Sunday, June 29, 2025

A Very Unimportant Completion of a Project 25 Years in the Making

 Tonight's blog post is quite a bit different than my usual post.  It's more fun and not of any real importance, but it marks the end of a project I started more than a quarter century ago! 

There are WAAAAY more important things in life to focus on, especially as a disciple, but this was an accomplishment of sorts either way, and finishing up an abandoned project.

When I returned from Europe in 2023, I drove to Yakima and brought back some boxes stored at my stepmom's house and after several months, I went through everything I had, and realized I still had an unfinished plastic model that I bought 1998 or 1999.  It was a model of a real car that I had just recently purchased, a 1972 Honda N600.  The model kit was of a 1967 Honda N360, which was, from it's looks, pretty much identical to the '72 N600.



My actual 1972 Honda N600 on the date I sold it in 2013.


The model I just completed!


I still have all my model paints, brushes, thinner, sandpaper, glue, etc. (even with the price tags on them!)  Man, those things sure have gone up in price in 25 years.  Insane! 

So why am I even sharing this?  I'm not sure other than it felt really good to finish a project that I started nearly half my life ago! It gave me a tremendous sense of accomplishment!  By the way, I hadn't built a model since probably the early 1980's, so I watched some YouTube videos on how to do some things.  I'm glad I did.  

Now, one thing about this car.  The real car is tiny.  But this thing, WOW, it's SOOO tiny. It's a 1/32 scale model!  Now as a chunky man with chubby fingers, this was a REAL challenge to build!  One of the pieces was so small that you couldn't even tell it was a part.  It was a marker light (the tiny blinker light on the front fender).  Here are a couple pictures of HOW utterly small this thing is.  

That very small clear/orange plastic piece to the right of the quarter is the marker light.  By far the smallest model piece I've ever handled! It's so small that I actually lost one in my carpet.  There's no possible way I would ever find it again. It's the size of the "A" on the quarter!

SO . VERY . SMALL!

Here are a few more pictures of my model.  It seems so silly to post these, but honestly, it was an accomplishment!  









By the way, just in case anyone was curious, I actually finished the model between calls when I was working from home. Even with that, it took *months* to finish because you can only do one small thing at a time. 5 minutes of work, then wait for paint or glue to dry. 

Doing this project kind of made me remember my childhood when I loved to build models. I probably won't do any more, but it sure was fun to finish this one up finally!

Anyway, thanks for stopping by for a little more light-hearted blog post and have a great week and a safe 4th of July!

Sunday, May 4, 2025

Humility is a gift from God: A clear view of my bitter heart

 I had a crazy day today.  Usually once a month or so I work on a Saturday and today was the day...  It's usually pretty quiet, and today was especially so for most of the day.  But people were high touch, cranky and battled everything I told them.  I was pretty exhausted at the end of the day.

But a part of my morning was also not so encouraging.  After putting over $4200 into my car since February, I had a warning on my dash about low tire pressure on my BRAND NEW tires.  I had had it! Enough was finally enough and I yelled at God saying that I can't afford to put any more money into the car! (A little foreshadowing maybe?...)

So I'm looking at buying a used car up on Camano Island, a little over an hour from my work.  I was supposed to go up today to do a quick repair, check a few things out and hopefully finish the deal.  But I couldn't risk damaging my new, and very expensive, tires. 

Since I get off early on Saturdays, I thought the tire shop had already closed.  I stopped after work to get air, but then realized that the shop didn't close until 5!  There's a chance I could actually make it before they closed and not have to wait until Monday.

My last call of the day was at 3:59:50, 10 seconds before the end of my shift, and boy was I salty about that in my heart.  The caller was also pretty salty, like many of my customers today....  I legitimately couldn't help him with everything today, but I was able to get off the call at a reasonable time.  

But I was still faithless about getting my flattening tire fixed today....

But I prayed anyway.  Still faithless.  I forced myself to repeat, "they'll get it done today", "they'll get it done today."  I arrived 15 minutes before closing time, much like the gentleman I just spoke with 40 minutes prior.  And I thought wow, now I'm on the receiving end of being that guy who comes in at the very end of someone's shift asking for help.  I was super convicted!

As I'm sure you can guess, they fixed my tire for me, even after I gave them my big sob story.  How pathetic I must have sounded.  Faithless, whiny, and frustrated by the day....  Kind of sick really.  Not my proudest moment for sure. 

But as is his custom, God came through.  He always seems to, but not with a person with a bitter, unrepentant heart.  Instead of going to Camano Island tonight, I decided that I needed to do some Doordashing to save up for Special Missions Contribution as well as my trip to Germany and England in August.  

