August 4, 2025

One Way or Another

I have to get a better system. I have more than a few files with my musings for the day inside them. I seem to write something and once in a while it takes over a day to finish because I get sidetracked. Then as the worm turns, I do not save it and it gets opened when I have to reboot because the computer froze up and I save it with a number after it, Not only does that mess up my master file, but I now have files that do not have numbers after them because I tried to merge them together. And don’t forget that I had a little bit of exercising my proper English, as I had written today at the first and then was writing yesterday in the middle and ultimately the day before yesterday at the end. The real issue is, I think I have lost some of the musings in my attempt to merge the files. What do they say about the best laid plans of mice and men?
On Saturday, I got in a little over 6 miles. After Dorothy let me out, she called and told me the flashing lights up ahead were a closure of the streets for what looked like some kind of marathon. She saw people with racing bibs and a water station. I was tempted to go over and see but I figured it would cost money and it looked like part ot the route was going to be on streets I had already done. I did wind up on one of the streets which was part of the route and the water station there told me it was a 5k and 10k run to celebrate the summer and there was a fee. I had the idea I could show up at the finish line, show my watch and maybe get a free burrito but that idea went out the window pretty quickly, even though there were no windows around to exit through.
I met Robert Marquez on one of the streets. He was retired from Carnation. He made the ice cream for a number of years and spent the last 10 years working in the area that homogenized the milk. He was one of the guys who made sure the formulas were right. I told him I still shake the mile and he said there was nothing wrong with that. He and his wife have a route from their house that is 3.1 miles so they do their own 5k on a regular basis.
Sunday, I went to “Cat Con” with Ali and Shayna in Pasadena, This was the 10th year of Cat Con. I wonder if they had it during the extended flu seasons of the early 2020’s? There was a line over two lbocks long to get in. We waited in a line that took almost an hour to spin a wheel and get some treats. They were using it to get a mailing list and you had to sign up, take a picture, write a review, and like them on all the social medias. Of course, Ali did all those things while we were in line, got the maximun number of spins, I took the picture and got one spin. The girls said Pumpkin, (Ali’s cat), liked the treat, so I guess it was worth it.
I started once again thinking about the reasons I am here on earth, how my days are seeming to work into a schedule that at times seems to make the week run by and I haven’t accomplished even 10% of what I wanted to do that week. I tried making a list and marking off an item as I completed it and whether you believe it or not, a few weeks I didn’t get anything crossed off except the basic things that I don’t need to put on the list because I am gong to do them anyway. I am supposed to take these two pills each day, one for cholesterol and one for high blood pressure. Can you believe there have been days in a row I missed taking those two pills!
I tape a few shows so I can watch them in 40 minutes instead of one hour if I don’t watch them while I am doing something else.. I eventually have a little backlog and I simply delete a number of shows and free up space on the recorder. Even that system could use some manipulation.
But the real goal for me is to return to a regular time in the Word. I can incliude the musings as some of the time as I want to include something in relation to the Word, no matter how hard I have to work to get close to a scripture reference that isn’t totally off point. If that happens, it can be made worse if I use a verse out of context to make a point which the verse is not addressing.
On my ladder of worst things, the next one is using Christian buzzwords to promote a religion that is not anyway near what being born again means. I was listening to a lady on the radio on the way home last night after picking up the pizzas, (yes, there were two of them), who kept talking about god and I knew the god she was talking about was not the God I know. This was after I read an article earlier which lambasted David French, who writes for the New York Times, (need I say more), concerning his article about the hypocrisy of Christians when they cancel someone.
French seems to never have anything nice to say about Christians or Trump. French wrote about Christians canceling Chip and Joanna Gaines because they promoted a homosexual couple who are living in sin and had adopted children. The issue was not that the Christian community wanted to cancel Chip and Joanna, they were calling them out for promoting sin on a platform they had propounded and built up as a Christian platform. The plan would be to not support them any longer if that was the route they going down as there was a difference in fundamental Christian values, not to force them off the air or remove them from the roll call on Sunday mornings at church, like the woke would do.
French is obviously not in the main line of Christianity. Unfortunately, I believe a lot of those who think they are, have allowed the stinking thinking of the false prophets and pastors to remove the blinders and allow for more than one way into heaven. Mt. 7:13 says: 13 “Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it.” NASB And John 14:6 says: “6 Jesus *said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.” NASB
I could go on and talk about how you know who to listen to, what to do with the Word, who is the God you should worship and follow, etc., but why not just encourage you to discover all these gems in the Word for yourself? Just remember, that God sits in judgment of us, it is not the other way around. And He gives us His mercy, we do not give him any of our worthless mercy. So it is one way or another and the “another way” is not for me. As that commercial says at the end of the punch line, [I got waffles], “How about you?”

