Okay, that was just stupid.

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Well, not me, per se.  Just, the way it worked out.  I couldn't get to bed until 1:00.  I thought to try, anyway, to be up by 8:00.  I set the alarm for 7:00, with the plan of resetting it for 8:00.  That didn't come close to working.  I don't know how many times I did, or dreamed, that I reset the alarm clock.  I never knew the real time until I finally woke if completely out of sorts at noon.  Have you ever gone down a hill, say sledding, and lost it, going for a tumble instead?  A long tumble at that.  When you finally stop rolling you might have no sense of where you are, what just happened, or even how to stand.  Well, that about sums it up.  Okay, no more trying to wake up at 8:00.  I'm guessing 10:00 is the new actual 'push it' time.  I, actually and thinking about it, regardless of what I just typed, don't even now know for sure what time I really woke, somewhere between 10:30 and noon.  I think?

Which means, no, I didn't go to Mass.  I didn't go swimming.  And I have yet to make it to the butcher shop to part out the hog.  That last, for sure, will happen.  The rest?  I simply don't know, if I have some doubts.  I will be packing my bag for the gym, I am eating lunch now, and perhaps I will be ready for the pool when I finish with the shop.  Thankfully the pool will be open on up to, 20:00-20:30, or thereabouts.  The thing is, can I stop being dizzy?  I am literally just a bit dizzy, still, from that roll in the hay.  I swear, that sleep tumble really through a lot of things out of sorts.  Don't worry though, it was... sort of cool, too.  Much like a sledding mishap you survive?  Something like that.  :p

Never mind.  A shower first, maybe a shave, then dressed, bag together, and out.  Later.

Lord, about this cup?

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In discussions, thoughts, and prayers something has been nagging me lately.  You know, I have been through some very serious things.  From the time I was pounded to near unconsciousness but fought on, to the knowledge of women (loss of innocence) at such a tender age, to having a bad heart, and even to dying from pain and other things.  I have known pain so great I seemingly couldn't bear it, of both physical and mental natures.  I have scars, visible and not, from having my flesh cut, burned, scratched, poked, and crushed.  I realize too that we can't but do God's will, obediently or not.  We can only choose to participate or fight that will.  How... micro that is, I can't know, though I do suspect.  I know, for one thing, it isn't perfectly absolute as I do not believe God would, or even can, lead us into sin.  But that doesn't mean He didn't know and tabulate that.  And further, I recently thought, and wrote here, that there are only two masters in existence, one of them is not we ourselves.  When we part from God's will to do our own will, that is... decidedly... not whose will we are doing.

Some of these thoughts, and others, have coalesced into... something else.  At times, looking back, it almost seemed as Satan tried to say that if he couldn't have me, then no one could.  And God just said, "No, not yet".

I do believe that God will not give us more than we can handle.  I believe that is spiritual, as physically I can visit a morgue on any given day and see where people have had more than they can handle.  And yet I have seen what some Christians have endured.  Yes, true, our lives, if we are Christians, are forfeit by that very reason.  Only through real and holy forfeiture can we come to Grace.  But it is in that first sentence, and knowing that God strengthens us for our challenges, that... something looms.

I may have suggested, in the past, that I felt a very personal call to follow God.  I don't mean, as in, it touched me, if it did, if more as a thing and not an emotional, or even happy, call.  I didn't want to be called.  I don't mean that it was private, something just between the Trinity and myself, I can't even shut up about it so that wouldn't work.  :p  No, I mean, it was quite directional.  You.  Who, me?  Yes, you...  Doom.  Come, follow me.  I think you have the wrong... guy.  I knew He didn't. 
So, what is your purpose in God?  Most, I think, are here to learn and grow and do His will as best we can.  Some, however, have a very specific reason to be... called.  To live.  To be.  There have been many, in the bible, and in life since that Writing, known and unknown, who have been called and obeyed.  To be honest with you, most of those who were specially called had their lives ended... well... tragically, catastrophically.  How much more someone built and forged to endure almost death itself?  Putting a few things together, I am beginning to wonder just...  Why He did call me?  Oh, I've got to tell you, I'm sort of uncomfortable with this, right here, right now.

It's... not going to happen today.

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Which, as it turns out, is fine.  The weekend was simply too short this time.  However, there is room, and reason, to move the goal.  I need to be to the butcher shop tomorrow to set up the hog cuts and smoking orders.  Plus, today I would have missed Mass, while tomorrow I might make it.  And swimming on Monday or Tuesday, then Friday, makes little real difference.  I just don't have anything in the boiler this morning, not enough to turn the cogs and gears.  Today will be more of a day of rest, too.  Research regarding hog butchering did not go forward, neither did figuring out what I need to get, and stock, regarding the snow blower.  Oh, one thing the neighbor did figure out is that the cord from the handle that engages the blower was not tight.  A bit of tightening on that has massively increased the capacity of the machine to shoot the snow, meaning Pam may not be needed for the snow shoot after all.

Oh, even if the rest of the week was a wash, and while that would be disappointing, I would not be greatly disturbed.  I would be more vigilant and fretful about next week, perhaps.  The thing is, I am doing a ton better, using every measure available, than I have ever done.  I would compare this to not this, but the summer before last, as being the two best periods I have had since being ill.  The difference that makes this period better?  It is right dab-smack in the middle of one of the coldest winters I have known in Utah, and it might be closing on one of the coldest all told.  This is a typical, for me, hibernation period.  I simply don't do things in winter.  Usually, closing up shop happens with or without my consent, sometimes without me even realizing it has happened... until the spring thaw.  Here I am, putting up a wall coat rack, setting up a seedling center, planning a trip to Burning Man, organizing some things in my home, taking my medications about as good or better than ever, and exercising to the point I have to figure out how to loosen up to do more at points!  My blood pressure is superior with my high points being lower than my lowest points for the last 15 years, my weight is steady as a rock, I eat better with a little help, and I am reading, and the heavy stuff.  Heck, considering just my health condition should have killed me or caused a heart attack, stroke, or other things, for decades but didn't, if longevity is your measure, I'm so far ahead of that game the rest is just insult on injury to the notion of death as punishment... or whatever.

That said, it is true that I am not living a full healthy normal(tm) life.  I literally, can't, yet, be busy my whole day.  My day consists of resting, then maybe some more resting, perhaps a nap, then 20 minutes to an hour of work, then resting, and a bit more resting to make sure, then some other task.  I still don't have much option.  I can, and have, worked in a minor way, for several hours at a time.  But that is rare and takes a toll.  Swimming, while exercise and serious exercise since I do hit it as hard as I can, takes most of my day and even week.  At this point though, it beats... more resting.  Everything, however, has to be weighed on it's own merits.  And my life up to beginning heart medication compared to my life after it is the difference between sitting and a slow jog?  Summit like that.  I'll take it, if I am looking to be doing marathons at the pace I am now doing sprints!  It could happen, it really could.

So, a day off just isn't going to plug up my pipes or cause me troubles.  And I will still be doing things, more of the contemplative than active, as St. Aquinas might put it.  The sun just broke through.  Perhaps St. Aquinas is not the only one smiling on my efforts?  Later.

I tried!

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I went to bed by midnight, I simply couldn't get to bed earlier.  I didn't sleep well.  I feel more like I didn't sleep at all.  The last two or three nights simply have seemed sleepless.  I set my alarm for 7:00.  That didn't work.  I reset it for 8:00, then 10:00.  Shortly after 10:00 I did rise.  I am not feeling exceptionally tired in the mornings though, there is that.  Last night I did dream, if only one little fun bit stayed.  Oh, bp was 118/76, pulse at 66, with weight dropping a pound to 276.4 or so.

A woman was discussing how, in the 60's, she had thought to run away to go 'fight for civil rights' in the South.  She waxed about this, decried that, spoke of the terrible things that happened, and on and on.  Remember what I want to know?  I didn't follow her down the hole, just waited for her to re-emerge, knowing precisely where.  I let her go until she had herself nearly in tears, perhaps feeding her with some sentimental tripe bait or other to help.  I can't help myself.  Then I said, "Oh, you actually thought about becoming a Republican?".  *whack*  Her eyes got huge, she looked at me as if I had broken what she knows of my nature and started smoking something.  "Wha?"  I reiterated what I had just asked and suggested some reading material for her.  Now, that did happen in real life, at least two and maybe three times, with different women, and give or take a bit on their memories and how wrong they were about the realities of them.  This was the funnest of them though.  I love hunting rabbit, mole, whatever.  Too predictable for real game, but absolutely delicious.  *whack*

I suppose I should get going.  It's sort of a rough morning, but that is fine.  I have had breakfast, if not the best of breakfasts.  I did get the beans put away last night, and meat out to thaw... which now needs to be refrigerated.  I let my wet swim clothes air dry, so those items need to be put back into the bag.  At least it will be easy to pick which coat or jacket and hat to wear this morning!  But first, a shower.

Good day.

Reading at other places. And other things.

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At Helen's, I read about a guy who is frustrated with online dating, at one or more spots (details... bleh).  Something about women seeming to want liberal men.  Women are liberal, to a degree every politician who voted for the 19th amendment counted upon.  And they think they want liberal men, until they realize why men who are liberal, are liberal.  One of the big reasons is so they can continue dealing with women as they do, which is exactly what women who are trying to get serious or are serious about marriage don't want.  Now, try to explain this to a woman, try to expand it, and she often won't understand at all, not until, and only maybe then, the mechanisms of modern liberalism have pretty much trashed her and sent her on her way.  The reason liberalism likes to say women are equal isn't because it believes that, but because then women are much more available for... casual use, even abuse.  One would think this would eventually affect even single women's perceptions, but until those are focused elsewhere by an actual family, maybe that isn't possible.  Even then sometimes it doesn't work.  But, that isn't the point.

