Friday, December 30, 2011

Dec 30th - Arrived Tucson

We made it to Tucson today. It was in the mid 70's and sunny when we arrived. Now, at 8 PM, the temp is down to 60. Tonights low is supposed to be 43.

This is the first nice weather we have had in a long time. It was cool, rainy and muddy most of the time at YWAM. The past three days have been nice but the nights have all been below freezing. I think we have seen the last of freezing temps for awhile.

Note the frost on the CRV this morning while in Deming.

The view from the rest area, in AZ, where we ate lunch. It was warm enough that we had lunch out on one of the picnic tables.

The view out behind our RV at Cactus Country RV campground, just east of Tucson.

Kathy enjoying the afternoon on our patio. Note the ice tea and chair beside her. I also spent some time enjoying the warm temperatures.

Christmas decorations at one of the RV's in the park. Yes the Santa head is on a big cactus.

We did get to see our first Saguaro cactus about 20 miles east of Tucson. We saw some great scenery along the drive here from Deming. We don't plan to leave here until Monday morning at the earliest.

Good night to all and may God bless you and yours.

Thursday, December 29, 2011

Dec 29th - Silver City & Deming

This morning we (Kathy) drove up to Silver City and we looked around. It was an interesting place to spend some time and have lunch. The scenery was great on the drive up and back. I'm still a little prejudiced, I LOVE TN. It might be pretty out here but so far I haven't seen anything that is prettier than the Smokies.

My brother had suggested that we explore further to the north, and we would have done so but I was feeling puny. We spent quite a bit of time at the museum in Silver City and then walked down to main street and walked up and down it. It was near 60 degrees with bright sunshine, no jacket required. Below is the snow still left on one of the side streets. We had intended on going up to see the Gila cliff dwellings but they are closed because it is muddy.


One of the interesting facts about Silver City is that the original main street is now the "Ditch." See below. This was originally Main St., but during the night of July 21, 1895, a heavy wall of water rushed through the downtown business district, leaving a trail of destruction. A ditch 55 feet (17 m) lower than the original street level was created in what was once known as Main Street. Businesses on Main Street began using their back doors on Bullard Street as main entrances and eventually, were permanently used as the new front entrances. To this day, the incorrect odd/even addressing conventions on the east side of Bullard Street are a reminder that the buildings were addressed on Main Street originally, not Bullard Street. Main Street now ends near the back of the Silver City Police Station, where the Big Ditch Park begins. (from wiki)
 The shadows you see in the photo below are cast by a pedestrian bridge across the Ditch.
 I took the photo below from the scenic overlook for the Santa Rita copper mine. Indians were the first to mine copper here. The Spanish started mining the area  in 1803. Open pit mining started in 1910. The mine runs 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. It is over a mile across and over 1,600 feet deep. I don't think we were even close to being able to see the bottom. There are two specks on the road down the far side of the mine, they are the HUGE dump trucks that haul material out of the mine. They are loaded by an electric shovel that has an 80 ton capacity. The trucks must have a capacity of well over 200 tons.


As you drive down the highway you can see LARGE reclaimed areas that have been terraced and seeded. They look like a massive earthen dam.

When we got back to Deming I was feeling more perky and we decided to go to the museum. We weren't expecting much and were we shocked. It is a FANTASTIC place. I can't begin to describe all the things we saw. Dolls, Indian pottery, an actual chuck wagon, amazing rocks, and much, much more. We had to leave because of closing time. We didn't even get to the upstairs. We are going back to check out the upstairs in the morning. It is free, donations optional, and staffed by volunteers.

When we got back to the campground I had to put on my mechanic hat. Earlier I had checked the oil in the motorhome and found out that Speedco, the place where I had the oil changed Tuesday, overfilled the crankcase. I drained out a little over 2 quarts to get it down to the correct level. As soon as I send this post I am going to Speedco's web site and let them know that I am not pleased with their work. The good news is that the campground manager loaned me an oil drain pan. Now all I have to do is take the used oil somewhere (Walmart) and dispose of it in the morning. (Getting under the motorhome and getting the drain plug out was a little challenging for this old fat guy <grin>)

Good night to all and may God bless you and yours.

Wednesday, December 28, 2011

Dec 28th - Political Commentary - Windmills

Between the Dallas/Ft Worth area and the Big Spring area we saw billions of dollars worth of windmills. Most of them were actually turning, but many were not. I bet that the ONLY reason that they are there is because Congress forced the American taxpayer to co-sign for the loans to build them. No sane investor would be willing to invest his/her money in them unless taxpayers were put on the hook (can you say Solyandra, it cost we taxpayers over $500 million  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/02/solyndra-bankruptcy-obama-administration-bailout_n_1072737.html ). The windmills would still not have been built unless Congress forced utilities to buy the electricity the windmills produce, at costs far exceeding (3 to 6 times) conventionally produced electricity. In some cases I think we taxpayers directly pick up the cost difference. In other cases the utilities just "blend" their increased costs in with their other expenses and bureaucrats allow them to passed through to consumers who don't realize the true cost of the "renewable" energy.

I guess the good news is that we didn’t seen billions of dollars worth of taxpayer subsidized solar panels. Electricity produced by solar is even far more expensive than that produced by wind.

It is possible that some day one of these alternative forms of energy production might become cost effective but I don’t expect it to happen in my lifetime. It is easier for me to believe that a couple of “bicyle mechanics”, like the Wright brothers will come with a new form of energy that scientists know is not possible.

Dec 28th - On to Deming, NM

We are in Deming, NM tonight. We arrived around 4:45 PM MST, we gained an hour changing time zones near El Paso. We plan on staying here at least two nights so that we can look around the area. No real problems, other than traffic in El Paso was HORRIBLE. It wasn't a problem for me, Kathy was driving then <grin>.

I told you yesterday that I would include a photo of the oil wells next to the campground we stayed at in Midland, TX last night.


We like to travel during daylight hours but after driving approximately 100 miles, some before but most after, Midland; TX, it wouldn’t bother me to drive through there in the dark if we come this way again. After the first 50 miles or so of oil well after oil well, all on flat desolate land, the novelty wears off. From Pecos, TX on west the scenery is much better.

The next photos are of the picnic area where we had lunch, near Van Horn, TX. That is our CRV and motorhome next to the sidewalk. Meals have been pretty inexpensive. Last night after pulling in to the campground I ate leftover potato soup (the kind my Grandma used to make, it is AWESOME) and Kathy ate leftover vegetable soup (it is also great). For breakfast I finished off the potato soup. For lunch we had leftover prime rib and potato salad, leftover from Christmas. Tonight for supper we had stuffed pork chops that we bought while in Lindale. I don't know what they were stuffed with but it was pretty spicy. I think I liked them but won't know for sure until the morning <grin.>

 I liked the narrow stone sidewalks, if that is what they were.
 The view to the north of the picnic area. You could see some snow on the tops of the mountains.
 Don't see many of these signs in the Midwest.