August 6, 2025

The Ticket

While sitting here contemplating my naval and looking at my surroundings, (in my office), I came to the conclusion, I have a hard time throwing away anything, and I do mean ANYTHING. How about you? Come on, be honest with your reply.
Ali and Dorothy seem to be able to discard anything that sits there for more than 10 seconds. I remember when we visited Dorothy’s sister in Ohio and how they run their house. I used a glass for a drink of water, set it on the counter to get something Dorothy asked me to get, and when I returned bearing the item on a golden pillow for Dorothy, I went to get the glass for another swallow of water, it was already in the dishwasher!
Dorothy and Ali are cut from the same cloth. I must really irk their souls with my lack of ability to throw away anything, and my irritating habit of making sure all flat spaces have something on them works overtime on them. This includes the floor where shoes seem to accumulate, as impossible as it may seem, every hour.
The garage has become such a sore spot on the list of sore spots that the threat of a backhoe being rented and operated by the champion throwawayers is looming on the horizon. I believe the only thing stopping this pilgrimage to the dumpster is they believe they need a special license to operate the backhoe. I don’t know where they got that idea but I am eternally grateful for that wisdom to have been imparted to them. I have so much good stuff in that garage that it would cost over a million dollars and years to replace it.
As much as I love Josh, he is becoming a real pain at times. He has become extremely and I mean extremely demanding. And part of the problem, is he whines to go out, gets all his gear ready, and then stands in the open gate looking towards the street for a couple of minutes and then heads back into the house. And of course, he does it when the best part of the show is on tv, or when I am in the middle of a conversation with Trump, when I think I need to hit the head myself, or even minutes after we just went through this exact same exercise.
I really hollered at him the other night. It was such a holler that he slunk away, making me really feel on top of the world. Actually, it was lower than the proverbial whale doo-doo. I tried to make it up to him bur all I got was the cold shoulder and downcast looks, like how could you do that to me, your favorite dog. I felt bad for a couple of days and Josh milked the situation for all it was worth! I think he knows I am on to him now as the looks have stopped and I stopped chasing him around the block to give him a treat.
I am realizing, once again, for the zillionth time, I spend entirely too much time on emails. In just two days of slacking off, I have 1100 unread again and over 2300 total in my mailbox. I keep unsubscribing but they still seem to multiply like rabbits. Yahoo gave us a new look for our mailbox and I am not sure I like it. Even if I went off grid, I believe they would find me and keep filling my mailbox every day. There were times I had more than 20,000 emails in my mailbox! I wonder if they have a treatment center for mailbox addiction?
It is now the 7th and I am finishing this musing. It seems I really got sidetracked this time. I would like to say the devil had something to do with the sidetracking as I was about to turn up the heat on Ecclesiastes. I have a round trip ticket that keeps returning me to what seems to be home base for now, no matter where I go when I leave home base, i.e., Ecclesiastes. The handwriting is on the wall, I can start using the one way ticket and travel through the pages of Ecclesiastes or keep riding in circles. Believe it or not, many of those round trip tickets have been very expensive and when I finally arrive at my destination, lo and behold, it was a round trip ticket right back to Ecclesiastes. I guess I should go ahead and move into Ecclesiastes for awhile and make myself at home. Besides, the ticket office is closed.

