great start to life.<br />
<br />
We have discussed various educational choices. Potential family activities. Trips. Even what room we would take for our bedroom until the children reached certain appropriate ages.<br />
<br />
And as anyone who knows us can tell you, we are already well-stocked with many pro-child items. My movie shelf alone is a child's dream...lots of Despicable Me, How to Train Your Dragon, Incredibles, Finding Nemo type movies....one might almost argue we already have a child. Me.<br />
<br />
But I like that kind of stuff and will not apologize for it. I would much rather watch an innocent, clean, humorous movie than a blood-soaked scream fest.<br />
<br />
We have also discussed certain things our parents did that we liked, some that we might have wished changed. We have observed other young parents and more experienced parents and taken into account various factors.<br />
<br />
Obviously our goal is to raise happy, healthy children who have the physical, mental and financial capabilities to become whoever they want to be. Ideally we would be involved in their schoolwork, guide them to take care of them physically through a sport or more, have a musical interest so that later in life they are prepared to go where they want, do what they want and have a wonderful life.<br />
<br />
Regardless, we have, as should be evident, spent a great deal of time examining our options. Unfortunately a combination of factors means we are highly unlikely to ever have natural-born children of our own.<br />
<br />
But that does not change either our desire for children nor our belief we could be excellent parents given the opportunity.<br />
<br />
I have recently been looking into the steps necessary for adoption and a few very clear lines have quickly become evident.<br />
<br />
First off, by the time children reach 5 or 6 years old they have often been put in a very difficult position. Many have been abused, others have developmental issues, still others have developed a "I want to go to a place with few rules" explicitly stated mindset.<br />
<br />
My heart goes out to these children. They deserve everything we want to provide. However, they are already deeply ingrained with certain patterns that we want to discourage and I am not sure that our lack of experience would allow us to be the parents they need, nor are we prepared to start in that far along.<br />
<br />I am wording this poorly and I apologize for that. It is not that I would love such a child any less, it simply is not where we want to start out.<br />
<br />
Second, many others are in even more difficult straights. Children with the need of 24/7 care, as many are, I feel for them. Very much. And again it is not that I would not love and care for them. However, that is not what we are seeking to do.<br />
<br />
At the risk of sounding even more selfish and self-centered, I would love to have a son I could bike with, play catch with, enjoy watching his guitar playing get better and better, maybe play some chess, tennis, whatever...that I could sit down and discuss his studies with.<br />
<br />Does that mean if by some miracle we had a child who say...could not walk that I would love him any less? Absolutely not. A child is a miracle and blessing and we would show the same love and care towards that child as we would one born with an incredibly high IQ who turned out to be the next Jimmi Hendrix/Elvis/Michael Jordan/Einstein rolled into one.<br />
<br />
What it does mean is that if we are going to "pick" a child rather than have one through childbirth we have a preference to start with a young child who is healthy.<br />
<br />
I feel awful typing that. It sounds very selfish. I feel awful that I cannot provide the time, care, and loving home that so many of these children need.<br />
<br />
But I can't.<br />
<br />
Here is the thing. When I go to adopt, I am making the explicit statement, "I am choosing you to love, to guide, to mold, to be my family, to carry on my name and legacy".<br />
<br />
That is not contingent upon the child being healthy, developmentally challenged either physically or mentally. If we got a healthy child, natural or adopted, and tragedy struck it would not change how I felt about them.<br />
<br />
I should say as an aside that I have several friends and relatives who are adopted. I even vaguely know who some of the family members are...I am not sure if it is to my credit or shame if I say that, while I know some of the Strands were adopted, for example, I cannot say which ones. Because I don't care. To me Gloria, Ben, Kent, Jason are my family just as much as Shelli, Trudi, and Lori, for example. There is no difference to me between Dale and Brenda, between adopted and natural born. I do not care who was adopted into the family and who was born into it. They are family. No difference to me. I cannot emphasize that enough.<br />
<br />
So having already come out as a selfish jerk who wants to pick a healthy child to start, let me make myself look even worse.<br />
<br />
I don't want a child with a lot of interference. What I mean is that many, many, many of these children come with the warning, "Joe is in counseling and that will need to continue" or similar statements that come out to "the state will be heavily involved in the rearing of your child".<br />
<br />
I have zero interest in having case workers constantly around. I have no interest in the state determining how, when, or where my child will be raised.<br />
<br />
A parent has responsibilities towards a child and the more people involved the more difficult it is to do those in the way the parent believes is right.<br />
<br />This is also one reason I am not particularly interested in an "open adoption" where the "birth" parent is still involved.<br />
<br />
I understand the wonderful work being done there. For many people that is the right choice. It simply is not the right choice for me.<br />
<br />
Adoption can be a very sensitive topic. I remember hearing as a kid other kids telling each other as a pejorative "you are adopted". Here is the thing; I consider it not a pejorative but a compliment. What I hear is "they love you so much they took you for their own".<br />
<br />
The Goose and I have talked long about how, when and why to let our potential children know they are adopted. There are reasons for this, including medical and their right to know. It is a very serious topic and one we have an agreement on that is flexible depending on circumstances.<br />
<br />
It is important to me. I had a friend growing up whose mother told her often, "You were an accident". She was devastated by that saying and it led to many, many problems.<br />
<br />
Our children will never be allowed to know anything other than unreserved love and they are greatly desired. By the time the time arrives to let them know they were adopted, not natural born I want it so deeply ingrained in them that they are an indispensable part of a loving family that it will not matter to them that the blood is not the same. We may not be linked by heredity but we are in every other way. Inextricably, irrevocably, without reservation or regret. No more and no less valued and loved than any other child we may or may not have.<br />
<br />
I know adopting from foster care is often mentioned. I think you can see from above why I am not overly on board with that. It is not that I do not want those children to have long, happy, healthy lives...it is just that we may not be the right match. They already KNOW what I want them to learn in the proper time and way, they already have other influences in their lives.<br />
<br />
Along with that, we have kind of established an artificial "we would like 4 years or younger" child...and prefer babies for a variety of reasons, including many in this screed.<br />
<br />
We have talked about children from other countries and it may turn out that is what we end up doing. The Goose actively wants a baby from China. I would be good with that, although it would alter the timing of the adoption conversation obviously.<br />
<br />
There are so many things to consider. We will be actively pursuing this year. I welcome all comments, advice, and even accept heavy doses of criticisms for the parts you think insensitive or selfish.<br />
<br />
We also are very, very open...if you know someone having an abortion who would consider giving up for adoption instead, please let us know, we know we can provide a wonderful, loving home and very much want to.<br />
<br />
<br />
I hope you read between the lines and do not think me hateful or spiteful. It is meant to be the opposite, but this is a topic many people have very strong feelings on and I am sure some of you will not care for our approach. Hopefully most of you understand where we are coming from.<br />
<br />
Ultimately if we are able to provide a home for one or more children and can be, if not wonderful parents we wish to be then at least adequate to give that kid or kids a great start in life then it will be a wonderful thing. If not, I will understand, albeit with disappointment.<br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11724987.post-11709845771189180632014-01-01T18:18:00.001-08:002014-01-01T18:18:17.405-08:00So long 2013What a great year in many ways.<br />
<br />
When the year started the Goose and I were living in a dark apartment next to some dope-smoking mendicants. We had a few thousand dollars in credit card debt still from her journey through nursing school. We were learning to live together again.<br />
<br />
During the year there were some real negatives that happened. I did not enjoy the heart issues that kept me in the hospital and started my downward health spire that has added 30-35 pounds back on, the tennis elbow, the torn meniscus, etc.<br />
<br />
I did not enjoy losing friends, though it was not by my choice in any of the cases. I do not hold it against them, they had to make the choice(s) that were right for them but I do miss some of them. There is one I don't really miss, but he wasn't much of a friend and I think it funny his stance on how tolerant he is and yet he cut me off because he did not like something I have believed for over 42 years now. A great show of tolerance on his part...as is normal for his ilk.<br />
<br />
But I tell you what I have enjoyed.<br />
<br />
We got those credit cards paid off. We purchased a house we both love a great deal in an area very close to both our works. We were able to help out a bunch of people when they needed help while making near-constant house improvements. We are closer to being completely debt free than we thought possible. We have learned how to live in the same house again and life has never been better.<br />
<br />
On the docket for 2014 is getting down to just the mortgage and student loans, with a very decent savings amount. getting back down to 214 pounds. Looking into adoption since it seems natural childbirth is unlikely. Helping out some other people we know need some help. Enjoying time with family and friends. Maybe writing a second book.<br />
<br />
I hope 2014 is great for all my family, friends current, past and future, and acquaintances.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11724987.post-31914307447893229762013-10-01T19:55:00.002-07:002013-10-01T19:55:39.575-07:00Thank you for the Shutdown. Long may it continue.I laugh every time I read a "news" story on the shutdown. Naturally, most of the reports blame the Republicans but a couple think the Democrats have a tiny share of the blame.<br />
<br />
Not one blames the right people.<br />
<br />
Us. The voters.<br />
<br />
We are the ones who keep electing "the lesser of two evils" instead of standing up and insisting on reps who actually represent US and what matters to us.<br />
<br />
There is a reason I have not voted for a major party candidate in well over a decade. So long as we choose evil...and the lesser of two evils is still evil...we are going to get what we deserve.<br />
<br />
Self-serving, destructive "leadership" that enhances the power of the government, removes the reward for industry from the hardest working and benefits the people who are most visible/least productive is what we vote for and what we have gotten because "it is less bad than the other guy". (Hindsight has proved this correct approximately zero times in history...)<br />
