As part of our 45th anniversary last February, we chose to celebrate it at a time share resort in northern California’s Clear Lake, and took off from SoCal. Waze did a fine job, usually, and bypassed us off the crowded 101 in the Bay Area. We approached the appropriate exit, with a lot of backed up traffic: three lanes for normal traffic, one empty lane on the right for FasTrak. She told us to get in the FasTrak lane, but we had no transponder, and I had no desire to lose the $271 fine without one, so I slowed down in one of the three lanes. Then…I noticed a decent sized sign on the FasTrak lane…
Read MorePronoun Changes
This grammar guy has some concern about changing pronouns. Not about changing personal pronouns to match our changing gender views, although the Chicago Manual of Style now accepts “their” as a singular pronoun for he or she. I think that’s awkward, but it’s not the concern here, so please don’t get sidetracked on gender. We have a much more significant aspect of changing pronoun usage, critically focusing on personal possessive pronouns. Who owns what? How? Why? What about my F150 pickup?
Read MoreSpiritual Plans
Plans sometimes get changed. Radically. My October Sierra plans were to fish Rock Creek until late Friday, then to head home and miss the Friday traffic. The snow in the pic above forced a revision. Waking to 2" of snow in my campground made outdoor cooking problematic, so I threw all my wet gear loosely into the back of the truck and headed home. Early. Not much later I walked into a Mickey D's in Lone Pine for coffee, only to meet a middle aged guy in shorts and a hoodie who asked…
Read MoreQuit Complaining
I made a brief November Facebook post about complaining, and it received a nice response. But that has been haunting my thoughts, and to ease my own mind, let’s give it a deeper dig,
Read MoreA Higher Perspective
Over a year ago I flew from San Diego to Anchorage, Alaska for a dear friend’s wedding, with my preferred aisle seat to look below, and I gained a new perspective on much of the country that I’d ridden motorcycles through. I recognized many landmarks, but saw the big picture of our world much better. The higher perspective stunned me frankly, I thought I knew that area pretty well. Then a childhood friend, Susan Munson, shared a post on Facebook about a happy face formed in a forest in Oregon. Here’s the story.
Some time back…
Read MoreMean People Suck
While driving on a traffic-engorged freeway, a red Honda Civic cut in front of me so close I had to slam on my brakes to keep my F150 from ramming him. Yeah, likely lost a number of miles of tread with the skid, but he would have paid a high price apart from that braking. And I got close enough to read the sticker on his window: “Mean People Suck.” Honestly, the humor of the hypocrisy mellowed my madness somewhat. Somewhat. It seemed like…
Read MoreFake News
This post may be my most politically relevant and unyieldingly nonpartisan. Some time back, a commentator, who’s been around since Watergate, expressed that he is more concerned about the future of our country now than at any time in his life. Why? We can’t agree on truth. We don’t seek truth. Partisans, on both sides, decry as “Fake News” anything that doesn’t match what they already want to believe. We accept, as gospel, rumors with no evidence. The divide between left and right grows because…
Read MoreA Startling God
Jesus has startled me on more than once occasion, but he likely maxed that out with “even the very hairs of your head are all numbered.” OK, no jokes about me making God’s job easier. The first pic shows me at 27, with a red tank top and a full head of hair. The second shows…
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