I know a couple different people who are officers in the military. My relationships with them are unrelated to the military – they are just regular people I know who happen to have jobs working for the government. Last weekend, I was with one of them and needed help moving something. When you ask a military officer for help, be careful of the terms you use. Officers do not like being enlisted for anything. Use any word other than “enlist”.
“For I also am a man placed under authority, with soldiers under me; and I say to this one, ‘Go!’ and he goes, and to another, ‘Come!’ and he comes, and to my slave, ‘Do this!’ and he does it.”
– Luke 7:8
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If you have children, be sure to hug them today.
Maria Sue Chapman, 2003 – 2008
I know, O LORD, that Your judgments are righteous, And that in faithfulness You have afflicted me. O may Your lovingkindness comfort me, According to Your word to Your servant.
Psalm 119:75-76
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Upon reading the label on a bottle of a well-known brand of water, I noticed that pure water doesn’t taste like pure water.
For those who can’t see the image, it says “Enhanced with minerals for a pure, fresh taste”.
Doesn’t the word “pure” mean “not enhanced or modified”? I suppose it does say “pure taste” not “pure water”. Why does water need to be enhanced? Why can’t water be just water? The answer is this: they filter the water first, to take out the minerals. Since the minerals have been removed, they must be added back in. Otherwise, the water would not taste quite right. Oh, the days of drinking well water from a hose, water that comes straight from the earth to you. Great taste, and lots of minerals.
A similar concept is at work in the flour and bread industry. You may have noticed that there is such a thing as enriched bleached flour. This is flour that has had all the nutrients bleached out of it, so they need to be added back. Why all the work and fuss to take stuff out and then replace it? Just give me whole-wheat bread that doesn’t have to be enriched or enhanced (note: the link in that sentence leads to a site that may ask you to sign up for a newsletter. You should be able to skip that offer and go right to the article).
I know, I know, processing and bleaching the flour makes for softer bread, bread that holds peanut butter and jelly better. But I have learned to go for the whole wheat. Save the squishy bread for the occasional treat, but don’t live off it.
“You shall buy food from them with money so that you may eat, and you shall also purchase water from them with money so that you may drink.”
– Deuteronomy 2:6
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Do not try to guess what the other driver expects you to do. Maintain your course and speed and let the other drivers work around you.
Last week, I was commuting home from work and I was about to enter the freeway portion of the trip. The service drive is somewhat above the freeway at that point, so I had a good view of the traffic that was already there. As I was coming down the ramp, I aimed for a spot just behind someone in the right lane. Unfortunately, they thought I was aiming for a spot in front of them. I think they were trying to be nice, so they slowed down to let me in.
But I wasn’t going fast enough to get in that spot. I couldn’t merge because the helpful car was right in my way, and I couldn’t slow down because there was someone just behind me, also wanted to enter the freeway. So I had to stomp on the accelerator and cut in front of the person before the short entrance lane ended. If I had some nice sporty car, that wouldn’t have been a problem. But I have a Buick. Not exactly suitable for quick maneuvers like that.
And that reminded me of a similar problem we had a number of years ago. Back at least a decade ago, my dad was driving the family back (eastbound) from a trip to visit my sister (who at the time was the only child of his who was married and out of the house). Part of the journey involved a rural two-lane road with a few long straightaways. The speed limit was 55 mph, and we were behind someone who was going slower. So dad pulled into the other lane (westbound) to pass the person.
The person was driving slowly, but not extremely slowly, so it took a few seconds to get next to the car. At that point, an oncoming car was approaching. Dad judged that there would not be time to get around the slow person before we crashed, so he slowed down to get back behind the slow person. Unfortunately, the slow person was trying to be nice and let dad in ahead of him (or was it a her? I don’t remember). So the oncoming car was even closer, but dad could not get back into the lane because the other car was trying to guess what dad wanted but was getting it wrong. After a cycle of slow down, speed up, slow down – matched exactly by the other car, we finally got back into the eastbound lane before the westbound car met us.