<br />
The unfortunate side effect is the move further away from good principles. Like him, hate him or ignore him, anyone who LISTENS to him should recognize Rand Paul had a great point...people claiming to follow God who glory in war clearly missed Scriptures such as "the Spirit which comes from above is first pure, then peaceable", "the Fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, PEACE", "turn the other cheek", the whole point of the parable of the Good Samaritan...<br />
<br />
And furthermore, our disgust at the proliferation of welfare, funding for trash like Planned Parenthood or "art" such as the famous cross in urine, etc. has led people who used to care about others to reject Biblical principles such as caring for the lost...doesn't James say that pure religion is to visit the widow and orphan in their affliction, with the very clear inference that visiting includes caring for them and helping them.<br />
<br />
There are elements of Obamacare, for example, that I really dislike. But look at the basic thing it is attempting; ensure anyone who needs health care can get it. Yes, the execution is abominably bad...but people who should know better attack the principle instead of the flaws.<br />
<br />
What happened?<br />
<br />
We kept accepting the lesser of two evils. Now we have a bloated, unsustainable government swelling the debt for every American. We spend so much money servicing the debt, aiding foreign countries, fighting wars of dubious moral rightness and even more dubious value and yet everyone keeps their hands extended...one for their peace of the tax pie, the other to push away those who need help.<br />
<br />
And yes, often enough those who need help are there by their own actions. They made and continue to make poor choices. We as a society mock education, praising "recess" and "summer vacation" while harping on the drudgery of learning...small wonder many of the most impressionable of our youth reject scholarly pursuits and end up needing that helping hand.<br />
<br />
We demand more, more, more money for education without using it to educate. Instead it goes to extra administrators and makers of red tape. We keep ineffective but tenured teachers. I could go on, but why?<br />
<br />
It is just another in a long line of incompetent decisions made at the voting booth.<br />
<br />
There is really one way this "shutdown" could turn into a win for us all. That is if we vote the entire government out. From the major-party candidates for President on down to the newest Congressman.<br />
<br />
Lets stop putting in new laws and start cleaning up the old ones so we have at least a chance of knowing the rules. Lets scale back the money going out of the country, get rid of the crippling debt and bring our soldiers home.<br />
<br />
Then we might have the extra money to cover food for the hungry, health care for the sick, and get rid of the resentment of the ever increasing taxes.<br />
<br />
But of course that will never happen so lets just enjoy the lessened damage done when they can only concentrate on this hole we have dug.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11724987.post-41598344909231686012013-06-23T21:01:00.001-07:002013-06-23T21:01:17.302-07:00Oregon Sunshine Golf; Not exactly the Good Life...Some of the people from the softball group were getting together to go golfing and it sounded like fun since I can't do "real" athletic stuff like racquetball for a couple weeks. Softball is questionable but I am going to keep doing that and biking where possible...so off to West Killarney we went.<br />
<br />
First hole is a dogleg left. If you play smart you punch it out in the center but not too far, have a short, straight thought to the green...or you can be me and try to fly the trees, cut off the dogleg and be sitting on or around the green in one.<br />
<br />
Unless you hit a line drive that clunks a tree and you end up with an 80 yard drive...but a quick punch through, chip, 1-putt and I saved a bogey.<br />
<br />
Next hole is dogleg right with canyon on the right. I pulled a 6 iron, landed on top of the hill, punched a beautiful pitching wedge I somehow triggered slightly right, but pin high in two. The day was starting well.<br />
<br />
Then the rain started. And it was a real gully washer. I promptly bladed my gap wedge...85-95 yard club went about 135. No problem, I bump and run pretty well...except the rain was so hard the greens were ssssllllloooooooooooowwwwwww....<br />
<br />
As in from about 20 feet out I 4 putted...and I was taking nearly full swings. You simply could not move the ball. Grr.<br />
<br />
Next hole is long and straight...and my drive tailed a bit. And somehow, in the rain, even though it was within 5 yards of the fairway with no hazards nearby we never could find it...<br />
<br />
Next hole is a long par 5. My drive was long but right. No problem, I grabbed my hybrid and punched long and straight...whoops, tree. No problem, in 2 shots I am a hundred yards off the green. I will hit my gap wedge.<br />
<br />
Except during my swing, the wet handle slipped in my hand and I gripped it tightly...my divot went about 20 yards, the ball about 10. Switched to the 8-iron...it slipped even worse, toed the ball about 10' to my right...and NEVER found the ball! Unbelievable. There is simply nowhere it could have gone.<br />
<br />
By now I am frustrated but at least the rain has stopped.<br />
<br />
I hit a long drive but slice again, this time into the next fairway. No problem, I am 130 from the green, perfect for my pitching wedge. I will fly it over the trees, it should land on the green. Except I bladed the daylights out of it, it never got over about half the height of the trees...and sticks on the green because it is so wet, about 20' from the cup. My first green in regulation. Been a rough day.<br />
<br />
It is a left-hand sloping putt, going to be slow, there is still standing water at a couple places on the green...I read it pretty well, hit it pretty well, it rolls, it turns it...drops in. A birdie!<br />
<br />
Nice! Been a while since I hit a birdie.<br />
<br />
Next one is a par 3, I yank it a bit left. Would have been good shot, instead it hits the only tree on the entire hole. I pitch it pretty good, 2-putt. Bogey is not bad from that place.<br />
<br />
Next hole is tightest fairway on the course. I want to use my 7-wood but the handle is so wet I cannot hang on to it. I regretfully pull out my driver, knowing it is a mistake but with no dry handles on any other club, even knowing it is a mistake, it is the least mistake I can make...until I hit my worst slice of the day, deep into the trees.<br />
<br />
But I find it...and have a sliver of daylight...punch out the hybrid and land 100 yards from the green. I cub the gap wedge just over the green, bump and run back on and have a respectable score.<br />
<br />
Last hole is a dogleg left that a pond makes too dangerous to short-cut, you cannot go long or you are beyond the road, cannot miss right...tough hole I have never played well. Wet handles mean I decide to modify my swing with the hybrid and aim left, hoping to fade and have that lose enough distance to not overfly the fairway. Ball ends up about perfect, just clipping the corner, middle of fairway 135 yards from the green,<br />
<br />
I pull my 135 year pitching wedge and plan to apply backspin so I put it a hair further back in my stance than normal. And proceed to have my best swing of the day. As soon as I hit it I knew I stuck it and even yelled, "Yeah, way to stick it baby!"<br />
<br />
It was one of those shots where I did everything right and knew it, this was going to be a brilliant shot, right at the flag, and I even thought it had an outside chance at being a foot or 2 from the cup if my backspin worked...<br />
<br />
Until it landed 5 yards short of the green. I must have stood there with my jaw dropped staring at it for 30 seconds. JJ laughed, knowing what had happened.<br />
<br />
Oh well. 9 iron bump and run to 3' from the cup and I tapped in for a par, a pretty good close to a pretty rough day.<br />
<br />
Lets see; hole 2, the rain cost me at least 2 shots, it cost me a lost ball/drop shot and a couple putts on 3, and at least 2-3 shots on 4. So about 7-8 shots...and I had a 48.<br />
<br />
So the upshot is...I thought I was playing poor but that was a pretty sharp score all things considered. And I got my shower in...Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11724987.post-82458924615142246632013-06-19T09:50:00.001-07:002013-06-19T09:50:42.783-07:00The Only time you will hear a short-stop say THIS <br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I like to think HYD is one of the funnest teams in the league to play against. See, we play mid-level softball but understand we are all past our prime and are now just playing for fun. Sure, it is fun to win, but we like to hang out with each other before and after the game so much the play itself becomes somewhat secondary.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Anyway, after the infamous “Halo game” where I lost a ground ball in the sun and got thrown out of the Championship game for twice hitting “Halo rule” violations, I really wanted to play well. And hit well…<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I usually do hit well. It is slow-pitch softball, I am an athlete…there is not a lot of challenge in blasting a slow-moving ball as hard as I want in any direction I choose. I am what is known as a free-swinger. If the ball is somewhere between my ankles and shoulders in height and anywhere from 6” to 4’ in front of me, the bat is moving and the ball is reversing direction. I do not “wait for my pitch” or hit selectively…I am up there blasting away at everything.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">And by the way…I usually hit pretty smurfing well. Prior to the back-to-back “Halo” shots I had been on base every plate appearance this season. So it is not as if my take-a-hack-at-everything approach has cost me. I even have a couple home runs this year, both of the inside the park variety.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Well, coming off my bad news dental appointment and knowing this would be my last athletic endeavor for a couple weeks, I felt a bit of pressure to play well. And my hitting was back…a single and double in my first two plate appearances (with a combined 2 pitches seen, I might add…neither of which were “strikes”…) and had fielded the only chance I had cleanly, making the easy throw to first.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">However, as a team we were struggling to bat well…in fact, we had just 6 runs after 5 innings. Three times we went down 1-2-3, including back to back innings with the bottom and top of the order. So the game was close…6-4. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">We got two quick outs, but then one of their power hitters stepped to the plate. The outfielders backed well up. The infield was playing deep. He took a mighty cut…got under it and hit a towering shot behind the second basemen.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">With the outfield so deep, there was no chance they would get to it even though they were both running in. Our first basemen, Nick, has bad knees and it was a tough angle. He was not going to get it. It was a super tough angle and long run for Emy, our second basemen.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Here comes Mighty Mouth, the shortstop, AKA me. It is going to be a tough play and I am keeping my eye on the ball. Unsure if I am going to interfere with someone with a better shot, I unleash a shout that has most likely never before been heard on a baseball (or softball) diamond.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“I may…or may not…have it!”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Nobody calls me off so I dive for it...later I am told I am about 2’ short of it. Anyway, my momentum rolls me over the ball. I see the runner head towards second. I cannot recover to throw it so elect to throw it to Emy, who I had seen approaching so she can relay it to the infield.