The view from the New Mexico welcome center.
 Snow at the welcome center. There were some larger piles, where the sidewalks had been shoveled. A couple of pre-teen boys were having a snowball fight when we were leaving the welcome center.

The Florida mountains to the south, at the RV-Dreams campground where we are staying in Deming. The top of Florida Peak is elevation 7,300. The campground is loosely affiliated with Escapees. Since we are Escapee members we can stay here for $12.50/night plus 12.3 cents/kwh for the electricity we use. Water and sewer are free.
 Sorry about the out of focus photo below. This is some of the snow at the campground. The temperatures here have been in the mid 50's during the past two days. Today's sunshine was brilliant. There must have been a LOT of snow a few days ago.


Above I mentioned our inexpensive meals. Other things aren't so inexpensive. The oil change in Dallas was $190. Today we stopped for fuel. It cost $364 to fill up. That should easily get us to Palm Springs, CA.

An interesting event occurred while at the Flying J getting fuel. The entry to the Flying J was very poorly marked. We followed the signs to the truck entry because we did not see the normal RV pumps near the auto pumps. We stopped in the truck parking area and I walked into the place to ask if we would still get the 3 cent a gallon RV discount if we filled up at the truck pumps. The answer was no. The lady pointed out the single RV fuel pump and told me that we had to get fuel there to get the discount. While there I noticed an RV, pulling a VW on a tow dolly, at the auto pumps. I walked back out, nearly a quarter mile, to our RV and gave Kathy directions on how to get to the RV pump. I told her that I didn't think that there was any way the RV at the auto pumps was going to be able to get out. I started filling up the RV and she went for a walk, before I had the first 25 gallons in (the pump was incredibly slow) she was back and told me that I needed to go over and help the people with the RV/VW.

The couple were certainly well into there 70's. He had pulled away from the auto pump and tried to make a U-turn to get back to the highway. It wasn't even close. His front tires were against a curb and he couldn't back up with the tow dolly. We ended up taking the VW off the tow dolly, unhooking the tow dolly and getting it out of the way so that he could back up and then complete his turn. We then hooked the tow dolly back up and put the VW back on it. They were nice folks on their way to Phoenix for the winter. They were very grateful and wanted to give me money to pay for supper for Kathy and I. I told him it wasn't that I was nice a guy, because I'm not all that nice, and that he needed to thank God for the assistance. Previously the lady had told me to go ahead and leave because they didn't want to inconvenience anyone. I had told her that she should consider that maybe God had put us both there for some reason that neither of us would ever know.

VW couple left quite a while before we did. When we stopped at the New Mexico welcome center they were just pulling out. We got to wave at one another. I was sure glad to see that they had made it through all the traffic in El Paso, and that the VW was still behind them. It was another 80 miles before we got off at Deming and we didn't see them again so they must have made it this far OK.

Tuesday, December 27, 2011

Dec 27th - On the Road Again

We left the Lindale Texas YWAM (Youth With a Mission) base a little before 9:30 AM this morning. We stopped in Dallas long enough to have the motorhome oil changed and then pushed on.

Depending on how long it took to have the oil changed I wasn't sure how far we would get today. The furthest I thought we might get was Big Spring, TX. Because the overnight temps are supposed to be below freezing we decided we would stay in a campground where we could be plugged in and run the heat pumps. Kathy called the Big Spring campground about an hour before we got to Big Spring. They were already sold out. We were trying to stay at one of the places were we would get a discount because of one of our club memberships. She found a campground in Midland, TX that offered a 15% discount to Escapee's. She called it while we were still 2 hours from Midland and reserved the last of their165 spots. We pulled in around 6:30 PM. We have had supper and we went for a walk around the campground. We will be soon be hitting the bed. If I remember in the morning I will take a photo of the working oil well not 150 yards from where we are parked.

A point that was interesting to us was that today, west of Abilene, we saw the first tilled ground that we have seen in Texas. We have seen areas where they bale hay but previously had not noticed any cropland. 

Back to the oil change. We stopped at a Speedco facility in Dallas. They are nation wide and service large trucks. Their "preventive maintenance" service pack includes an oil & filter change, fuel filter change, chassis lubrication, fluid level checks, etc. I saw them with the old fuel filter and it appeared that they were confused about what to use as a replacement filter. A guy headed toward the RV with a new filter and I asked him to show it to me so that I could write down the number. I went to CAT's web site to find the CAT filter number and then went to the Fleetguard web site to get a cross reference. The number was not what they installed on the RV. I went into the office and asked that they double check what they had done since the CAT 3126E has only one filter and it must be a 2 or 3 micron filter. They said that since they service only large trucks the don't have any filters less than 20 micron. They put my old filter back on. To their credit they must have filled it with fuel because the RV started right up and never missed a beat.

Today's weather was beautiful. The sun shined brightly all day. It was great to be warm. Driving into the afternoon/evening sun wasn't much fun. We did get to see two complete sunsets. The first time the sun dropped completely behind a ridge and then, as we topped the ridge, the sun was fully visible again and we watched it set a second time.

From the YWAM base to here was 425 miles. From here to Deming, NM is 402 miles. I thought that, with the oil change, we would probably need 3 days to drive it since we don't like to drive after dark (you can't see the scenery). Now it looks like we will make Deming tomorrow. We will probably stay there two nights so that we can spend the full day going to Silver City and the Gila Cliff Dwellings.

Tomorrow is supposed to be another sunny day. That may be the first two we have had in a row since we hit Texas. The high here is supposed to be 57. In El Paso it is supposed to be 58 and in Deming, NM it is supposed to be 54. With the bright sunshine you don't even need a jacket with those temperatures, a long sleeve shirt is fine.

Good night to all and may God bless you and yours.

Monday, December 26, 2011

Dec 26th - The Rain Seems to Have Stopped

The four of us (Ron, Sheila, Kathy & I) went to the Crossband Cowboy Church 9 AM service. It was an enjoyable service. There were well over 200 people at the early service. The bulletin that there was a total of 981 people at the two services the week before. My guess is that there will that many at the Christmas services,  if not more. Ron and I wallered around in the mud, trying to work a little, trying to work a little and then we had Christmas dinner together.

A single lady lives in one of the big houses on site It is also used for small conferences and meetings. She is gone for the holidays and told Ron & Sheila to use the place while she was gone. It is a very, very nice 3 bedroom home that overlooks one of the larger ponds on the site. Sheila fixed a turkey, dressing, sweet potatoes, turnips, yeast rolls, etc. Kathy make a prime rib, potato salad (my request) and pecan pie. Yep, we had far to much for the four of us.

