46 Years Ago and Now 47

I was 9 when Iranian students seized our embassy in 1979 and when they were released on January 20th, 1981 when Ronald Reagan was elected. 

We saw images of the Ayatollah Komenhi every night on TV as they held our people hostage. Nightline with Ted Koppel started specifically to cover the hostage crisis. 

Our embassy had been overrun and we had Jimmy Carter in the White House. The most feckless president in our history until Joe Biden. The failed rescue operation. It was horrible and our generation knew democrats were bad then. 

Since that moment Iran became a force that promoted terror around the world to satisfy their warped islamic apocalyptic agenda. Before then they were very western. A strong ally. We had invested billions in Iran, their defense and we even trained their pilots where I worked! I knew one that couldn’t return home, Benny. He was really cool! 

He was given the death sentence if he ever returned to Iran. Many pilots were stranded. Benny became a mechanic and stayed. He died a while back but if he’s in Heaven, I think he’d be pretty happy that that same regime is falling right now. 

It’s amazing! It’s like watching the Berlin Wall fall right now but in the Middle East. 

It’s historic and it’s because we elected and God rose to power Donald J. Trump. 

Venezuelan oil ran the economies of Cuba, Russia, Iran, and China. Now with one amazing operation that arrested Nicolas Maduro, Trump enforced the Monroe Doctrine and put the brakes on a major oil supply to evil and shifted it to us. 

Russia is panicking, Iran is falling, Cuba has no money or oil now. Could you imagine if Cuba, Iran, and Russia wound up as allies somehow after all of this???

Yes. That is a real possibility right now. 

Finally, It's All Out There!

Since 2016 if you follow politics as I do, you know about the Russia Russia Russia hoax. Today, after all of these years everything has been investigated and declassified and the reports were released by DNI Tulsi Gabbard. 

President Barack Obama himself was behind the Russia hoax to overturn the 2016 election results. In effect Obama tried to commit a coup by directing the entire thing. Keep Trump out of office and put Hillary in office. Maintain all the corruption, all the shady deals, all of it. 

President Barack Obama tried to overthrow the government.

President Donald J. Trump exposed it. We were milimeters from a Kamala Harris regime and this would have never happened. Everything would have been swept away forever as Obama's fourth term would have begun in earnest. 

Wow, I never thought I'd see the day where the Obamas and Clintons would face any kind of justice this side of death. This is truly a momentous day!!!

Thank you President Trump for exposing these traitors, let justice be done though the heavens may fall. 

New Year Notes

 This year has been kind of a transition style of year I think. Stressful no doubt, uncomfortable was a big definitely. If anything I desire my routines now at my seasoned age. I like to know my purpose day in and day out. I've learned that if you can't find your purpose or lose your purpose, you can drift and become detached. 

Maybe too detatched sometimes. It's not a good place to be. A purpose helps keep you focused and alive. 

It's time for some yearly reflection I suppose. 

I've been at the school this week working on the process to making our fundraising coins. It's easier to do without the students around and I can just be in the Foundry all day and work on stuff and experiment. 

If you'll recall the plan, change the way schools are doing their fundraising and putting more power into the hands of the schools and making it mean more to the community as a whole. Well since all of the equipment showed up late, well after school started, I've had to go into teaching this as we go but I haven't had time to work out everything with the lost cast process.

You have to go off of flask size, which brand of investment you've got, mix ratios, burnout times. But this week has been really helpful for that! Had my first test pour Tuesday (didn't work yesterday) and it was a spectacular failure!

Also a valuable lesson! I put the hot flask into the Kaya Cast and wouldn't you know it, my investment was very light on one corner where the top of the coin was and it broke out when I turned on the vacuum. 

But I didn't know that at the time and poured the bronze right through it! Sort of, most of it caught but part of it followed the broken cracked area and into the bottom of the machine. 

Today I made another cast but this time with a shorter sprue to allow for more investment. The challenge coin sets deeper into the flask so it should produce a perfect coin, I'll but it out tomorrow and pour it! 

So...My Job

 After several false starts, misunderstandings, a serious miscalculation my new project has begun!

So to recap, I'm not called to be a teacher. It's not in me but it's my new project right and I'm determined to change the way we do fundraisers and combine it with an educational course. Altogether the district invested just over ten thousand dollars into my vision.

We have 13 new Anycubic printers to pair with the 4 printers from last year and one casualty of the school year last year. A Kaya Cast vacuum pump, smelter, and a kiln on backorder. You guessed it! We are going to create our own fundraising things.

The students start learning 3d modeling software. We advance to the 3d printer stage, in The Foundry (my rebrand from the Fablab) where we learn to use the Kaya and how to vacuum cast our own medallions and such! We will be able to work with the teacher directly or administration or district directly and custom create any project they can come up with and market it. 

Right now you have things like chocolate where you have kids that don't want to do it and hand it off to parents that dread it and bring it to angry coworkers that also might have to bring in their kid's fundraiser so they buy your kid's fundraiser. 

Why not have a student create a coin for example, could be a special ring, athletic medals, etc. with the teacher/coach/administration wanting the fundraiser? 