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Unfortunately, upon hearing my “call” of the ball, she collapsed in laughter, and my toss to her became a projectile to nowhere, sailing past her laying on the ground laughing, past the startled Nick and in the general direction of nobody. Adam, the right-center fielder, picks up the ball and starts to run it in, oddly electing to hide it…so the hitter breaks for home, the throw sails past the catcher and my idiotic call turns a Texas-Leaguer into a round trip run scored.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">They go on to tie the game in the top of the 7<sup>th</sup>. I am leading off the bottom half…and we only play 7.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The umpire comments on my…rather unusual way of calling off other fielders and we have a good laugh.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The first pitch is so far inside even I cannot swing. I yell out to the pitcher, “If I have to charge the mound, I am bringing the bat with me!” This is greeted by another wave of laughter and he responds by “throwing at me”…the pitch is actually behind me.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">No big deal…the count is now 3-1 (you start with a ball and a strike) but I will be driving the next pitch anyway. He just has given me literally nothing to hit.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Except his next pitch is a good 3’ outside the strike zone. I cannot reach it. I did not think quick enough to swing to get another pitch, so…I walk. And my team rightly boos me for it. We are NOT a walking team…we like to swing the bat.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Gina then hits a falling liner…I cannot tell if the guy will catch it or not so go half way…looks like he will catch it, I start back to the bag…no, it drops, but I have no chance to advance.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">As Phil steps to the plate Eric is ALREADY waving me to make the turn…regardless of what is hit, Eric intends me to score. I intend the same thing. And Phil, first pitch swinging, drives it to right field, I score before the ball gets back to the infield…and my team boos me. Hannah wanted to bat and with no outs, we would have had the bases loaded…<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">So lets sum up my last two games.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I lost a ground ball in the sun, went 0-2 and got thrown out of the championship game for Halo rule violations, waited to weeks to be the first person in the history of baseball to pre-call not getting it, walk for the first time in years and get boos from my own team for scoring the winning run…<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I love softball the way we play it!<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11724987.post-16366165532816189092013-06-07T21:29:00.000-07:002013-06-07T21:29:00.702-07:00How to move in 4 hours or less...by which I mean two weeks<span lang="EN"><div align="LEFT" dir="LTR">
We had been looking at a new place for a while. And it made sense to do so. See, while the Goose was off at school it was all well and good for me to be in that specific apartment. My days were pretty full.</div>
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Monday through Friday I typically went to the gym 3 – 4 times a week after work. I would do a half hour of weights and then 2 hours of racquetball. On the rare occasions I was home I was generally watching a Blazer game, Burn Notice or Psych. My interaction with neighbors was somewhere between non-existent and never.</div>
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But when she came back to Oregon things changed. She DID spend time in the apartment and the dark, closed-in nature of it was something that would negatively affect her. She wanted out of that place so had been looking.</div>
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The first three places we actually visited all did not work out for one reason or another. I say we….those are the ones we actually went into. We drove by several others and she looked at probably hundreds online. </div>
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We also looked at other apartments. It was a fine line; I was hard to drag out of our old apartment because it was large, cheap, and close to work. I did not want to add 50% to my housing bill for less space…worse location…and knowing we would most likely have to move again because she was on a dogged search for a house. An actual house.</div>
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At the same time, she hated the apartment so much that it was virtually guaranteed we were going to be out of there. That is part of the challenge of marriage…finding mutually agreeable compromises.</div>
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Well, we found a nice compromise. About 2 – 3 miles from the apartment, close to everything we wanted to be close to, decent size, cheap price, and everything she wanted except a garage. Well, okay, so it was not a cheap price…we thought it was about 5-10% high.</div>
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We put in an offer about 7% under what he was asking, he countered at 4% less…it was a workable deal. It was a price we were willing to pay IF the repairs came up to standard.</div>
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The problem is there were so many…siding, roof, electrical, plumbing, floors, other…and one that was a HUGE sticking point, the trip hazard dead concrete. He would not budge on it, we would not…it almost killed the deal. We actually had withdrawn our offer.</div>
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Then the Goose and I talked, decided we would offer more if he would repair the concrete. I planned to split the cost of it, but the "split" was going to be like 90-10 when we got done hammering it out, so instead we took it off the table if he would do all the other repairs including a couple he had been balking at. The deal was back on.</div>
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Well, the repair process dragged out. I do not know who he had do the first set of repairs but I know this; if that guy is licensed and bonded I would be shocked. He did such a poor job that I could have done better…and I am a self-admitted home repair incometent.</div>
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Example; the water heater is required BY LAW to drain the overflow valve to the outside of the house. In this house it is located dead center in the house. His guy ran the pipe about ¾ of the way down the water heater…and called it good. In other words, any water coming out of that pipe would go directly on the floor. </div>
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Sadly, that was one of the BEST jobs he did. Of the 3 sinks that previously leaked, now 4 did. No, I did not mis-type. More sinks were leaking than before he began doing repairs. It kind of makes the water heater thing look good in comparison, wouldn’t you agree?</div>
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Well, we were…unhappy with the quality of repairs. We said we would keep the offer on the table if he did the repairs but used the licensed, bonded contractors our realtor had do quotes. That would push the closing back by at least a week, maybe two.</div>
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By this time, pretty much everyone had enough of the seller and his antics and the thought of this thing dragging out another length of time had people scrambling for solutions. The seller’s representative suggested that instead he cut a check to us for the amount of the repairs left undone and we still close in the same time frame.</div>
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We came up with a total that was more than fair to the seller…we were not trying to gouge the guy, even though several other things had been revealed on reinspection that had previously escaped notice, we did not put those in the total, we took the lowest possible total off, completely took off the table stuff that legitimately we should have charged for but did not because we have plans anyway…so no point to charging him for stuff we thought had already been pulled off the repair list. We were really trying to do the "right" thing and not be vindictive or unreasonable. In retrospect, I think we were a little bit too fair and should have been another 2k or so…but in the end…we did it, life goes on.</div>
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Anyway, because of the hesitations it was unclear if we would close on Friday or not. It dragged on so late that as late as 2:30 we were still debating if we wanted to go through with it or walk away from the deal.</div>
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At 3:08 the loan funded, it was closed. I texted a few people that I had earlier told we were not looking like we would close in time and not sure if we would move that it was official, we had the house.</div>
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By 4:30 I met my realtor outside the racquetball court, got the key and started playing racquetball. (As an aside, I had a pretty good night…I lost the first game 15-14, won the next two games of singles and every game of cutthroat….)</div>
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I got home and started packing. Let me rephrase that slightly…I got home and thought about starting to pack. And kept sitting there thinking I needed to either get up and go to bed so I could get an early start or get up and start packing until 1:30 in the morning.</div>
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Ultimately we decided to put off moving for a week. I planned to get up and call my brothers and tell them we were going to try to move the following Saturday. This did not happen. Because…</div>
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My brother called before I got up…he was in Portland to help out. So we jumped up and started planning a swift move. We decided we would just move the furniture and then box everything up and move it ourselves in cars.</div>
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As a stalling tactic/thank you, we took him to breakfast. Did you know Tom’s Pancake House makes waffles with bacon mixed into the batter? Anyway, got done, the Goose went home to start packing and Fullur and I headed over to U-Haul to see if they had anything. </div>
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They had ONE vehicle left. I took it. We booked it. My other brother and his wife showed up, so did my cousin’s husband (they had lived with us for a time) and we started cracking out the furniture. Meanwhile, I started "speed packing".</div>
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Speed Packing; the process whereby an entire room can be packed in 10 minutes. Just throw stuff in a box until it is full with no regard for relationship to other stuff in the box, marking the box, or any other consideration other than if it fits. I packed the first room in about 10 minutes.</div>
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I packed the second room in about 8 minutes. I packed the third room in about 5 minutes. I was told to leave the other 2 rooms alone…</div>
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We got it moved. We got the bedroom set up. We got curtains hung. We would be able to spend the first night in the new place.</div>
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Much pizza was consumed, soda as well, grateful platitudes extended…</div>
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Now, mind you…the old place still had a fair amount of very valuable stuff in it* and it took us another week to get all that moved out and the place clean.</div>
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And even today, 2 weeks later we are not completely unpacked at the new place. Nor do we have all the repairs done.</div>
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But we are in the new place, we love it, and it happened. </div>
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Goose and Weasel, living in Beaverton since May 24<sup>th</sup>, 2013. </div>