I got one very low-paying offer which I was grateful for, then no more orders for what seemed like an eternity.  I almost gave up and went home, but I didn't.  I was only a few blocks from home and decided to see if I could just get one more.  

In the silence of the car, I said a quick prayer.  I apologized to God for yelling at him earlier.  Not only did it not cost me anything (Les Schwab offers free flat repairs! Hallelujah!), it was done before closing time (they didn't have to do that for me!) AND I made a little bit of money Doordashing tonight. A triple win!  

I'm so grateful that God was quick to forgive and love me after my prayer, because only SECONDS after I apologized to Him (and two full hours after my last delivery!), I got a good-paying delivery, more than double my first one, a fourth win!

For you became sorrowful as God intended and so were not harmed in any way by us. 10 Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death. 1 Cor. 7:9-10

Thank you God for humbling me tonight.  You know exactly how to get my attention.  Please help me in the future to be more pro-active in my humility, but thank you for believing in me, even when my heart is bitter.  I love you and am so grateful for your incredible love and your incredible kingdom.  Sorry for my complaining and lack of gratitude. You deserve much better than that from me!

It's important to write stuff down. Especially stuff like this.  Occasionally I do re-read some of my posts, I hope God will allow me to read this one again some day.  I'm sure on a day when I need a little reminder.  Now off to bed, it's nearly 2 a.m. and I need to pray for some seriously deep sleep to make up for my late night.  

Good night all, until next time! Vaya con dios!

Sunday, January 12, 2025

The Dangers of the Next Four Years

 So in my last blog post from two months ago, I promised an update on what I see happening in the upcoming presidency. These things are VERY easy to predict if you understand how money in politics (ie: legal bribery) works.  

I will repeat again, I am NOT A DEMOCRAT! Please see my last post why I believe why my political leanings are based on Biblical principles and why the Bible is clear that most progressive ideologies (most, but not all) are backed up by the very words of Jesus.  There are many subjects in this realm that we could discuss, but this post is meant mostly for the most damaging things I see upcoming, but not all that could be possible.  They are terrible, undemocratic, but more importantly, unbiblical and averse to spiritual teaching. And worst of all, they will harm this country, devastate the average person, but absolutely decimate the poor.

45 is a very deeply unhappy and bitter man. He does not have friends as most of us understand this word "friend", he only has business associates that can provide him more power and/or money.  He's angry that he was voted out in 2020 and he is ready to take revenge on those he sees as enemies.  He is going to pursue legally (hopefully not more), people that don't agree with him.  Vivek has a list of dozens, possibly hundreds, of people that have tried to actuate real consequences for 45's crimes. People like Pelosi, Schiff, Liz Cheney, reporters, mainstream media networks (ABC, CNN, possibly others), Jack Smith, and Fani Willis to name a few. He will do everything in his power to take control of media narratives to try to persuade people to accept his perspective, whether or not those things are true. You think Biden's administration is trying to "weaponize the DOJ"?  Well you ain't seen nothin' yet! 47 is out for blood, figuratively speaking (hopefully).

He is a pathological liar, with over 30,000 provable lies in his last term in office. He'll say anything to push his agenda, cause division (already a MASSIVE thing he's done), and inspire fear.  Remember, the Bible states that "there is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear." 1 John 4:18  Fear only gives those in charge more power, especially when they try to convince you they are they only one that can fix it.  By the way, that is a classic trait of fascists. Read up on it, even on books from many decades ago.

I grew up in Europe in the 1980's, where even as a teenager, I visited multiple eastern bloc countries that were communist/socialist dictatorships (Hungary, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, and Russia (before the revolution.)) so trust me when I tell you that I know what propaganda looks like.  Most right wing media are propagandists for 45, right wing fear, and misinformation. They thrive on instilling fear in people because it causes their audience to hate, which causes division.

One of the areas where they cause division is in fearmongering about non-white people: middle eastern people, latinos, people from "Chy-na", and every other group that they do not consider to be like them (gays, trans people, etc. etc. etc.). They have already planned to have "camps" where they will house immigrants in the deserts near the southern border and deport potentially millions of such people mentioned above, if possible without due process. We've seen these type of camps before, they're used by governments to remove certain types of people away from the rest of the population. 45 did this in his first term where conditions were terrible, unsanitary, crowded, etc. They will also be trying to strip the US citizenship of some of those people, even those protected by the Constitution that were born in the US, with automatic rights of citizenship, and that have literally never lived anywhere else than the US in their entire lives.  