We can presale the coin, create that many to fulfill the orders, no wasted products, the kid gets a cut of the proceeds for the design, the school benefits on something that might cost us $2.00 at most to create if we make ten at a time. The fundraisee gets a brand new handmade by the fundraiser itself with 100% of the proceeds going directly back to the school. Make it a new tradition. Just one of at least a dozen ways off the top of my head we can use this for the school's and student's benefit! Eventually expand it to each of the other area schools. 

I'm sure there will be red tape and such but that's the ultimate plan for my Foundry. I can also say this has been exhausting. It's drained me, physically and emotionally and I drag myself home every night and can barely move for a while. Then I don't want to think for a while longer. Some of these kids have some solid futures ahead and some, I'm worried about. Phones have eaten their brains in schools. They have to be banned, there's no other way around it. 

Once the kiln arrives, at whatever future date that is, I'll get things organized and put where it's going to live! So things are out and not put up yet so a little chaotic there, kind of when you move and you're putting things around and organizing like that. It was all to be put together and tested before school started and you are up to date and we are several weeks into school with October next week and the breaks begin. 

They believed in that plan and have been nothing but supportive during this whole building process and all of the setbacks and unforeseens. It's a challenge and it's my new project. I don't know where it'll lead to but I know the growing pains have been intense! And again, it's exhausting but in a better way and leading somewhere! 

I just have nothing left after work, I mean nothing but when we get it completed and bug free, it'll be worth it!

The Revolution Started The Other Day

It was a few minutes after 6 p.m. Saturday and I had just come back from a delivery at Pizza Hut (yes, I drive for Pizza Hut and I also have one of the coolest jobs ever right now, I'll get into that in a minute) and my buddy from Nashville that I drove Spark delivery with before I tripped into being a teacher, had a crowd around him watching his phone. 

Trump had been grazed by an assassin's bullet, and then I saw the footage of the raised fist! 

And the mainstream media yawned because he lived. Let that sink in. No matter how much you hate them, it's not enough, not sure who said it, but that is the summation of the Uniparty. Just like the Cold War brought down the USSR, I believe the Uniparty's days are numbered. 

There's a groundswell of genuine change out there. It's been a lifetime of change but I mean, this feels like it's finally time for genuine change. There used to be civility in disagreement but it changed little by little, just like the proverbial boiled frog, the watertight corpse is now floating at the top of the churning water. 

How's that analogy? Try this one...

The left was more subtle in the day, moderate by any standard. But like those that become addicted to power, give them a fraction of an inch and they'll take over your culture and drive your country to ruin to maintain power. Do your own research, it's in front of you. 

The corrupt Uniparty is a combination of politicians, lobbyists, and media narratives directed by the Uniparty. It's orchestrated chaos for the most part. Push a narrative, create a crisis (sometimes they flop like the gas stoves, remember that climate narrative?) and that drives ad revenue. Ad revenue creates profit all around for everyone including dimocrat and RINO politicians who are always the roadblocks. 

It's changing now, the big money events like pride, the BLM riots, Antifa, Ukraine, and the IDF/hamas war. All of it became possible when President Eisenhower said, "Beware the military-industrial complex, when war became profitable, there will be more of it and we saw the cost of the last 20+ years, a disastrous withdrawal, and going to paying the taliban tens of millions per week of money we don't have. That is beyond disgraceful and I would hope that sometime in the past if real journalism had any integrity, they would do something about this and make it mean something. 

Make the sacrifice of these men and women who bear a weight so heavy we should be grateful we will never know the nightmares they have, make that mean something Uniparty. 

Saturday night we almost woke up to a different country and they should be on their knees, thanking Christ, the Sovereign God, and His Divine Providence that bullet missed. I don't think a lot of people would have slept that night and a lot of men that wanted to be left alone spoke up. The country would have been forced to change that night and even today things would be very fluid and events happening right now that I never thought we'd see. I never ever thought the people would finally catch on like they have. 

There is real change happening right now and I don't feel like I'm in the political minority anymore. The Uniparty has a real problem right now, they've finally added the final straw! Something about metaphors tonight, hhhmmm. They forced people too far to keep power by importing tens of millions of illegals to wreak havoc in the country, overload the system for votes, and finally kill the two-party political system ending our constitutional republic once and for all. 

Saturday changed things. I'm a taxi driver this summer with a well-established company here in town. Every passenger with whom I talk (some don't want to talk and I'm good with that too) tells me the same story. They can't make it anymore on what they are earning. Most of them have two jobs, and some like me have three (but for different reasons) they need all the money they can get, and I have the extreme luxury of boredom. 

Damn, just typing that out makes me think right now we don't need to Make America Great Again, we need to rescue America first. There are so many different factors but here is what the American Dream should be, live on one income with enough for a house, food, 2.7 kids, and various household pets over a lifetime with the freedom to go further and dream bigger all you want. 

That'll never happen again, but what can happen is all of the costs that artificially keep costs high like fictitious carbon taxes, the full stop on domestic production in our own very rich energy fields, unlimited funding for wars that don't concern us and are inching us closer to a very real nuclear exchange type of danger,  the destruction of the dollar through vast interest payments and the end of the world reserve currency status our economy will collapse. It's inevitable now and it won't matter who is in office when it does. 

(What matters is how you are prepared for it. Insulate yourselves by protecting your food supply, water supply, and freedom supply. Know your neighbors, have a plan so everyone helps everyone, remember The Twilight Zone episode The Shelter and you'll understand. Show them if they don't and then show them your arsenal in your safe. You don't have to show them how much ammo you have, they can assume that part. But offer them a solution instead just in case!)