In real life, I give absolute feedback to liberalism when faced with it.  Whether it is a mugger, a bureaucrat, or a typical woman, I face it, square off, and make no bones that... if continued, the attack will end up hurting, but not me.  You know what?  I rarely have a problem after that.  Women come around or go away, bureaucrats have bosses and some healthy understandings of physics and angry giants, and muggers just meander on, looking for another type of their own liberal kind.  Heck, my last woman-type was a self-avowed feminist, at first.  Now?  Not with someone to point out where that fails and her own experiences in reality helping to clarify things.  She is still coming more my direction, years after our affair ended and then even later we parted, further being parted by several states now.  She still holds onto feminism, but not as a truth, merely as the only flotation device she has in an angry sea, partially of her own (as she now realizes) making.  The problem for this guy is he can't give feedback online.  Or can he?

You know, online dating just isn't my thing.  I have given it a jab, a time or two, but if for nothing else my target women simply lived too far away, if that isn't the only reason.  You see, women might seem really picky, but that is because they are a minority of the sexes thus at a premium, and because they don't know what the heck they are talking about in the first place.  The whole notion that a woman is more in touch with her feelings is bunk.  What the truth is, is that she is more comfortable expressing something for no actual reason other than that she feels like it.  That's not being in touch with your feelings.  Still, I think I could advise this fellow... assuming he is actually conservative.  What I would do is, find a sample of women who would, in theory, from those available, work.  I would then, simply, begin communications.  I wouldn't be forceful about the subject, or even in fact bring it up.  If asked I would state things simply.  I would proceed as if I was having a conversation with the woman.  I think he would be surprised, if he is actually conservative and not a butt-munch metrosexual.  Though that he is whining, I have... some doubts.

I know, some guys really are a bit busy to try to track down a wife.  Then again, and part of my problem, is future wives don't just congregate at the bookstore at, say, 9:00 am every Saturday, or something.  Seriously.  But they need to learn that listening to a woman about what she wants in a man is like listening to what a child says they want to eat.  Yeah, no.  Cakes for breakfast?  Ice-cream for lunch?  Chocolate bars for dinner?  Yeah, again, no.  If the woman is actually serious, and not just playing, she will note the right chords being struck at the right times.  Most women, not of their own accord but through marriage and children, do become much more conservative, if married to a conservative.  It might take some time, but it will happen... minus that she will always think that because she is weaker she is better, somehow.  When they have something they aren't willing to negotiate about, they understand ownership... to a degree... a bit better... and why "sharing", socialism, 'yours-is-mine-ism', and such, won't fly.  They also get over some of their inherent (and initially required) vanity (a baby does that), they get over defeatism (a thing engendered by the historic notion that being raped is better than being dead, which for millennia was the simple way of things, and still is in many of the asshat places of the world) when they want to bear the child of only one man.  Things change, a woman changes, when she is attached to a good man.

Oh, I did call my lady friend tonight.  We have been playing phone-tag for a bit.  But this time I got her.  I call, she said, at the worst possible times!  I truly love that woman.  She honestly cheers me up with such things.  It means I still have 'the touch'.  It seems they had an ice storm, and so she is going to drive to work early, and slowly, which means while the timing of my call was good, the circumstances weren't.  Still, for cheering me up, I let her off the hook, possibly to continue our game of phone-tag.  I bet I could even tell where her nipples were, during the call.  If the phone had bot-arms, I could have hit the buttons, on the dot.  That, too, annoyed her.  Hey, it was better than playing with a pencil and string!

Dinner arrived, and it was good.  My machine seems to be having a problem, but that seems to be a common problem.  I'll do a bit of research on that tonight.  Some piece, a cotter pin of some type, seems to have broken.  But the frame actually has a compartment just for those pieces, if I didn't have any in it (yet).  As well, I think I will look over the parting out of a hog tonight, again, and try and make more sense of it.  When looking things up, it is better to do so before the brain turns to mush.  No, I wasn't drinking...  I do that quite rarely, if I mean to fix that too.  It's just, as the mind begins to lean toward sleep, it becomes data teflon.  Data just doesn't stick.

Later, though most likely good night.

Tasks, one down, two hundred fifty three trillion seven hundred thirty nine billion nine hundred fifteen million three hundred twenty seven thousand five hundred two to go!

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Okay, so time will take care of me before I take care of my list.  If I think that is half of the point of the list.  Seriously, if you have a bucket list, you best be short on time or smarts, and perhaps both.  The list is some, sometimes a significant, part of what keeps you alive.  Sure, many people don't realize they have a list, or keep putting their heads back in the sand and continuing with their list if they happen to ever take, or review, the 'long view'.  Me, I don't worry.  It is there, I'll get to it or not.  But I don't pretend it doesn't exist.  I'm simply not impressed.  I remember how very much longer the list USED to be. 

Oh, it was the coat hanger in the back hall.  And while I could count it as one thing, on the list, technically, it was actually parted into some lengthy list itself.  First, and what started the thing, was remembering while at the hardware store to pick, then buy, a coat hanger that I liked.  Now, to be honest, there was one I loved, a few I liked, and many that I absolutely despised.  The one I loved, if a bit expensive, was not satisfactory.  It only had three double prongs.  It had glass globes on the ends of those, and was nickle-plated.  Something about such, save the nickel in this case, just draws me in.  Old schooly stuff, nearly... more a replica and not a great one, but good enough.  As well as having only three hooks it came attached to it's own board, and the board wasn't long enough for a standard stud mounting (and as it turns out, I had to go between the length of three standard studs).  No, I knew it wouldn't work.  So, looking through the rest, I chose by general aesthetics right after function and strength.  I chose a five double hook, in a antiqued bronze, which was solid to my (sometimes destructive 'oops, better put that one back') strength testing.  While it was, by my guess and rightly either way, too short, I knew I could use a board, as I did, as a backplate which would span the stud(s).

After buying that, the gig was on.  I didn't know if it would be a week or a month or next year before I got to it, though the hope was to have it up by this spring.  And a hope, if doubt, about having it up by this coming Monday.  You never know!  Once home, I actually found a board that would work as a stud-spanner, which I put in the back hall.  Things just stopped there, at that time.  I think, actually, having that piece of wood as a minor irritant when I would pass through that hall actually sped the project forward.  Yesterday I decided to cut the wood, but realized it would need sanding first.  Well, sanding seemed wiser up front, then cutting.  Both required sawhorses and an extension cord, so that is probably why they happened together.  Well, heck, there was no reason not, at that point, to just put the first coat of paint on it, so that went forward.  I even remembered to give it a second coat last night, which was all it needed.  I was thinking about which screws to use, whether to try and countersink them, and this and that through the night, but I hadn't made up my mind this morning.

As I was waking, and thinking, I realized, using four screws of whatever kind, I would need to measure those out and at least put some effort toward making them look even, top to bottom and side to side.  And, since I was doing that, I decided to go ahead and countersink the screws.  It just seemed... tidier, cleaner, or some other thing like those terms?  Something.  Oh, and I tacked up that backer board with small finishing nails.  I could, now that it is screwed tight, punch those in and paint to cover them if needed... but... not going to happen.  I am more than satisfied with the task, how it looks, and how it works.  I even bothered to use a level to make sure the thing was square with the floor, or at least with vision and the general horizontal plain.

Of course, that was going on while I was soaking, then cooking beans.  I've had a bowl of the beans with the remaining rice this morning.  And that wasn't even it for the day.  My neighbors came by and... pretty much did my drive.  Oh, I think I scooped a bit, but nothing to speak of.  They wanted to use the snow blower, as there is six inches and more coming.  Not a problem, I had offered it and meant it.  I did put a bit of salt out, though, this time.  Now I am done.  Well... for the day.  Gah!  I still forgot to put out some meat to thaw!  While rice might make a complete protein with beans, or so they say, and while each is good on it's own and will make a minor meal, they will never, together or alone, be meat!  I'll do that before I get lost in the hum of the machine again.

Good day.

Okay, that was weird.

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Getting to bed was easy last night.  I actually stretched it out, hoping that would allow me to sleep both early and well.  That didn't work, so I let the girls in.  They entertain my sleeping, or near sleeping mind, with their play.  Queen of the hill, with me being the hill, is sometimes one of their favorites.  They did not fail to entertain.  I never did get a solid sleep going, and yet still rolled out about 9:30, feeling, for the most part, rested... enough.

I checked the coathook board, first thing.  It is dry and looks well coated.  I am now considering which type of  wood screw to use, and whether to countersink it a bit.  Technically it isn't necessary.  It can look nicer, and with having shorter wood screws it might hold better, too, though.  The thing is, I'm not sure how to do that really well.  And the wood screws I have aren't really designed for a flush fit, so it would be more like boring in than countersinking.  Gah!  I'll... figure it out.  Beans are already cooking as well.  When they are done I will mix some of those with the rice from yesterday... and pull some meat out to thaw.  There is always something that is forgotten!

Snow, not rain or sleet, today.  I, for one, am pleased to see it.  We need moisture, and I suppose sleet will do.  But rain and sleet are things that cause great trepidation in the heart of any cold season soul.  And 'wet' snow is such a pain to remove.  I think the 'wet' came, melted off mostly, and was gone before this new dry good snow came, so getting it off if it falls in bulk should actually be easier than it would have been even before the rain/sleet hit.  It makes me want to go skiing.  Then again, I checked on the price of that.  At $45/$75 half/full day, with rental, I don't know how people can afford that.  While it is fun, it isn't that great of an exercise.  I suppose it is the one thing to do in the winter?  It is well out of my budget, that is all I know, at least as a regular thing and for now.

