10 August 2025… beating will continue until morale improves

 I love the VA Healthcare. It helps me a lot. My wheelchair. My glasses. Almost everything is great and I would use them for a lot. 

That said there are things that are not great. It’s still socialized medicine. At times you can wait forever. My stepfather had to have a heart attack before he could get the surgery he needed. He was on a wait list. Yes there are wait times, and that’s normal. Still, having to have a heart attack so you can get the surgery you need. Hmmm.

That said I am not asking that everyone be given everything they want, every time the ask. But there should be a baseline. 

I went Thursday to see about the possibility of getting a new and different kind of walker. Not exactly a walker. The best way I can describe it simply is like an adult walker/stroller. Not a stroller. But something that supports your body weight and allows you to use your own leg muscles and power. 

I went to the VA Thursday. My appointment was all screwed up from the beginning. I signed in, in the area, they sent me to another area. They looked in the computer for maybe 20 minutes. Then the lady came for me. We went back to the area we started. They were trying to figure out why I’m there again. I just got a new wheelchair Wednesday.

 

I got very frustrated. I can be ugly angry when I’m frustrated, (part of the fun of a stroke). Plus I have zero confidence with theVA about some things. Finally they told me I might be able to see someone that day. I should have said I would come back another day. That calmed me down some. I was very grateful my wife was there. I was at least able to get a hug. 

I finally got to speak with a physical therapist. We spoke about the device I wanted. She seemed to have some sort of mental block. Maybe she was just a jerk. Thinking that the device I want is exactly like a walker. The device I want is not exactly like a walking because it helps support my body weight. I am not able to remember everything perfectly, but it seemed like she was doing everything she could to try and encourage me to choose something else. Very VA tactic. Socialized medicine.

 (Fight for the republic and everyone’s freedoms, then practically all your healthcare will be in one of the same forms you helped fight against.) 

I digress. 

So after she tries to convince me I don’t want what I want. She asks me if I’d like to walk. Sure. 

She goes gets a gait belt, another person. I’m left waiting for a few more minutes. 

She comes back puts the gait belt on me. And finally I stand up with the walker. Naturally, I’m slow now days. I make it about 10 feet and she is trying to get me to stop. I could have easily made it back to my wheelchair, but she demanded it be brought to me. 

I was pissed. I don’t walk every day. But this crazy woman would not even allow me to try. 

I let everyone there know I wasn’t happy and said I want a real physical therapy evaluation. Not just someone who will talk to me for 15 minutes and think they know everything. I have to be honest, that lady was put in an awful situation. I was upset already and she had no time to really prepare. 

So the VA is pretty good most of the time. Some cool people, some weird people, but good people.

 

That lady yesterday, I have a hard time thinking of all the bad things that should or could to be said to her. 

I try really hard to not think and say mean things about people. Right now, almost impossible. I hate it when people act like self imposed gatekeepers. Creating impossible scenarios. 

2 August 2025…… Im so dis…squirrel

A few things in my YouTube feed. I subscribe to lots of different channels but news and political commentary are what always come roaring back. 

Some of the topics in my feed right now are:

Alligator Alcatraz 

Manhattan shooter

Stories about revenge 

Problems people on the left have about beautiful women 

John Brennan on MSNBC

Scandals about Ilhan Omar ?

Lizard people 

Story about cheating spouses 

Jeffery Epstein 

Tai chi

New paternity fraud law

ABC News

Sanctuary City

Entitled people in court 

Woman gets roasted after divorce 

Jasmine Crockett

Temporary Protected Status 

Karmelo Anthony 

US/Canada relations 

Minnesota 

California scandals

Men who refuse to date

Late night talk shows

Interviews on the street

California exodus 

Royal family of England 

ICE

Stock market 

Bill Maher

Antifa

AOC

Tulsi Gabbard

Etc. 

ect. 

There is even more crap put in front of me every day. 

I personally want things about bladesmithing, bonsai trees, chilli peppers, maybe standup comedy. Some more legitimate news (whatever that means), learning Vietnamese. 

I have to many interests I guess. 

I still try to keep scripture studies in the mix. 

Then budgeting. 

I might need to start using my blog as my way to keep myself accountable for the things I really want to get done. 

I get caught up “in the thick of thin things.”

This life is so much pain at times. I wish it weren’t. But it is.

12 July 2025……if you don’t agree with me that’s ok. God still loves me.

Something I have noticed recently is some people trying to lump the Texas floods in Kerr county And comparing them to immigration situations in some way. 