I recently had a sister in another church call me stupid (Raca?) because I believe the research I've done on this.  I have forgiven her, but she is 100% in the wrong on this one.  It's not even close.... I pray that God will show her the truth before it's too late.  But the things upcoming in this new era of our country are gong to hit EVERYONE hard, not just "lefties".   When ICE was formed, many were stunned when "Friend X" was hauled off and deported.  "But they were so nice!" they would say, "I can't believe they're being deported!" There is going to be a lot of pain on this point.  Many people of color will be deported or possibly even put into these camps that are here legally.  This sister was also a sister of color.  I sincerely hope this does not affect anyone in her circle.  

This roundup of immigrants and brown people is going to do immense damage to the US economy. We rely on immigrants (many of them here legally on visas that allow them to stay to work in agriculture.) because in most cases they work under the table for extremely low wages, and most Americans won't want to do that kind of work.  This will cause produce prices to go up sharply, if indeed there is anyone at all to harvest the food that we eat. This will devastate farmers and will raise the price of food, especially fruits and vegetables. 

Similarly, there are many people that work in construction that are also here on visas.  Our housing shortage will get worse, prices will increase because no new dwellings are being built (law of supply and demand), and now there are 10's of thousands of homes in the LA area that were destroyed.  There will be no one to build new ones, much less bridge the gap in the housing shortage we already had before the LA fires of the past week. 

The potential pain felt by all Americans in the next four years is not to be underestimated.  All these things will take more of the dollars we already have and many companies that provide things of comfort and not necessity will no longer be able to survive. There will be a downstream effect that will cause heavy damage to our way of life in the US.

Like it or hate it, Biden has had some pretty noteworthy accomplishments in his four years in office: the best economy and job growth in over 50 years!  He has added more jobs in one term than all the rest of the last four presidents before him COMBINED.  He brought some manufacturing back to the US (45 had negative growth in this area in his four years in office, despite his promises of growth).  And income was up on average $4000 including inflation.

The stock market hit all time highs in 2024, Dow Jones was 31,186 on first day of Biden's term and now is at 41,938 (a growth of 34.47%) All time high under Biden was 45,014 in Nov. 2024.  Because of 45's promise to raise tariffs with Mexico, Canada, China and many of our other ally trading partners, the Dow Jones fell over 3,000 pints since Nov. 2024, just two months.

Economists state that if 47 follows through on those tariff plans, it will put the economy into a deep depression, much worse than the 2008-2009 economic crisis, and will add $10 Trillion to the US debt, which is already out of control at $36.166 Trillion!  Biden's administration added $6.17 Trillion to the deficit (about 20%) and 45 added 8.18 Trillion, over 40%, TWICE the amount of Biden. 45's biggest bill passed essentially gave his millionaire and billionaire friends, and their corporations, a massive tax cut.  Their tax bracket went from 35% to 21%.  Gee, I wonder why we struggle with debt? That's a toughie!!  (not).  Ugh.

It almost feels like he couldn't do more harm to the US by trying to implement these terrible plans.  Like I said before in this post, EVERYONE will feel this pain.  The poor will get poorer, the rich will continue to fill their pockets with more of the poor man's dollars. 

Don't believe me?  That's fine, but just watch what happens in the next 4 years.  It will be bad.  The rest of the world is very concerned.  We currently have the strongest economy in the entire world.  If that changes, it could cause a worldwide recession or even depression.  It's going to be bad.  Very, very bad!

Now I acknowledge that I could be wrong, in all honesty, I hope before God that I AM wrong.  But I believe that all of 45's bluster about buying Greenland, invading Canada and making it the 51st state is all just to deflect all of the insane things about Project 2025 and Agenda 47. Project 2025 | Presidential Transition Project and Agenda 47 - Wikipedia

The thing I think every American should be concerned about is the Republicans trying to privatize or get rid of Social Security.  This will be devastating to millions upon millions of elderly Americans that rely on the small amount they receive from this.  It's money we all have paid into through our paychecks for our entire work history. It's OUR money, it's what's called an entitlement.  We are entitled to those monies because we put that money aside.  They are also considering cutting Medicare and Medicaid, which would have two effects: It would stop billions of dollars going to the healthcare companies, and it would cause widespread undiagnosed disease and death for Americans.  These monsters are the literal worst people imaginable, they're cruel and greedy, and don't care about anyone but themselves.  

I have so much more I could say, I could make this a 1,000 page treatise on the absolute viciousness of theses plans.  But for time's sake, and for my sanity, I will leave it here for now. If I think of other things that belong here, I will update later.