If The Uniparty will try and change out Biden next, he just tested positive for covid today. As if that isn't a HUGE Red Flag waving over D.C. of something incoming. The Republican Convention has few RINOs this year, very few! That's the best news ever! More and more people are finally waking up to the real enemies:) They are living really hard lives right now and they know they don't have to, they know it's deliberate, they know it's cruel, and they know who's responsible. 

Patriots have finally been heard politically and the Revolution started a few days ago. 

It's a long progression and I don't want to go through it, I'm sure I was talking about it in this blog somewhere. I'm pretty consistent in my beliefs and when they change and evolve, I am sure I wrote that too, and this blog is over 20 years old and hopefully the culminating events of my political beliefs are on the horizon! A complete victory for my brand of conservative/libertarianism. 

(And yes, being a small-town taxi driver is pretty cool, I get to drive around town, listening to audibles (currently listening to the Convergence series by Craig Alanson, Ron Chernow's Grant and U.S. Grant's autobiography at the same time or chatting with the clients if they want, it's also an excellent fallback job if this teaching gig doesn't work out)

Vacation Time!

 Yesterday was a 1/3rd day really. Had to get some signatures, close my classrooms, get things squared away for the summer. While I have plans on creating a brand new classroom out of it and get new equipment and all. It's going to be amazing! It'll be a model program by the time I'm done! 

I've never had so much time off, this is like having a part time job with full time pay and benefits. Yes, I've got a meeting scheduled for Monday morning to get enrolled into two required classes so I can get a certification. I need to stay there five years to be vested in the pension. I need to get a certification in three. So...keep the good paying part time gig that I'm kinda allowed to create on my own or do something else. 

Monday morning is my first official day of vacation until early August. By June 1st I'll have four paychecks and five by June 20th. Crazy how the pay thing works but what it gives me is a ton of freedom. Yeah, I suck at budgeting but I am still a Spark driver and I could really do pretty well with three incomes. With it being option or whenever I want to, if I want to get something, pay something off, I can drive. Accomplish that goal, go home! This is a pretty nice place to be, it's a weird feeling. 

So Summer list of things to do. Raise twenty five thousand dollars to make a new classroom, new equipment, shop stock, and teach some skills that will let the kids make some extra money or a full time career if they put in the effort.  I mean what's the point of education if you can't apply it to making a living? See? I'm being all grumbly about going back to school for two classes but I know it's for the best because it'll directly effect my earning capacity right now. 

Second, maybe start learning Spanish while I'm driving. It would come in handy at school. But I really enjoy listening to Audible books, I am actually looking forward to that part of driving. I'm listening to two U.S. Grant biographies right now. First his personal memoirs, written while battling cancer and edited by Samuel Langhorn Clemens or Mark Twain. It's a masterpiece of literature. The other is Grant by Ron Chernow.

It paints a picture of a man that struggled with many things and was really pretty average throughout most of his life. He failed in many of his endeavors which he always hoped for a financial windfall so he could afford to move his wife and children to the west coast. 

What was to be one of the best events of his life that sat all of the other events in motion to happen that made him General U.S. Grant was disguised as one of the worst. I find myself identifying with him in many ways. He likely was one of the greatest presidents ever but had faults as many men do. He was the right man at the right time in history and our country was held together because of his actions. 

Yeah, I enjoy listening to novels and stuff while driving and this time there won't be any pressure on me to make a certain amout each day anymore. I can start driving and putting into my personal classroom fund for the overhaul and earn Play Money or Pay Things Off Fast Money, whatever I want...which will probably be Living on Money by the time late September rolls around. I know me. 

Coming Around to My Way of Thinking

 I think my daughters read my blog sometimes, I'm not sure. But I want to tell every one of you out there in Readerland (I always liked that old euphemism, or the like) that this is the exact same thing I would tell them in private as here and to you. This conversation between Dave Smith and Tucker Carlson articulates very clearly what my political beliefs have evolved to and as I've documented over the past however many years this blog has gone on now. 

I mentioned a feeling of something is coming. Something big but I couldn't put my finger on it but I was going to prepare for it. I'll have the freeze dryer within about six weeks now and I'll be able to prepare myself, friends, neighbors, and anyone that'll want or need help. Here is what is coming, the event or events that will make the citizens awake to the fact that every politician is corrupt. We are the pawns of the Uniparty, their personal tax generating machines and it's actually our system. 

We don't like how they are running our system anymore. So whatever event that is that makes citizens martyrs and patriots and decides that the governed is no longer consenting, that is what is coming. I don't know what it is, it could be tomorrow or twenty years from now. But what I know and am preparing for is to insulate as many people as possible from the DC madness. Being self reliant is excellent insulation. 

The more rural the better, the more survival skills the better. Have access to fresh water and a food supply, the rest is comfort. 

Now the conversation. I agree with a lot of it. I do point out that hindsight is really easy and this conversation takes out a lot of societal shifts of that time that lead to how we currently are now. Context is always important and there were a myriad of reasons for everything but the fact remains is simply this.

Don't rely on anyone else if possible, take care of those you can, do your best for everyone else. Be authentic, that's the shift people. We are seeing through the lies you are seeing all day long and disconnecting from that will be essential someday. 