This morning Ron & I worked in the rain and mud for awhile and finally gave up. Ron and Sheila went to Tyler so Sheila could go shopping and Kathy cleaned the motorhome, getting ready for us to leave in the morning. A funny thing happened when I went in to Lindale to mail some letters, get the oil changed in the CRV and pick up some groceries. I mailed the letters and then missed the turn to the oil change place. I went on to Walmart to get the groceries and stuff. Finding the few groceries was easy enough but I also needed some chemical treatment for our sewer tank and I wanted a rain gauge to have in the RV. Finding the chemical treatment and the rain gauge took quite a while. I got the to the checkout line, which wasn't to long, put everything on the belt and reached for my wallet. NO WALLET! (While at Spring Hill this summer, and while here at YWAM, I've gotten in the habit of not carrying my wallet. At Spring Hill I had no need for money, they furnished everything we needed while on site. Here I just stuff a couple of dollars in my pocket in case I want a cup of coffee at the base restaurant.) Fortunately I realized I didn't have a wallet before the cashier actually started checking me out, and there was no one in line behind me. I was able to put things back in the cart and back out of the checkout line. The other good thing was that I didn't stop for an oil change first. I would not have realized I didn't have my wallet until after they had changed the oil. Kathy would have had no way to come in and bring me any money.

I drove back to the base, got my wallet, had some lunch and then went back to town picked up the stuff at Walmart and got the oil changed.

This evening we met with Ron and Sheila and had left overs.



Tomorrow we start our trek for California. We plan to stop in Dallas and have the oil changed in the motorhome. David, my brother, told us to make sure not to miss Silver City, NM and the Gila Cliff Dwellings. Since Silver City is well over 800 miles from here, and we are taking time to get the oil changed, we probably will not get to the Deming/Silver City area until Thursday afternoon.

Deming is over 4,300' above sea level and Silver city is 5,900' above sea level.  It will be colder there, but we want to see both places. Deming's overnight low is forecast to be 20 degrees tonight. Thursday the high is supposed to be 60 and the low 31. Friday temps are about the same. Temps forecast for Silver City are 5-10 degrees cooler, we will stay "down" in Deming.

Good night to all and may God bless you and yours.

Sunday, December 25, 2011

Dec 24th - Rainy Day

Ron and I tried to build some more wall forms today but got rained out after only about 15 minutes. We then took the batteries out of the YWAM dump truck and went and bought new ones. When we got back to base it was raining hard enough that we didn't install them. We took the rest of the day off.

After dropping me off at the building site this morning Kathy went to the Kroger store in Longview, TX, it is about 50 miles from here. She gets her prescriptions from Krogers and she also wanted to do some grocery shopping some place other than at the local grocery in Lindale.

It has sprinkled rain since around 9:30 AM. So far we have had 0.6 inches today. That brings the total for December up to 6.2" and the total for the year up to 11.7". There is a 70% chance of rain tomorrow and a 100% chance for rain on Monday. I'm sure the folks around here would be happy if it continued to rain like it has today for the next week. I am curious and tomorrow I will have to check the water level in the pond that is closest to us. Even with over 5" of rain while we have been here I have not noticed the level rise.

Tomorrow we plan to attend the Crossbrand Cowboy Church again, with Ron and Sheila. We are having Christmas dinner with them at the house of someone who is off the base for the holidays. It will give us a little more room than what they have in their 5th wheel unit or we have in our motorhome. I think there will just be the four of us so we really don't need more room but the place looks out over one of the larger ponds on site and it will be interesting to see the inside of it.

A week ago the forecast for Sunday and Monday nights was 32 degrees. The forecast lows have now increased to 41 and 38 for Sunday and Monday nights. I won't have to unhook the water hose and softener until we are ready to leave. 

Looks like it will be near freezing for us Tuesday night. From Abilene to El Paso the forecast low for Tuesday night is 32 degrees. Hopefully that will be our last encounter with freezing temps for awhile. We hope to be in the Tucson, AZ area by Friday and the high/low there for Friday is 71/42, with a mostly sunny day.

Good night to all and may God bless you and yours. With tomorrow being Christmas day please take a few minutes to remember the real "reason for the season." Jesus Christ, the son of God, lowered Himself to become a child born in a manger. He did so knowing that the people of that time, as we do today, would reject Him. He came to earth knowing that He would end up dying a horrible death to atone for our sins. The Good News is that His sacrifice guarantees all who accept Him a place in heaven. Not only do we have a place in Heaven but we have the assurance that He will never give believers a burden we can't handle.

Saturday, December 24, 2011

Commenting Help

Some of you have mentioned that you have unsuccessfully tried to leave a comment on some of the posts. I just tried it myself and think this procedure works.
Click on Post a Comment
Write your comment in the box
Click on Select Profile
Highlight the dot for Name/URL
Type in any name you want to use and then click on continue
Click on Publish
Fill in the word verification box
Click on publish

Try it and let me know if you still have a problem.

Friday, December 23, 2011

Dec 23rd - Cloudy & Cool

Today was cloudy and cool. The high was a windy, damp 47 degrees. Tonight's low is supposed to be 37.

Kathy did more painting today. Ron and I dug under the foundation for one of the walls we had previously poured and installed a pipe for storm water. Yes it would have made more sense to install it before we poured the foundation but we didn't know where it was supposed to go then. Later we cleaned the mud off another foundation and started forms for another wall section. Ron's hammer drill died before we finished the back side of the form so we knocked off early. He went into Lindale and bought a new one. We are going to try and finish the forming this wall section in the morning.

Ron and Sheila came over for left over vegetable soup for supper. We had a nice evening. Sheila told us about how they started coming down here to volunteer and how they were "called" to sell their home, they had just spent two years remodeling it from top to bottom, so that they could spend more time doing volunteer work. The have been to Mexico, Haiti, Mongolia (3 times) and I don't know where else. Sheila operates the hotel that is on the base while Ron does maintenance work. They spend 4-6 months here and then 4-6 months back in Canada. They have 3 adult children and grandchildren in Canada.

Good night to all and may God bless you and yours.

Dec 22nd - Goodbye to Lester and Marie

Ron, Lester and I pulled the forms off the wall we formed and poured yesterday. We also pulled the forms off one we had poured a few days ago. We finished by around 10:30 and basically took the rest of the day off.

Ron and Sheila took Lester and Marie to Tyler to pick up a rental car. Lester and Marie were headed for College Station, TX to pick up their son and his wife. After that they were heading for Padre Island, TX which is on the Gulf of Mexico, almost to Mexico. They won't return here until after we have left. They have invited us to come stay with them in Newfoundland. It is a LONG way, 2,000 miles from Toledo and accessible only by ferry (I think the ferry ride is around 8 hours long. A round trip ferry ticket for Kathy and I, plus our RV and CRV would be well over $1,000.). I don't know that we will make it there for a visit but it was great getting to know some "Newfies".

We went to Juanita's Mexican Buffet for lunch and it was good, again. After getting back to the motorhome I recharged the water softener and finally found the reason we weren't getting a turn signal on the CRV, when it was hooked up to the motorhome. A fuse was blown. The wires carry the turn signal to the electrical connector at the hitch are fused separately from the turn signals on the coach. I called they help line at Freightliner and the guy helped me find the correct fuse panel, and fuse.

After than we took a stroll around the camp. It was partly sunny and 60 degrees. I set outside for awhile and had to come in after having to kill a mosquito that was bothering me.