Something that might have triggered getting to be earlier?  I had been forgetting potassium.  I took a dose of that, along with medicines, yesterday.  That did have an affect, if it was simply an odd one.  I can't say what it did, precisely, only that it did do something.  And, then, later, I was pretty tired.  Hard to know.  My bp was 120/74, with a pulse at 61 this morning, weighing in right at 277.8, again.  Bleh.  But I am beginning to think my belly really is going away.  Women talk about hips and thighs (if I think they don't talk about butt and should :p ), but for me, the belly is where it all goes.  Always has.  My arms are only toned or not, same with my legs, but no fat almost ever.  My belly is teh buddha... or... was...  The lack of almost any weight loss, though, is... odd.  Even before I was exercising I have lost lots of fat but little weight.   Later.

Yes?

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Actually, yes.  Oh, I was slow enough getting to it.  Dusk was beginning to fall, and with it being overcast and foggy, it seemed already fallen when I started.  Only stepping out to get the sawhorses set up allowed me a fuller understanding.  A bit of sanding, mostly on the faces, but a bit on the rough side just for good measure, then a cut, and that was that.  It just happens that the light I put up the other day, finally, made painting after dark, where I prefer to do that sort of thing, possible.  I just loved that.  I have given the faces a first coat and they might get another coat or two before the night is done.  After that I set a pot of beans to soak while starting a pot of short brown rice to cook, after finishing the last pan needing washed which I used for the rice.  No, I didn't stop there.  After I had gotten the rice up to temp, then turned the heat back to let it cook, I came into the computer room and started tinkering with the lights.  The good news is that there are chains for the lights.  The bad news, and probably true of the other type, is that the culinary hooks I purchased by which to hang the lamps are too large to fit the chains.  Oh, no real issue, I will merely need to figure out some mechanical binder to hold the small chain onto the big one.  I don't like rubber bands, for a thousand and one reasons, besides not having any to speak of.  Safety pins, however, might do the trick quite nicely, if with some slop... not always a band thing if, and this is so, frequent adjustments might be necessary.

I honestly didn't think I would get to a lick of work today.  If I were a betting man I would have bet against it.  How can I not know?  Well... because I don't know the future.  I don't yet have the surety to simply make something happen because I think it, not even on one particular day.  I have a date with engineering school if that happens.  I am getting better, but that... isn't saying a lot. 

I would love to go to Mass tomorrow, but I am simply not used to crowds enough to do so.  I need a few more weeks of weekday Masses, when they work out.  I suppose going to the gym is helping, a bit, but that is a very different sort of crowd.  Most there are there for their own reasons and have very little reason or interest in involvements other than with those they know.  As well, the gym crowd is mobile.  I can't quite disappear into it, but I am usually, mostly, ignored.  Church is just... different.  I will be trying to take tomorrow off.  Perhaps I can boil eggs for Monday.  I might do a load of wash if I am able to collect one.  I will read.  Hmm, come to think of it, I ought to pull out some meat to thaw.  What sounds good?  Ah, I know... food.  Meaty food.  If God didn't want us to eat animals He wouldn't have made them out of meat!  Even He likes their smell.  Cain was the veggie guy, still is. 

Contemplating contemplation.

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Well, yes me, but too, no.  The book I am reading is specifically covering some of this material.  Some of this, somehow, is quite familiar.  I won't say I ever studied it in depth, just that I have definitely read extracts, revisits of the material if usually rather faithfully considered and apparently found sound by more modern writers and theologians.  I keep trying to remember where, though?  I just, can't even seem to get a hint.  I know I have never read St. Aquinas, or St. Augustine.  Actually I have only had a brief introduction to theology through writers such as C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, and such.  It has always been of interest, it just seemed so... distant, somehow.  The topic, or question as the book often poses topics, that I just read has been something I have realized as a problem before.  I think I will actual read the passages again.  In the first read, this part being unfamiliar, I found my mind racing to tangents and personal memories and thoughts, rather than sticking to the material.  What I am hoping is that there is a solution set to the problem.

Oh, what is the problem?  Well, it seems for me at least, the more I contemplate upon God, at times, the further from Truth I can end up being, at least temporarily.  Now, the part of the writing I remember suggested that this was because, as we approach Perfection, we see our flaws the more.  And, true, that aspect does exist.  For me, though, that isn't the whole, or even majority, of the problem... at least not that directly from what I can tell.  My problem is that as one aspect of myself attempts to be drawn and to be a party to God's will, another part of me rebels the stronger for it.  Another, and larger aspect, is that while my mind is interpreting what it is sensing, in the Infinite, my mind does all sorts of whirls, cartwheels, and formulas trying to fit that into the known.  It, technically, isn't possible.  Not that Truth doesn't live in some way in the real, only that my mind cannot... properly... fit it or use it or apply it or understand it or actually any of those things.  But you can't tell an inventive mind not to invent!  So, I end up with some very odd things.  I suppose, if something of flesh might explain it, imagine scientists trying to teach an elephant to enter an old phone booth whole and alive.  While, mathematically, with the right sized elephant and phone booth, there is room.  The reality often belies the math.

Yes, yes, don't think so hard, right?  Yes, well, that is not something that can just be turned on or off.  If it can, at times, be quite entertaining of it's own nature.  Further, the only real way for a novice to turn that side of things off is for them to stop pondering God.  Well, that sort of defeats the purpose, right?  I have to think monks and priests have found a, several, perhaps many, way(s) of dealing with these problems.  I have to think that Father, while preparing the Host, has had funny thoughts buzz around his bean.  I am sure monks, while in prayers of the hour, or singing, have had the oddest of notions.  Though, perhaps, time and focus is more of the way than anything else.  As I said, I will be reading the material again, and following up in associated areas.  Bah!  I couldn't even keep my mind focused while reading the material that might have helped me learn how to do just that!

While I do contemplate God, I also contemplate the rest of life.  My favorite, and first, form of Rubik's Cube is always a wonderfully contemplative material.  At one time I thought there was a solution.  If nothing else, I supposed, marriage was the thing.  Things have lead me to believe that is NOT the solution.  It can be part of it, though.  What I have decided, however, is that the solution is, actually, not a solution.  I mean, there isn't "an answer".  Though too, I have decided, it is not a mystery, either.  It is just that the distance between A and B is not the fastest way from A to B, in this case, save when it is.  The trick is to not believe in mystery and simply go by final function, and defining B.  Don't get lost in what the problem suggests is mystery.  It is almost like a mole.  If they go down this hole, don't think they have lost you.  With a bit of study, you realize there are several, but a limited number of, holes for them to go down or come up.  You don't need to know where they are, only where they could reappear.  Then you learn how to make them reappear.  And then...  Whacka-a-mole!  Well, maybe not quite that, exactly, but the notion is sound.  Don't worry about the burrows or tunnels or biways, only when and where.  Of course, dealing with the 'mole' itself is... rather trickier.  But think of it as much the same as whence you came by the 'mole', only of a psychological nature.  If this too is another form of the advice just given.  Rubik's Cubes, indeed.  Only... they are actually complicated, if you try to follow them.  What was it they think in physics?  You can know precisely where a particle is at any given time.  You can know it's precise velocity, as well, at any given time.  What you can't do is you can't know both at once.  Further, the more you know of the one, the less you know of the other.  So, decide, do you want to know their velocity or location?  Me?  Location, location, location.  *whack*  :p

I did most of the few dishes and am about ready to begin looking for the wall studs.  Yeah, I am not running really fast today, true.  All good though.  I would like to get going on the coat rack, so that, later, I might see about adding the two lamps to the shelving.  It should be easy, but should and could and is or isn't are... often very different things.  They seem to include a chain, otherwise I may trade them back in for one that definitely does.  Why is it always so complicated sometimes?

Later.

Well?

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My day schedule to be slipping.  I am holding tight, making an hour up here or there, but this morning I wasn't out of bed until a bit after 10:00, with 11:00 and noon being more average than not lately.  There is some chance that I might take back the mornings, doing better and all.  But I have told myself that more times than I can remember, and I can't quite recall a time it has happened.  This time, I always suggest.  If I can't take mornings back, the trick will be to shove my days around as quickly as possible.

I am seriously strengthening up from swimming.  I don't want to lose that.  I may have to get that exercise band kit a little ahead of time and let my finances simply manage that, for times I might not be able to get to the gym.  I don't want to simply stop doing some exercise, but there might come a time where the pool simply isn't open when I am viably awake to otherwise use it.  I am amazed at how, comparatively, strong I am becoming, and how quickly, even at the milquetoast to diffident seeming effort I am able to apply.  While I am still very weak, with almost zilch for stamina, I would say I have increased, several times, what I started at.  No, it doesn't show up in the pool as that many more laps (if in part due to an attempt at bilateral breathing), it simply cumulatively adds together to an increase in capacity for dealing with life.  If too, at this point, swimming is about the sum of my life.  You have to start somewhere, I suppose.