I hope nothing ever happens and I find a way to enjoy a second retirement and so do my great great great grandkids. They get the fun stable childhood I had, people around the world can enjoy the same promised freedoms as our Constitution guarantees, and we all wake up. There's no one coming to our rescue if we fall. They will only dance on our graves. Yes I know this is kind of dark and I apologize but just have a plan. Please. 

Last Week

 It seems the past few years my life has revolved around some kind of countdown. From when Thing 2 was in Japan, and then Korea. The countdown to finish college and grad school. The big one which was the big retirement countdown! Now the last day of school in which the entire school year is a countdown to one thing or another be it Fall Break, Spring Break, or the last day of school.

Yeah, I'm 90% sure I'm going to try over the next 2-3 years and get a teaching certificate. I have to take two courses then pass an OSAT test on Art of all things. Like I know art....I know some kinds of art like painting things from jets to models I print and paint. That's not the type of art they want me to know about. They are talking more about the history of art, techniques, styles, etc. 

Yeah, all the stuff I don't know and most people don't. Which is why you go to college to learn this stuff. 

Some studying and I should be able to pass it, I tend to test pretty well. 

After school is out I won't have to go back until sometime in August. However, that's not the plan. The plan is to take everything in the lab that can be moved into the hall and thrown away or sold and get good equipment for resin printing. I've been excited about introducing a logical next step to 3D printing and that's jewelry making. I want the students to be able to make their own class rings or at least teach them the skills so they can do it on their own someday and make their own side money with them. 

I'm all about empowering the kids to make a living with the skills they can learn. Right now I'm tired. The other teachers told me that you'll be worn out by the end of the year and especially the last week. I didn't believe them, it's not been a physically demanding job but it is a job and it takes patience, attention, and lots of keeping track of things. 

Five Weeks Left

 I've never had a job where I get this much time off work. It's crazy! 

I even earned 2 flex days by going to this mandatory waste of time training a while back. I haven't taken a day off yet, there's no need. I got so much time off and I'm about to get about two and a half months off!

This job is really pretty good! My mentors tell me the first three years is the hardest while you get things figured out. I think I've got a good handle on it now, I try to keep my classes relaxed and student driven with my direction. That's the goal next year! 

I need between 12-15 Anycubic Photon Mono M5s Pro printers, PCs to design on, a couple of large wash stations, and we are rolling! I want to add a lost casting system to the advanced program and I want to make it for juniors and seniors only so they can make their own class rings and such if their family doesn't have the money for it. 

Then...well I can't imagine another high school doing that. I'm the first to tell people I got no clue how to teach BUT I am really good at making a living and relaying those skill to the students. I am dead set on teaching them how to take these very simple skills, add in some creativity, and how that translates into earning extra money for themselves and something that can be scaled to making a full scale living for their family. 

Outside of Vo-Tech courses, show me one that can do that in the public school system...

I have a program that can legitimately support itself and contribute financially to other programs in the school when it's fully implemented. No one likes the stupid chocolate fundraisers with unmotivated kids, parents that bring it to work, and all of that for less than 50% of what you sell. Forget that. I can do better and this summer I'm going to get this program built. 

I'm going to clean out the whole room, streamline it, organize it, and this program is going to soar next year!

I've Always Felt It

It's strange to feel too. The strange deja vu from time to time. The vivid dreams that fill my nights and give me endless amounts of insomnia. The feeling of something coming. Something in the future that isn't here yet but is unrelenting in its travel and destination. 

Perhaps it's an extension of 80's Cold War paranoia preparation culture but it's real. Not just for me either. I firmly believe that there is a great many people that feel the same, something is coming because our country and culture cannot survive living like this. 

Our corrupt politicians have bankrupted the country for personal gain. It's Super Bowl Sunday right now, the Chiefs and the Niners are going to kick off soon and the country will watch. This distraction will keep America entertained while the world burns. Normally I'd be watching right along and enjoying the event. 

I can't. I've got a purpose. I've got to prepare. I want you to prepare.

Here's how. 

Food preservation. We can't do much about gas, water, or electric but we can concentrate on food for survival. If you have a garden, you're ahead of the game. The past couple of years I've seen up close and personally how fragile our supply chain is. I've shopped or delivered over 2500 runs for Spark. The pandemic changed everything. Now just the hint of bad weather will fill the stores with shoppers trying to provide for their families because they are unprepared. Our food supply is perilous, don't bet your future on it.

I don't want that for my family or friends. I want us to be prepared. I want YOU to be prepared as well.

Learn about bushcraft. Learn basic mechanical skills. I don't expect you to rebuild a 350 but knowing you can will benefit you. Learn to shoot, learn to shoot accurately in any condition. Learn to handle a knife, an axe, anything you think may help you later on.

Buy a freeze dryer. You can buy freeze dried meals already but the cost of a new or used freeze dryer will pay for itself in a very short amount of time. There is plenty of price comparisons out there to judge for yourself. Get to know your neighbors, help them prepare too. Tell your friends, family, anyone you don't want to see starving in a few years. 

Food is sky high now, wait a couple more years when the climate change terrorists clamp a stranglehold on food production because of co2 or anything else they say will be a problem. If that living cadaver John Kerry gets his way or that idiot Greta that dropped out of school instead of actually learning science and stuff then they firmly believe that the planet is over populated. And guess what? You are not the elite they intend to protect and save. 