We started formulating our travel plans for Oakland. We plan on heading out the morning of Tuesday, the 27th. We will spend the first night at a rest area or maybe a Walmart parking lot somewhere between Dallas and El Paso. The second night we will stay in a campground near El Paso. I plan on having the motorhome oil changed Friday morning, the 30th, while in El Paso.

We would like to make it to near Tucson by Friday evening but since it is over 300 miles we don't know how that will go. Neither of us wants to travel in the dark, can see anything, so where we spend Friday night depends on how long it takes to get the oil changed.  We will probably stay in the Tucson area until Tuesday morning, Jan 3rd. It looks like there are some interesting things to see within reasonable driving distances from Tucson and we don't really want to travel over the New Years Day holiday.

We will spend Tuesday night in/near Quartzsite, AZ. Quartzsite is the home of HUGE RV rallies during the winter. People get cheap permits form the Bureau of Land Management and just drive out into the desert and set up cities. I want to spend a little time looking around there. We will stay in a campground <grin>. The population of Quartzsite is less than 4,000 yet they have over two million visitors a year, and I'm sure most of them are during the cooler months.



From Quartzsite we will drive to Palm Springs, CA and spend some time there. We can drive from Palm Springs to Oakland in two days if we want, so we will have time to spend in Palm Springs and the area between Palm Springs and Oakland.

We plan to arrive in Oakland on Jan 13th.

All of this is just our guess at what we think our schedule will be. We will make adjustments as required. We have to keep telling ourselves that we are retired and that we don't have to be in a hurry. We have time to stop and see anything that looks interesting along the way.

Good night to all and may God bless you and yours.

Wednesday, December 21, 2011

Dec 21st - More Concrete Work & Church at Crossbrands

Ron, Lester & I working on the concrete walls again today. Ron and Lester built forms for a nasty sloped section of the wall. I spent at least four hours tearing apart previously used wood forms and salvaging what I could for future use. Before quitting we mixed enough concrete to pour the sloped wall section.

Kathy painted some more doors. I think Marie and Sheila did some painting in the kids room in the gym area.

Chris, the guy who is in charge of construction on the new building, took the three of us (Ron, Lester & me) out to lunch today. Chris is from New Zealand, he used to shear sheep for a living. It was interesting having time to talk to him.

Lester, Marie, Kathy & I went to the Wednesday evening service at Crossbrands Cowboy Church. Ron and Sheila would have gone but they had been invited to someones house for supper. On Wednesday nights the church has supper at 6 and church starts at 7. We didn't go for supper but people were still eating when we arrived at 6:45. There were probably 500 people in attendance.

I recorded some of tonights music using my phone. The audio quality is pretty bad, and there is a LOT of background noise from 500 people. I can't figure out how to upload the file/s. If anyone is interested in listening to them let me know and I will email them to you.

It is supposed to rain again tonight, which is good for the folks down here, but the mud was just drying out from the last rain. A contractor put the gutters on the new building Tuesday but there are no downspouts yet. It will be interesting to see how that works.

Good night to all and may God bless you and yours.

Dec 20th - FORMS HELD!!!!

Today's high was 54. It was partly cloudy but overall it was a nice day.

We stripped the forms off the wall we poured yesterday and formed and poured 20' of new wall. NO FORM BLOWOUT!

Kathy and Marie inventoried books in one of the libraries. The job was supposed to take them all day but they finished it before lunch. In the afternoon they did some more staining.

Ron, Sheila, Lester and Marie come over for supper tonight. Kathy made vegetable soup. We had a very nice evening getting to know them better. Lester and Marie have invited us to come visit them in Newfoundland. I'm sure that if we were in Alberta in the summer time they would want us to look them up.

Good night to all and may God bless you and yours.

Monday, December 19, 2011

Dec 29th - More Concrete

It was in the mid 60's today but partly cloudy. The low tonight is supposed to be 49.

We poured 19' of 30" tall wall this morning. Once again the form started to blow out and Ron had to race over with the backhoe to hold it in place until we got it stabilized. There is quite a bit more of this wall to pour so before it is all finished we may figure out how to build a form that doesn't blow out. No one seems to know where to get form ties down here. The good news was that we did not have to bail any water off the top of the concrete when the level got up to the top of the wall. It was still a little to wet but way better than what we poured last week.

We had a small mixer today and mixed our own concrete. The mixing went pretty well. It was a lot better than mixing Sackrete in a wheel barrow.

In the afternoon we build one side of the forms for another 20' of wall. We got to a stopping point about 4:30, just as it started to sprinkle. It sprinkled on and off for several hours and then really cut loose for awhile. Right now it is just light rain. It is supposed to rain all night. The mud is a bother but the folks down here still need a LOT of rain. I doubt that 10" spread out over a month would be enough to fill the ponds. One pond here at YWAM is nearly full but there are a lot of them that don't seem to be any higher than they were when we came. The closest one to us is still at least 4' low.

Kathy and Marie did some staining today. They are supposed to take inventory somewhere tomorrow.

Good night to all and may God bless you and yours.

Sunday, December 18, 2011

Dec 18th - Cowboy Church

We went Crossbrands Cowboy Church again this morning. After going their twice I am reasonably sure that if we were going to stay in this area I would get actively involved with them. They sure seem to care about one another, which is exactly what should happen at church. Branded, a band, was there this morning. You have NEVER heard anyone do Angels We Have Heard on High like the boys in Branded did it. I tried to record a couple of their other songs on my phone. I'm "technologically challenged", I got video, just no sound.

Yesterday was the day people were supposed to show up in Athens, TX to show their support for the nativity scene that the atheists from Wisconsin want removed. You probably won't hear anything on the national news but local news outlets report that up to 5,000 attended the rally. Rally organizers had hoped for 2,500 people and had only printed 3,000 handouts. They ran out well before people stopped pouring in.

We didn't accomplish much the remainder of the day. Kathy did some laundry. I cleaned the mud off my shoes and oiled them, getting ready for more mud this week <grin>. I also started researching places we might want to stop on our upcoming trip to Oakland. We had been planning on leaving Jan 3rd but are now considering leaving Dec 27th so that we have more time to spend looking at things along the way.

Good night to all and may God bless you and yours.

Dec 12th - Sightseeing

This morning we drove up to Mineola, TX to look around. On the way we made a wrong turn, out in the country. Just after we turned a road runner raced across the road in front of us. It ran just off the road and then stopped to watch us. According to wikipedia they are named roadrunners because they run down the road in front of vehicles and then dart off the road.

We had brunch at a place on the north side of Mineola. The food was acceptable, but certainly not great. We then walked around the downtown. How one little town can support that many "antique"   (craft/junk/antique) stores is a mystery. Kitchens Hardware and Deli was an interesting place.

 It really was a hardware store and a deli. The hardware store part of it was so dark that you almost needed to buy a flashlight to be able to see all the bolts/nails/etc in the numerous bins.

