Blog, Page 2
Emotional Decisions
Can you learn something new and revolutionary and something that you wished you had known for your entire life at the advanced age of 82?
The answer is YES !!
I learned it while watching Super Bowl 50 and Peyton Manning’s interview after the game. Here was 39 year old victorious and elated but worn out and contemplating retirement Peyton Manning who was asked this question: “With this victory in your hands do you think that you might want to announce your retirement now?”
Peyton’s answer: “Coach Tony Dungy once told me this: Never make a decision while you feel emotional.”
I can’t tell you how incredibly hard that hit me because ALL of the bad decisions I made during my life I made during times when I was very emotional. My God!! I have got to keep this advice in mind!
February 9, 2016
My left eye couldn't read a billboard but today it WORKS!
Yesterday I had an eye appointment at Tennessee Retina with Dr. Arrindale. It turned out that my dry macular degeneration turned into WET macular degeneration. Dr. Arrindale stuck a needle into my left eyeball and injected something -- Today my left eye can even read the newspaper!
February 12, 2016
Today I voted for John Kasich in the Republican primary. A reasonable man. Hope he wins.
March 4, 2016
Hopeful election news
John Kasich came in second to Donald Trump in New Hampshire primary. That's the best news yet in this primary race. Go John Kasich -- all the way to the White House!
I think we need this man who said: "We are a society founded on a Judeo-Christian ethic that says you are judged on the basis of what you do to the least of them."
March 12, 2016
LETTER TO THE EDITOR -- TENNESSEAN
Quotes from Donald Trump on violence:
Said: ”I represent a lot of people who have great anger.”
Encouraged violence against protesters, said he would like to “punch (protesters) in the face” and "knock the crap out of" them.
Blamed “organized thugs" for clashes at his rallies.
Said: he will "get rid of gun free zones in schools" on his first day in office.
Said that his staff should "confiscate the coats" before sending the (protestors) into the frigid Vermont night.
You really want this man to be our President?
March 28, 2016
There was an article in this morning’s Tennessean that said that the Republicans are trying to allow handguns into their Presidential political convention. What has happened to the party that I used to claim membership in? Maybe they’ll all shoot themselves in their convention and we can start over with a new party.
March 30, 2016
If Vanderbilt football players Cory Batey and Brandon Vandenberg were supposed to be punished for the crime they committed that punishment has been accomplished. Because of the incredible delay in putting their cases through the court system the punishment has been not only accomplished but has fallen into the category of “cruel and unusual” which is prohibited by the US Constitution’s 8th Amendment. Turn them loose.
April 2, 2016
I’ve never believed that dreams had any significance as predictors of future events. Despite the Bible stories of Joseph’s predicting dreams I just haven’t believed in dream predictions. Last night I had a most unusual dream and it was so satisfying that I would be delighted if it did predict the future and if it happened to predict what heaven might be like. A nice thought and I hope I have the dream often.
But, I think religion causes trouble by offering the idea that there is indeed a heaven. After all, radical Islamists whose lives are probably unsatisfying are being encouraged to wrap themselves in explosives as they kill crowds and commit suicide with Islam’s highest reward in mind: a paradise in their heaven.
I tend to think that when I’m dead I’m dead — non-thinking, non-experiencing, non-self aware — just dead. I’ve read that atheists don’t believe in a heaven. I’m not an atheist, but I’ve never really believed that there is a heaven or any kind of life or self-awareness after we die.
But, last night’s dream gave me some second thoughts.
April 6, 2016
My patent for DOOR OPENER came in the mail today. I didn’t realize that the Patent Office printed them in such a fancy way. I’m flattered!
Here’s a link to the website for sales -- CLICK HERE
April 14, 2016
I had written a Letter to the Tennessean that said that the delays in the trial of the Vanderbilt rapists had been punishment enough. It was a dumb letter because it missed the point I was trying to make. Other letter writers zapped me. So the letter to the right was my attempt to make things right.