August 9, 2025

Nothing New

I met Peter yesterday, during my trip through Baldwin Park streets. I was crossing off one of the while lines that was in a parking lot by the park on Baldwin Park Blvd. and Romona Blvd. The young man is 82 and plays ping pong Monday through Friday at the center. While we were talking, a man and his wife came out to their car and Peter said he was 85 and plays ever day also, and can beat him more times than Peter beats him. After we each went our way, I thought I should have asked Peter what he does with the rest of his day. Might have been interestering to see how an 82 year old spends the day who is still active and not couch bound.
The girls are leaving for Ohio tonight. I have a car to go running every day for a week! I have to take care of the zoo for one week. Actually, they will miss all that time they spend in Ali’s room with Ali and the tv time with Dorothy.
I wonder what the sermon is going to be about tomorrow. If I was going to preach tomorrow, what verse would I try to work my 10 point sermon into?
So I really got off the page and it is now the 11th. The sermon, (yesterday), was about the Power of Words. I arrived home in time to hear some of the worship, the announcements and the sermon. My run yesterday was interesting. I met Lee, who was watering his yard. I went by him on a Cul-de-Sac and noticed he was wearing a jersey with the number 35 on it. I did not recognize the team color so I hurried up the hill and back to ask him who was player 35. Turns out it is Kevin Durant’s number. The shirt was a $5.00 shirt with the number 35 on it. Lee was lucky as that is his favorite player and told me Durant is on Houston this coming year. We had a great time talking about sports for about 10 minutes while he watered the front yard.
Today’s run was uneventful except that I did a street I have been avoiding for quite a while. It is the street where the Costco is off the 60 freeway. I got the street done and all the parking lots except for the front of the Costco and 2 or 3 of the Home Depot parking aisles. I even got the drive through lanes for In-N-Out, Buffalo Wild Wings and all the other fast foods lanes, which was a little difficult as they were all open for business.
I was thinking that Ecclesiastes could be labeled as nihilistic. I looked up to see who were some favorite philosophers and discovered there were maybe 4 in the top 5, using a couple of different lists, (Camus was only on 1), that I recognized their names and had read at least one article they had written. I don’t remember anything about any of them being a nihilist, but it has been many, many years since I read any of their rants.
But Ecclesiastes does have some moral fibre to it, unlike Nihilism. But I will have to work on that part of Ecclesiastes that talks about there being nothing new under the sun and thereby implies there is no reason to go on.