When we got back to Lindale we went to check out Parrot Park Agricultural and Heritage Museum. We had driven buy it several times and it was on our list of things we wanted to check out.
http://www.lindaletx.gov/index.aspx?NID=184

It is a great place to visit. 27 acres of mostly pine trees but also buildings full of neat old things to look at. One of the many interesting was this log splitter out in front. It appears to be in working order and looks like someone fires it up occasionally.



From our visit you can tell that at different times during the year they operate parts of the place; the blacksmith shop, broom making, shake making, etc. It opened last year.

"Bill Parrot's love affair with collecting is the basis for Lindale's newly opened "Parrot Park Agricultural and Heritage Museum." For 35 years Parrot has collected farm equipment, implements, vintage cars, and historical objects. The park is located on a 27 acre piece of land where a brick yard once operated. When Parrot bought the land it looked more like a minefield than a park. Parrot says he "took a lemon and made lemonade from it."
After a bout of cancer in 2003, Parrot deeded the park to the City of Lindale, which has recently opened it to the public. The park is open 9a.m. to 5p.m. Fridays and Saturdays. Admission is free at the present."

When we got back home I took a nap to get rested up for the evening. Ron, Sheila, Lester, Marie, Kathy & I went to the Lindale Cracker Barrel for supper and then went over to the Gladewater, TX for the Gladewater Saturday Night Opry. It was probably a sell out night. After we bought our 6 tickets there were only around 4 left.
You can see a video from the place at
Tonight was their Christmas program and every song was a Christmas song. I was REALLY disappointed because I don't think Christmas music and country and western go together. I think one or two of the people we saw would be as good as the ones on the video, if they were not singing Christmas songs. The rest better not quit their day jobs.
This is the band that was there tonight. Lacie, the girl with the fiddle sang one Christmas song but the rest of them just played and never really got wound up.

We had a good day.

Good night to all and may God bless you and yours.



Saturday, December 17, 2011

Dec 17th - Photos

Below are some photos of the new building.

This is one of the entrances we are staining. There are two this size and three smaller ones.

The crew applying the final, colored, coat of stucco. The system went on in three layers. They put "tar paper" on the house wrap you see, then stapled a wire mesh to the OSB sheathing under the house wrap and then applied 3 layers of stucco. Only the top layer was colored.
 This is the "back" side, but what will probably be the main entrance when all the landscaping is finished. This is a big building.
 These are the stairs you have read about. the top sections were in place when we arrived. I helped form the bottom sections and the 3' tall wall between the two stairs. There will be two levels of retaining walls between the stairs to form a terraced look. Handicapped access will be from a ramp at the right end of the photo but I have not seen any information on what that might look like. It is a lot muddier than it looks in the photo.

Dec 17th - Why Support HIgher Taxes - Ethanol & More

Why anyone supports the current crop of big government politicians we have in DC is a total mystery to me. Read some of the stuff below and tell me why our taxes must be raised. All we need do is to start supporting people who don’t think more government, more regulation, higher taxes, more forced income redistribution, etc.; is the answer to every problem. Herman Cain might have been such a man, but of course the big government Republicans didn’t want him in office. Those controlling the Republican party want an Obama lite; someone like Bush who will grow government, just at a slower pace.

Obama has dumped $70 BILLION into subsidizing “green energy”. Now the Navy just signed a contract to purchase 450,000 gallons of “biofuel”. It paid $26/gallon for the biofuel, as opposed to the around $4/gallon it typically pays for jet fuel.

If your stomach is strong you should read an article in the Wall Street Journal about the incredible stupidity exhibited by those in government. Government has stuffed billions into the pockets of biofuel producers/researchers. Congress mandated that oil companies buy and blend cellulosic ethanol with conventional fuel; 100 million barrels by 2010, 250 million in 2011, 500 million in 2012 and 10.5 BILLION by the end of the decade. In 2010 the EPA basically fined oil companies $10 million for not buying enough biofuels. The problem is that there is none available to be purchased. Even with the massive subsidies no one can produce the stuff!

Some thoughts:

15% of Americans are not receiving food stamps. – How about sending 15 million illegal aliens home and letting the healthy food stamp people, and there are a lot of them, go to work? http://dailycaller.com/2011/11/21/unemployment-drops-as-alabamas-immigration-reform-enacted/ It appears that getting tough on illegals does reduce unemployment, but of course Obama is suing the State of Alabama and doing everything he can to keep the illegals in the US. The more people he has on welfare/unemployment the more votes he gets.

Do you still remember that Obama promised to keep unemployment below 8% if we let him borrow a trillion dollars to “stimulate” the economy? When Obama took office the national debt was $10.6 trillion, it is now $15 trillion. The unemployment rate is currently 8.6%, I think it was 7.4% when he took office.

In a recent column Starr Parker made an interesting comment, “Ours is no longer, in our president’s take on things, the land of the free and the home of the brave. American now is the land of the envious and the home of the victim.” Ms. Parker believes, and I agree, that no government will ever be large enough, or controlling enough, for Obama. To get an idea of government growth she stated, “in 1910 the federal government was extracting less than five cents from every dollar produced by the American economy. It was not until the 1930’s, except during World War I, that this doubled to 10 cents of every dollar. After World War II this doubled again, to 20 cents. Now, after three years under Obama’s vision, the federal government takes 25 cents of every dollar produced by the American economy. If we throw in the costs of state and local governments, barely 50 cents of each dollar of our economic output remains in the private economy.”
When the government steals half your money why be afraid of big business?

Here in Texas, as in some other states, because of population changes new voting district maps have been drawn up by State legislatures. Of course the party in power does get to be the “big dog” and no doubt the maps favor them to a degree. The Democrats didn’t like the Texas maps so they went to federal court to whine, bitch and moan. Federal judges stepped in and drew a set of maps that Republicans claim favor the Democrats (certainly nothing new about activist federal judges making up things to be the way they want them and to hell with minor inconveniences like our Constitution). The Supreme Court has now blocked the maps drawn by the federal judges. Texas primaries are scheduled for March 6 and no one who is planning on running for office knows what district he/she might be in once the maps are finally drawn and approved.

Friday, December 16, 2011

Dec 16th - More Forming

It stopped raining here around 2 AM. At times it rained hard during the night. I dug my steel toed boots out from under the motorhome this morning. I needed more than just shoes to wallow around in all the mud at the job site. I didn't bring any rubber boots because I never thought I would need them.

We cleaned mud off wall footings and formed up about 25' of 3' tall wall. Hopefully the forms will hold when we pour the concrete next week. I'm not sure why we can't afford a few form ties. Guess it is far more exciting to have to race up with the backhoe to brace a form during every pour.

They brought in a small (3.5 cu. ft.) concrete mixer today. It ought to be a lot better than the Sackrete route we used to pour the wall this week.

We went out for supper tonight, back to Catfish & Steak place. We had a good meal.

The weekend is supposed to be sunny. Hopefully things will dry out a little by Monday, but more rain is in the forecast for Monday night. No one from east Texas is complaining about the rains. Even with all the rain we have seen in the past two weeks most of the ponds on the YWAM campus are still many feet below normal.

Good night t all and may God bless you and yours.

