14 May 2024….dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb

One thing I can say is that I am glad that I already know English and I don’t have to learn it at this point in my life. 

That said, I am helping my wife study, some days we read and listen to general conference talks together. She will read some herself. 

As I have helped her study, I have made a decision. English is the most idiotic language.

I know Portuguese, kind of. I lived in Brazil 30 years ago. I decided to study Japanese. Both of those languages have the occasional oddity in words and spelling. English is just a giant goose egg.

 English; French, German, Japanese, Native American, Spanish, Latin, Anglosaxton, old Norse, I’m sure there are more. And people who speak English can rarely speak any other languages. 

Still we are trying. 

————

 This year is election year in the United States. 

This year it has two people that are less than stellar but president Biden has more against him than Donald Trump. 

If for no other reason than the Afghanistan debacle Joe Biden has no business being president. 

There are lots of reasons not to vote for Joe Biden. Hunter is not his father, but daddy condoning his obvious behavior. Hunter being a waste of skin is not entirely his fathers fault at this point in his life. I’m sure Joe Loves Hunter, but that is not the point. 

The United States deserves much better.

The members of the Biden cabinet are questionable at best. Some of the apologetics in congress are very questionable. 

Personally, I would like to see more political parties, at least five, fifty would be better, then all of the politicians would have to work together despite their differences. Then there would have to be co-operation. At this point in time I would say there should be a constitutional amendment that requires more political parties and endorses more. I want to see people working together.

While I hate the Biden administration and I think they are trying to destroy America, I see the chief rival President Trump, as not as bad, but a great deceiver. 

One reporter that I like, laid out a pretty convincing case as to why Donald Trump is becoming a politician. And I can say I have a very low opinion of politicians. 

This year is the year of the lesser of two evils that are running for president. The blind leading the stupid. 

Who’s blind. 

Who’s stupid. 

You choose. 

I pretty sure that the current president, Joe Biden, is incapable of a lot. 

President Trump is not a Republican. And lots of his stuff is lip service. That said I like most things on his website.

That said. I think during the last election some people said never Trump. But they never said who they want. This is so misguided it’s hard to begin. 

So you know what you don’t want. Great. 

Now the truly important question. What DO you want. 

Anyone can not want something. Fine. 

Does that mean the other choices offered are what you want.

30 April 2024…..happy birthday Dad.

Today is my Dads Birthday. He would have been 85. He was born in 1939. 

The drawing by my friend and Steve Kropp is kind of an amalgamation of photos in his later life. 

The photo is one of my favorite. In his younger years, college years and after, he had style that wouldn’t stop. 

My Dad died when he was 54. I was as young as my second son. And I got home from Brazil I was the age of my oldest son. Talk about a tramatic few years. My Dad died. Eighteen months later I got home from Brazil. I had times when 4:00 pm rolled around and I expected my Dad to walk in the back door after coming home from work. 

All that said. I knew my Dad died, and all the crying or wishful thinking was not going to bring him back. But, I learned very well before I left for Brazil and while I was in Brazil, cancer sucks.

 

But life goes on.  If you’re born you die. And life goes on for everyone else. 

My Dad didn’t want me to come back from Brazil for his last days or funeral. Plus I had pneumonia at the time. I was basically delusional at times. 

Still the day my Dad was born is more important than the day he died. By the way, he died sometime in August of 93. I don’t know what day. That is not nearly as important that he was born. The only time a death day is important is if the person was such a bastard that everyone was glad to see them go. Stalin or some others. 

My Dad was far from perfect. I can still remember things he said I really didn’t like, even thirty years + ago. But he was my Dad and he showed all of his children that he loved and cared a lot. 

My sister doesn’t agree with me that my our dad was a pretty awesome dad but when she was little he made her a very cute outfit. He could sew. That may be part of the reason I wanted to learn to sew. 

My siblings are probably tanted because they saw my Dad in the worst physical and mental condition. I wasn’t around during most of that time. 

Still happy birthday Dad. It was good, it was bad, it was ugly at times. Can’t say I would want to do any of it again. But we went through it and life is still awesome. 

29 January 2024…..thought

I was reading general conference talks and pondering.  

It would be very hard to convince me that Alma the younger or Paul had faith when they had their experiences.

 

The experience was to humble them.

 

Alma had to reach into his past memories. And it wasn’t fast. He said he was struggling for three days and three nights. 

Paul saw the light and heard the voice on the road to Damascus, but he was still blind for the three days after. Left with his own thoughts. Probably praying a lot. Required to contemplate the situation. 

It would take a lot to convince me that either one of them had faith. But they developed faith, some might say rather quickly. Instead of weeks or years it was days. 

They each had to have their weaknesses shown to them. And it happened in, what we may call, a very miraculous manner. But these are two examples that happened long ago, and how many billions of people have lived and died since then. 

We can have faith, but we need to have the desire. To have the desire we need be humble or we will most likely be humbled.

Is it possible that Alma or Paul could have rejected their experience. Maybe.

 

I want to write more but others have done better than I could. 

Acts 9 

Mosiah 27 

Alma 36

17 January 2024….it’s cold

Before I go on I love my new watch. Now other news. 

I have been watching the news. I really think that you need to watch every channel a little bit. So,MSNBC, FOX, CNN, then some other stuff. 

