Doug – Page 34 – Random Thoughts

Back In The Day: A Miner’s Life

I found this brief tale of a miners life fascinating and wanted to share it. A link to the original source is below.

Back in the day breakfast consisted of Bacon, biscuits, black coffee, a pull from the whiskey bottle and then cigars or a chaw from the plug of tobacco. Being a working miner living in a shack was a tough but rewarding existence. Daily survival was the driving force. Hunting & chopping wood was required to live. There were no supermarkets or mini malls. There was no air conditioning, running water, jacuzzi tubs, high speed internet, smart phones, big screen TV’s, or mail order warehouses that sell every widget know to man. In the summer we were hot, in the winter we froze.

If you were lucky enough to find some color in the rocks you had to constantly look over your shoulder for the next backshooter trying to steal your claim or from taking a shot at you from a distance! Old miners lived high on life, adventure, hard work, sweat, Elk loin & Elk jerky, but most of all whiskey straight from the bottle! — with Link Borland wannabe.

Original Source

Mountain Man May Mower Maintenance

Lawnmower_Walkbehind Here in East Tennessee late April or early May is when we drag the dormant mowing equipment out of the shed and get it ready to serve for another summer. Many GRIT readers will be old hands at this annual task, but for the newbie property owners, this little video tour will show you how easy it is to prepare your walk-behind mower for another season of use.

Let’s recap briefly.

– Check your manual to see what you will need and where critical parts are.

– Start the mower and warm it up so the oil flows better.

– Disconnect the spark plug wire.

– Be careful to tip the mower the right way so gasoline does not run out.

– Drain the used oil completely.

Also, if the oil drain plug is under the deck, you will need to set the mower back on its wheels over a drain pan to remove the used oil. If the plug is in the side of the crank case, you will probably need a plastic tube to pipe the oil over the deck to a drain pan.

Now, let’s move on with the blade removal and servicing.

How to Defuse the Stress Time Bomb

Everyone knows that stress is a bad thing. Too much stress leads to many health problems and can be a major contributor to a seriously shortened life span. Stress also tends to take the joy out of our lives. Attempting to eliminate stress is a fruitless task because stress is a natural by-product of our modern lives. If we are attempting to make a living, pay our bills, feed our family, keep up with all the goings-ons of our family and friends, stress will result. Even if we become mega-millionaires and retire to a beach in Maui to sip margaritas for the rest of our lives, stress will search us out. So, if we can not avoid it, we must learn to manage it. Fortunately, that is not as hard as we might think. We may still have deadlines to meet, and writer’s block to climb over, and writing to do, but if we can get the anxiety under control, all that will be easier to deal with too. Here are come of my favorite ways to defuse the time-bomb of stress. Continue reading “How to Defuse the Stress Time Bomb”

CHURCH

Church at its best is more than a spectator experience. It is a fellowship of people equipping themselves for ministry and witness. The call of God has always been for His people to be actively involved in making a redemptive difference in the world.

Church, therefore, is a learning resource, a training ground, and an experimental laboratory in the art of Christian living. Whatever transpires in the context of church is of great importance to every area of our lives. We cannot attend church in the same way we go to the theater. An entertainment mentality is not conducive to discipleship.

Church at its best requires a commitment to the higher things of life. There is no call like the call of God, which finds expression in the church. It challenges the moral and ethical fibers of our being. It pleads with us to minimize the things of the world as we maximize spiritual realities. Earthly ambitions are flavored with Godly motives. Love of self is defined only in the context of love for neighbor and love for God. Wealth is seen against a background of need. Stewardship becomes a matter of properly using that which we have. Ministry becomes the password of our lives as compassion grants us entrance into the hurting side of society. If we are serious about God we cannot leave events at church in the same way we leave the theater. A take-it-or-leave-it attitude does not produce commitment.

Church at its best is a fellowship of Jesus’ followers. We do not go it alone. There is a body of believers to whom we relate. In the strength of togetherness we struggle with the issues of life. God calls us into spiritual cooperation where we honor Him by honoring one another.