Good food will be expensive or scarce. If the climate crazies get their way, and they might, it could be a luxury eventually. Be at the mercy of events outside your control or prepare yourself. I live in a state that every 5-10 years we get a storm that will take our power out for a day or more from damage. I plan on going on several solo camping trips and a supply of freeze dried foods take up little space and have little weight. 

Start freeze drying soups, meats, vegetables, fruits. Learn about it, it's affordable now to get a freeze dryer in your home now. One company called Harvest Right. Look into them. YouTube is your friend for research on this. Figure out your own system to helping your family and friends. Maybe every couple of weeks full day of food prep with everyone together and then again for the storage preparation. It can be a fun event, you are investing in your future wellbeing. 

This isn't politics, this isn't liberal vs. conservative. More realistically this is the ruling class elites vs. you and your family.

What are you going to do?

For me and mine, I just told you. 

Happy 2024!

 So this post is about religion. If you don't want to know about what I believe or will be offended by the talk of Christ, punch out now. Come back when you need to know peace, this post will be here. 

I've been a Christian for as long as I can remember. Literally Sunday School at a small Baptist church in Hutchinsion, Kansas to moving to Missouri so dad could go to Southwest Baptist University and going to Mount Olive Baptist Church with our neighbors and even pastor lived across the alley for a while. Got baptized in the Pomme DeTerre river. It was cold. 

Always believed I was saved after that, said a prayer, did the baptism. Then life happens and things happen and you wonder if you're saved like you thought. You maybe get worried about it and say your prayer again just to be sure. You proceed about your life always knowing you've got that Ace card! No matter what, you're good! Look how good you are! You and your good deeds for all to see! If nothing else you can fake your way into salvation. And yes, you do need salvation. You do need repentance, and if you're asking, "who me?" Probably after you hear what I have to say or better yet have better men than I tell you themselves. 

I believe in the Jonathan Edwards' version of an angry God hanging by a thread of His Mercy. When you understand repentance, you understand what that means and you are driven to your knees by one question only, "Why Me, Lord?" That's it, your life is different from that point on. When you understand what repentance is and that it's not saying a prayer once when you were 9, that's when your life is different. You won't understand how, and your journey might take a very long time as mine has to reach this level of understanding. Thanks in large part to lots of time in the parking lots waiting on orders. 

One of my absolute favorite theologians is Dr. R.C. Sproul. His teaching genius is that he can relay incredibly complex topics in terms anyone can understand and give the reasons how and why while asking what you're thinking while you're thinking it. 

This is reformed theology by the best teacher in my lifetime. Dr. R.C. Sproul. 

This is far harsher. This is Dr. John MacArthur and on the universal question, "If God exists, why is there suffering!"

Dr. Voddie Baucham inspires me. This is his sermon entitled, "The Politically Incorrect Guide to God's War on the Wicked."

Paul Washer is the most intense pastor I've ever heard. He's nothing but the Gospel, it consumes him. Christ and nothing but Christ for him. Mr. Washer has many many incredibly powerful sermons and he does not play nice. If you are a fake Christian, trusting in something you may have silently muttered once and living like hell on earth, you are in for a reckoning if you listen to this sermon. He's famous for being very blunt and straightforward and this is the intensity of what the world needs right now for a true world wide repentance. 

I never know when my last day will be, neither will you. We don't know when that last heartbeat is coming through illness or accident or catastrophe. I never know when the last time it is to tell you I love you, so be prepared to hear it. When I'm gone, many decades from now I'm sure but I don't know, don't be sorry. Don't be sad. Know I'm with family that I know will be there. I'm with many amazing saints and theologians. I'm in a very good place and I hope you will find repentance. 

I did so many stupid things after my divorce. I lived it up and it wore me down. I felt empty still. I've documented for years life at my job and how it became a way of life. I've documented many many things about me that may be of help to someone someday. 

When you truly understand what Grace is, how unworthy we are of it, and how it's freely given. Then you will understand how this right here is where I'll be. This is prehaps the most uplifting sermon I've ever seen about how great it is to be a Christian. Dr. Derek Thomas goes into great detail on if there's dogs in Heaven. 

Look, if nothing else understand this parable from Jesus from the Gospel of Luke: 

The Rich Man and Lazarus

19 “There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and lived in luxury every day. 20 At his gate was laid a beggar named Lazarus, covered with sores 21 and longing to eat what fell from the rich man’s table. Even the dogs came and licked his sores.

22 “The time came when the beggar died and the angels carried him to Abraham’s side. The rich man also died and was buried. 23 In Hades, where he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far away, with Lazarus by his side. 24 So he called to him, ‘Father Abraham, have pity on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in agony in this fire.’

25 “But Abraham replied, ‘Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, while Lazarus received bad things, but now he is comforted here and you are in agony. 26 And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been set in place, so that those who want to go from here to you cannot, nor can anyone cross over from there to us.’

27 “He answered, ‘Then I beg you, father, send Lazarus to my family, 28 for I have five brothers. Let him warn them, so that they will not also come to this place of torment.’

29 “Abraham replied, ‘They have Moses and the Prophets; let them listen to them.’

30 “‘No, father Abraham,’ he said, ‘but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.’

31 “He said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.’”