</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11724987.post-89158489146294060312013-04-23T21:42:00.000-07:002013-04-23T21:42:10.479-07:00Of Friends, Hobbies, Bracelets and Badly Written Comedy<br />
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Sometimes in life we make odd choices. Oh, not me of course…I am perfectly normal in all I say, think and do. I could no more make an odd choice than I could say something odd. When you look up “average” in the dictionary, there are no words…just a picture of me. Average height, average weight, average hair, average intellect, average number of nose hairs sprouting forth…, averagely braided ear hair...in every conceivable way, I am strictly average.<u></u><u></u></div>
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My interests are wide-ranging enough that I can attend with equal aplomb a night at the symphony or a rabid, touch-down dancing fan fest watching a football game. I can grab a handful of grease at the local burger joint while chatting up the latest episode of the Simpsons or discuss the intricacies of foreign policy in the Middle East over miniscule pieces of salmon in the fifth course at the swanky hotel. I can find a home anyplace in between those extremes because I am average.<u></u><u></u></div>
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I fit in because my fashion sense is so close to average that anyone from the eclectic, gingham-gown-and-lace-doily crowd to the 3-piece suit with a corsage to the 17 piercings in unmentionable locations with a side order of black clothes and unusual hats feels comfortable around me. I fit in with all by being so average I separate myself from none.<u></u><u></u></div>
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Oh, sure, I don’t have the average 2.3 children but in every other respect I am the fountain of averageosity. One might almost say bland. Unnoticeable. In need of a makeover.<u></u><u></u></div>
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So recently I have been trying to find a “new look”. I thought an easy way to do it would be just the barest amount of jewelry. A gold chain about the throat. A manly bracelet perhaps.<u></u><u></u></div>
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On a completely unrelated topic, the wife and I have been seeking a hobby we might both enjoy. </div>
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She is not particularly athletic, although she has joined me on the tennis court and in the racquetball court a time or two. We bike together on occasion and it is always enjoyable. It is a truth, however, that in any athletic endeavor there is bound to be a wide separation. In tennis I am a 3.5 level player. She likes to swing the racket and if the ball stays in the court she has done well. In racquetball I am a pretty solid “B” player, she seldom hits a ball more than a step or two to her right or left. I like to bike 40 – 50 miles at about 13 mph, she likes to ride 10 miles at about 7 mph.<u></u><u></u></div>
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I enjoy all these activities with her, but she likes to do them slightly less frequent and for less time. For example, I would be inclined to play 2 – 3 hours of tennis a day 5 times a week, she would prefer to play a half hour every two or three weeks. Give or take a month.<u></u><u></u></div>
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We used to go to a lot of movies together, but the combination of sucktacular fare such as “The Happening” in combination with skyrocketing prices for tickets and even more skyrocketing prices for what passes as nutrition at the theatre has reduced that to an occasional treat. Besides, how much of a hobby is sitting in a theatre for 2 hours killing popcorn? Enjoyable, yes. Hobby? Not so much.<u></u><u></u></div>
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We don’t particularly like the same television shows, either. I tend towards sports (baseball, basketball, football, hockey and tennis) and comedies with a narrative…Psych, Futurama, the Simpsons…while she tends towards “reality” programs with no apparent narrative. I think at the moment she is watching "Dance Moms". I have yet to hear a person who is not completely reprehensible to the average person. I know because I am an average person.<u></u></div>
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For a time we looked into doing puzzles together. We even bought one and spent an evening working on it. It is almost the perfect hobby. It is something that can be done alone or together, it encourages proximity, fosters teamwork, and engages the intellect. There is really only one problem with doing puzzles together. It is mind-numbingly boring.<u></u><u></u></div>
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Her leisure time activities for a short while involved “yarning” as she once inadvertently called it…and a name I loved so much I have never let die.<u></u><u></u></div>
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Well, one day I was randomly doing…I honestly don’t remember what I was doing. But I came across some left-over yarn. And a light bulb went on. One might suspect this is because the room was a little dark and, desiring to see the yarn better, I flipped the light switch. One would be correct. That is exactly why the light bulb went on.<u></u><u></u></div>
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Metaphorically speaking, a second light bulb went on, this one more of a cartoonish nature hovering over my head thus indicating to the more dense among us that I had an idea. You would not have been able to pick that idea up from the excited expression on my face.<u></u><u></u></div>
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Off we went to Michaels. We purchased some embroidery floss. And together we launched frenetically into the wonderful world of making friendship bracelets.<u></u><u></u></div>
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You see, this had all the elements of being the perfect hobby for us. We could do it together, I could throw one on to inexpensively change “my look”, it had elements of her yarning. Perfect.<u></u><u></u></div>
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Of course, by “launched frenetically” I really mean…after the purchase of the floss, we went on with our lives and it sat around for weeks. More weeks passed. I continued my habit of 4 – 5 times a week playing 2 hours of racquetball, crushing all in my path.<u></u><u></u></div>
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Time passed. Little changed. We got ready to go to Las Vegas to hang out with her parents, Aunt, and two cousins. I thought, “Wouldn’t it be fun to make some of those with M & B, who probably already know how? The wife, the cousins and I could do that together. Might be fun.”<u></u><u></u></div>
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So I packed up the floss, downloaded some instructions from the awesome site <a href="http://friendship-bracelets.net/">Friendship Bracelets</a> and off we went.<u></u><u></u></div>
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But a funny thing happened in Las Vegas. The cousins did not know how to make them.<u></u><u></u></div>
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Oh, one area I am NOT average. I never have, do not now, and have no intention to do so in the future, smoke or drink. Nor do I particularly enjoy hanging out in smoke-filled rooms or in locales where the primary focus is drinking. Note that I have been known to hang out playing cards where drinking was engaged in…but to me the focus there has always been the cards. Or other games.</div>
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Nor do I particularly like looking at buildings or lights. So Vegas is not one of my favorite places to go…I don’t mind walking the strip for ten or fifteen minutes, but other than that, I just enjoy the time hanging out with the family engaging in our card games and smack talk.<u></u><u></u></div>
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In other words, unlike the "average" American...I am not a fan of las Vegas. </div>
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So while the others ran off to visit the various casinos and check out the sites, I did not. Actually, I would have except I was busy working and often times they had not returned before I finished working so I was left with plenteous time of and on my own. I did read a half dozen books, but that can only take up so much time. So I started goofing around with the instructions, trying to learn how to make friendship bracelets.<u></u><u></u></div>
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My first couple attempts were…how does one pleasantly say “abominable affronts to worthy craftsmen throughout history”? </div>
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Lets just say unsuccessful and leave it to your imagination. My third or fourth attempt actually somewhat resembled a reasonable effort, though there were certainly issues…such as instead of a tight pattern, some gaps that more closely represented the aforementioned lace doily.<u></u><u></u></div>
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My next one was actually pretty decent, just too short.<u></u><u></u></div>
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My next one was better, the right length, and instantly snagged by M.<u></u><u></u></div>
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My next one was better, the right length, initially given to the wife but then also snagged by M.<u></u><u></u></div>
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But then I did this.<u></u><u></u></div>
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My best effort yet.The right length. No lace-like gaps. No snagging by M. I actually started wearing it. And liking the look.<u></u><u></u></div>
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Here is the real problem, though. I was also enjoying…wait for it…the process.<u></u><u></u></div>
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Yes, I, a middle-age, average American male, snarfing down shakes like they were going out of style (I had 15 shakes in 7 days),</div>
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watching an unhealthy amount of sports, playing more sports than I watch, lover of history and other traditionally masculine events and activities, actually really like the process of making friendship bracelets out of embroidery floss. I sound like a grammar school girl.<u></u><u></u></div>
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Worse, the first two I made successfully for myself both involve purple.<br /><br />See, the second one I made I was experimenting with a new pattern and trying to make a border to make it “pop”. So the red and black were good choices. The border should have been white but my previous incompetence had used up all the white in mostly unsuccessful bracelet making attempts. So it is bordered in purple.<u></u><u></u></div>
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This is not all bad. I like purple. It is arguably my favorite color, though my favorite color combination is black and red.<u></u><u></u></div>
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Anyway, I really started enjoying the hobby. I spent a surprising amount of time on <a href="http://friendship-bracelets.net/">Friendship Bracelets</a> looking up patterns to try. I learned the difference between 1212 patterns and alpha patterns. I have a rather intimidating <a href="http://friendship-bracelets.net/pattern.php?id=53396">48 string pattern</a> lined up to attempt that will be awesome. I have completed three more bracelets since getting home.<u></u><u></u></div>
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I am currently working on completing a pretty cool one that is the <a href="http://friendship-bracelets.net/pattern.php?id=14801">Green Lantern log</a>o. Next on the agenda is a very difficult one of the <a href="http://friendship-bracelets.net/alpha_pattern.php?id=30164">Minions</a> from Despicable Me.<u></u><u></u></div>
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I am really, really loving this hobby. It has allowed me to change my look, engage in a cool, theoretically cheap activity. There is just one problem.<u></u><u></u></div>