April 14, 2016
Today an important thing happened. I’ve been having problems with my religion because I have believed that my Christian religion requires as its “faith” that I must believe in magic. When my religious leaders say “have faith” they mean -- to me -- that I must believe in non-rational magic that our Bible is quite full of. I’ve been trying to handle in my own mind the idea that I am not “faithful” while strongly believing that there IS a God and that he did influence a human being named Jesus to preach the concept of love to a combative mankind. And, I have thought it quite unfair and simply erroneous that my church asked me to have faith that water was turned into wine and five fishes and loaves of bread fed five thousand people and that men were revived from a decomposed dead state and so on.
Today in his weekly letter Biship Spong said this: “... let me say I am not interested in a world in which miracles can or do occur. That would mean that the world is in the hands of a capricious deity and that the task of religion is to manipulate this God so as to gain favorable treatment for ourselves. That is little more than the remains of a superstitious understanding of life, which was widely believed before the insights of Isaac Newton led us away from miracles and magic. I want to live in an ordered universe in which divine power is not at the ready to rescue us from the exigencies of human nature.”
Spong came to that conclusion after a life of carefully researching the inputs to the Bible. I am delighted!
April 25, 26 2016
I was a judge at the DECA convention
I judged 36 kids who were finalists in the national DECA contest. DECA (Distribution Education Clubs of America) has local and state competitions for their high school members and the competitions are to select the best presentation of the kids’ investment ideas. The presentations were PERFECT -- after all, these are the WINNERS of the state events, but beyond that, the INTELLIGENCE and creativity of these people is unbelievable.
I’ll have trouble remembering specifics but the guy on the left has insulating bubbles that can revolutionize dry wall. Girl in center has computer program that teaches foreign languages in the proper dialect. Girl on right had a presentation so shockingly good that I was humbled.
Girl on left had alarm device to prevent campus rapes. I forget what center girl did. Girl on right had an idea and a presentation so incredible that I think she won the event.
Guy on left had artistic candles that looked like cupcakes and smelled like them. Amazing. Girl in center I forget what she did. Guy on right had memorable “Wipe Your Ads” toilet paper with ads on it that he would sell at no charge to businesses and profit from the ad sales.
I forget what girl on left did. Center girl may have won the event. Guy on right was my fellow judge Cheng Qian from Reno who is a university student and computer nut. Nice guy and we are staying in touch.
I can’t remember what the girls on left did. The two in the middle had a good idea but a poor description of it by saying that they wanted to open a boutique in Los Angeles, and it wasn’t until their presentation was over that they told that they would MAKE the clothes themselves and they showed me the plans. Killer idea but poor presentation. The three guys on right had an idea that I didn’t think was very good but their presentations was super.
The girls on the left and the grinning girl on the right I’m showing because they are cute and fun, but the two guys in the middle had a shockingly good idea. The little guy is only a sophomore and he is an inventor who came up with a “cube” into which you blow like into a breathalyzer. Get this: it will diagnose 1500 diseases -- instantly -- and he made it because the diagnosis of his father’s lung cancer cost $28,000 and took months. His cube did the diagnosis instantly and correctly. He and his partner, who is the business CEO were asking $5,000,000 and the cube is now seeking FDA approval. MYGOD!!!
The girl in the center is the daughter of a chemist who owns a toxicological lab. She intends to open her own lab but with the difference that she will have results ready INSTANTLY instead of the week or two wait from most labs. And she knows how to do it. I forgot what the couple on the right did.
As I go through my notes I will add more details to this page.
May 4, 2016 ... and... winter of 1984
This picture above was taken in 1984 after we bought our house 5661 Oakes Drive. We had planted trees right after we bought the house because there was NOTHING on the lot at all.
Here’s a photo that I took May 4, 2016 of the same location.
Here’s a photo of the other end of the formerly empty yard.