August 13, 2025

The Borg Scale Box

Joshua seems to have settled in on a schedule. He wants to go out about 3 am, eat when he comes back in, (which means Pumpkin eats then also), rest, and go back out for a second round of depositing his gold between 6 and 7 am, usually closer to 6 than 7.  The real problem is, he seems to wander around each time, sometimes going over the same route more than once. I can’t determine if he is temporarily lost or just searching for the special spot to deposit the gold.
This is day 4 of taking care of myself. I made it out to cover some streets 3 days in a row. I was going again this morning but decided to spend time with the zoo. They have been a little upset that they are being left alone this week.
I started reading Ecclesiastes as I have been threatening to do. The first chapter starts with what seems like a Pessimist outlook on life. If one is naturally depressed and struggles to find hope each day as they wake up and look at a beautiful sunrise, this could put the needle on their chart way below sea level. Lower than where the Badass 150 starts, which is 250′ below sea level in Death Valley. I really wanted to do that race. A man 80 years old finished it this year after having done it a couple of years ago and said that time a few years ago was his last time. What is that saying, “Never say Never”?
But I did find an interestering verse in Ecc. 1:11:
“There is no remembrance of earlier things;
And also of the later things which will occur,
There will be for them no remembrance
Among those who will come later still.” NASB
This comes after 10 verses of letting us know there is nothing new under the sun, everything we think is new is really old and been done before, the object we think is brand new is really an object that has been sitting on the shelf for years. The cry of, “Vanities of Vanities”, is screamed in our ears through a loud speaker with enough volume to knock us down. If one was to use a saying many of us have had floated our way, “Get over yourself”, it is entering the canals of our ears!
But verse 11 is the Optimist verse and the way out with the words, “no remembrance”. What is even more interesting is not only is there going to be no remembrance of the past, there is going to be no remembrance of the future events, which are really not new events anyway as they have already occured in the past.
What I believe God is telling us through the penmanship of Solomon, is we should enjoy today, enjoy our adventures, enjoy our new found “inventions”, enjoy our lives without being so caught up in believing we are the master of our destiny as we set out to conquer the world, we are the inventor for today but it was invented before and it will be invented later also, I think we are told to be less than what we think we are but we are to enjoy who we think we are without believing we are more than the One who created us.
One of my mantras has to do with the idea you can’t take one part of Scripture to the exclusion of the rest of Scripture and make either a religion or a way of life to the exclusion of the rest of Scripture. Examples are how people use the judging principle; how acceptance of others and their beliefs are demanded; how loving one another is used way beyond the demand in Scripture to love one another, to mention just a few.
I would think we are to be as excited about life as that child opening the present on Christmas morning, even though that present they think is brand new, has been around for years and will be new to someone in the future. I must admit, I really only remember one Christmas present, which my parents had placed in a Borg Scale box. I could not fugure out for the life of me what a Borg Scale was. There was no Google or Siri to ask for a meaning and I still believe to this day, there was a giant conspiracy in place to keep me from finding out what a Borg Scale was before the Christmas morning present opening ceremony. And to my surprise, there was no Borg Scale in that box.
One thought that comes to me about all this new stuff being like a new world to me comes from Heb. 13:8: “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.” NASB For all of you who want to be God, how would you like to be the same from the beginning of time until eternity? Since God is omniscience, where would the excitement be to open the box marked “Borg Scale” on Christmas morning if you already knew what was in the box with the label, “Borg Scale”?
I think I will let God be God. I will keep opening boxes with labels I have no idea what their meaning is. I will enjoy life with the new things to me, which are not really new as God knew about them all along, and not think more of myself than I should, i.e., a loss of vanity. I know the sunrise and sunset will look different and yet better each day as I move forward with however much time I have left to enjoy opening new Borg Scale boxes.