I want to see you there and I love you so much, whoever is reading this. I don't want you to be in God's Wrath in unrepentant sin and yes it is God's Wrath. 

Let's see what 2024 brings, shall we?

The Death Dealer and 2023

 This will be my year end reflection. My final project of 2023 is The Death Dealer from Frank Frazetta. I'm putting the story of why I like it and why I painted it the way I have in the description so you don't have to reread it here. It marks an end of a turbulent year in the world and I am glad it's leaving. 

So 2023 started off as a real chance to put the pandemic behind us and get on with our normal lives again. I had applied for plenty of jobs and got a handful of interviews. Nothing much to speak of but I was doing ok driving and trying to find myself again without the base anymore. Without knowing it I had become institutionalized where I came to depend on the place. It became engrained in me and a way of life.

Getting over that was hard. It took a lot of time to get over and to even understand what was happening. I was driving every day and making the ends but not gaining anywhere. I was ok with that though, I had a comfortable life. Drive in the morning, hobby until bed. Enjoy being free. 

I went to the Christmas party and my shop wasn't my shop anymore. The office where I spent the majority of my adult working life was gone. Just space now, the decal room is now the office. The shop looks horrible now overall it's meh, not the same feeling. The whole vibe was different, uninviting, colder. The whole building was different but it kept me from being overly nostalgic about the place. Talking to all my buddies again was great and confirmed I made the right decision. 

Then August came around. An event that changed my life and turns out was pretty good now. It was a very rocky start though, I told the stories of how I was going to walk anytime I felt it wasn't working. Well those days are over, I feel invested in my job now. I enjoy it on a few levels too. 

I've been doing things the way I know how to do, deconstruct it, look at it from a few different angles, put it back together and get rid of the spare parts. 

That's what I've done and I've found ways to get the students interested in learning this tech to make a living at things. I mean it is school right? We all get educated in some capacity to wind up in the supply chain at some point from a producer to a consumer, we all share this in the workforce. The more education, the theory goes, the better place you have in the supply chain. 

So why not get the students learning how to make something with their own imagination and profit from it? I mean it's kind of my class and I'm in charge of teaching what I think needs to be taught within the bounds of school policy. So that gave me a mission to figure out how to do it for this second semester and keep it within school policy. 

Goodbye 2023, hello 2024, let's do better huh?

You can check out my painting video of The Death Dealer here on my channel, RetJetPainter. 

Rest In Peace Scotty

 From a kitten to dying peacefully, Scotty lived here his entire life and died this morning at 14.

He was a good boy, loved by his family and gave back more love than he needed.

My 2,800th post is in honor of Scotty. Rest in Peace Scotty.

Do pets go to Heaven?

There is a wonderful sermon by Derek Thomas from the Ligonier conference in which he addresses this.

https://youtu.be/qBgeJKyxhvA?si=I42yW9I0dpL_BDzc

One of the best I’ve heard and has so much love and grace in this sermon.

First Nine Weeks

 I'm on fall break. Last week was the end of the first nine weeks and we had our first parent-teacher conferences. I had a handful of people, mostly the kids that have parents that are involved in their kids' lives. I was told I'd rarely get to see a kid that needs it. 

So last weekend the world woke up on the doorstep of World War 3 as Hamas decided to attack Israel. It's a mess over there. A lot of YouTube channels are going full-blown PreTrib Millenial out there. All kinds of Bible prophecies are quoted. It's crazy. 

I'm not dogmatic about it. I tend to believe in a Partial Preterist view that says most of the prophecies in scripture were talking about the end of an age that was punctuated by the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple by the Romans. 

Who knows what will happen but it's scary. We've got two carrier groups over there now, rumors about Iran and if they will or won't enter the conflict. Give the Dimocrats the reigns and boom! Wars, rumors of wars, destruction, inflation, and the elites prosper as they drive our country into financing one war and threatening another. 

They won't be happy until they've wrecked every vestige of a once great country. 

Day One

 Yesterday was payday. That was really the start of an official day one for this new encore career. 

It put things into perspective. Clarified the pathway I suppose. I got things paid up and on the first it's pension day! So I'll be in great shape for the foreseeable future. Like did a Dave Ramsay projection and down to living on my pension alone and be comfortable. And that's with an extra $500 kicked into retirement every month and driving when I want to. Which is pretty nice. I can count on about 100 every time I go out.

How cool is that?

I kind of played a cool card with a few of the kids today. I impressed a few with my knowledge of anime. Then I topped that with Thing 2's foreign exchange experience and her love of anime too. It's only because I promised Thing 1 that I wouldn't play the My Oldest Daughter is a badass roadie and does set changes at festivals! She's loving her life as much as any 29 year old would!

How cool is that, that me, just this average guy trying to keep my head above water most of his life has been this amazingly blessed as I've documented over the course of these 20+ years. 

My First Week

 I've learned sometimes things are the same even though you're in a different career. I've had a lot of ridiculous professional development-style classes before school even started. I'm not a rah-rah-rah kind of guy. In fact I needed that valuable time and if I had been hired a week before I'd have been able to learn that in my printing lab all but four printers don't work or need serious maintenance. 

So...that's how this started. 

It also has had only one small blip so far, a mild trouble maker kept pushing the wrong button. A brief loud voice later and he chilled out and then transferred out. Since then this job has been a fun job almost. I mean other than the ridiculous stuff I don't care about. 