There is a public dimension to our faith. Lest we become spiritual hermits, we sing some of our songs and pray some of our prayers with our brothers and sisters in Christ. Church gives us a place to observe and experience the operations of grace. The power of people energizes us to seek the will of God and in so doing we find a reason for which to live.

Church at its best is our most wholesome inspiration to do our best because “the church’s one foundation is Jesus Christ her Lord.”

Flights of Humor

Recently a video of a flight attendant’s humorous safety lecture has been making the rounds of social media and she even appeared on a morning talk show. But she is not a pioneer in this realm.

Kulula Airlines is a low cost airline with its head office situated in Johannesburg.

Kulula airline attendants make an effort to make the in-flight “safety lecture” and announcements a bit more entertaining than most. Here are some real examples that have been heard or reported:

On Kulula flights there is no assigned seating: you just sit where you want. On one flight passengers were apparently having a hard time choosing, when a flight attendant announced, “People, people we’re not picking out furniture here, find a seat and get in it!”

—o0o—

On another flight with a very “senior” flight attendant crew, the pilot said, “Ladies and gentlemen, we’ve reached cruising altitude and will be turning down the cabin lights. This is for your comfort and to enhance the appearance of your flight attendants.” Continue reading “Flights of Humor”

TRUTH: OUR WAY OF SEEING THINGS

A fact we often fail to admit is that we do not always see things as they are, but as we are. It is the state of our own inner being which determines our interpretation of life’s happenings. This is not to say we are purposely dishonest about our views. It is a reminder that our objectivity is influenced by many outside factors. We are conditioned to believe what we believe by many circumstances over which we have had little control. We were born into a family of thought patterns and preconceived notions from which we rarely depart. Seldom do we go against the political, educational, racial and religious environment that has birthed us. We are cradled in the arms of a set of precepts we were taught would last forever.

This is not bad as long as we are willing to think for ourselves and make such truths a part of our own value system. We must distinguish, however, between inherited ideas and a personal encounter with God. So often we accept what is handed down with no questions asked. It is not until our faith is tested that we begin to scrutinize the content of our beliefs. There is emotional and spiritual strength in knowing what we believe and why we believe it. At some point along the journey we must stop living like spiritual parasites trying to imitate the faith of our fathers. Only when it becomes our faith do we fully appreciate what it meant to our fathers.

We are wise indeed if we understand the dynamics of a variety of influences that have converged upon us to make us who we are and cause us to think our kind of thoughts. Such knowledge frees us from inherited prejudices and enables us to find the truth that can make us free. Such freedom gives us a more objective way of looking at life’s events. We can begin to see things more as they are rather than as we are. We are able to shed our souls of biases which keep us chained to an unquestioned tradition.

Jesus came into the world with no preconceived notions. He was not locked into any set of principles He felt compelled to defend. He had no ego need to fulfill and nothing to prove. He came with love and truth as a message from the heavenly Father. The purity of His thoughts was evident in every teaching situation. His enemies were incensed by His departure from rules and regulations they held more holy than God Himself. Yet, Jesus saw things as they really were and made pronouncements on the basis of that reality.

He offers us the same spiritual objectivity today if we hunger for His truth and love. So, “let this mind be in us which was also in Christ Jesus.” Who knows, we may find the courage to admit some errors of thought as we trust God who alone sees things as they really are.

SEO for Blogs, Love It, Hate It, Use It.

I’ve been writing professionally, at least part time, for a very long time: around 3 decades. More recently I started blogging. Needless to say, I’ve been writing longer than I’ve been blogging. In fact I’ve been writing longer than blogs have existed. Therefore I learned to write according to the old school conventions, which placed making a written work entertaining to the reader above making it popular with a search engine.