I am going to find the studs in the wall, then cut that piece, then sand it, today, I do believe.  I should be able to get a couple of coats of paint on it as well.  I don't know how many coats of paint will be needed, or how well I will stay on top of the project, but the thing could be done by Monday.  After that I have two major works to begin processing, finally.  Well, aside from finishing the work on the seedling hatchery and keeping up on my home (the latter has been a bit of a flop, if I am still up on dishes, mostly).  I need to begin scrapping wallpaper in the kitchen for when my mother visits in June.  And I need to get off my fear and begin tinkering by brazing some copper pipes.  The first part will be to remove one small section of old connections, then putting on a couple of new devices to make changes easier in the future, then adding some general lengths and maybe end-caps on those so I can test it as the weather gets warmer.

It would be nice to have my own bathroom reset by the time my mother visits, just so I can have my own private loo.  It's a luxury I have never known before, when living in the same house or place with others.  One I like.  And it's really too small for my mother, and most women wouldn't like it... definitely a man's... poop and shower cave!  Mine!  Just to get it on it's feet again, though.  Ugh.  Plus, then I don't have to traipse through my home to shower, shave, whatever.  Especially at night, I do hate that.

Anywhile, I should get going on that little project.  I must admit, having a solid, five double pronged coat and  hat rack, by the back door, will be nice.  I suppose women can have a point, if they little know what it is that they ask, nor often do they care.  Get it done, she says.  So I will.  If, too, it... really isn't all that much, just more than they realize?  Not in a day, unless money isn't an issue.  Later.

Hmm, so I can hear and remember.

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Actually, my spelling of McLaughlin was even correct, first time.  Adding "swimming" to the search parameter hit paydirt immediately.  I looked over the notion, and I will be thinking about it.  I also looked at the list of places where they hold weekend long... uhrm... training sessions, if Arizona seemed to be the closest that I saw listed.  This begins getting tricky, as what is really called for is a means of taking videos of myself, while I swim, to compare.  Well, yes, tricky.  Technically my smart phone can do that, if I am not sure exactly how long it can record, what sort of stand it would require, and how to keep it definitely dry.  It does record in HD, potentially, so it would be good enough, most likely, depending on how long it can record.

Next I did a search regarding the swimming coach who had been recommended, there at the gym.  Again, I hit the target on my first browser pull, if I couldn't remember her name, exactly.  Hyphenated names just don't stick.  Anyway, I did research that topic as fully as I was able to do online.  The requirement for the general classes is out of my reach, if the classes themselves might be, if I stretch, within my budget.  I'll have to go over my finances.  However, until I can swim better, the options are two-fold.  One, to simply do what I can until I can swim the minimum lengths or, secondly, to take private lessons to get up to speed.  The problem with the lessons is that they are well beyond my budget.  I simply couldn't stretch that far, even for a lesson a month, which would be useless singularly anyway.  So, on that part, I may have to simply wait.  McLaughlin does put out a DVD, which might work.  But, not quite yet.  And that would require a bunch of purchases in order to begin videoing my swimming sessions, or parts of them.

With the hog almost to the butcher, the seedling center almost but not quite paid (I still have another $50 in lights and bulbs), a late utility bill to catch up with, this next month is not the time to be messing with more.  Not any, not one, no, none, more $$$.  I did bookmark the items in the "Swimming" section I recently created.  And I will be looking at the videos I have seen, and others.  I will continue to swim, and do what I can in the pool.  But for now, it looks like I have what I have and will simply do as I can with what I have for at least another month, though probably until next year.  Things will be shaking out, and certain expenses and costs are being tended now that won't be a problem later.  Mostly.  Gah!

One thing I did learn, and I was having issues with this myself, is that bilateral swimming, for many folk, cuts them short on air.  I was starting to suspect that, myself.  I believe that while I have improved my bilateral breathing, I have curtailed my speed and distance improvements, perhaps vastly.  I may just stick with breathing on my right side, until I become more advanced.  At least I know I can, sort of, do that.  I am not good at it, by any means.  And I shouldn't use it for more than some practices where I want to burn more than not, if right here at the start isn't the best time to begin that.  For now I will set that aside.

It does get complicated, and expensive.  I may just have to stick with plug-and-play for this first year though, then think about more for next year.  The thing is, when you get to a certain point, it becomes free again.  I suppose, to me, the question is... can I even improve to that point?  I did it before, getting to a mile an hour and swimming most of that time, but on Ritalin.  That will simply be spelled out with time and practice.  I hate when I almost see something but can't quite reach, or afford, it.  In this case, it's a little bit of both.  Never to worry, I'll get there, or... not.  I'll plug away as I can, either way.

Good night.

Not perfect but not bad at all.

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While I didn't make it to Mass, I did get to swimming about the time I would have if I had made it to Mass.  Okay, that will happen.  I knew this.  I can kick out a decent swim, if there is much room for improvement.  Stamina is also lagging.  Time, it seems, will be the key.  The last time I went swimming, a man had asked to share my lane and I had, bluntly, without explanation, refused.  He spoke with a woman I have seen swimming before, if I couldn't hear their conversation, and only noticed.  She had looked my way with... I couldn't really tell what kind of look.  Though I could have swore I saw her eyes... show a bit of anger.  Not... my... problem.  I don't budge on some things, period.  I believe I actually grinned, if not directly at her.  Just... enough so that I was pretty sure she could see it.  I truly do enjoy angry women.  Bad, bad man.  *grins*  I figured that would be that.

Well, getting into the pool today, after a few rounds, she was resting at the same end at which I was resting, in the next lane over.  She started a conversation, in which she flat out told me a couple of things I could improve in my stroke, style, if I was serious about swimming.  I explained my situation as briefly as I could, and suggested that now that things are working, that I definitely am into swimming, pretty much as part of my lifestyle.  She suggested McLaughlin (I haven't looked him up yet, as someone to check out, about to do so) and suggested a swim instructor/group, for adults, right there at this particular gym.  I don't know about money, right now, but I will be investigating more, Monday, before I get into the water.  I didn't see any rings on her fingers.  And later, I realized, through breadcrumbs in the conversation, she told me her age.  Sneaky.  Then again married women might well take off their rings in the pool, and my vision isn't perfect in the pool so I could have missed a ring.  Still, it was... nice to have a conversation with an adult of the opposite sex, one who wasn't afraid to... just say it, one who is obviously physically fit.  I do think it surprises people when they hear that I could be on the heart transplant waiting list, especially in the pool, actually kicking into it as best as I can.  If nothing else it means I'm not a quitter.

After the swim, I put on my sweats and geared up to consider a pedaling session.  I was feeling it pretty hard so I thought I would give myself time to cool off.  Well, that didn't work.  Either, after swimming, I am ready to pedal or I am not, time does me no favors in getting going.  So I simply dressed back into my civies and headed out.  I hadn't talked to my friend all week, but I forgot my phone so I couldn't call in advance.  I simply drove over, used the door-call device, and then went on up.  Dinner and a stop at the hardware store seemed in order.  Dinner first.  I had pulled money out of my account for the hog and for a couple of lights and bulb packs.  So I was hoping I was good.

Dinner at one of the local "dives".  No, it seriously isn't a dive.  It has the atmosphere of a circa 50's restaurant, and there is a greasy spoon feel to it due to that being all there were in some of the small towns I have lived, but the food is quite good and the place is pleasant.  The manager always asks if the food and service were good.  The place is clean, including the bathrooms.  And you don't go away hungry unless you want to.  We usually don't, today was no exception.  Broasted chicken for me and beef roast on Texas toast with mashed potatoes and gravy for him, and a plate of mushrooms to split.  Well, and my usual four or five tall glasses of iced tea.  I left nothing but bones and maybe three mushrooms today.

Then to the hardware store.  My poor friend went in for just a $1 dollar dowel as it turns out, thinking I was just going in for a couple of lights and bulbs.  I ended up getting those things, plus a couple of plants (to replace the dead one, if they are much smaller), a couple of "pots" for them, and something else.  We had to leave some of the things at the counter so we could pick up the other things.  A wheelchair bound man and a man who is pushing just doesn't allow much in the way of carrying capacity.  Finally, though, we finished.  It was about time to head home.  On the way home, I picked up my mail and then I stopped and paid for the hog, which goes in Tuesday.  I'll stop there and arrange for the cuts, I have a lot to learn about parting out a hog, I'll say that for sure.

Not bad, not bad at all.  I'm not even too tight.  Oh, her suggestions was rolling much more and breathing sooner, in my stroke.  Yeah, yeah, I can see that.  Part of the problem is that I can't see myself swim.  I can feel, sense, and such, but I can't get a good notion of how my body is doing in the water.  I did surprise her, in knowing about the ratios of strength to speed versus reducing volume to speed.  If nothing else it meant, possibly, to her, that I am actually looking at things.  Never mind, just... it's all good for today.  Oh, one last thing, I did find a coat hanger for the back hall as well.  Before backing the X'ter into the garage, I found a 1x6 that should do nicely to extend between studs, as I don't think the coat hanger is long enough and I don't want to trust the drywall to hold even three, let alone most of, my coats.  I need to find the studs, make sure the distance is right then make the cut, sand the piece then paint it several times (and I do have the right shade of white now:), then put that together and up.  My mother, and really I, will be quite pleased with the finished project I do believe.

Good day, or... night.  Hmm, maybe I can get to bed on time tonight?  Yeah, yeah, get out of here.  You know I'm trying.

Late to bed, late to rise, I'll... get there.

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I tried to get to bed at 23:00, but that just didn't happen.  Then it hit midnight and I was able to crawl into bed.  I didn't sleep for hours?  I had set the alarm for 8:00, but it was a little after 10:00 before I actually crawled out of that nice warm place.  And the wind is not in my sails today, so movement is lackluster.  I missed Mass, of course.  I saw the time approaching the way someone tied to the train tracks might, though it passed with much less... fanfare?  It almost doesn't matter, the first two or four hours of wakefulness are powered by sludge.  Bp was 140/90, and yesterday's was in that range too.  So, yeah, there are still outliers if they aren't as high.  I probably should call the docs and see what they think.