Thursday, December 15, 2011

Dec 12th - More Sackrete

It misted rain, and rained, all day today. We just plodded around in the mud and did the best we could.

This morning was the "Christmas breakfast" for the Site and Maintenance people. YWAM took 15 of us to Simply Bertie's restaurant for breakfast. Bertie is a really interesting lady. I'm sure she is someone who we would like to know better. I've had breakfast there before and she remembered me. We had a chance to talk some because I thought we were supposed to meet there at 7, actually we were supposed to meet at 8.

Kathy and Marie stained OSB panels today. They didn't go to breakfast with us guys. They are supposed to go out at a different time.

We guys stripped the forms off the wall we poured yesterday and poured the wall foundation that we formed yesterday. These folks put an unbelievable amount of water in their concrete. When we poured the 3' tall wall yesterday one of the guys was bailing water off the top of the concrete when the  concrete level got up close to the top of the form.

This morning there was standing water in the bottom of the wall footing. I suggested that we get rid of at least some of the water before putting Sackrete in the form. I was outvoted. We put 7 bags of dry Sackrete in the bottom of the 14"wide by 5.5" deep by 17' long form trying to soak up the water. After the first 4 bags the guys were convinced that maybe we really did need to try and get some of the water out of the forms, so we started bailing. Eventually we worked 8 bags of Sackrete into the water in the forms and then mixed 7 more bags in a wheelbarrow to finish the pour.

In the afternoon we pulled 750' of fiber optic cable through an existing conduit. It is now ready for the Systems people to do the terminations.

I need to spend more time thanking God that I can lift and work with a LOT of 80# bags of Sackrete. I'm tired from the physical labor but not actually hurting from it.

Good night to all and may God bless you and yours.

Dec 14th - Mixing Concrete

No rain during the day today, just occasional misting. I spent the day digging a wall foundation and forming it, with help, and then help mix and pour 37 bags of Sackrete in a wall form others had built.

After work, and a much needed shower, a group of us went over to the open house at Fatherheart Maternity Home. It is a "home" for unwed mothers and is part of YWAM. the actual facility is a couple of miles from the base we are at.
 http://www.livalt.org/fatherheart.html

Tomorrow is the "Christmas Party" for the Site/Maintenance people. They are taking us to Bertie's for breakfast. It is a good place to get breakfast and the lady who runs it (Bertie) has a great Christian testimony.

It has been raining for an hour or so. I'm not sure what we are going to work on tomorrow. I could stand a day off <grin>. (and I could have one any time I asked)

Goodnight to all and may God bless you and yours.

Tuesday, December 13, 2011

Dec 13th - Nice Day at YWAM

It was cloudy today, but the temperatures were great. The high was 66 and the low last night was 48. Tomorrow we are supposed to get some rain. At 7 AM the chance of rain increases to 50%. Even after the rain we have had since we have been here Tyler just instituted water restrictions for such things as lawn watering. Local reservoirs are 6-8' below normal levels. The YWAM base gets its water from wells.

Kathy painted doors again today, I again helped with staining the cedar entrances on the new building. Today it was decided that it was OK to use rollers to apply the stain. The rollers work great to get stain on the cedar but the cedar is so rough that you still need to go over it with a brush. (At least I think you need to, and that is what I did. Some others just slapped on the stain with a roller.) Today we had more people staining. We put on about 5 gallons. The two gallons we have left aren't going to be nearly enough to finish. We will probably need another 5 gallons.

This is an interesting place. At one point this afternoon there were 8 of us in the area where I was staining, not all of us were applying stain. Six of the people were from Canada, one was from Brazil and I was the only one from the United States.

For supper we had some type of Korean meal that was quite good, although a little sweet. There was rice, beef, vegetables and big lettuce leaves all in separate bowls. You took some of each. You put the rice, beef and vegetables on the lettuce leaf and then rolled it up to eat it. There also had some type of sweet red, hot sauce to go on the finished "taco." While eating supper we set with a guy from Alberta and a couple from Newfoundland. I was late getting to supper and the Canadians finished and left before I was done. A young man from Mongolia, who was also late getting to supper, sat with Kathy and I as he and I finished our meals. He speaks English well and was an interesting dinner companion.

Since it is supposed to rain tomorrow I don't know what we may do. I sure wouldn't mind it if they told us to go home if it is raining.

Good night to all and may God bless you and yours.

Monday, December 12, 2011

Dec 11th & 12th - Cowboy Church

Last weeks church experience was good, this Sunday’s was awesome. Ron & Sheila took us to the Cross Brand Cowboy Church with them. WOW!!
http://www.crossbrandcowboychurch.org/
I don’t know where to begin. The main building is a pre-engineered metal building, which seats over 600. We attended the 9 AM service, they also have an 11 AM service.
Ron said that this church has already "birthed" two other Cowboy Churches in the area.

There were over 200 people at the 9 AM service. I didn’t notice one person who was not wearing jeans. There were maybe a dozen of us guys who were not wearing big cowboy hats.

One thing that you couldn’t miss when you pulled into the parking lot was the rodeo arena that was under roof. Ron said that a couple of times a year they have “church in the dirt” in the arena. From looking at their web site it appears that they get lots of use out of it.

The greatest thing about this is finding two churches, so quickly, that appear to really have their heads screwed on straight. By that I mean churches made up of people who are willing to admit that they are just "sinners saved by grace." They realize that they aren't perfect and they don't expect anyone else to be perfect. Of course they do work to become better people, the people that Jesus would have them be.

Both of these churches appear to strive to have a family atmosphere, and not just on Sunday morning. They both want attenders/members to become family with one another. Church members should provide a support group (family) for one another, to share both joys and sorrows. It is sad that many churches do not seem to "get" this simple principle

A group of folks from the Cowboy Church were going to go over to Athens, TX this week to show their support for the Henderson County commissioners who refused to  remove a nativity scene from the town square. Apparently someone who remains anonymous contacted some atheist group in Wisconsin and got that group to threaten the county commissioners. Some of the story is below:

After an unnamed individual in the community supposedly called the group’s Madison, Wisconsin, headquarters to complain about the harmless display, the FFR’s legal team quickly moved into action, sending a threatening letter to the county commissioners demanding that the display be removed immediately.
The response by county officials to the atheist group’s demands was quick and unanimous: the nativity scene will stay. According to the local Malakoff News, county officials “had no intention of moving the nativity scene based on the letter.” In fact, County Judge Richard Sanders put the county’s intentions in no uncertain terms. “They are going to have to make us move it,” he told the paper.

I LOVE this guys response

The response of Henderson County Commissioner Joe Hall was stronger still. “I’ll tell you this — I’m going to fight this until hell freezes over,” Hall told Fox News, adding, “It’s been up there for decades without any complaints.”

 I read several articles about this and the comments left at the sites of the articles were overwhelmingly in favor of telling the Wisconsin group to mind their own business and supporting keeping the nativity scene.