I've got two classes making their own board games. I don't know how to teach what the other teacher was teaching. He just had a course set up to teach via YouTube. While it is a necessary and usually really efficient way to learn the basics, he kept it up with more and more of them on worthless projects the kids would have to leave at school ultimately.

Nahhhh son, That's not what I do. I got a damn master's degree because I liked the creative aspects of commercials and was interested in how certain types of stimulus triggers a buying response. Basically I broke down complex situations into simple bites. 

Bite one. Get rid of old curriculum after I figured out old boy there was lazy. His courses were designed for him to stay behind the desk. So that had to go. I wanted to see their progress and challenge what they were doing in an engaging way. 

So for the start of the class we are doing tutorials until they catch onto how Blender works. Then after that I am going to guide them into making things they want to make and then teaching them how to make it into a .stl file and we will print it and they can paint it. They will have two things out of this course. 

    Uuuuummm...(a) maybe? They'll have tangible proof they can make something.

    (b) They will be reminded all year long they can use the skill they are learning now and turn it into a marketable skill, in which they can create and sell their own works. Because I'll remind them. I want them to be able to learn something in high school that is only limited by their creativity but can be lucrative for them if they really work at it. 

Bite C. The Game Design course is my favorite course really. Teach it twice. I ditched the old "sit behind the desk" curriculum and made up my own. We are treating this like a business in the early stages. We will have a working prototype by end of semester and then play test, balance, and prepare for market in the second semester. And perhaps, yes we might be able to market it. To be figured out at a later date. This was the trouble maker's class and I had a hard time getting through to anyone but a few. Then boom, the clouds parted, the angels sang, and we had a really good time ever since! Everyone has bought in!

Basically because of the same situation as the design class. We are in reality making templates and developing skills to use and edit those templates into a proud creation of their own that they can market and maybe make some extra money off of or maybe invent a new genre of game altogether! I want them to be prepared for the workforce and maybe have a bit more opportunity in their lives. 

The print lab is a wreck. I've got 4 reliable printers. So I spent my entire year's budget on five brand new printers like I have. They are so simple so we will be able to focus on making stuff instead of failed prints. And that's about it. I got some wash stations and some resin and isopropyl alcohol. Whole budget is gone now for the year. 

But we'll have really good printers now and hopefully if any money comes in or is donated to the program or something I want to add in ten more. As old as this equipment is in the lab now, the new resin printers can cut that time a dozen times over for one print. So we won't need as many as the lab has. And then I really don't have a marketing idea for this class other than the same in the other two classes. Learn the technology and find a niche you can market. It's not rocket surgery. 

So to boil it down, so far if the year keeps going like this, I might return for a second year.

I'll keep you informed. 

The Most Unexpected Voice of the Common Man

 If you haven't heard of Oliver Anthony, you're missing out on the biggest earthquake in modern music. Two weeks ago Mr. Anthony put out a song called "The Rich Men North of Richmond" and it touched such a chord with everyone that works hard for a living.

He had five million views in four days. As of right now he's at eleven days and twenty-six million views. He went from one of us to the voice of us. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqSA-SY5Hro

This is the link to the most brilliant masterpiece of the working man since the "Take This Job and Shove It!" explosion of the 70's blue-collar era. This work is crazy, everything is upside down now. 

The government gives illegals better care than our own veterans. And they invite more. They are bent on destroying everything they can as fast as they can because a Uniparty is in power. The GOP is just Dimocrat Lite. They agree with everything the other party wants so who cares anymore. 

Mr. Oliver Anthony, I salute you sir! I pray for you and for His blessings as you've been chosen to deliver a message to us. This song brings people together! If you don't believe me, I invite you to check out any one of a thousand reaction videos to this modern anthem. I haven't seen a bad one yet! 

Love you my Brother in Christ! 

An Encore Career

A funny thing happened last week. A fellow gig driver that works for the school told me to apply for an opening that they just posted. It's for an art teaching job. Yeah, I know. Art, weird right? Especially considering my degrees are in marketing.

Well, then she told me it was for teaching 3D printing, which I happen to be pretty good at!

I thought, what the heck, I applied for the job around 8:30ish that night. At 11:32 that night I got an email from the principal asking me to come to the school at 10 the next morning to interview. It was the best interview I think I've had and pretty much walked out with the job even though they had another candidate to interview. 

I showed them my printing and painting work and they were impressed. I took a tour with the interview team and saw my classroom and 3D printing laboratory! I have an actual lab now! Who can say that? Now you all know I've never been a teacher as my life has been pretty mapped out over this blog. 

I'm nervous, I'm excited, I'm terrified, I'm anxious to get started. 

Yeah, I thought I was going to have a marketing job by now. Turns out Bidenomics isn't working for me. I've applied for over 300 jobs and I've had a total of 7 interviews and 2 of them were for DHS, which everyone told me I'd hate and I knew that going in.

As a gig driver, I've had a lot of fun and it's really the perfect job for enjoying my freedom from my first career. I've enjoyed the heck out of it, met a lot of great people, and helped a lot of people with their groceries that otherwise might not have been able to easily get them or at all. The gig has kept me the peace I was really needing and it's hard to explain past that alone unless you lived it. 