Yesterday we got hit with sleet.  The fellow came by for his containers, which I had to hurry and wash (if they had been in a warm soak from the night before).  He then asked if I would go with him to pick up, as it turns out, the very fellow I will be buying a hog from... today actually, or Monday if I am too slow today.  How funny how such things end up happening.  He didn't, I don't think, realize I had crawled out of bed at his sounding of the doorbell.  Yeah, most people just don't quite understand waking at noon, and for the most part shouldn't.  Still, it was an interesting drive and talk.

Hmm, yeah, I better get going.

This morning I had another crazy dream.  I was in some specfor group, probably SEALs, if I had to guess.  But there was something heavy going on.  We were being sent in, time after time, and taking heavy losses.  So heavy, actually, that they were creating split-teams.  On this run I was the only (we will just go with SEALs) man on the team, we weren't even a complete team, the other guy being a Ranger, and another of an unknown group.  In any case, the skycraft of whatever kind it was (new to me, like a Corvette looking jet that worked as a troop transport) was hit and we went in hard and way off of our intended lz.  We all made it, save the pilot.  Something had crashed through the windshield and pinned the pilot to his seat.  I'm not sure if the vehicle tried to auto-land or if the pilot used his last to get us down mostly intact.  Not my area, really.  Anyway, we got out, found cover, then began triangulating to find out where we were.  Communications were very hit and miss.  At that point, they were miss.

We headed out, taking cover, advancing as if under fire.  We were in the burbs, in a residential section.  For some reason I had no idea what we were facing.  I ended up in a garage, with the Ranger on the far side of the street using a home for cover, with the unknown in the street, then behind a car when we heard "boom", "boom", "boom", getting louder and closer.  No, not artillery.  Was the ground shaking?  Definitely.  The sound was getting closer and closer and finally, we saw it.  A T-Rex, or something like it, was racing straight at us.  It went straight for the unknown, with all of us firing madly at it.  Ripped in two.  Rather than veering toward the Ranger or myself, however, it just kept on running down the street.  We checked on unknown, but half was gone, the other half was quite dead.  Tags were collected and the remainder of the body was moved out of sight and covered, gear and ammo was also collected.  We went back to the garage to figure out wth just happened.

Communications were not just miss, they were dead.  So we just decided, against such "enemies", our best bet was simply to scout.  We simply didn't have the firepower, either in strength or numbers, for combat, obviously.  We created a projected path of advancement, several fallback positions, and placed them in both the gps and on our ground maps, and decided on some means of non-vocal communications since we had never teamed before, then headed out with a whole paradigm shift to deal with.  Well, and our given emergency lz was, well, yeah, that wouldn't work.  Yeah, well, I thought.  Another day of shit, but it definitely wasn't the same shit just a different day.  I chuckled and cinched my travel pack, having stored part of my cache in that garage, the Ranger did the same a block down in a garage on the other side of the street.  About every ten clicks, we put down more of our supplies so as to have stocked fallback positions, and for other reasons. 

The dream didn't bug me, just a dream.  But so much just seemed second nature.  Even that scrunched down feel you get when you know it's live.  Hmm, best get a shower taken and head to town before opportunity leaves me in the dust.  The one thing that I do miss?  Having communications... with someone, anyone, who has, or might have, a damned clue.  Then again, I realize now, no one ever knew anything more than a little of this or that.  But out there, that could be a world more than what we knew.  Hehe...  Kids, damned kids.

Still reading.

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On Prayer and the Contemplative Life is proving to have it's moments.  Some of it, of course, isn't of great interest.  Like I suggested, playing the devil's advocate on some of those things does help me 'get it', or at least stay on track.  Much of it, though, is of interest, and not always as I had initially suspected.  In one of the last discussions, motion was being discussed, if more to explain contemplation itself than as regards physical motion itself.  Now, the topic was of some interest.  Being of a mind to try to understand mechanical events, however, this was of double interest.  What I realized I was seeing was that these men of theological study were also quite intimately aware of the physical sciences.  I was, by reading, getting a historic lesson on mechanics!  In this case, the mechanics of motion.  Beside this topic, there are many discussions relating the physical to the spiritual and intellectual, and the separation and similarities of each to one and the other or in total.

To be honest, I am a bit amazed.  I did not realize that theologians were well acquainted with even simple physics, let alone seeming masters of it.  Further I did not realize that their understanding of physics or time or a few other things were quite... as up to speed as they seem to have been.  No, I realize there have been ages of reason where men understood as much, and in some times possibly more on specific topics, than we understand now.  It is just that, in this time period, I had thought much of certain types of learning had declined.  This was merely the middle ages, before the Renaissance, if after the Dark Age of Europe.  It was part of nearly a millennium of... well... not much.  Oh, sure, wars, failing empires, exploration, trade, and the rest, but really a rather static time as times go.

Tomorrow I should be in better shape to swim.  I will probably hit the massage chair before I head out, then when I get back a time or two.  I am loosening up everywhere save my back.  I'll have to figure out the other machine.  I am not sure a masseuse could increase my ability to swim, she could probably only make the two days easier.  The chair and manually mashing my arms and whatever I can reach will do for now.  I am almost feeling human again.  How much time itself unlocked things, I don't know.  But I do know that until I massaged what I could reach heavily, then used the chair, I wasn't loosening much at all.  I also heard it has definitely been a bit colder around these parts this year.  That may be playing some kind of role.  I noted that a touch of Balvenie was good last night, that's for sure.  I'm almost out though!

Later.

So, God, I was thinking...

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Everyone once in a while, for no apparent reason, I get on some topic or other dealing with God.  Well, sure, I have questions.  And I do have curiosity.  And I deal with those, if usually more analytically or prayerfully.  But this type of thing is a little different.  It is more like a little documentary slash movie pops onto my "screen", an interactive one.  No, God doesn't come down and direct the thing, directly, but hints pop 'on-screen' once in a while, leading me, I think, to a better write of the thing.

In this case, I was thinking about God, as He did and has instructed men.  Like an old Father to a young son, He would, for example, give a token to us and suggest we use it to purchase camels for the trip we need to take across a desert.  We take the token, head to the livestock barns, and return... with a string of mules.  No, my son, He says, they will not serve you.  They will perish for want of water, and you along with them.  We had thought ourselves clever, taking the extra saved from spending on the camels and spending it on wine and women.  He, again, sends us back to the merchant, with enough to cover what we had foolishly spent, to cover the loss and get camels.  This time, on the way, we see other men on horses, and watch as women swoon at the sight.  So, we decide to buy horses, instead, our vanity leading us astray this time. Over and over God has set us aright and sent us back to the merchant.  Eventually we get what we actually need.  We have done this as whole groups of people and as individuals.  Some of us refuse His advice and wander to our 'deaths'.  Some of us simply, eventually, set ourselves to following Him as best we can.

God must be quite patient, and rather lenient.  While it is said that God does not change, that when we describe an angry God, or a pleased Lord, or such, we are describing our actions which either are within or without His realms of thought, spirit, or action, I have to think that, at times, God has to laugh.  Men try to abide His will, but in our way, and pitch our tents right on the exact border, so that our head is in His realm but our feet seem to us to give us... freedom, from Him, too.  We think we can negotiate, as if putting our head in the sun for warmth and our feet in the shade for cool, hoping that will somehow work as we please.  And it never does.  Laws, and lawyers, fiddling with sin while trying not to actually sin, we are like sons of all the ages of men and boys.  Patient indeed.

I had an older foster father.  He was just at 60 when I came into that family, at 12 myself.  I see so many similarities.  And he was not a good father, but a great one.  His patients, and insistence, but too his strength.  He was even, for his age, a giant type, standing six foot from the floor.  As a WWII vet, he had to have been considered possibly more of an oddity than even myself, in his time.  But he wasn't just tall, he was actually quite a powerfully built man, too.  And, for my fighting prowess even at that time, I pegged him as the probable winner in any... potential... urhm, disagreement.  Not that this matters, mind you, I have fought and lost knowingly and will do so today if right to do so, if too I trusted he would not wrongfully... disagree.  I do remember, at times, when I would do something foolish, something he had told me not to do, and would have to pay some price.  And, quite often, he would have a grin on his face.  I am quite certain, a time or two, as I headed up to my bedroom to contemplate on my woes, or while in my bedroom, I would hear a boom of laughter when he thought I was out of earshot.  He definitely had a booming laugh, I could feel it through the floorboards right from the basement up to my second story room.

The two things are not, and were not at the time, lost on me.  And yet, ever so often, I failed and continue to fail to live up to my commitments and promises and principles of wisdom, in fact or spirit.  Today, God is the only Father left to me.  And I STILL think the horses would look cooler!  If too, for the most part, I do choose the camels.  Actually, that is why I drive an Xterra instead of a Camaro SS.  While a used vehicle might be wiser still, without the skills and tools to keep it up... I do what I can.

One thing I do, if I have a question... if it is a real question, I bring it to God in prayer and thought.  I won't say He always answers.  Some questions aren't to be answered.  And I won't say He answers how I would have it, leaving me breadcrumbs to follow and piece things together rather than just handing me the data, usually.  But the litmus test for the legitimacy of a question is... can I in all honesty ask the truth of this to God.  If I can't, then I already know the answer and I am just trying to play fast and loose with what He has already taught me.  He... isn't very tolerant that way, and I have learned as much this way as by the breadcrumb trails.  First, I have learned, that I have... much to learn.  I have also learned that even a son who attempts to do his Fathers will... is given some allowances for play.  God's laughter, though, rings even louder than my foster father's laughter.  Hurtful or relieving, I hear it to this day.  And it, too, is comforting.