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The wife still does not do them…</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11724987.post-30081042218311978372013-03-02T09:00:00.002-08:002013-03-02T09:00:54.279-08:00I am thankful for the sequesterWell, the day is here. The apocalypse has come. the devastation is starting to be wreaked.<br />
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And I am pretty excited about it. To say the least.<br />
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I think it is awesome that the MAD* suggested and agreed to by the president and the Congress has come upon us unchecked.<br />
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It has been hysterically funny to me watching the pres and the Congress argue about how much they do not want this event to happen even though they are the people who proposed and put into law the mechanization of this plan.<br />
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Lets go back to their reasoning for a moment. Spending is out of control. Record yearly deficits are growing. Or, to put it another way, we are spending extra money we don't have and every year we are spending even more extra money we don't have.<br />
<br />
Yet these devastating cuts are basically equal to the money our government is printing to buy bonds to stabilize the economy. That is so staggeringly stupid I am not really sure I understand it. We are going to QE3 s much or more money just because we want to as we are going to cut.<br />
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Furthermore, these "cuts" are spending MORE than we did last year, not this. That is some brilliant new math; more is less?<br />
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So to sum up where we are so far; we put a process into place to slow, not stop, deficit spending while spending even more that is somehow unaccounted for by this and are accusing others of being responsible for the "devastation" unleashed by our own plan.<br />
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Just remember folks...we voted for these people.<br />
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Of course, in his desperate, media-aided (and too often successful) attempt to lay the blame for this at the feet of the opponents, the White House put out state by state lists of what will be affected.<br />
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Now, before I get to that list, let me ask a simple question; lets say we had enough revenue to fuel all these bits of Federal largesse in the first place. Where did it come from?<br />
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Not, as one had-to-be-a-plant caller once asserted, from "Mr. Obama gives me money". When asked where he got it, she said, "I don't know..." and continued to assert that he gives her money.<br />
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Note this is distinct from the incorrectly-labeled "Obamaphone" nonsense which anyone who spends 30 seconds researching quickly realizes was from a program set up by...wait for it...Reagan. The only similarity is that woman thought the source of phones was Obama which was quite incorrect and the inference people often draw from it is just as wrong.<br />
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My point is far more simple; in order to GIVE money to states, the government has to TAKE money from states.<br />
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Yep, your income is significantly lowered so the federal government can take billions of dollars from your state, spend some of it on salaries for the people taking the money, running the programs, etc., for some states send part of it to other states, and then send back some of what they took to your state as a Federal program.<br />
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For any non-math majors out there, let me take $100 from you...spend 40 of it paying salaries for the guy who wrote the code saying to take money from you, the guy who takes it from you, the guy who keeps track of how much was taken, the guy who decides where it goes, and the guy who sends it back to you. Then we are going to send 10 of it to California because they are in desperate need. Then we are going to send 50 of it back to you to use on programs you may or may not want. See how awesome we are? You only had to give up 100 dollars to get 50 dollars in aid...that you might not need had you kept the full 100, but that is beside the point.<br />
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Federal taxation is not a zero-sum game. It is much worse. There is a lot of leakage. They do not take out x amount of dollars from a state and send x amount back. They take out x-y and send part of the resulting sum back.<br />
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So less Federal revenue from taxation means more money available in any given state that is on the wrong side of that equation. I suspect there are some states who do get back more in Fed aid than is taken out. I do not, however, suspect that is how it should be.<br />
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So knowing our beloved, beneficent Federal government is not going to be able to spend 250% of their revenue this year because of "sequestration", I took a look at the things it will cost us here in Oregon.<br />
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I am not afraid to admit I had problems with several of the things we are not going to spend as much on this year. At the risk of sounding like a heartless person hateful of all...almost without exception, my problem was that we are still spending money on many of these programs at all at a Federal level.<br />
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Furthermore, many of the programs are things the Federal government has no business being involved with. I am all for meals for the elderly...administered by the state or local charities such as the awesome Meals on Wheels program.<br />
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If we stop the pork spending, the bloated military spending, the ineffective extraneous school programs, and many other demonstrably "sound good, achieve nothing" programs that people are emotionally attached too even though they are intellectually worthless, we would be able to live within our means instead of the constant deficit spending.<br />
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Stop increasing salaries for public service. Stop adding layers of regulation to law-abiding citizens that do little to nothing to stop actual criminals. NSA I am looking at you...<br />
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We have layer upon layer of inefficient bureaucracy, programs based on political coinage rather than helping people, a military flung all over the globe, and hundreds of other boondoggles costing us trillions. And I am supposed to be worried about billions?<br />
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Thanks for the laugh.<br />
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* Mutually Assured DestructionUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11724987.post-89748842627195353522013-02-24T21:01:00.002-08:002013-02-24T21:01:36.181-08:00I'm Baaaacckkk...well, okay, not reallySo today, for the first time in two weeks I engaged in exercise. two weeks ago exactly I last played racquetball. Since then, the most exercise I have gotten has been...well, here comes a joke I think is hysterical, but only about 50% of the people I have told it to have laughed.<br />
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The doctor told me to take it easy for a week or two. So I guess you can say I am rebelling against the doctor. I take the stairs instead of the elevator.<br />
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Anyway, we started out playing racquetball doubles. Usually I am a high-intensity, very active player, going to the front and jumping back and forth, sweating a ton.<br />
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Today I hung out at the back wall, scarcely moving, seldom hitting the ball...but at least I was up and moving and was occasionally hitting the ball.<br />
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After an hour one of the guys left so we started playing cutthroat (a three player version of the game). Typically cutthroat is the most active game. This time I was using positioning and well-timed aggression to score...okay, lets be honest. I scored about 70% of my points off the serve and another 20% hitting actually poor shots that they each thought the other guy was going to get that dropped and mixing in an occasional old school rally with a lot of movement.<br />
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Felt an occasional twinge in my chest, but nothing I have not been feeling the last two weeks. Also had to take longer between points because it is still a struggle to pull in a full deep breath but it felt good to be out there.<br />
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Then I regressed to barely moving...mostly standing by the back wall, no real energy expenditures. After about 20 minutes of playing like that, I jumped into a rally full speed. Won the rally with a spectacular shot...but called off the session because it left me a bit light headed.<br />
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So the good; I was able to be up and on the court for 2 hours. I hit some great shots, won every doubles game, and 2 of 4 cut throat games.<br />
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The bad; I was tentative; not because anything was bothering me but because I was afraid it would bother me.<br />
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I was winded often, cannot believe how much aerobic conditioning I lost in just 2 weeks. I took frequent breaks and we probably only got in 1:20 or 1:30 of actual play.<br />
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And the light headedness is not cool.<br />
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But at least I feel like I can go play again. And be active. So hard on me not doing so.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11724987.post-60624442379087126892013-02-17T18:20:00.001-08:002013-02-17T18:20:26.999-08:00Discouragement; It's what's for dinnerSo I had the follow up with the doctor. He checked out all the things they had checked for at the hospital and in bloodwork. and acknowledged those were all the most likely things.<br />
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He did a few more tests of various kinds. We chatted quite a long while about what the symptoms were, when they started, how often they hit, when they came back...we talked about family health history...<br />
<br />
His poor nurse had to draw more blood. Now, mind you, I already look like a crack addict from all the blood-drawing, IV holes, etc. The inside of my right elbow has (still) 5 or 6 puncture marks in it, some bruising, and is a shade of pink that would look great on some lips. Even my left arm has a couple needle marks.<br />
<br />
Furthermore, I am already...squirmy, lets say...when a doctor or nurse tries to needle me. The Goose even said when he went to put in the IV I had been so squirmy that he dropped a leg over my arm to hold it steady enough to stick it in. I do not recall this...but am not surprised by it, either.<br />
<br />
Well, the nurse had to try bout 4 times because I was so needle-jumpy that I could not hold my arm steady. I was such a jack-smurf of a patient that after it was finally done, she forgot to remove the tourniquet thing they use on the arm...and I was pumping so much adrenaline that I did not realize it until 5 minutes after I had left the doctors office. And it is completely my fault.<br />
<br />
Anyway, he came up with a couple things he thought it might be and a couple course of treatment. A prescription for Predisone and over the counter Prilosec are two of the three main streams of treatment.<br />
<br />
He said, "Well, we are pretty sure it isn't serious."<br />
<br />