Today Kathy finished painting in the lunch room restrooms and then she cleaned and painted the front doors on the chapel. I did some "go fer" work for the first hour and then worked from 10-5, with the exception of a 45 minute lunch break and a 30 minute afternoon coffee break, staining one of the new entrances. The entrance is ROUGH sawn cedar and it takes a LOT of brushing to get the dark stain to cover.

The low last night was 42 and todays high was 56. Tonights low is supposed to be 44 and tomorrows high is supposed to be 66. This is the warmest it has been while we have been here. We will need to hit the staining hard tomorrow (only 9 more gallons to put on) because it is supposed to rain Wednesday & Thursday. Two other people helped stain in the afternoon. Between the three of us we applied around 2 gallons of stain. Hopefully we will get started a little earlier tomorrow and can maybe get 3 gallons on.  That will get us close to half way.

Goodnight to all and may God bless you and yours.

Sunday, December 11, 2011

Dec 10th - Sightseeing Day

We had a fantastic day. It was sunny and the high was in the mid 50's. Today was a sightseeing day, or as my cousin used to say, "We did research", although our "research" did not include taking a 6 pack with us. Actually we did pick up a 12 pack at the Kroger store in Longview but all 12 are still in the package.

First we went to the east Texas oil museum in Kilgore. It was great! We watched several videos about oil drilling and the oil finds in east Texas in the early 30's. Below are some photos.

This is a replica of an oil drilling rig from the 1930's. It is in front of the museum.

This is "main street" Kilgore as it was in the early 30's. When the 2nd well came in the population of Kilgore grew from 800 to 8,000 in 24 hours. Right after the first wells came in it started raining and things were a sea of mud for quite some time.

Photo quality sucks, sorry. I bet PETA would have a cow if they saw these stuffed mules. They were quite lifelike.

These are steel derricks that once stood in the "worlds richest acre". Now there are rules about how close wells can be to one another but at one time there were 24 wells on 10 lots owned by 6 different people. This acre has produced over 2.5 million barrels of crude. There were more than 1,000 wells in downtown Kilgore. Since 1930 the east Texas oil field has produced over 5 BILLION barrels of oil. It is expected to keep producing for at least another 40 years.


One point the museum kept making is that people don't realize how dependent we are on oil. Some of the things I remember are:
That bowl of oatmeal some people have for breakfast required 4 ounces of crude to get it to your table.
Every pound of Starbucks coffee you use required a pound of crude to get it to you.
A stick of butter requires 2 ounces of crude to get it in your hand.
A bottle of water required 1 ounce of crude to get it in your hand.

An interesting tidbit, especially in light of Obama's refusal to allow a pipeline to be built to move Canadian oil to US refineries, was that the great socialist Roosevelt had a pipeline built between east Texas and east coast refineries in less than a year. In 1941 the federal government was concerned that German U-boats could slow down shipments of crude to the east coast. In June of 1942 the War Powers Board approved the project. Work on the pipeline began in August. In February 1943 crude was moving through the pipeline to Norris City, IL. By August 1943 crude was being delivered to New York City.

TransCanada claims that the pipeline is "shovel ready" and that it will bring $20 billion of investment into the United States, along with 20,000 construction jobs. The State Dept has "studied" the trans-Canada for years and even though they can't come up with a good reason to prevent it from being built. Obama has told them to keep doing studies, thus delaying the start of construction, until them can cook up some reason for not allowing the pipeline to be built. Maybe Obama's problem is that he can't claim to be the "messiah" who had provided 20,000 jobs at no expense to taxpayers.

We left Kilgore and drove secondary roads to Longview, TX. While travelling through Longview Kathy spied a Kroger store so we stopped and got our flu shots, then on to Marshall, TX. We arrived in Marshall about 4 PM. We had almost two hours of daylight to walk around before it got dark. Marshall goes all out for Christmas.

This place was an "outlet" craft store. It had a mezzanine and also a full 2nd floor. I took this photo while standing on the mezzanine level, at the top of the stairs.


This is a used book reading area at the back of the mezzanine.

The 2nd floor was devoted to art works.

This lady taking a bubble bath was in the storefront of another store. The "sign" behind the tub are the words to the song "Santa Baby."

This is probably as close to a toboggan slide as you can get in east Texas. The entire structure appeared to be air supported.

The courthouse was beautiful. We watched a light show where the lights switched on and off, and changed colors. The changes were sync'd to music.

We then drove the self-guided tour route to see a lot of other light displays in the town.

After that it was back to Lindale for supper at Italian Cafe and on home. Both our meals were excellent.

Good night to all and may God bless you and yours.







Saturday, December 10, 2011

Dec 9th - Out for Dinner

Weather was not quite as nice as yesterday. It was warm, high in the 50's, but cloudy.

Kathy painted the morning and then came back to the RV and cleaned and did laundry in the afternoon. I dug out the fill that we had put behind the stair forms and pulled the forms. I also moved about a cubic yard of dirt into another rain washout next to the building and compacted it, all my hand.

The food here is edible but it isn't nearly as good as what we had while we were volunteering at Spring Hill. LOTS of chicken. We may have had some beef in with some noodles once and we had a pasta dish once that had sausage in it. Other than that its been chicken, chicken and more chicken. We don't have to eat at the dining hall so I should not be complaining. If I don't like it I can either come back to the RV and fix something or go out. Tonight we went out.

We went to Petty's Steak and Catfish, in Lindale. I had a 10 ounce rib eye and Kathy had Tilapia. The meal was good, we enjoyed it.

Tomorrow we plan on doing some exploring around the area.

Good night to all and may God bless you and yours.

Dec 9th - Political Commentary - Justify Your Existence

Today I received an email from Senator Dan Coats, I’m still on his mailing list from when we were Indiana residents. Below is an excerpt:

“To reduce excessive federal spending, we need to determine what programs are essential, what can be pared down and what needs to be eliminated. This week I supported the Taxpayers Right to Know Act, bipartisan legislation introduced by Senator Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) that would require every federal agency to provide taxpayers with an annual report card for each of its programs.”

This is just further proof that the people in DC are totally out of touch with the real world. The only thing this bill would accomplish would be to cause every agency to spend thousands of hours justifying their own existence. Does anyone honestly think some federal worker is going to admit to doing an abysmal job and telling others that his/her job should be eliminated? Even if one of the “Indians” were honest enough to admit that his/her function was unneeded, no “Chief” if going to allow his kingdom to be reduced in size.

Aren’t our Representatives and Senators supposed to know what is going on in government, and where our tax dollars are being spent? Doesn’t their job description include being responsible about how our tax dollars being spent?

If your family had been spending more than it earned for many years and the time came where you had to do something about it how many of you would go to your boss and tell him/her that you just had to have more money because you couldn’t control your spending? The concept is asinine yet that is exactly what we are being told by the people in DC. The federal government spends 50% more, per capita, than it did just 10 years ago. The problem is not that the federal government does not gouge us enough, the problem is they can’t resist being bought by every special interest group in DC.