Fortune sometimes smiles on the willing.

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Have you ever meant to offer a favor, often for a favor given, but the opportunity slipped away.  Whether the opportunity slipped away honestly or not, I mean because you chose or had no choice, matters little.  If your intent was sure but a method was unavailable until the notion was lost, the whole idea comes back to haunt.  While it doesn't cause me heartburn, if it was simply a lack of too many things necessary, it does give me an off taste... about myself, about my predicament at times, and lends to some dubious notions of whether health or laziness, limited income or unkind frugality, is truly to blame.  Well, sometimes an opportunity returns.

It turns out the hog I had put in an order for is ready.  Well, it will be going to the, uhrm, chop shop Tuesday, in any case.  I will need to go there and speak with the butcher about how I would like it processed, whether to smoke the bacon and possibly some other parts (HAM) (both, OF COURSE, and maybe some of the chops, thick cut at that!), what cuts for this part, or that, and such.  I am a novice, so I will be doing a bit of research in the interim.  Now, this is a whole hog, not a half or a quarter.  And, I know that is probably a bit much.  While pork can last for six months in the freezer, and perhaps up to a year, it does begin to... change... over time.  Which is why I am pleased to have most of my equipment for canning some pork.  Jars and some of the minor canning utensils remain to be purchased.  While canning, it could be argued, will only extend the life of meat to about a year, the truth is the meat will be good for much longer.  The same is true of at least most vegetables.  Some nutrition, and some flavor, may be lost beyond the first year after canning, but the food will still basically be good.  And most certainly it will be better than a big ol', freshly canned, quart o' nothing.  :p  This looks like a really good starter resource regarding canning meats.

While I am there, I am going to ask about the hocks and any extra of those, sweet breads, brains (at least pork, sheep, or lamb if I can't get beef).  Yes, yes, I do want to try some of these things.  My mother's generation, minus the girls to include her it seems, lived on these foods.  I just want to know what that was about and possibly find some new, inexpensive, meats.  Plus, you know I am a foodie.  Not of the, technically, haute cuisine sort, but of the... try anything you can stomach and then some, if you like it, try it again.  Actually, I think you should try something until you find a way to like it, but that's just me.

Still, even with some frozen and some canned, a whole hog is a lot o' meat.  It turns out that the fellow who cut the tree branch off my roof also provided dinner for me tonight.  He travels for work, across another state, for a week at a time.  One of the things he uses to facilitate this seems similar to what D.C. uses, containers and prepped food.  So, my food came in some of his gear, only he would like it back.  All very good.  He will be coming back tomorrow, and since I just learned about the pork after his visit or before I could put two and two together, I will see if a ham, a roast, chops, and some other goodies would be something of which he has interest.  Well, and I would like to show him my chain saw too.  I am certainly hoping his family likes pork.  Though I have something else in mind if not.  That was a heck of a job he did, and I was all but crippled, more so than now by far, at the time.  I would make them some cookies but I am just not quite there tonight.

Oh, I saw a tom come by today.  It looks like the gray cat on D.C.'s sidebar.  I know Sam has been... itching for company.  Unfortunately I scared him off.  Then again I think Sam likes some more than other toms, and she didn't seem all that interested in this one, or at this time, if it might simply be a bit chill for her sensibilities more than anything else.  It is as difficult to understand a girl cat as it is a girl human.  Women cats, can't please em', but don't always displease them?  I will say daughters and cat daughters definitely have a different manner of allowances!  Catnip to toms...

Oh, that massage therapy chair?  It is definitely working.  When I first started getting massages a few years ago after an accident, and off and on through the treatments, my bm's would... be a fright on the nose.  Something about breaking things loose and getting them out of the body.  Well, that is already in evidence.  And I have been voiding often and easily just since using the chair today.  It looks like, even if these chairs aren't everything, they are indeed something.  *gurgles*  I'll... write more later.  Hmm, maybe I should make some coffee too!  *GURGLES*  Later.

That was easier than it seemed.

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The shelf has been put together, stood up, and even partially arranged, with hooks, the bottom layers of non-adhesive shelf lining on, and a rough placement of the seed planters in play.  I won't guarantee this is how it will end up, and I was disappointed that wheels were not included (to a degree).  But will each shelf hold 600 pounds?  If my life or coin was on the line, I would have to bet that it would.  It is very solid.  The method for construction was quite simple but new to me.  I ended up just needing the instructions for one area.  The thing, when I realized how it worked, that worried me, was whether measurements and a few other things were up to specs so as to allow for the leeway built into the system in order for a level platform across the board.  Actually, the tolerances were exceptional.  The thing with the wheels, though, while it bothers me, as I believe it was indicated that it had wheels, it also doesn't.  I have doubts about the quality of such.  Further, the system has heavy bolt-based adjustable leveling feet, so that adding decent quality rollers will be easy enough, and rigging that, even further, to allow for leveling, should be no problem with an extra nut(s) and washer(s), per leg, as to preferences.  Satisfied.

The thing stands eye to eye with me.  So I did have some worry about the required steps.  But one thing you learn as both a tall guy and as a guy with a heart condition (whether you know it or not), is that strength is held in reserve for those times nothing else will do.  The rest of the time you use what else is, and more freely, available.  It starts with the brain, which uses the eye to see how gravity and angles can be used to simplify work.  Angles, gravity, and the two combined, have done most of the work I have done in my life.  I don't have the stamina, if I at one time and still could argue compared to the norm have the strength.  You need both to be a lug.  I wouldn't mind being a lug, saves time if... it can cost time.  Simply put, I can't afford to be a muscle man.  So, a bit of looking, a little attention to things, and I had the thing together in a few minutes.  I think their system of construction is beautiful.  And, further, I trust it.  I can see how gravity will work toward it's strength, and how the components are good enough for this use.  K.I.S.S., right?

Another sit in the chair.  The work, while not difficult, did stretch things out a bit, but by use, which means I tightened up off and on too.  Now is the perfect time to hit the jumbled masses of muscle, before they can turn back into concrete or set.

I think the only thing, for sure, that I need to get, are the lamps.  I may look Friday.  I saw some doubles bulb lamps (of which I need/want four), for right under $15 per.  The nice thing is, I am sure this system will last for years, maybe a decade, with only possibly bulbs needing replaced, if that.  Although, too, I know this will only work for a very small patch.  While there is enough room for 210 seedlings of various regular sorts and 68 tomatoes (the latter can be mixed if I want to I suspect, so 278 seedlings really), considering seed loss, plant loss, and the rest, I can't be sure of this for a whole garden.  Then again, only some crop is worth seeding ahead of time?  Who knows.  For now I think this system will be enough for my first two to three years of gardening.  And, it is eminently scalable.  Woot!

Later.

Wow! That sure helped!

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I had forgotten all about the massaging vibrating aspect of the recliners my mother found until today.  It took a little bit to figure out which buttons to press to get what.  A bit of tinkering got me to a very good place.  I wish I had found this earlier, weeks earlier.  And there are limits.  The recliner is intended for normal sized people, so I can't get my upper back from the start of the shoulder blades upward, other than a bit of carry over during vibration.  Ugh, but that was like lifting a couple of layers of tight away.  I realize, now, that I have quite a few layers of "tight" to get through.  Trying to release that in one session, if that were even possible on these chairs, would probably simply kill me or turn me into jello making anything else impossible for a while.  Down through the top layers of tightness, though, actually makes it so that I can feel a bit of the pain from the rest of the layers.  Yeah, maybe I was pushing it a bit.  I figure three or four sessions a day should see me to being in really good shape for swimming Friday.  Who knows though, for sure.  I might even get in the chair before heading out Friday.

The chair I am using, when clicked to "kneading" squeaks pretty heavily.  I need to find, or get, dw40 or axle grease, or whatever it looks like it will need, for that.  Which means a minor teardown might be required, if the chairs are sort of set up for easy maintenance from a quick glance.  Other than that it seems to work just fine.  I may even, with that being so successful, figure out how to create a massage table like setup with the hand-held massage kit, for my upper traps, which are still the tightest of the muscle groups since I couldn't and still can't reach them.  Oh was that wonderful.  Layers and layers of built up tightness, and I didn't even notice until I had been all but turned into an ironman.

I did measure my arms last night.  At about 16", they are as measly as before.  However, my chest has expanded to 54", from 52" when my mother was here.  I measured for a pajama pattern.  The chest expansion didn't surprise me, I think I had mentioned that it was filling, shaping, tightening, if still not great it is better.  Yes, yes, sewing and all.  It is just that, right quite yet, I can't afford taking the sewing machine in for unknown costs.  It just doesn't sit well with my mind, and I may have a hog on the way this coming month, plus processing costs.  With the seedling setup, gas to get into town, my mother's coming visit and wallpaper then, a water heater to buy, Burning Man to prep for, and some other little and big things, I just don't have the cash to be doing something else.  Oh, and I am behind about two, going on three, months, with utilities.  I will catch that up this coming 1st, and maybe get ahead the following month or at least put in post-dated checks to keep me up for about six months or a year.  Gah!  I am terrible with bills, which is why I automate what I can.

Well, on to working on the shelves.  When I get that done, another chair session.  I can't believe how much that helps.  A real masseuse is a thousand times better, but at this tightness level that might kill me, or turn me to jello.  Still, if I could afford it, I might take the risk.  Ugh.  Money, money, money!   Later.

