Travel to Tucson

We drove to Tucson, AZ last weekend so Nancy could attend a baby shower for our daughter. On the way, we drove through Hatch, NM. Like this one, many of the restaurants had themes and interesting statues in front of them or on top of them. It was a nice little town. Next time I go through there I'm stopping for a burger at this place.

My daughter Noelle is indeed great with child. I enjoyed putting my hand on her tummy and feeling "Daisy" roll around. We visited their new house, which they rented from family. It's a lovely home in a nice new neighborhood. I was amazed at how nice it is. It was almost like being in a Home and Gardens magazine. She's done a great job of decorating and making it wonderful. When she was younger, I wouldn't go into her room without a tetanus shot!

The baby shower was very nice; so I'm told. I didn't go. All of us guys, who stayed at the house, wondered what they do there. What do they do anyway? We played with the football in the park, ate pizza and goofed off. What could be better than that?

Here was one of her presents. A diaper cake!! This present reminded me that having kids is like eating grapefruit. No matter what you try, you end up with a little squirt!

Craig and Kathy Hanson drove down from Scottsdale for the events. Here they are with Seth. Notice his office behind them. I think he really likes his new digs.

Here is your blog author with "Little" Andy. I was teaching him how to drum on the table. Now he can do the drum solo from in a gadda da vida.

Nancy's foot

Last week I showed you a photo of Nancy's foot after her surgery. Needless to say, some of you preferred not to look at such a... fresh scar, shall we say. So, just to freshen you up a little, I have posted this nice photo of a Columbine flower in the Rocky Mountains.

Just remember how valuable your feet are though, without them you don't have a leg to stand on! The doctor told her that he'd have her on her feet in no time. It was true. She had to sell her car to pay his bill. I think doctors must wear masks because of their fees! The difference between an itch and an allergy is about $5,000!

Good friends

Here is my friend Gary Henry (you know, Paul's brother). I've known Paul since I was about 19 years old and then met Gary last fall in the Grand Canyon. We had some fun times in a rubber raft. The Henry's are real friends. They're the one's who walk in when everybody else walks out.

I-5 in Oregon

The drive from Eugene to Portland, OR is nice and straight. My job takes me to some very nice places and this is no exception. The countryside is green, the mountains still have snow on them, and it's nice a clean. However, when I first arrived it would snow for about half an hour, then the sun would come out for half an hour. This weather cycle repeated itself all afternoon.

Cannibals and liberals

I think Obama is about to discover what Lyndon Johnson figured out in 1967. "Do you know the difference between cannibals and liberals?" President Johnson answered. "Cannibals eat only their enemies."

According to liberals, the underlying cause for man is "The bee knows the formula of its hive and the ant the formula of its anthills, but man does not know his formula." The reason why man does not know his formula is that, unlike the bee and the ant, which are not free, man is free. Freedom is man's formula, but according to Dostoyevsky "he will never find it so long as he seeks it in parties and ideologies, however good they may be."

True social change can occur. Until we bring about a change in ourselves, even the best-intentioned attempts to restructure anything "from liberalism" by new laws or by force are doomed. Corruption and deceit live in the hearts of men along with selfish earmarks and greedy bankers and investors. How can the government change that? According to Dostoyevsky, only Christianity possesses the answer.

More thoughts on marriage

Since I went to a wedding the other day, I've been thinking about marriage. Marriage is a great institution, but who wants to live in an institution? Many people claim to know a lot about marriage. Anyone who says that marriage is a fifty-fifty proposition doesn't know the first thing about women or fractions!

I remember when Tyler was about seven when he first looked into our wedding album and said, "Pop, are these pictures of the day Mom came to work for us?" I told him yes, and then reminded him that it's important to find the right girl because marriage is like a violin. After the music is over, you still have the strings!

Marriages may be made in heaven, but most of the details are worked out on earth! A real fairytale ending: "And they lived happily even after!"