Our debt/deficit problem could easily be solved if only our Representatives and Senators to read the Constitution and then start going through the federal government department by department and asking themselves two questions. First, Did the People give us the authority to be involved in this area? Second, Is this activity so vital to the operation of the United States that it is worth further indebting ALL future generations?

The people in DC can’t be so stupid that they don’t understand how to solve the problem. Instead they are willing to spend our tax dollars on anything as long as they think it will get them re-elected.

Thursday, December 8, 2011

Dec 8th - Political Commentary - No Payroll Tax Reduction

If we don’t contact the politicians in DC who claim they represent us, Social Security is going to be totally converted to just another federal government charity/welfare program.

Obama’a payroll tax reduction will be just the first step in “re-educating” the “its governments job to support me” crowd into totally believing that Social Security is just another welfare benefit that should be shared “equally”.“Equally” means everyone gets the same benefit no matter how much they have paid into the system.

One of the first steps in this war occurred in 1984 when social security benefits were first taxed. The tax was justified because the 50% employers paid into the fund was not considered income and thus not taxed. To increase the level of socialistic income redistribution, the amount of benefit that was taxable increased with the income level of the recipient. This was a double whammy. The higher income person paid taxes at a higher rate and they also had to pay the higher rate on a higher percentage of benefits.
Once the dam was broken the sky became the only limit. In 1993 the demi-gods in DC raised the per cent taxable to 85%.

The government wants some way to get at the private retirement funds of those of us who have managed to put aside some savings for retirement. They just can’t stand the thought that they don’t have control of IRA’s, 401k’s, etc. It is bad enough that the government controlled interest rates are so low that we actually lose money on our retirement savings, after inflation is taken into account. My guess is that the somehow the “payroll tax reduction” is the first step toward their confiscation of control of our nonsocial security retirement funds, no doubt so that they can “re-distribute”them also.

Please email your Congressman and Senators and tell them NO to the proposed extension of the payroll tax reduction.

https://writerep.house.gov/writerep/welcome.shtml

http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm

Government is clearly showing us that we are no longer “TheLand of Equal Opportunity”, instead we are now the “Land of Equal Outcome.”

Dec 7th & 8th - Warming Up a Little

Today's high was 52, the low last night was 29. Saturday night the lows are supposed to climb back up above freezing for awhile. It was sunny today and not to breezy. It was warm enough that I took my jacket off while working outside during the afternoon.

Kathy is still painting and I am still helping on the new building. Construction moves very slow here. The decision on what color to stain the cedar entrances was finally made and I stained the front of one of the posts this afternoon. If it seems to be drying/curing OK tomorrow morning I will be turned loose to stain all the entrances. I'm sure I won't be the only one staining, there is enough new cedar that it will keep us busy for several days.

The stairs finally got poured today. The forms moved a little, no wonder after all the rain we had after they were built. It will be interesting to see what things look like once the forms are pulled.

Good night to all and may God bless you and yours.

Wednesday, December 7, 2011

Dec 6th - Brrrrhhh

It was supposed to get to 44 today, the actual high was 35. It was damp, breezy, and cloudy. It is down to 31 now and supposed to get down to 26 tonight. Fortunately it is supposed to be sunny tomorrow with a high of 48. The weatherman just said we may get some snow flurries tonight.

After several days of rain our concrete forms, even though they were covered by plastic, had a bunch of mud and water in them. We spent the morning digging out the mud and bailing out the water.

Another volunteer couple, Lester and Marie, started today. They are from Newfoundland Canada. They will be here for a couple of weeks. Marie and Kathy continued painting. In the afternoon Lester and I measured a roof parapet so that Ron could order new siding for it. I also spent some time checking for more loose bolts in the new pre-engineered building. I was able to loosen about 10 bolts just using my fingers. Chris, the guy in charge of the new building, is going to get the contractor back out here to re-tighten all the bolts. We quit work at around 3:30 because it was so miserable out.

We were talking with a couple from Zambia during supper tonight. (They have two darling little girls. The older one is 5 and the younger one is around 3.) We were talking about where we were from and the wife/mother told us that she grew up in Monroe, MI.
They are taking classes here. They are also trying to find some work teams who would be willing to go to Zambia and help them build dormitories so that people who come to their place in Zambia to study will have a place to live.

Good night to all and may God bless you and yours.

Tuesday, December 6, 2011

Dec 6th - Political Commentary - It's Not My Fault

All comments below are on articles on today’s CNN Money web site.

Let’s Punish Business
For those of you who think that more punishing taxes and more regulation of business is the answer take a look at the response you can expect from business.

Illinois recently raised it corporate taxes. Sears Holdings, 6100 Illinois employees, and CME Group, which operates the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, have both stated that unless there taxes are lowered they are leaving Illinois. Earlier this year Caterpillar threatened to leave Illinois.

Earlier this year 16 companies have already moved all, or portions, of their operations from Illinois to Indiana. The Indiana Economic Development Corporation claims that these move brought 1,500 new jobs and more than $305 million in investment to Indiana.

Companies are not going to just move from state to state, the rate that they are fleeing the United States is going to increase. Why would they stay here and have to deal with workers who don’t want to work, governments who want to control every aspect of their business and governments who want to use them as a means of increasing taxes on people. Remember, companies/corporations don’t actually pay taxes, they just pass the cost of those taxes through to the person who buys their product. In the end “We the People” pay all taxes because we are the end consumer.

The Occupy Mob
Who is preventing the police and judicial system from enforcing our laws?
According to CNN the Occupy mob have stated that they are taking new action, Among the actions expected to occur is so-called foreclosure defense, where protestors try to stop police from evicting residents of homes that are being foreclosed upon. Protestors also plan to occupy homes that have already been foreclosed on and currently lie vacant.”
Blatantly illegal actions that will no doubt again be overlooked by police.
 
It Always Somebody Else’s Fault
More from whiners who blame business for doing what business is supposed to do, make money for their investors. "Big energy companies don't give a rat's ass about them," said Robson. "So, there they are, our community's youth, without a higher education to fall back on, up to their eyeballs in debt, and too young to know they should have put some money away for these types of situations."
This guy is blaming business because people who made the choice to go to work in the energy industry, rather than pursue additional education, have found that they now don’t have all the opportunities of those who passed up the opportunity for a quick buck and who went on to advance their education. It amazes me that no one seems willing to take responsibility for the bad choices that they have made. Buy a house you can’t afford and it was someone else’s fault. Don’t take advantage of additional education and it is someone else’s fault. Don’t save all the big money you make by taking a high paying job that doesn’t last and its someone else’s fault.

Government Spending is the Problem
We don’t need more taxes, we need less government. In the past 40 years per capita spending by the federal government has more than doubled, in inflation adjusted dollars. The Feds currently spend $12,000 per citizen per year. Thank God that I’m not getting my $12,000 worth of intervention from the feds. Federal government spending needs to be cut, as a minimum, back to 2000 levels, when it was only $8,000 per citizen per year. If those in DC would do that we would not have budget problems. I’m willing to live with only the services I got from the feds in 200 it the feds will agree to only spend what they spent in 2000.