The floods are a horrific, hopefully, once in a century occurrence. It is awful that so many people lost their lives. Trying to compare it to the immigration situation in the United States is a feat of mental acrobatics that defies my imagination. 

First if anyone is a legal immigrant, good for you. I helped my wife and her son with the process. To put it nicely, it sucks. Years of work and thousands of dollars later they have their green cards. Not my idea of a good time. That said everything was done. Legally. 

If someone hopped the fence so to speak, meaning than person or family or whatever is here in the United States illegally, then self deport or wait for ICE agents to come get you. If ICE agents come for you and you get sent to Alligator Alcatraz, sucks to be you, but basically you ask for it. 

So is Alligator Alcatraz comparable to flooding. Never in a million years. The floods are, as insurance companies like to say, an act of god. 

The Alligator Alcatraz is using an existing airfield, built in a swamp, that happens to have alligators. A detention facility is needed anyway. Use the natural environment to make safe for the public at large. If alligators were being transported in special, that’s different. 

We need to treat our brothers and sisters with respect. That said society is built on laws. Mercy can, and must be granted, individually. Justice can only exist in a society or large group of people. 

Another stupid thing is saying President Trumps children are not American citizens because their mothers were not American citizens at the time. The children have a father that was born in the US to people that were US citizens. 

The level of….I truly wonder how some people figure out how to breathe. 

22 June 2025….”it was the best of times, it was the worst of times.”

First I could be wrong about a lot of what a share here. I don’t think I am. I have thought prayed and analyzed it a lot. 

What I say is not doctrine, but from all my mental and spiritual work. I’m not off muuujjjjjj)k mbase. Think what you like. You can have your own opinion however wrong it my be. Not everyone’s opinion is wrong, only some. 

If you ask my opinion, Donald Trump is very much like a person who is mentioned in The Book of Mormon, Captain Moroni. 

Alma 48

“11 And Moroni was a strong and a mighty man; he was a man of a perfect understanding; yea, a man that did not delight in bloodshed; a man whose soul did joy in the liberty and the freedom of his country, and his brethren from bondage and slavery;

12 Yea, a man whose heart did swell with thanksgiving to his God, for the many privileges and blessings which he bestowed upon his people; a man who did labor exceedingly for the welfare and safety of his people.”

Some people probably recognize I left out the part about Moroni being “firm in the faith of Christ”.  I don’t know what Donald Trump believes.  During the past year he probably believes more than he used to. Still, like the rest of us, he hasn’t been translated or turned into a pillar of salt. We are all “brethren”. Men and women , brothers and sisters. Donald Trump is working for everyone, whither they like it or not. 

Why some people wanted his opponent in the election is beyond me.  I don’t think most of the political parties are anything more than names. Everything at present is Left or MAGA. “Republicans” haven’t existed since Eisenhower. “Democrats” since JFK. Everything until Donald Trump has been Theater. Cheap entertainment. So basically 60 years, we have been living though cheap entertainment. 

I would not dare call president Trump a “man of God” but I would say God is using him in some ways. Still, Donald Trump, like everyone, has his free will, capable of being human, making mistakes. 

I laugh when people say President Trump will create concentration camps. If there are ever any, I will deliver cookies to wherever is closest and send cookies by mail to anyone that asks. 

The “No Kings Day” was a joke. No Kings Day is July 4th. 

I saw a couple different posts about the No Kings March. One lady suggested that anyone that doesn’t think like her isn’t “Christian”. I wonder what kind of state of mind a person needs to be in to be so condescending. I wanted to copy the comment, but apparently her comments to my comments were deleted. Oh well. 

Another lady I know from high school, makes posts that are obviously against the president. Her right. What really confuses me is the fact that that if anyone says something she can’t refute or accept, she writes “there we are then.”  She can be as wrong as she likes, we all have that God given right. I will admit it is very frustrating. Humans, children of God have the capacity to think about how we think. ?? This person doesn’t live in a state that I would say has much common sense. So maybe that’s the reason. 

The one person, I think, lives in Utah/the Land of the Gadianton Robbers. Frankly I don’t care for Utah much anymore. To cold and to much snow. Utah Valley and the Salt Lake Valley plus up into Ogden, if you live there, you lost a bet. Second part, that bet was with God, you had no hope of winning. 

Going along with this I think of Mercy and Justice. My understanding is these two principles oppose each other. 

If you want to be perfectly Just, you cannot be perfectly Merciful, and vice versa. 

From my understanding, God the Father, was not able to be Perfectly Just and Perfectly Merciful by Himself. 

Jesus Christ paid the Justice to the Father. Now the Father can be perfectly Just and Merciful. 