Yes! Internal double fist pump, mental gymnastics, plans for getting back to my workout routine and getting to play some tennis and racquetball and, should the weather hold out, call my friend Fluffy the Cat to see if he might want to get in a short bike ride.<br />
<br />
Only to have my hopes crushed by his next sentence: "But it is probably best if you lay low and take it easy for a week or two."<br />
<br />
With the left hand he holds out hope, with the right he blasts me upside the head with a two-ton anvil. Who does he think he is, Roadrunner? Worse, he was also talking about it not being the best idea to go to work, but you can bet that one at least I killed real quick. I sit at a desk there, so it is better to be there than not.<br />
<br />
Now, on the one hand my "self-identity" or whatever you want to call it is not tied up in athletic events. I greatly enjoy playing racket sports. I even care about winning sometimes. But not so much that I do not occasionally deliberately "throw" a game. And I don't really care if I lose to a better player, either.<br />
<br />
I just really, really enjoy the action, enjoy pulling off good shots, enjoy feeling physically better as the weight continues to dribble off and, even when the number on the scale does not change, the clothes are looser and I can expend s much energy as I wish in physical activity. I enjoy life more and feel much better.<br />
<br />
To have that yanked away for essentially a month is a crushing blow.<br />
<br />
It seriously lowers the enjoyment I take away from other activities. Shows I normally enjoy watching I cannot bring myself to watch. I don't feel like painting. I just want to go engage in my games. And cannot.<br />
<br />
Worse, it is not as if we know what happened or is happening, nor how to fix it. So who knows if he will release me when I have a follow up?<br />
<br />
*Sigh.* I need some light at the end of the tunnel.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11724987.post-63940552307092745642013-02-12T19:25:00.000-08:002013-02-12T19:25:11.092-08:00This was NOT what I meant by try new thingsMonday night I went to bed even earlier than normal. I was supposed to go play in the racquetball league but for whatever reason decided not to. This is highly as unusual, making a total of one opportunity I have missed to play racquetball in...oh, 6 or 8 months. So it was noticeable for that alone.<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Went to be at 7, asleep by about 7:30. Life was good.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Woke up about 10:15 with pain in my back. Tossed and turned for a bit, got up about 10:30. Usually the sofa is very comfortable. Not on this night;</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
The pain started sneaking through to my chest. I started sitting up. Pain was spreading. Starting to get a bit hard to breath. Standing up was comfortable...and then the same pain hit there and the minor shortness of breath.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Tried WebMd which could not replicate what I was experiencing but did suggest a tick had bitten me...among several other options, but I thought that one was funny.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
After an hour or so of debating what to do, I wandered into the bedroom where the wife was still sleeping. As soon as she heard the symptoms we were off to the hospital.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I was a bit reluctant to go. I suspected it was a muscle spasm of some sort. I am always leery of being the person who runs to the doctor at the first sign something might potentially be thinking about considering the option of being wrong. If I am going to the doctor there needs to be something wrong.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Apparently they thought there was something wrong when we got there because we got moved pretty far up the list and not long after we arrived at the hospital I got into the receiving area out front and they started running tests.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Very shortly thereafter I was wheeled into the back and they were getting the paddles ready. Apparently my heart rate had sunk to a dangerously slow rate, 36 beats per minute or something like that. Considering it was 58 bpm a few weeks ago...yeah, I guess it made me nervous too.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Well, that hospital bed put me in a very uncomfortable position that I tend to think piggy-backed on and made things worse but I really don't know. What I do know is when he was poking and prodding around, he found a spot on my left side just under the rib cage that was very tender.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
They also used words like "enlarged heart" after scoping the x-rays. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
They had me on an IV which was a new experience, and, if you know me and how I react to needles, not a pleasant one. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Then they gave me morphine. That burning sensation in the back of my head was not very fun. But it did seem to dull the overall pain a bit. Later they gave me another one, but that just seemed to make things worse.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Worse, when they were asking questions, I knew the answers but was taking an inordinately long time to answer them. And I knew I was taking a long time and did not need to but could not figure out how to give them quicker. That was not a pleasant experience...knowing my comprehension time was fast but my response time was slow. I was not real sure how lucid my answers were, either, even though I "knew" they were right...but was not sure.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
By this time I had been in the room in Emergency for about 2 hours. My awesome wife was staying right there with me. I appreciate her losing sleep to be there. Her moral support was desperately needed. When I hear things like enlarged heart, dangerously slow pulse, get the paddles ready, I may not be in the best place mentally. Having her there made all the difference.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Anyway, after a while they tried a nitroglycerine tablet. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I waited for the things she said I might experience to happen. Some other guy came in, we talked for a few minutes.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
He left...and then the nitroglycerine tablet did all the fizzy stuff they said as it melted. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Very shortly thereafter the pain was gone completely. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Unfortunately, they were concerned enough that I was remanded to the custody of their 6th floor people. I was not going anywhere until they gave me a full release.<br />
<br />
I tried to get Em to go home and get some sleep but she refused. She did go grab some stuff for the overnight stay and came back.<br />
<br />
Neither of us really slept. 5 minutes here, 3 minutes there...every time we would get to sleep something would happen. Like my heart rate would plummet to 32 bpm, bringing the nurse running. Which would wake us up.<br />
<br />
I guess in cases like mine they have to check on you every 60 - 90 minutes anyway. And since it takes me 30 - 45 minutes to reach a point I can sleep...in the best of circumstances...well, sleep was not going to be a good friend.<br />
<br />
So more tests this morning. An echo-something-or-other that took like 45 minutes.<br />
<br />
And every test, and I have no idea how many of them there were, required a different set of stickers. So they would painlessly* rip off the prior set and apply new ones. Some used the now-hairless spots on my formerly hirsute chest. Others were less successful at that.<br />
<br />
Anyway, I was trying not to be a difficult patient, but it was frustrating feeling fine and having to lay in bed while people poked, prodded, pushed, pulled, tested, etc. interrupted by an hour here or there waiting for the next thing.<br />
<br />
Or having to ride a wheelchair down to a stress test, which I more or less nailed...as usual, it took an extraordinarily long time to get my heart rate up to the target and an inordinately short time for it to return to normal.<br />
<br />
Then, having shown I have excellent cardio, having to wait for someone to wheelchair me back to the room.<br />
<br />
Finally, 12 hours after being checked into the room and 15 hours after getting to the hospital I was more or less given a tentative bill of health...they no longer think there is an enlarged heart, they are 99.7% positive it was not a heart attack, they can find no signs of damage, my stress test is in a really high percentile as far as what most people show on it...<br />
<br />
So it was really just an unexplained episode. I am trying to be smart about it; I have a follow up appointment with my primary physician on the 22nd and will not be doing any strenuous physical activity until then.<br />
<br />
Em and I are working on altering my diet a little bit more.<br />
<br />
And I am looking back at what from many standpoints was a lost day.<br />
<br />
But I am extremely thankful for my awesome wife who never left my side, for the job that was supportive every step of the way, for all the family and friends tracking the progress, praying about it, letting me know they were there. Turned a difficult day into a blessed one.<br />
<br />
And one I hope not to repeat any time soon...</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11724987.post-11072668780615099052013-01-29T16:20:00.000-08:002013-01-29T16:20:27.361-08:00Nope. Still weird.Things I always find (choose one...smurf, choose several...strange, bizarre, obnoxious, rude, idiotic) that I see almost daily.<br />
<br />
1) At work, using the men's room, having someone in the stall next to me chatting business on the phone. Seriously, is that how you close a big deal? With a flush? And please, for the love of social politeness, if you are...choose one from above....enough to do business on the phone while doing business on the phone, if you catch my drift (and his backsplash, potentially...), at least wash your hands when done.<br />
<br />
2) At the gym, what is with these guys shaving in the gym restroom. Really? That is the best time and place you can find for basic personal care? Your etiquette-fu is weaker than that of the guys in point one.<br />
<br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11724987.post-31957549313880890942013-01-12T22:31:00.001-08:002013-01-12T22:31:26.833-08:00Of good decisions and bad breaksMy Dad really likes a group called the Dixie Melody Boys. I tend to enjoy the Southern Gospel genre when done right (and not like it at all when done wrong) and when I found out they were coming to Portland around his birthday, I instantly thought it would be awesome to take he and his wife to dinner, then the concert.<br />
<br />
Dad struggles to drive into Portland these days so I asked my sister in law if she would mind driving him in. My brothers and their wives generally will pass on this genre, so it really would be a favor to me.<br />
<br />
She is a wonderful caring person who absolutely loves helping other people. I honestly would have been very, very shocked had she refused. Of course she was excited to do so.<br />
<br />
My wife, who also more or less will pass on this genre, will NOT pass on trips to the Olive Garden, her favorite restaurant. So she decided to go.<br />
<br />
The brothers and the second sister in law, perhaps also drawn by thoughts of Olive Garden with Dad, elected to go after all.<br />
<br />
Come the night of the concert...Dad and his wife got sick. So they were not going. But everyone else still did.<br />
<br />
So now, and yes, I think this is funny, the only people NOT going to the concert were the person it was all put together around. The people going were all the people who would pass on it except their desire to hang out with Dad.<br />
<br />
Then they got a late start and missed dinner...so ended up just going to the concert.<br />
<br />