Loosening up, but so very slowly.

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I do think I could swim today.  I wouldn't count on swimming much, or even lasting my usual time.  My back is still a bit tight, and my right bicep has tightened up, again, after having been loosened with massage.  At least, so far, it isn't and hasn't been hurting.  the tightness doesn't impede breathing, either.  It would, to try to describe it, be like being a turtle in a shrinking shell.  Consider the skin on it's front legs as part of it's shell, too.  The shrinkage isn't enough to impact breathing, save toward the end of the swim time on my last laps, when I would exhaust my lungs... then getting air back in was a bit difficult without simply forcing long deep breaths, consciously.  Which is fine.  Usually that happens a bit more naturally is all.  I guess I will know more Friday.

I didn't get to sleep, or wake, early.  The tightness was getting to me and this morning I just wanted to try to sleep through it, to be honest.  Which I did, much to the unhappiness of the girls.  While not pack animals, they are pretty good at tag team efforts against even an ogre!  They have learned to play nice, though.  Sitting on me is fine, meowing is okay, even, if it is a reasonable hour (the alarm is or has gone off) using their whiskers to tickle my face... all good.  No clawing, biting, or walking on poppo's delicates, though, not at all.  They were fed first thing, after waking.  Now they don't want to talk to me anymore.  All good.

I would like to begin working on the shelving.  I didn't get to the pan, so I will need to soak that again.  That is pretty much it.  I did find the massage machine.  I have been thinking about how to get that going.  Although, if I remember right, the recliners, if plugged in, have a massage device in them.  I'm not sure that is the kind I need, but I might give it a shot first, since it is my back that is the problem.  Hmm, might do that right now.  It would be very nice to have my back loosen up, even a bit more. 

Ah, right, bp was 128/90 or so, and pulse was up to 81.  I guess it isn't horrible, just up a bit.  I took it twice, taking the lower reading, if this time they were both pretty close.  Weight is exactly the same.  Medicine went down the hatch and has been doing so regularly.

Later.

Just a bit done, mostly resting and a nap.

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I painted the back hall, changed some bulbs, read, and pretty much just tinkered.  I have tried to massage my sore muscles, which actually helped quite a bit.  The problem is I can't reach my back muscles, which are still tight enough they twitch from time to time, if they are getting a bit better over time.  If I had the money I would get in for a massage.  I don't like the hard massages.  My body is usually tight, it has been forever, as far as I can remember.  I need a more gentle massage.  Odd how I can, or used to be able to, take punches as if I hadn't even been hit, and yet a deep massage would make me yowl in pain.  I just need the muscles shaken and warmed by the hands, that seems to really do me some good.  If I remember right, that was even helping to lower my blood pressure the last time I had it done, off medicines.  At least my head doesn't feel like my shoulders and traps are going to simply pop it off at the neck, mostly, today.

The pan still isn't washed.  I may run a clean soak yet tonight and try to finish that, kicking out the breakfast pan and dish while at it..  I did move the 'bookshelf' in to this, the computer room, in order to begin working on it tomorrow.  It is one heavy son-of-a-gun.  It is stainless, and has the strength to hold 600 pounds per shelf, on three or four shelves, if loaded correctly.  It is actually a culinary shelf, but looking at "wooden" and real wood, and other shelves, at the price, it could not be beat.  I would love to get another one, just for the kitchen and my pans, for ease of use.  With rollers, it is even better as it is mobile.  Adding a sheet fitted to it, yet somehow made easy to open, for neatness and keeping everything clean, would improve it and keep my pans in better shape.  But for now my money is focused on just what is absolutely needed for very specific things.

While the missionaries were here, as usual, they tried to get me to read their book, alone.  As I said, I don't do that.  I told them I would think about it, which I have.  Not even the bible has been read alone, even when young.  I had reference materials, and even some atheist stuff I smuggled home for a more full assessment.  As secular as my mother was, she didn't 'go for that kind of shit'.  Hehe  Then again, she is a woman.  Religion, for her at least and for many women, is in the doing, feeling.  It isn't related to laws, it isn't binding, and it is a very general thing.  But she had very distinct limits, atheism was one of them.  Or, uhrm, used to be.  :p  Now she dates an atheist.  Gah!  (If I have my doubts about his atheism.  I'm suspicious from nosing around in his mind, as is my wont, that his atheism is mostly a good stab at g.o.m.i (grumpy old man itus).  It woks on most folks, women especially, too.  It just doesn't fly so well on us curious sharper than average young(er) pups.  Still, I let him alone with his version of his story, mostly.  W.C. Fields, only not quite that convincing, ma boy.)

Anyway, after doing some more reading, and I still have a bit more reasearch to track down more specifics regarding reason, and how it needs to be a strong, equal, component to faith, I will be ready to answer that question.  It actually came to me, what my problem with reading a simple seeming book, standing alone, was.  Now I know.  Hit me like a bolt, if I knew there was a problem, several of them actually but this being the one I had been trying to put to words.  The problem with their book is there is no archeological history to it, there is no other books accepted by most of the Christian faith like it of which I am aware.  As an anomaly, therefore, it is even more important to read it carefully, with context, and understand it through reason.  Which means it won't be just a read, it would be a study.  And, I am not up to a full study, even if I had the necessary extra tomes on hand, let alone named.  In time a study may go forward, but not for some time.  For now I have about fifteen to twenty books to read to mostly catch up on my list, some of them are doozies, such as the Summa Theologica, plus definitely finding and getting in recordings for use in learning Latin (a task shelved until I have aural and vocal learning material).

 Tomorrow?  I am mostly concerning myself with getting the shelf together.  If that does go forward, and is done, and it doesn't kill me, then perhaps a bit of house cleaning.  If some part fails I will leave off and pick up where and when I can.  There is some business I ought to tend, phone calls to make and such.  But I am, again, on somewhat light duty, in hopes that swimming will happen Friday.

Still tight.

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I did a few things, on my own, to loosen up last night.  I wouldn't say I did stretches, per se, more like minor warmups.  I am still a bit tight today, my biceps, shoulders, and triceps seem to be the holdouts.  Being so solid made getting to bed on time difficult.  I just allowed an extra hour of sleep this morning, setting the alarm for 8:00, which I woke to if not easily.

Today is a rest day.  I am planning on washing the pan that was left, and painting the back hall repair spot at least one more time, and perhaps dealing with clothes.  I should have enough hangers, finally, to get everything hung.  Folding my shirts, beside putting creases in them, is more akin to folding a small sail then a shirt.  And I have never been good at folding shirts.  Towels I have learned to fold.  Even jeans can now be folded reasonably well.  But even a t-shirt is extremely tricky for me to fold right.  I had a girlfriend, or one of my fiancees, who did it perfectly.  I can't remember which one though.  Hrmm, or were there two of them that were good at that?  And I did, honestly, try to learn from them.  Some things, though, it seems, just can't be learned by some people.

Yes, yes, I do pick on women.  Never worry though.  I truly enjoy the female population of our species, at least one on one.  And some of them must enjoy my company, for many have gladly held my hand for various times in their and my life.  And I certainly do pick on them, if still I think they picked back more and more often, just not half as well.  That, actually, is part of the job of a mate.  We pick to improve, or arrange our life.  Women are very much about the order of things, including, or I should say especially, relationships.  They need there to be a leader and a follower, and ranking even beyond that.  And, if they can, if they know what they are doing, on some things, I will gladly let them take the reins.  Most of my women have tried to keep me away from laundry, for example, if I think I do well.  I... thought I did?  And it was work I didn't mind so much.  Odd.

Another note, women don't understand the singular all that well, even the lone wolf type women I have been with.  Actually, more singularly natured women need an authority system more strongly than gadflies do, oddly.  And, even if they don't function well in it, singular type women very much have a belief in a ranking system for all people, with others either being above or below them, something I don't share to a greater, generalized, degree.  I do keep the notion of finding a woman, actually wife as the latter is easy, in my prayers, if I have changed how I pray.  Instead of just asking for a wife, I now ask that God see me to being ready for a wife.  A minor thing, some might argue, but it is the difference between asking for something and the wisdom and readiness for something.  If you have the something, but aren't ready for it, the outcome might well be grim.  And a woman, wife, is indeed something!  :p

On to breakfast and waking.  Oh, bp?  122/84, with a pulse at 67.  Weighing in, still, at 277.8.  I am going to try to remember to check my vitals daily this week, to see if there are still higher outliers.  I have faltered regarding testing every day, as frustration set in with the outliers and maintained weight.

Good day.

Tight! Too tight.

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From about the middle of my neck down to my gut, and from my wrists in, and chest to trap, I am TIGHT.  A bit of looking did find some data.  It looks like too much caffeine could be a part of, or even the problem.  If I think that is just another pseudo-science polemic junk science notion, personally.  One of the vitamin deficiencies which can cause tightening is B-12.  The thing is that is a part of what I take, in part to counter what the water pill might be removing, if only taken three times a week but on top of a daily multivitamin which includes it.  Now if stressed B-12 might not be absorbed well, but that isn't my problem.  I'm not sure how to get the kinks out, either.  Oh, some sites suggest stretching.  Other sites are calling stretching into question, greatly, at least static stretching, and for almost any reason.  I am actually in agreement regarding static stretching.  Warmups, maybe.  Perhaps shaking off at a break, perhaps.  But simply stretching out has always been a fail for me, and I eschew it.