My decision is that if you watch the news you are nearly brain dead. One side is all Trump, TRUMP, TRUMP. The other side is all BIDEN, BIDEN, BIDEN. I say if you vote for either of them in the primaries, you need a tune up on your poor brain. Bless your heart. 

There are better choices out there. Vote for a doormat at this point and you would still be better off than the two candidates everyone is trying to shove down the public’s collective throats. 

Biden. I say is a no brainer why you would not vote for him. To much idiocy since the beginning of his administration. I really have a problem with the Afganastan  debacle. 

Trump. He would be better than Biden. Still, I’m not a fan of some of the things he did when he was president. Personally I see him as the most pragmatic president there has been in a long long time. You can disagree with me. I will still live. Was January 6th an attempted coup. Hardly, but think what you like. You are entitled to be as wrong as you want. 

I have little interest in politics, except as a spectator sport. Very rarely is anyone elected to a public office that is not trying to get something for themselves, especially at the federal level. 

State governments are ok. They should be more important than they are. 

Cities and school boards should be of more interest and importance. 

Each state should be more of its own kingdom. They should have more powers than the federal government. Except in the few things outlined in the constitution. Personally, I like mail so postal roads are awesome. 

The one thing I think is beyond ridiculous is the “anyone but Trump” crowd. I would say this is dumb because it says what you don’t want, but it doesn’t say what you want. While there are moments that something is not desirable. But whatever other choice you do have is less desirable. In politics we are always given the lesser of two evils, because God isn’t on the ballot.  

I’ve heard we need to choose only good people that are on the ballot, but what if we are down to the last two choices and neither is “good”. 

I could write more but, I have little faith in government of most kinds.

16 January 2024

My father was the ultimate window shopper.  

I like to think I’m ok. But every once in a while I do awesome. 

I like watches. I don’t know exactly why but they are a fun piece of jewelry, a fascinating piece of engineering and so much more.

 

So I look a lot for fun. And with websites I can look at  everything. Houses, cars, groceries, plants. There are so many different, fun things to go shopping for. 

Now, according to my father and I shopping does not mean buying. 

So with that in mind, I shop a lot.

 

I like looking at the Walmart app. I was looking at watches. The one was on sale.$32. 

I decided to get it as a birthday present to myself.

 

The watch finally got here. The price tag was still attached. $395. So window shopping saves lots of money.

11 October 2023….fun to think about once in awhile

I have my opinions about the Book of Mormon history. 

Most events took place in the northeast of the United States and southeast of Canada. 

The Gadianton robbers were in the Rocky Mountains mostly. The Lamanites lived in the southeast mainly east of the Mississippi River and from Tennesse south. 

Ultimately exactly where everything happened is of secondary importance.

I was watching Come Follow Up on BYU TV. During the program one lady said Alma the Younger might have been in his 40s when he had the experience with the sons of Mosiah and the angel appeared to them. That got me thinking about how old the people of that time period my have been

The only two people that are given ages at the time they died are Alma the Father, who died at 83 and King Mosiah, who died at 62. (Mosiah 29: 45-46)

Then Alma the younger disappeared 18 years later. 

Alma the younger’s son, Heleman, died 17 years later. 

The son’s of Mosiah went on their missions for 14 years and then not much is ever hearer from them again. 

If you assume Alma the Father, Alma the younger, King Mosiah, and the sons of King Mosiah were born, with somewhat “traditional” spacing, Alma the younger was closer to the age of King Mosiah than the sons of King Mosiah. 

But if we assume that Alma the younger was almost the same age as the oldest son of King Mosiah that would assume his father, Alma the Elder, was about 45 when his son, Alma the Younger ,was born, and Alma the Younger was about 50 when he disappeared. Alma’s son, Helaman who is most famous because of the stripling warriors, died when he was about 45.

Possibly

Personally I really think the ages of everyone does not matter as much as the fact that we have their teachings

That said I like the idea that Alma the Younger was older, 40 maybe 50, because it can give me hope

If Alma the Father was born first, king Mosiah was born when Alma the father was about 20 years old. 

Then maybe Alma the Younger was born maybe five years later. 

 Maybe 15 or 20 years later the sons of Mosiah started coming and it could have been 4 to10 years for them to be born. 

By the time the sons of Mosiah started coming Alma the younger could have been 15 maybe 20 years old. 

If Alma the younger had his son Heleman when he, Alma the Younger, was 25, Helaman would have died when he was 65 or 70. Alma the younger would have disappeared at age 75 or 80. 

Is it possible?

Maybe. 

Alma the father and Alma the son would have had similar life spans, Helaman probably had a more stressful life because he was in the military and lived through a war. 

There are many other possibilities. 

The exact timeframe doesn’t really matter. We have their teachings and it can fun to think about the other stuff from time to time. 

Do I know where everything happened. No. I have my ideas. 

Ultimately it doesn’t really matter the exact lifespan of individuals. We have there teachings and we can learn about Jesus Christ. 

11 September 2023

So I’m not the biggest 9/11 fan. I have my own opinions about the whole day in 2001.

But  here we are 22 years later and I have seen almost nothing. 

Three posts on Facebook was all I saw in five minutes of scrolling. 

Was 9/11 an inside job or not. Doesn’t matter. It is a day to help remember our country, The United States of America. 

I’m afraid most people are more concerned about their entertainment in their lives than anything else