So if you ever see me driving and it seems like I’m not being courteous by slowing down or speeding up for other people, it’s not because I’m being mean. I’m just trying to avoid accidents.
In everything, therefore, treat people the same way you want them to treat you, for this is the Law and the Prophets.
Matthew 7:12
Posted in Driving, Mishaps | 1 Comment »
In speaking with a relative-in-law recently, I thought of my earlier post about video monitors. The relative-in-law mentioned the phenomenon that the baby will sense your presence when you go check on him, reminiscent of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. If you open the door to see if the baby is asleep, that action will awaken him when he otherwise would not have been awakened.
I haven’t decided whether to call it the Heisenbaby Uncertainty Principle or the Babyberg Uncertainty Principle. Either way, the principle is that measuring the state of the baby will affect the state of the baby. The benefit of using a video baby monitor, as opposed to an audio baby monitor, is that it minimizes the effect of the Heisenbaby Uncertainty Principle.
On a related note, here is a story. When our oldest was a baby, his crib was within sight of the dining table, through an open doorway. We were remodeling the bedrooms and so his crib was temporarily in the living room. We found that if we were at the table and he was in his crib, he would be content as long as we didn’t make eye contact with him. If we did make eye contact, then he knew that we knew he was there and he would cry to be picked up. Some mealtimes, especially when grandparents were over, were interesting: “Whatever you do, don’t look directly at the baby!”
“For a thousand years in Your sight Are like yesterday when it passes by, Or {as} a watch in the night.”
– Psalm 90:4
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We took my wife to dinner for Mother’s Day. This particular restaurant had free suckers, and the kids knew it. So when they were done eating, they asked for them. Since it was Mother’s Day, we let the kids get one sucker each so that my wife could enjoy the rest of her meal in peace.
One child chose watermelon, and the other chose blue raspberry. I am not quite sure how raspberry got assigned the color blue. My guess is that when the artificial flavor industry giants collude, they decided that there were too many other red flavors and not enough blue flavors. Really, is blueberry the only other blue flavor?
Green has lime and apple, yellow has lemon and banana, red and pink have cherry and strawberry and watermelon, and orange has orange and peach. I suppose purple is used only for grape – they could have also chosen purple for raspberry. Not all raspberries are red – there is the black raspberry variety. They could have made the color for artificial raspberry flavor as black. Black raspberries are more like a dark purple, so I think purple would be a more fitting color than bright blue.
The child with the blue raspberry sucker of course had his tongue turn very blue. I asked what flavor he had, and he replied “blue raspberry”. I said that I have never seen a raspberry that’s blue. So he picked up the sucker wrapper (which had blue raspberries drawn on it), showed it to me, and said “Now you have!”
“The earth brought forth vegetation, plants yielding seed after their kind, and trees bearing fruit with seed in them, after their kind; and God saw that it was good.”
– Genesis 1:12
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We recently had the award night, last night of the school year, for our church’s Awana program. That went well and was done shortly after 8 PM. We then walked down the street, about three buildings away from the church, to the local store and got some ice cream. Each child got a soft-serve cone. They ate those, then we got in the minivan and drove home, arriving around 9 PM. Then it was bath time, one child at a time. At 10:00, they were still jumping around, not exhibiting any signs of sleepiness.
Finally, after some bedtime books, the younger one was asleep at 10:30 and the older one was asleep around 11:00, about 2 hours after his normal bedtime. They woke up at 7:30 the next morning, so my wife didn’t even get to sleep in to make up for the late night.
Conclusion: Do not give children large ice cream cones within an hour of their expected bedtime.
“I will not give sleep to my eyes Or slumber to my eyelids,”
– Psalm 132:4
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This is Alpha, the first-born, when he was 2YO.
This is Beta, the second-born, when he was about 2YO.
This is Gamma, the third-born, when he was about 18MO.