Unemployment

Unemployment is due to a shortage of money to pay people who work because these people have no money to buy things that could be made if they got paid to make things. My neighbor in this situation looks forward to the yawn of a new day! I'm just glad I have a job!

Freedom

People almost never make use of the freedoms they have. For example, freedom of thought, however by way of compensation they demand freedom of expression.

A wedding today

I went to Troy and Anna's wedding today. Troy works in our office here in Denver. It was a beautiful wedding set in a lovely Catholic Church. The Priest who officiated said, they were now in the minority because there are more single people in the world today than married, "not counting himself of course." Everyone laughed. He is probably right. There is pressure to loosen the restrictions which prevent Priests from marrying. But the world is changing, although it's changing for the wrong reasons.

I also believe it was right for Luther to marry, expressly to "proclaim and establish temporality and earthly life as pleasing to God in contrast to fantastic abstraction," but in these times it might be beneficial for a person to refrain from marrying, expressly in order to declare that spirituality still has so much reality that it can be enough, more than enough, for a life.

Cooking

Nancy is going to be out for the next few days on a retreat. So... I guess I have to cook. Uh-oh. I used to think I was a pretty good cook, until I burned my shopping list. Don't ask. Okay, it was a grease fire with three settings. But that's okay, I have a remedy for everything. In my house we have Mylanta on tap.

When you're camping though, the best garbage disposal is a fire. You can toss your food in it and whatever else, and no one knows.

I decided that while Nancy is gone I'd be imaginative. So, I wrapped spaghetti around meatballs and called them "hot yo-yos"! But the really important thing is coffee. Especially on a campout. We make it real strong to the point you have to use two hands to dunk a doughnut!

God's Grace

I like what SK has to say about God's grace, expressed in Ephesians it says, "for by grace you have been saved through faith and that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast."

SK says, "Ah is it not true that the scurviest ingratitude would be for a man to spare himself all the strenuousness because he is saved by grace. Or what would you think of a man who grew cold and indifferent to his wife because he knew that he was loved and would put forth effort only when he knew he was not loved and wished to earn her love."

Foot surgery

Nancy had her foot operated on three weeks ago. The Doc removed a neuroma (tumor, non-cancerous) and fixed a hammer toe, evidently caused by the neuroma. Now that the stitches are out I thought I would show you what it looks like. She has high hopes of a fine recovery. Hopefully, she will be hiking with me in the mountains soon!

A socialist state?

Dostoyevsky was by no means parodying when he drew this portrait:

Do away at last with the nobles,
Do away with the tsar as well,
Take the land for common owners,
Let your vengeance forever swell
Against Church and marriage and family,
And all the old world's villainy.

AND in the book From Under The Rubble...

"The basic propositions of the socialist world view have often been proclaimed: the abolition of private property, religion and the family. One of the principles is the demand for equality and the destruction of the hierarchy into which society has arranged itself.

Each belongs to all, and all to each. All are slaves and equal in slavery. First, there will be a drop in the standard of education, in learning and talent. A high level of learning and talent is available only to the very brainy. We must abolish the brainy! The brainy have always seized power and been despots. We will execute or exile them. We will cut out Cicero's tongue, gouge out Copernicus's eyes, stone Shakespeare to death - that's Shigalyovism! There must be equality in the herd.

Childbirth and relations between the sexes are under the absolute control of the authorities. The individual family, marriage and the familial rearing of children do not exist. Children do not know their parents and are brought up by the state. All that is permitted in art are works which contribute to the education of the citizens in the spirit required by the state."

So writes Alexander Solzhenistsyn regarding the socialism of the future.

What is government?

There are two viewpoints at work in our society today. One is, the government is your friend and knows best. The other is, the government is the problem. In my opinion to err is human, to shrug is civil service. Where else but in the government could you find the following: A clerk is told to destroy a whole series of documents because there isn't enough space to store them. But, the order goes on: he is told to make a copy first! The nearest thing to immortality is a government bureau. And then something like this...