Of course search engines have not always been as persnickety as they are now. Early on, search engines actually rewarded writers for using natural language and allowed them to include in the header of an article a whole string of keywords that related to the content of the article. A keyword string for this article would have included, search engine, search, seo, blog, blogging, article, post, web, internet, optimize, optimization, keywords, and writing. Search engines trusted writers to include a spectrum of words that were directly related to the article, even if not all of them appeared in the article. But then the spammers came in and discovered that they could insert totally unrelated, hot topic keywords to give their page a boost. If I were to include Miley Cyrus, twerking, and Justin Bieber, this page would become robot candy even though those words have nothing to do with what I’m writing about. And so, the search engine strangulation began. Continue reading “SEO for Blogs, Love It, Hate It, Use It.”

DOUBT

Sometimes in the midst of our spiritual struggles we tend to be troubled with doubt. We doubt our salvation. We doubt the existence of God. We doubt our place in God’s economy. It is a common occurrence among people who are sensitive to the pain of sin and the conviction of the Holy Spirit. It is not always as bad as it may seem, however, because doubt can be a means of stimulating our quest for the deeper life in Christ. The fact that we doubt could be an indication that our faith is authentic. Seldom if ever do we see disbelieving sinners worried about the validity of their experience in Christ. Godless people are not burdened with questions concerning their commitment to Christ.

It seems that doubt is the devil’s tool to disturb a believing heart. Only those who are trusting Christ for salvation are vulnerable to the tricky questions of doubt. Only people with a serious nature about the things of God will worry about the caliber of their commitment.

Now please do not misunderstand. Doubt is not necessarily a virtue. It is a hindrance. Doubt is designed to weaken and frustrate as it creates a mood of pessimism and defeat. Carried to its logical conclusion, doubt destroys faith and stifles all spiritual initiative. While it is inspired by the enemy, when it is overcome it creates a closer walk with our Lord. It can be a springboard to challenge our best thinking. In honestly dealing with our doubts we soon discover in whom we have believed. Doubt is always on the diet and training table of healthy Christians who are learning to deny their doubts and affirm their faith. So “Have faith in God, He’s on the throne.”

Brain Rot and Getting Old

Neurons brain old — Neurons firing in the brain

OK, I admit that I passed the half-century mark in age quite some time ago, but I do not consider myself old, although the term “old” does seem to have taken on some fluidity over the years. When I was a kid, 35 seemed ancient, when I got to be 35, 65 was old. Now that I’m pushing 60, old is somewhere above 80. And I most certainly do not consider myself to be the least bit senile, although… I have caught myself having what some would call a “senior moment” now and again.

Just the other day, it was a Saturday, the day I always fix a nice breakfast for my sweetie (omelets are my specialty, but I can do other things too) I found myself standing in the kitchen, with an array of delicious food stuffs neatly arranged on the counter, but could not for the life of me remember what I had planned to cook. I stood there for several moments, inventorying the items I’d laid out hoping for a clue. Finally it came to me and I forged ahead again. But it was embarrassing, even though the dog and I were the only ones who knew about it.

It wasn’t the first time, either. I can’t even count the times I’ve gone into another room to get or do something only to wonder, “Why did I come in here?” That is disconcerting. I do find that telling the dog what I’m going to go do helps me remember. I suppose you don’t actually need a dog, but if you forget and do this while someone is visiting you don’t look quite so crazy to them. Continue reading “Brain Rot and Getting Old”

April Fooling

In the 12 years I have lived here in East Tennessee, the latest snow or frost that we have had was April 2. That was the year we were trying to put in a house for my mom on the lower end of our property, and the snow and mud stopped construction for a few days. April Fool!

2014 sets a new record (at least in my personal experience) with snow and a frost on Tuesday night, April 15. Much of my garden is in, the fruit trees have blossomed, most of Marie’s flowers are up … this was not a welcomed gag.

It rained Monday night, but the temperatures had been up in the 60s and 70s for the past week. So the soil was warm and the rain started out warm. The rain continued on Tuesday, but the temperature was falling off, Monday’s low temperature of 52° F would be Tuesday’s high, heading for a predicted overnight low of 26° F. Rain turned to sleet then to snow, but with no accumulation.

Early in the evening the precipitation stopped. Temps were in the mid 30s now. We scrambled around to cover as much of what we could cover to protect it from the coming frost.