I honestly was kind of discouraged. I was probably the only one who had any interest at all in going at this point and that interest was considerably lessened because I suspected I would be the only one enjoying it and everyone else would probably be miserable, which I would feel guilty about since it was essentially at my prodding they were going, which in turn would lessen my enjoyment.<br />
<br />
I know it is not my responsibility...they are adults making their own decision and it is not my job to make sure they enjoy things. But that is how my mind works.<br />
<br />
So I very nearly called it off and was seriously thinking about not going.<br />
<br />
Mind you I have been looking forward to this concert for a couple of months. And as my wife will attest, I seldom look forward to anything because the more I look forward to something, the more likely it is something will go wrong and it will be a huge disappointment. Such as, oh, I dont know...Dad missing it and only people who don't necessarily want to see it being the ones going?<br />
<br />
Topping this off, I am not generally a concert goer. I prefer the edited, clean, crisp studio versions of songs. I don't care about "live performances", find nothing special about most of them. I like skipping tracks I don't like (Pandora's "thumbs down" feature can back me up on that). I like being able to re-listen to a song I like.<br />
<br />
I actually had my wife's number dialed to tell her not to meet me in Gresham, that I wasn't going when I randomly thought better of it.<br />
<br />
Good choice.<br />
<br />
We got to the concert. The wife enjoyed it...until she started getting sick and left half way through it (we drove separate).<br />
<br />
The brothers enjoyed it. The sister-in-laws loved it. My brothers' kids enjoyed it so mch that the younges one took the cd they bought into her room, put it on auto-repeat and has not stopped listening to it since Thursday.<br />
<br />
And I loved it. Been listening to their cd myself quite a bit since then.<br />
<br />
All of that is preamble.<br />
<br />
I make a lot of decisions based on assumptions and expectations. I don't try a lot of things because I pretty much know how they will end up.<br />
<br />
And as a result, I likely miss out on a lot of things that I might later find out I really enjoyed.<br />
<br />
And largely based on the reactions to this concert trip, I am actively, consciously trying to change that. I plan to purchase Risk Legacy, get a group together to play it, and mark up the board, rip up the extra cards, etc.<br />
<br />
I am going to get accomplished within the next two years a trip I have wanted to do for years and never done because I was afraid I would be disappointed.<br />
<br />
I am going to make changes. And that can be nothing but a good decision.<br />
<br />
Even if there are sidetracks and disappointments along the way.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11724987.post-1430100787963947672012-12-20T22:21:00.001-08:002012-12-20T22:21:38.257-08:00The Oatmeal ParadigmThis morning in the office I wandered into one of the various kitchenettes on our floor to refill my water bottle when my nostrils were assailed with the nasty stench of oatmeal.<br />
<br />
I can stop right there I hear some of you saying...stench? Oatmeal is a wonderful, fine breakfast food. With all the courtesy I can muster...stuff it.<br />
<br />
Yes, stench. Not os obnoxious and odious as the swill that passes for eggs in various vaguely omelettey forms served up morning by morning around our office that I subtly try to improve by farting in the general direction of...but stench nonetheless, and one I have strong, not overly fond memories of. Memories that were called so vividly to mind by the mere malevolent odor that I physically relived the following event from decades ago.<br />
<br />
See, once when I was maybe ten or twelve I was over at my friends house overnight. I always feared those nights...who knew what food I was highly unlikely to eat would be served? And proving my fears well-deserved, this occasion saw us served oatmeal for breakfast.<br />
<br />
How on earth did anyone decide this was an appetizing food? Its appearance resembles dirt stirred into water with chunks of water mixed in, the type of thing little girls get in trouble for making when mud pies are inaccessible.<br />
<br />
Its texture closely resembles a gooey paste such as one might find useful in a kindergarten craft project. Or spackling the walls. Regrouting the tub. I can think of many likely uses for this concoction, none of which resemble anything that should come within a mile of my mouth, much less my stomach.<br />
<br />
In fact, oatmeal has more than a passing resemblance to things that entered my mouth, enjoyed time in my stomach and, having completed their vacation in my body are headed out to sea...or at least to the nearest waste treatment plant.<br />
<br />
Anyway, when the oatmeal was offered I attempted to politely decline. This was unacceptable. Breakfast is the most important meal of the day, and not to be skipped and the parent of this particular friend was going to see to it that I ate.<br />
<br />
Full disclosure, and not to my credit; this parent was someone I had never particularly cared for and, in fact, often went out of my way to avoid. Why I ever agreed to stay the night in there house is a moment in my life I will forever regret and never overcome.<br />
<br />
With that in mind, coupled with just the slightest hint of stubbornness which some extremely unreasonable people have been known to claim I have, there was trouble a-brewin.<br />
<br />
Sure enough, she insisted I sit down at the table and have some oatmeal.<br />
<br />
I tried taking a spoonful. A small spoonful...you know those glorified slivers of silverware meant to limit sugar intake? One of those.<br />
<br />
My clever subterfuge was detected and a large spoonful was generously added to my portion. The kind of oversized, wooden spoon heaping spoonful that, closely followed by a second, had the bowl filled to the brim.<br />
<br />
The battle was well and truly joined.<br />
<br />
I tried a small bite, retched, nearly threw up, washed it down hurriedly with...I don't recall, probably milk.<br />
<br />
It was insisted my reaction was an act.<br />
<br />
It was not.<br />
<br />
It was insisted I continue with the tried and true failure of an admonition, "Try it. You might get surprised and find you like it."<br />
<br />
Memo to you; I just tried it. The total lack of surprise was surpassed only by my dislike of everything about the nasty, foul-smelling, worse-tasting mash of gruel and porridge that was so heinous that not only my descendants threw up, so did my ancestors.<br />
<br />
On went sugar, another bite was tried.<br />
<br />
More retching, washing down with fluid, discussions on the likelihood of my consuming another bite, threats I would sit there until it was gone.<br />
<br />
Various attempts to flavor it up were attempted. Arguments proceeded. Time passed. No more oatmeal passed my lips. Accusations came forth that I was faking.<br />
<br />
Other accusations, more valid, that I was stubborn, also were encountered.<br />
<br />
The battle of wills was titanic. The outcome was predetermined. The chances I would ever so much as try oatmeal again were locked in at nil. The chances I would ever spend time at this person's house again were locked in at slightly less than those of my trying oatmeal again. So much so that, even though I was generally an obedient kid overall who loved my parents very much, I once threatened to run away on the spot if they left me in this persons care while they went to Portland.<br />
<br />
As a side note; I was later left in the care of someone who knew this story when Dad took Mom to a doctors appointment. We had a similar war over whether I was going to eat a tomato. On a completely unrelated note, to this day when I see big chunks of tomato on a pizza, I pick them off, throw them on a separate plate.<br />
<br />
I have been known to gag and wretch at the very scent of tomatoes.<br />
<br />
I am sure there is a fine moral here somewhere about how, even if things are theoretically good for someone, you cannot force it down their throat, by I would rather sneak in the 18 (by my count) jokes in this post. Hopefully you found the humor. If not, stop by for breakfast. We are serving oatmeal.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11724987.post-20612598899158216842012-12-17T21:11:00.002-08:002012-12-17T21:11:39.337-08:00Christmas is almost hereYou know why I am not fond of Christmas?<br />
<br />
I am not so much anti-commercialism. Gift giving can be a good thing.<br />
<br />
That is the problem. It can also be a bad thing.<br />
<br />
Trying to come up with a cool, unexpected thing for someone who knows you so well they can recite more facts about your life than you can and often know what you will say before you have even formed the thought.<br />
<br />
Or trying to act pleasantly surprised when you open that exciting box of refried fruit cake.<br />
<br />
I am long past the age where I care to engage in gift giving or receiving. I would vastly prefer hanging out playing racquetball followed by consuming unhealthy quantities of pie such as lemon meringue, chocolate cream, banana cream, apple...<br />
<br />
At the same time, when I get it right and see my niece or nephew get that humongous grin when they see what they got or a loved one gets just what they wanted...well, the true meaning of Christmas might be gratitude the Messiah entered the world, but there is room too for a big grin.<br />
<br />
Give your loved one a hug, tell them you love them and do it when they are not expecting it. That is a pretty good Christmas.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11724987.post-21477794070626119132012-12-14T17:17:00.003-08:002012-12-14T17:17:52.387-08:00Making Sense of a World Without ItI did not want to write about the shootings the last few days. I deliberately avoided it. First off, I do not want to give any more notice than possible to people so hateful and callous they will perform these heinous, unjustifiable acts. I will not give their names here. They are not worthy of my typing them.<br />
<br />
Furthermore, I would by and large be covering ground that you have already heard numerous times. After all, we will hear the same things over and over and over.<br />
<br />
People who knew neither the shooters nor any of their victims will say, and mean, "our thoughts and prayers are with them". Practicing atheists and agnostics will say much the same. And this is probably a good thing, a broad social cathartic maneuver with empty meaning on the whole but great meaning for specific individuals.<br />
<br />
The anti-gun crowd will point and say, "see? THIS is why we need gun control, to keep this from happening."<br />
<br />
The pro-gun crowd will point and say, "See? This is what happens when only criminals have guns, check out these statistics saying in places people carry guns it does not happen."<br />
<br />
Others of us will sit quietly on the sidelines saying, "Really? This is how you want to make your points? You are all right and you are both wrong. And you are using hatred, bitterness and anger as a political tool. All of you are trading on the misery of others.<br />
<br />
<br />
However, if you spend...what, 10 seconds? watching the news, reading the news, hearing someone else discuss the news, you will hear all these things ad infinitum.<br />
<br />
People will hold candle light vigils.<br />
<br />
Discussions will be held on how nice the people who committed these crimes were and how unexpected that they could do this, how universally wonderful their victims were, how much they will be missed and how to prevent it.<br />
<br />
To those discussions, most of which you can simply replay from the last similar event, I have nothing to add.<br />
<br />
On a broader scale, however, I DO have something to add.<br />
<br />
From a purely anecdotal standpoint, the frequency of these things seems to be increasing. It is an open question whether these events are more common or we are simply a more aware world today where access to information allows us to keep abreast of events across a much greater distance.<br />
<br />
Regardless, in many ways the saying "perception is reality" kicks in. Whether they are more frequent or just SEEM more frequent, the result is increased awareness. It is not an isolated thing to have someone so disaffected they feel the correct thing for them to do is to go on a murderous rampage.<br />