August 16, 2025

The Odds

I wanted to say I learned something about myself the other day. But I am not sure we “learn” something about ourselves rather than we just acknowledge something we already knew about ourselves, had been operating with the knowledge all along, yet without stating the truth hiding in plain sight because we are too stubborn and lazy to think deeper than kindergarten level thinking. That sentence took me only a few seconds to write but it will take hours to work through it!
While I was clicking off the streets for Monterey Park, (I think I needed less than 25 to finish the city, which has over 400 streets), I realized, (learned), I had made a chore out of something I was doing as a challenge and as a stay-in-shape effort. When I started, I was just doing the streets as a way to keep from doing the same route every day. Plus, there was a bit of bragging rights I figured I could claim when I showed off my map. While there is a group of individuals who have more streets done than me, I am getting close to breaking into the 900’s out of the over 60,000 club, even though I am having a hard time moving below the 1020 number. Seems like there are some serious people at this level and I go up and down like a yo-yo, but never below the 1020 number so far.
I think it started becoming a chore when someone asked me how many cities I had completed. I had never thought about how many cities, even though I had checked to see what my ranking is in some cities at different times. So, I started working on finding the streets I needed to do in order to complete a city and over time completed a few cities. But this forced me to drive from one area to another to another because I had stray streets all over the place. As you probably know, streets are not all laid out in straight lines so you can go North and South and East and West and cover a certain area.
Then, to make matters worse, city boundaries are not in any straight line and you wind up doing streets in another city while trying to finish the streets in the designated city, which I never worried about before. So, as I was trying to cover the area in Monterey Park which is around the 10 and 710 freeways, East LA College, the Sheriffs Station, Eastern Ave, etc., when I got home and synced the watch, I realized I had done more of East LA than Monterey Park. And I missed some of the streets right in the middle because of the way the streets were laid out. And I had to do a long stretch in two areas which required returning the way I had covered.
Now, I would not have been going about this adventure in this manner if I was not trying to complete one city. I would have drove somewhere, covered some streets, and returned home. I do know that I start out with a plan in mind but I’m pretty sure I have yet to actually follow exactly the route I planned before I left home. And that was part of the enjoyment for me, as I would find what I thought would be a better route when on the actual streets and off I would go. Whether or not it actually was better did not matter as I was covering part of an area and I always had it in the back of my mind that I would spend one day driving to the open streets on my map.
Believe it or not, all of the above was not what I set out to spend my valuable time ranting and raving about. Almost seems like how it goes when I start out with a route to run and wind up with a totally different route completed.
I did want to acknowledge Andy and Mingo, who I met yesterday in Pasadena when I was covering some streets by Cal Tech. I had to go to the Office Depot on Colorado so I did a little over 5 miles of streets below Colorado. Mingo is 15 years old and is exhibiting some of the same characteristics that Josh is showing. One thing they both do is stand in one place for more than a minute while they decide which way they want to go. But Josh does appear to be in overall better shape than Mingo as he is much more alert and active.
I met Lee who was walking his dog and told me he lets her sniff somewhere as long as she wants. He told me that is great exercise and a brain stimulant as sniffing somewhere for 15 mintes was more than equal to 30 minutes of exercise for his dog. I didn’t try to discuss this with him as it seems common sense tells us that sniffing another dog’s bathroom deposit does not equal any type of exercise or brain stimulant. I could be wrong and I will definitely try and find out if I am wrong, but I am laying odds I am not wrong.
The last but not least shout out for today goes to Derrick and his boys and dog. When I pulled up to the curb and parked, a gentleman, two young boys and a small dog were getting ready to venture forth. The car door was open and I asked if they were getting ready for an outing as Derrick was putting some sun screen on one of the boys legs and arms. He was ready to go and was wriggling like he had ants in his pants. Derrick told me they were going for a walk on the campus. I told him I was off to cover some of the streets and to have a great time. I did not know Derrick’s name at that point.
As I returned to the car, Derrick was putting the scooter into the car. We acknowldge each other and he told me they had a great time, even with one little crash. He was thankful for the helmet he made his boy wear. As he was closing the back car door and I was going by on the driver’s side of his car. I told him my name and asked him what his was, which was when I found out it was Derrick.
It was about 3 hours since we parted for his time on the campus and my time on the streets. What do you think the odds are that we would both leave for our adventures and arrive back at the starting place at the same time? I think I would place a bet with the odds on favorite about the sniffing rather than the long odds I would receive on the timetables matching.