Christ has been Perfectly Merciful. Now we must do what we can to pay Him back. 

We are capable of a lot as humans. Still, “Do not run faster or labor more than you have strength and means provided…but be diligent unto the end.” (Doctrine & Covenants 10:4)

This is not trying to be comprehensive. Just thoughts. 

(Temporary Backup) 11 June 2025

My life feels very busy right now. 

I had three graduations.

 My son from college.

 

The other son from high school. 

My step son from high school. 

Now we are trying to figure out summer plans. Not my idea of a good time. I just want to stay home most of the time. But to get my Veteran discount I need to be there. It’s not that I don’t want to go, but it can be so hard to do somethings once I’m there. 

That is why I am more of a homebody. 

The most exciting part of my life at times is the fact I grow chili peppers.

I was outside looking at what I have. 

A ghost pepper. 

Scorpion pepper. 

Tobacco pepper. 

Bird pepper. 

Then my wife wanted to grow okra. 

We have Swiss chard, a tomato, cucumber, and watermelon. Then I learned dill is good to keep the bugs away. Sorry I didn’t have pictures of everything. 

It’s a very mild summer for San Antonio, so far. Hope it’s not too much of a scorcher. 

24 May 2025

Please read to the end. 

I had a very interesting experience on facebook the past few days. 

The post and comments were a clear case of Oversimplification Fallacy.

 

I like things to be simple as much as the next person, but life is anything but simple. 

The constitution has its plan text, but it also has nearly 250 years of judicial interpretation, that destroy any hope of plain text interpretation. Plan text reading will not help anyone. We have to dig in to the text, the judicial interpretations, and then the retranslating into common English. Then some us, like myself need a school house rock version. 

I am not an attorney, but I like some legal stuff. 

I come from Vernal, Utah. The Dinosaur Capital of the World. I love many things about Vernal and the surrounding area. But most everyone that comes from there, myself included, are simple minded folk. There are lots of well educated people, but people from there don’t want needless complexity. Still in many ways it is a very isolated community. At one time it was the largest city(?)in the US without a train system running through it. As far as I know there is still no train system that goes there. 

 

I have had to work hard to understand certain concepts that my semi sheltered, Vernal upbringing didn’t offer. I had to learn that the world is a lot bigger and more complex than I ever realized or imagined. 

The comments of the Facebook post seemed to devolve in people telling me I was wrong because I didn’t understand the plain text of the constitution. The courts have interpreted it so much that you can’t stick with a plain text interpretation. 

The fifth amendment on the constitution website talking about who is and is not a “Person” in the US:

“The Supreme Court’s jurisprudence indicates that, although aliens present within the United States generally have due process protections, the extent of those constitutional protections may depend on certain factors, including whether the alien has been lawfully admitted or developed ties to the United States, and whether the alien has engaged in specified criminal activity. Therefore, even with regard to aliens present within the United States, the Court has sometimes deferred to Congress’s policy judgments that limit the ability of some classes of aliens to contest their detention or removal.”

 Or read the website if you like. 

https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/amdt5-6-2-3/ALDE_00013726/

I know I am usually not the smartest person in the room. That said I have more experience than I would ever want to admit. Certain aspects of this world are complex and messy and more difficult than we would like.   

Now that I have said that, each of us can be the smartest person in the room about something, butwe can choose to be meek. 

Meek is not weak. A Meek person can be the smartest person in the room. But the  Meek person does not go out of his or her way to prove that he or she is smarter about something. I need to remember that. 

For years I have had to just be quiet about all kinds of things. Lots of people think they are right about something. Certain things I know I am correct about. Unless it is a matter of life or death, I need to remember to be quiet. 

There are lots of things I don’t know, like the airspeed of an unladen swallow, and other more important things. So I can ask people that are smarter than me about certain issues. 

One thing I can understand well is mechanical issues. The most frustrating thing some days is knowing how something works but not being able to explain it to someone else and being physically incapable. For me, talking like everyone else is a challenge sometimes and movement can be excruciating.

 

There is so much I want to take part in but for various reasons I can’t. For example, I would love to help others move furniture at times, but I do an amazing job of getting in the way. Helping actually move things, not so much. 

That said I know a lot about certain subjects. I hate it when people don’t ask or pay attention at times. But it’s just easier to be quiet at times. 

I have to do better at being quiet and just being there. I know, I know a lot. So what. I don’t need to share my knowledge with everyone. In fact it’s better if we don’t at times. 

Meek? I’m probably not. I have to be reminded by life to much.