This blog has gone forgotten.

I’m considering putting it through a resurrection.

I’m also considering registering a domain of my own, and being able to do whatever I want with site design.

Why?

I’m thinking about doing some serious writing, and am wondering how best to “publish” what I write.

Is anybody on Xanga anymore? Your thoughts?

A friend sent me this story yesterday. I was deeply moved. Enjoy.

As a bagpiper, I play many gigs. Recently I was asked by a funeral director to play at a graveside service for a homeless man. He had no family or friends, so the service was to be at a pauper’s cemetery in the Kentucky back-country.

As I was not familiar with the backwoods, I got lost; and being a typical man I didn’t stop for directions. I finally arrived an hour late and saw the funeral guy had evidently gone and the hearse was nowhere in sight.

There were only the diggers and crew left and they were eating lunch. I felt badly and apologized to the men for being late. I went to the side of the grave and looked down and the vault lid was already in place. I didn’t know what else to do, so I started to play.

The workers put down their lunches and began to gather around. I played out my heart and soul for this man with no family and friends. I played like I’ve never played before for this homeless man.

And as I played “Amazing Grace,” the workers began to weep. They wept, I wept, we all wept together. When I finished I packed up my bagpipes and started for my car. Though my head hung low my heart was full.

As I was opening the door to my car, I heard one of the workers say, “I never seen nothin’ like that before and I’ve been putting in septic tanks for twenty years.”

I’ve been trying to figure out how to control a solar collector so that its always facing directly toward the sun.

There are so many things to consider: I need good pivots so that the whole array can rotate horizontally and vertically, and I need some small gear-drive motors to run the screws that will control the array. Then I need some sort of sensor to tell the whole shebang where the sun is, and some sort of computerized logic system to figure out how to send the info to the motors, and how to control the motors. Then I realized that a row of arrays will eventually block out their respective views toward the sun during both ends of the day. So I have to not only turn each collector, I have to turn the WHOLE ARRAY!

Last evening my buddy Jacob came up with a brilliant solution. Just turn the whole building! Don’t know WHY I didn’t think of that before.

But then we ran into a problem. My building is sandwiched in between two other buildings, one on each side. Ok, we’ll just rotate the whole block to follow the sun. But then we got to thinking: the city probably won’t like that, cuz it will really mess up traffic. Probably break some sort of zoning and planning laws too.

It went from there to realizing that no matter how big you go, somebody is going to complain. So we just decided to stop the whole world, and keep Kansas focused on the sun.

Oh, wait. I bet the Chinese won’t like that. And since they hold so many T-bills, we better not make them mad.

Besides, Kansas is hot enough already. I give up.

http://economicedge.blogspot.com/2010/03/most-important-chart-of-century.html

Get ready; its coming.

Isaiah 43:19 Behold, I will do a new thing; now it shall spring forth; shall ye not know it? I will even make a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert.

Ok, I know that’s a Messianic prophecy, but here are some things to think about.

Has God ever “made a way” for you in your desert or wilderness? Do you ever feel barren and empty? Does it ever feel like you’re trapped in an empty place, and there’s no way out? Do you feel lost and unsure of which way to go? Are you confused about the springs of life that you do find?

Know this: it is God who gives life. And He has promised that if you give Him your desert, he will fill it with rivers! If you give Him your wilderness, He will make a path for you! Sometimes we find life in strange places, and from unusual sources, but God is ultimately the Giver.

Why do we hesitate to give those things to Him? Why do we wonder whether He will do what He says? He only asks that we give Him our problems, and watch as He not only resolves them, but makes something beautiful in the process!

God doesn’t want to take us out of our desert, our wilderness. No. Jesus prayed in John 17:15 “I do not pray that You should take them out of the world, but that You should keep them from the evil one.” Rather, He changes our desert into a place filled with life, and makes it a Garden of Eden. He takes the wilderness, and makes it a place where travel is easy, instead of difficult work.

What is your desert, your wilderness? Have you given it to God? Why are you holding out on Him? Has He ever truly let you down? Trust Him, and watch what He does for you, because He loves you!

Data from http://www.fdic.gov/bank/individual/failed/banklist.html. By the looks of things, we’re on the way for more failures than in 2009. How does that make you feel?

It appears as if SLV might be breaking out – it gapped up today and crossed the upper line. Pretty clear this is in response to a weakening dollar, as illustrated by DXY. If DXY crosses the lower green line, its reasonable to think that silver will head back up.

“He was a safe man. One who never took any risk. Someone who always wears a hat when it is raining. He does everything by the book and lives a dull boring life of tranquility.” – T. Davis Bunn, quoted by Rocky McElween on page 198 of his book, “Wild Men, Wild Alaska”.

I hope there is never sufficient evidence to accuse me of being such a man. If you are a man who is unsure of what he is made of, you should read this book.

“Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.” Proverbs 3:5-6

It’s easy to trust God with my head; trusting Him with my heart is another thing entirely. It seems the choice is so often between my understanding versus trusting God. To make matters worse, the verse indicates that He must be completely acknowledged in ALL our ways, or He will not direct them! So often I want to pick and choose the things I will allow God to direct, but He is a jealous God and wants to give us direction in every area of life. Whether or not we allow Him to do that is the primary indicator of whether or not we believe that He actually has our good in mind.

Isn’t that the basis for every temptation? – The allegation that God does not have my good in mind. Our adversary knows that if he can convince us of that lie, then he can get us to do anything.

After all the arguments are done, believe that God is good! As hard as it is for us to believe or understand that at times, choosing to believe that God is not good leaves one in a very dark and twisted universe, where nothing makes sense at all, and all purpose vanishes in a puff of cosmic wind.

God is GOOD! Don’t just believe it – relish it! Thank and praise Him for His goodness to you! And don’t just allow him to direct your paths – ask Him to do it! You will be surprised at His Goodness!

Today was just gorgeous! The last several weeks have been cloudy, foggy, and just plain weird. Today was the first day that the sun shone again. It was still cold, but it just does something for a feller to see the sun again!