August 21, 2025

Go To The End Of The Line

I finished close to 6 ½ miles and sat down at the bus stop to wait on the 190 bus. It was going to be about 20 miutes and I debated with myself about doing a block during that time. I took so long arguing with myself about whether I could make it around the block without missing the bus, I realized I definitely wouldn’t make it back before the bus arrived. While I was sitting there, a gentleman showed up and sat down beside me on the bench. We entered into a conversation and turns out he is also 80 years old. Where are all these old geezers coming from?
While we were talking, the 190 just drove by and did not make any kind of attenpt to pull over to the curb to see if we were riders or sitters at the stop resting. I never got the man’s name, which is highly irregular for me. He decided to go into one of the fast foods places because it would be cool in there to wait. I walked up to the next stop where I knew the 190 and the 178 stopped. I arrived with 2 minutes to spare before the 178 came along.
I thought there was some kind of force working against me as a city worker in a truck with a trailer pulled into the bus lane, stopped, got out and started working on the sign attached to the stop. Of course,  when the bus turned onto Romona Blvd, it would be blocking a driveway and the street if it stopped. I was not going to go down without a fight and stood a few feet back from the trailer and waved at the bus so he could see me. The bus did stop, so did the traffic, and maybe even time stood still for a few moments, who knows? But I got on the bus and probably saved an hour in my getting home.
I had time to mull over my premise about the immigration problem and confirm my belief about the sandy ground the “let em alone if they haven’t been caught dong anything wrong for years” crowd stands on. The bottom line is, are you arguing from the position of emotion or the rule of law, i.e., accountability?
I get it that the little old lady who came into the county when she was 60 and has never gotten so much as a traffic ticket is a wonderful person. But I would wager to say, she has not been able to live the best life available in this great land because of her status. If she did get a Social Security number, it may not be tied to her, so she will not be able to enjoy the money she has put into the system. But the bottom line is, she either snuck into the country under the cover of darkness or she overstayed her visa. Either way, she is here in the country illegally.
The problem is you do not have one little old lady, you have over 10 million little old ladies. And then you have another 10 million who may not fit the little old lady category but they fit the illegal category. And then you have the new 10 million which the Biden administration let in to roam the country, which are draining the resources of all the working class.  Another issue is the billionaires are not stepping up to pay for them but they are paying for the protesters who want to keep the illegals in the USA.
Did you know there is are organizations where you can sign up and get paid to protest? I wonder what the percentage of honest protesters, (the ones who really believe in what they are protesting) is compared to the ones who are on the payroll to be there and shout curses at the establishment. And you will not find the conservatives in either group as we do not belong to Antifa or any of these rock throuwing groups.
And spare me the January 6 comparison.  That was a riot which could have been prevented.  I believe that was another big mistake when we allowed the 2 Super Rhinos to be on the Star Chamber investigation to rubberstamp falsehoods, destoy evidence, and show their true colors and beliefs. The cryer immeiately went to CNN and shared some more water works and was patted on the back and given hugs of sympathy for having to exist in the Republican party when it is out to destroy democracy. And his partner in crime from Wyoming was seated at the right hand of the leader to nod and make sure all the shulldrugery was done with a smile. I can only imagine what charges I could receive for calling the traitors out for who they are.
As I work through Ecclesiates, I see a verse that perfectly describes both of these sycophants, i.e., verse 1:15: “What is crooked cannot be straightened and what is lacking cannot be counted.” NASB  If there was anyone who qualified as being crooked, these 2 are in the running for top honors. That means they leap over Hitler and not the one you morons think resides in the White House.
But what does the idea of being lacking mean that you cannot be counted? I am going to go out on a limb and say one aspect of that is when you are lacking integrity and honesty, you cannot be counted. Now we have the two running neck and neck with pencilneck Schiff and Honeypot Swallwell, among a number of others. Look at all the stuff coming out about the Russiagate scandal and the media that did the devil’s bidding.
If we bring this back around to the immigration issue, breaking the law to enter the USA puts one in the category of being crooked, albeit, if there was a scale, they would be no where near the murderers and pedophiles. Nevertheless, as Pelosi likes to say, “No one is above the law”. That means that neither the President or the little old lady, (all 19 million of them), are above the law. And even if your TDS is causing you to hypervenilate, neither the little old lady or the President are any where near the top of the scale where the murderers and pedophiles reside.
Nevertheless, the emotional arguements, both TDS and little old lady arguments, haven’t killed anyone, and are just that, emotional and not based on fact. As my mind often thinks faster than I can type, it came to me while typing that last statement, aren’t we as Christians supposed to love the sinner but not the sin? I wonder how that works with TDS as we are to love the sinner, but not his sin? I will have to devote some grist for you to chew on concerning that commandment.
Anyway, the idea is that we are to be held accountable, whether you have stolen $1.00 or $1,000,000.00 dollars, whether you crossed illegally once or more than once. So we are sending your grandmother home so she can get back in line behind my grandmother, who has been patiently waiting her turn to enter the USA legally.