<br />
I did not understand them. I do not now. Most people do not.<br />
<br />
And yet...we do.<br />
<br />
Remember Columbine? Not that the actions were justified, but in a sense the blame was leveled on others; these kids deliberately chose outlying things to be interested in. Their resulting unpopularity led them to consider themselves...and largely be considered...outcasts.<br />
<br />
Somehow they came to the idea that the right choice was to commit suicide and take a bunch of people with them.<br />
<br />
Inexcusable as it was, non-sensical as their actions, the resulting outcry included assigning blame to people who may or may not have picked on them. It made sense, they were avenging their unhappy lives.<br />
<br />
Others tried to emulate them. Their fame grew to where many people even today know their names. In murder they became more successful than they ever were in life.<br />
<br />
And people "got" the people who tried to commit the same acts on later anniversaries, just as they did when people bombed the Oklahoma City building. They did not agree with the actions, but in the attempt to use that anniversary as a motivation to perform similar acts, people found understanding.<br />
<br />
It made a sick, twisted sort of sense.<br />
<br />
Then some random guy shoots up the midnight screening of a movie. It made no sense. What could he have against these random people?<br />
<br />
Then the Clackamas shooting came along. Young person goes in and shoots RANDOM PEOPLE. These were not government officials or an emblem of government power. These were not classmates who had picked on him. They were not friends, relatives, ex-girlfriends, teachers, co-workers.<br />
<br />
As sick as it is, when someone murders those people, we as a society "understand it", filling the air with platitudes about not understanding it, never condoning it, but underneath the relationship at least channels where the violence is directed.<br />
<br />
Not so in Clackamas. Random people. It could have just as easily been the Mall of the Americas or a store in Podunk, Kansas. Even though I (to the best of my knowledge) have not been around someone who got fired or was picked on or had their spouse taken from them, I am now a potential victim simply by living my life.<br />
<br />
This has no easy reason to say it is not me who is a potential victim. In a series of senseless acts that at least have the modicum of structure, this is one that is truly random, guided solely by proximity to the individual whom I do not know.<br />
<br />
How did we get here?<br />
<br />
Someone somewhere right now is calling out the influence of death metal, of the music of people like Marilyn Manson or whoever the current equivalent is. Someone somewhere is calling out violent video games like Hitman, Grand Theft Auto, Halo, etc and saying we are desensitized to violence. Someone is calling out the removal of prayer from schools. Someone is talking about bullying and/or hazing.<br />
<br />
And maybe they are on to something. We have "progressed" a long way. We teach kids their self-esteem is more important than learning how to do things. We teach kids there is no God to answer to and that we are just animals. We teach people to forget self-control in the interest of "letting your feelings show." We teach our kids that "being different is okay and not following the norms and mores of society is a good thing". We teach our kids that murder is okay as long as it is done with good intentions. We teach our kids that irreverence is a good thing. That promises mean nothing, that marriage is a disposable institution, that "birth parents" have no responsibility towards kids, nor do kids have responsibilities towards their parents. We teach that right and wrong are determined solely but what the loudest voices in society say is right or wrong.<br />
<br />
And when you get done with this mish-mash of "nothing really means anything except what you personally decide is important" we teach there is no point to life, no consequence for misbehavior and indeed there is glory to be had by committing acts that will bring outrage but which no longer can really be called immoral in the light of societies teachings.<br />
<br />
In a world in which authority is something to be reviled and disobeyed if one wishes to be accepted, cool and intelligent, in which right and wrong are malleable and subject to social whims, how can we say someone is wrong for taking it to its natural conclusion and acting like an animal? Indeed, they are the pinnacle of evolution if these things are true and should be held up as heroes rather than reviled as the despicable creatures they are.<br />
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One need look no further than many popular television series held up as wonderful to see what we are pushing. Dexter, the murderer who "only kills bad guys". The Borgias, 'the first crime family". The Sopranos. "Reality" shows like Mob Wives. Shows that glorify extra-marital sex or same-gender relationships like Friends, Modern Family, etc. Games like Assassins Creed. The popular Twilight series built on concepts like Interview With a Vampire and the Underworld series to turn evil such as vampires and other mythical undead creatures...zombies come to mind...into the heroes.<br />
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The Scripture says "woe to those call good 'evil' and evil 'good'". We have a society today that does exactly this on so many fronts.<br />
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And sadly, while I find these people completely reprehensible and indefensible...I understand them. I also believe we will continue to produce these people. At some point the shooter will be someone TRULY shocking; someone with a wildly successful business life, a loved and flourishing family, everything to live for...and one day for who knows what reason they will be the one pulling a trigger or planting a bomb or clubbing or knifing people to death.<br />
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It is inevitable.<br />
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We have rejected God, denied his truths and replaced them with our own, denied any authority exists and turned into a shattered society. We have taken evil and turned it into the heroes and taken heroes and turned them into villains.<br />
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And then we are shocked when people act like the new-style heroes.<br />
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The question is, should we be? I suspect what we should really do is get used to candle light vigils for fallen strangers, losing people close to us to senseless acts, and looking over our shoulder because this garbage is going to continue and get worse.<br />
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So much more to say but it makes me sick to my stomach and this is all I can get out. I can't even finish.<br />
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In the interest of full disclosure; I own a rifle. In fact, I think I own 2 or 3. I was given a .22 by my Grandpa, a 30-30 by my dad, and another .22 by my Grandpa which in later years it was forgotten it had been given to me and was then given to someone else.<br />
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I do not know where any of them are; somewhere at Dad's house, I think, and in truth, I mostly own them in memory. I do not believe there is any documentation stating I own them anywhere, and I do not care. I have not touched one in decades, not out of like or dislike, but simply because other things have occupied my time and interest.<br />
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I could write a long treatise on the meaning of "the right to bear arms" and its purpose for being included but is this really the time or place for it?Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11724987.post-67608761507669716532012-11-27T15:57:00.000-08:002012-11-27T15:57:43.824-08:00Why People Watch SportsSeveral times people have commented on not understanding why people watch sports. In theory I am an excellent person to respond; I greatly enjoy watching basketball, football, hockey, tennis, racquetball, playoff baseball...I also engage in playing basketball, softball, tennis, racquetball, golf, biking, bowling, etc.<br />
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It is somewhat of a complex question, however, because even though two people who have known each other their whole lives might be watching the same event, they are not likely seeing the same things.<br />
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Example; my friend Kyle was a very good college pitcher. My friend Billy had been a good catcher in high school but never played collegiately. I last played competitive baseball when I was 12.<br />
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We were watching the Portland Beavers when they were still here. I saw the pitcher throw the ball, the batter swing and miss and end up striking out. I could see the pitch speed was changing and the ball was at different points of the plate.<br />
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Billy commented on the sequence and how the pitches changed the batters perception through "changing levels, ocation and speed"...in other words, by throwing the ball high and moderately paced on one pitch, then fast, low and outside on the next, the pitches were made more effective by the vast variance between the two...even though to me they looked pretty similar.<br />
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Kyle then expanded on it, pointing out the break of the curve added to the deception...he could tell when the pitcher was throwing a fastball as opposed to a curve as opposed to a change-up.<br />
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All three of us saw the same event but our own experiences changed what we saw. I enjoyed the game for the brief moments of excitement when someone scored, they enjoyed it on a more thorough, intellectual level.<br />
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Had it been a basketball game we were watching, we would have been closer to the same level; we could discuss the intricacies of proper pick and roll execution, both offensively and defensively. We could have debated defensive schemes and offensive sets. We could hve marveled at the players who ignore good fundamentals and team play, yet are effective...<br />
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Because we all played basketball at decent levels.<br />
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Now, my chances of having a pro career in any given sport are somewhere between non-existent and unbelievably laughable. However, I still engage in sports where, believe it or not, I am getting better. Racqetball is probably the best example.<br />
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The other night I was able to view the US Open Racquetball Championship. And watching it keys me in to another reason some people watch sports; namely, it can help them improve their game.<br />
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On the one hand, watching it was depressing; seeing Rocky Carson blast a back-handed pinch shot from 39 feet away and knowing it would take me a thousand attempts to make that shot successfully lets me know just how far from the pro game I am...and he was blown out in all three games by the vastly superior Kane Waselenchuk.<br />
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But watching their court position, how they strategized their shots and using that to adjust my game...I went out the next day and was 10% improved without a single practice swing.<br />
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Watching people do what you do, but do it better, helps you learn how to play the game yourself.<br />
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Believe it or not, that is a powerful incentive to people like me to watch sports even if we did not simply enjoy the competition.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2