Well, gas has gone up a LOT, groceries have gone up a LOT, and our gig pay has decreased at the same time. It was harder and harder for me to make ends meet comfortably. With me not driving 7 days a week my driver friends won't be competing as much for orders. There will be at least 5 extra orders per day that I'm not taking that they can have now. It'll make their days a bit easier and they can earn a bit more.

I didn't write about this until today because it became official just a little bit ago. I've finished most of my paperwork and need to sign things in the morning.

I'm going to be a high school teacher. 

The Perfect Concert Album

 You long-time readers know that once in a while I'll write about something perfect. Cannot be improved upon, even in the smallest way. I wrote about the perfect trilogy called 30 Perfect Rounds describing the "Irish" Micky Ward and Arturo "Thunder" Gatti fights. You could argue that the Ali-Frazier trilogy was perfect but for me and my time and what I witnessed in real-time, you cannot touch Ward-Gatti.

Well, I found the perfect concert album. I must confess I only roughly knew of this man and to my shame dismissed him as a Bro-Country hack. It was out of my own ignorance as I did not do my homework on him even though what I had heard was really really good. Later I learned he was not played on the radio, if he was it was usually by request and even then it is iffy. 

He reminds me of Metallica. They were the best band on the planet years before they got airplay which came with their very first video which was introduced in their fourth studio album, "...And Justice For All." When One was released they started to explode in popularity and started gaining mainstream attention. Then the Black album and the rest is history.

This man is that. He's the absolute best artist on the planet right now. He's a lyrical genius, he's Hemmingway in how he can turn a simple phrase and make it deep and esoteric. He's from Oklahoma and he's pure Red Dirt. He's the antidote to Bro-Country that has infested the radio for going on twenty years. Instead of lake-side hijinks, he writes things that I can easily relate to as I grew up in a town that was maybe a bit smaller than Oologah in the 80s. I understand where this man is coming from, lived it too with my friends. 

He writes about heartbreak, loss, fun, triumph, and everything in between those four points. His albums are sparse, mostly him and his guitar only with the occasional bass drum or straining fiddle. He started to get noticed while he was in the Navy when he started posting original songs while dressed in his work greens. Before long he was getting millions of streams and after that, the Navy wanted to have a chat with him. Legend says he earned an Honorable Discharge and went on tour. 

Zach Bryan is the best new Country artist in the world right now as I said, there are some that are every bit as good as him but have been around a few years and have really grown as artists like Cody Jinks, Ray Wylie Hubbard (a legend that's been around for a very long time), groups like Whiskey Myers, all of them have heart and speak to my like Mr. Bryan's music does but he's different at the same time. When you hear him, you'll understand what I mean.

In November of last year, he played a concert at Red Rocks. With a snow storm and freezing cold as the backdrop, Zach Bryan along with the fans created the absolute perfect concert. I've seen the Stones, Metallica, GnR in their prime, and Elton John on his last tour and many many more. This is better than all of that combined to me. This show is the epitome of how an artist loves the people and the love they give back to the artist while on stage that is just amplified and given back into an infinite loop. This show is a love story between the two and the dance that unfolds over an hour and a half. 

It's an experience and it isn't diminished in the least tiny bit if you're unfamiliar with his art. If anything once you're familiar with his songs then this show gets better. I honestly don't have the words to accurately describe this other than it is perfect. I don't even want to run down the tracklist, if you haven't experienced it, I ask you to get relaxed, find a place where you won't be disturbed for a while, and enjoy this absolute masterpiece. You can stream it on any service or watch a stitched-together concert with fan footage timed up to the actual concert audio on YouTube.

31 Years Ago

 June 15, 1992. My first day at the job that would turn into a 30-year journey. A job I thought would last maybe five years. I survived numerous layoffs, and I was at the bottom of the totem pole several times in seniority. My buddy that was hired a few months after me, was laid off. He got transferred to another job and after a few years wound up back where he started. He's still there! 

We went through a lot out there together! Now I'm here and he's loving life there! All is good!

In two days Thing 2 turns 27! Amazing! 

I can tell you that being a parent is one of the most terrible experiences in the world, and one of the best. Thing 2 is visiting South Korea, her BF is stationed there. She's planning on moving to Japan in roughly a year to get her grad degree while her BF is there for two years. 

Loving your kids is wonderful and hurtful at the same time. You appreciate the time you get to spend with them as adults and long for them when you can't see them and spend time with them. You sacrifice, pray, hope, and cross your fingers that they have a better life than you, and when they succeed you can't be prouder of them! You hope you raised them to where they can be independent, and self-sufficient, and have equipped them with some skills that will benefit them as an adult. 

You shouldn't be shocked when they utilize those skills in living their lives but still, sometimes your heart and soul hurt when you aren't able to spend time with them and bond as adults. I always wanted a road trip with them, just the three of us driving to something (doesn't matter what) but the point was just to show them something you three want to see and experience.

Dreams tend to fade over time, ambitions lose their drive, and life moves on. New people come into your life, beloved people can disappear, and you make what you can with what you have. Childhood memories will fade but for some reason, some don't. Some things stick with you. 

People, situations, good and bad, everything changes over time. You grow up and you begin the task of putting your childhood behind you. Age takes its toll and my girls will go through what I'm going through. They'll become reflective and look back and what I or any parent hopes are the good times the family went through together. The journey begins again and then again, over and over as time keeps it's pace. 

That journey all started on this day, 31 years ago!