I know, in the pool, toward the end, it was more like... my upper body was becoming... concrete.  Or more that the water had mixed with the stuff and it was beginning to set (yes, there is underwater setting concrete, the Romans had it, actually, if it was lost to be "reinvented" much later I think).  I was becoming so tight that my strokes were a bear.  I could still do them, it just... it was taking a heck of a lot to get that arm over, then the other.  Setting concrete, that is exactly what it felt like.  And, no, I don't feel cold in the pool, save a touch when I enter.  Besides, I don't think they make, nor would I wear, a swim shawl.  :p  I'll have to do some more investigating.  But this is what has been and continues to be the problem with swimming three times a week.  I want some of my... fleshly power back, damnit!  I have things to do.  Bah!  I don't even care if I look any better, if that shouldn't be too hard, one way, impossible in any real way.

Ah, but come to think of it, it might not be just the tightness.  Unless that is costing me a great deal more to overcome, thereby tiring me out too much?  I am, as well, quite tired shortly after the swim, and pretty much all of last week.  I did overdo things, period.  And then, maybe, medicine played it's part.  Still, one problem at a time.  Sometimes fixing one thing fixes other things, but not always.  It certainly can't be counted on.  I suppose, considering my age and condition I shouldn't be too judgmental, harsh, or pushy.  And yet, not just for B.M but for the rest of my life, I need to keep going and I have this hurdle that is just in the way.  I'll keep looking, maybe talk to someone somewhere.  I am sure I can do this, I just to need to see how.

Good night.

Just a quicky...

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All right, now.  I've given out enough clues, so I want to see if any one has actually been paying attention.  I am not sure if you will find this in any kind of a browser search.  And, actually, my guess is, very few rabbis, mostly ones into historical "myth" might be able to tell you.  You might find it, scantly and roughly, discussed in a few old tomes though, probably not too far from the lore regarding Lilith and the flesh golem, if not as often, or directly.  What modern "monster" is actually based on the stories and such of nephilim?   Actually, I knew this long ago.  But because of learning more about each, I realized that the modern take-off is extremely off the course, so I had stopped thinking of the two as one.  It just came to me the other night, for whatever reason.

Later.

Oh, yeah, okay. Now I know.

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No Mass today.  Go figure.  I certainly hope it wasn't to celebrate a very poor Protestant's life?  I truly hope not.  In any case, I did get into the pool.  I did fairly well, not my best by far, but I plugged what I could.  Toward the end though, I was hardening.  My muscles were becoming solid.  But not in the good way.  It was more like I was turning into stone.  I do not believe I will be able to maintain swimming three days a week, not now, not yet maybe.  I am going to try for Mondays and Fridays though.

After I got out of the pool I was doing... poorly.  I don't mind that, really.  That itself will not keep me from going in.  But there was no amount of time that would have allowed me to be ready for pedaling, either.  Not there, in the gym.  I can't rest, really, in the men's locker or outside.  I'm simply not used to having people all around, coming and going.  And more, I am not sure I should push more and do pedaling, not now, not yet, but for certain.

Even after a couple of hours out of the pool I am still too tight.  If I could afford it, I would get a massage right after I got out of the pool, once a week or once every other week.  I am so very tight, internally, my bones hurt from it.  Could I possibly build that fast?  Is there something else peculiar to heart patients or diabetes that causes problems this way?  That I simply don't know.  I will continue, doing what I can, pushing for more.  What is it, two to three steps forward, one to two steps back?  Which is fine, if that is what I have to do.  I am pleased to be able to even give this a try.  And unless my health or physical ability completely crashes, at this point, this isn't a "try", I am not "planning" on anything, I am simply going forward with this to the best of my ability.

I forgot the refrigerator light, of course.  After I saw Mass was not happening, I headed right back home.  Yeah, yeah, but I really wasn't going to wait until Friday (or even Wednesday as I thought at the time).  I want light when I open up the refrigerator!  Plus, I didn't want to quit on that job.  I wanted it done, just for the purposes of having it done.  Inconvenient?  Sure.  But now it is done.  I also bought hangers and that one stuff D.C. suggested to clean the paint Brush.  I could have swore I had enough hangers, and then some, for my clothes.  Do... women eat those, along with toilet paper?  Or is that what they use to stuff the garbage pails?  Gah! 

I have some visitors coming this afternoon.  I wasn't sure when I would be back, or what I might do.  But being so tired I decided not to stop to see my friend.  I do hope to get there Friday though.  I would like to take a movie, but who knows.  I won't be up to a lot of store shopping, if today was any indication, but if he needs something, I could at least hit one store with or for him.  Ugh!  But I am well and truly shot.

With getting to town this week paired to two days, I will have more time to do a few things.  I need to, again, look for the instructions for the camera I gave my friend.  As well, I would like to reset the mini-computer for his use.  I would also like to put the seedling 'bookcase' together, and arrange things, figure out planting times, and such.  Hmm, I am sure there are some other things I could do, and would like to do, including maybe a little practice brazing to work up to setting up for the hot water heater installation.  That does make me a bit nervous.  On the good side the pipes I will be working with are all exposed and the water shut-off is right near the work.  It would only, mostly, probably, be my ego that was hurt by a failure.  And failures are rather easy to fix, for the most part.

Well, enough for now.  Good day.

Not too bad, so far.

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Okay, a beer turned into two beers.  And I think those were rabbit beers as they morphed into a six-pack.  Down the hatch with nary a difficulty.  Nothing fancy, Budweiser regular will do, and well.  However, it did end up being a bit after 1:00 before I went to bed.  Worrying about getting at least a minimal amount of sleep, I set the alarm for 8:00.  Still feeling cold, I left the door open.  The door being open, the girls helped me up this morning, if it wasn't too tough a thing.

Breakfast has been cooked and eaten, pills taken.  A shower in fifteen minutes, so that I have time to rest before heading out.  And eggs?  I suppose that might still happen.  But as slowly as I am moving, and with the later start, that may wait.  Oh, but I will get the dead light bulb out of the refrigerator.  It is quite annoying to open up the reefer to not be able to see a darned thing.  Everything else is being wrapped around getting to Mass and then swimming, if possible.

I am moving slowly, but no more or less than is my usual.  I turned the heat up first thing this morning, to top it off.  Yesterday, while tinkering with the thermostat, I got a bit of a shock.  That shock reset the thermostat.  And while I did set it back to temp, I didn't put it on hold.  So, by 20:00 or earlier, it had tripped off my setting and gone to where I had it last year, on this schedule, down to 62 F.  Okay, that is why I was doing nothing last year.  Sure, I can survive it, but it was harsh.  When it is that cold I even saw the beginnings of that state of mind where I am neither asleep nor awake.  Yeah, okay, we must maintain some level of comfort.

I see Vox is beating up on some... well... we will call them nerds.  I won't even say they are white knight types, as I think even for them that is an excuse.  They are just trying anything to salvage the junk they are peddling and how they peddle it, if the way they are doing it probably does match their weak male status.  Now, how they respond to Vox is like those nerds who have been told (lied to) by females that they shouldn't fight, for they have a higher purpose.  What the women really meant was... they shouldn't fight because they will only get hurt, that they have a higher purpose which is simply receiving wedgies and toilet-bowl hair for the entertainment of all, and that their (the females') honor doesn't need... urhm... protection.  But these are the type of nerds who bought into the first version, without all the clarifications, and hold to it dearly, for ego and life.  If it weren't for the fact that these guys seem to be running a segment of literature they have gained power over into the ground, one Vox is interested in, they would be little more than comic relief... or nauseating things to avoid for some of us... in some well hidden valley of Nerdom.  Although I truly hope he is finished showing their faux white knight escapades.  Some things are hard to mind scrub.

Oh, on to my day I suppose.  Have a good one yourself, if you can.

Tacking it up for points.

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When I was in my foster home, my parents created a work list.  Well, it also had a demerit section.  If I did such and so, and "the extra mile", I got a reward.  Charming how much easier that was than reminding me.  Huh?  Oh, bacon?  I can do you for that!  Heck, I even got ahead so that I would get them to check things off.  I even did so well on extra miles that we had to... renegotiate.  Well, I did avoid demerits, one way or the other.  Yes, I learned how to... negotiate.  If, actually, I was already, for whatever reason, quite skilled in the art.  Uhrm, if you forget this little thing, I'll help here, do that, or... such.  Or even... can't you let this one little thing slide?  I have been doing quite well, YOU wouldn't want to mess that up, would you?  Personally I think the devil would have had trouble being so well versed in the delicate art at times.  :p 

Anyway...  Here it goes for tonight.  While I didn't get to everything, the clothes weren't folded and I didn't do the last pan (if it did need to be soaked, there wasn't room with the first soak... so, can we just skip that, hmm?).  I also cleaned off the stove top.  I didn't get the eggs cooked.  I have done that in the morning, right along with breakfast before, but that might be pushing it.  I also set up my gym bag.  There were some other things on my list, but then I remembered the trash needed to go out.  I thought I had several bags in there, so I wanted to get that to the curb.  After collecting trash, I found that each bin only held one bag, so... meh...  Oh well.  I also didn't fix the shade for the back room.  What I require, however, is clear tape.  Tape one side, super glue the other, or so it was suggested.  The problem is, after fifteen minutes of looking for the clear tape, I had to give up.  I ran out of sure places to look.  I did, however, get my drill put up finally, sort some other tools and supplies and get them put away, I found some drill bits to replace some broken ones and put those in, and I did some spot cleaning on the fly as well.  So it wasn't a completely wasted fifteen minutes.  Hey, as work shy as I get, I can't waste effort, you know!