Stories and other stuff

Times are tough.  Want to know how tough?  The President is planning on preventing raises in pay for Federal employees of the US Government for two years. I mention this because it's part of a larger story.  Social Security hasn't had a cost-of-living adjustment for two years.  VA disability payments haven't increased either because the two are linked.  Interesting.  I remember President Clinton denying federal employees a raise one year in the early 1990's under authority he had.  If I remember the story right, it was because the country was in the red.  It was only a matter of time before this happened.  It affects me because I work for the Government. I haven't been talking about social issues lately.  I've been a little focused on the things happening in and around my life but I think this is important to discuss, and it may surprise you the position I'm going to take on this.  I agree. If we can't justify increasing fixed...

Today's blog is about writing my blog.  Sometimes when I start a story it just kind of takes a life of its own and turns out to be something I never intended it to be. I started out with a story about a Christmas tree and chances are it's a story you won't read.  A simple little story kind of turned into something I hadn't intended it to.  Rather than sharing it with you, the reader, I decided to just e-mail it to someone who I thought would appreciate the story.  For the rest of you, I'm sharing the story of what I came to realize at the end of the blog, which is this: For the first time in my adult life, the shoe is on the other foot.  Or to be more precise, I'm in the middle of walking a mile in someone else's shoes. To be precise precise, they're a pair of 7 1/2s. I've spent many a holiday away from home.  For years, I celebrated my birthday with my Guard family, not my real family.  I spent Christmas of 1990 in Saudi Arabia, which in itsel...

Good morning, gang. On Wednesday, I shared with you the story of the pumpkin.  This kind of picks up where that story left off and I thought it appropriate given the season. The radio message I referred to on Wednesday concluded on Friday and if you'd like to hear it, google "insight for living".  It's a message about God working the impossible and the theme is taken from where Jesus fed the five thousand with five loaves and two fish.  The message goes on to talk about how God works the impossible in our lives and I can tell you first hand that this is the absolute truth! Circumstances we find "impossible" are nothing for God.  I believe this and I strongly believe in the power of prayer!  There are too many instances of God working His plan for me not to believe, nor for me to not trust fully in Him.  In His time, in His way, things will work out according to His will. It was hard for me at first to trust God.  I talked of this before, I thin...

Well, I've put it off just about as long as I can.  I've wrestled with the decision.  It's cost me sleepless nights. I've been torn between what I want to do and what I guess I ought to do. I've been wrestling with the decision for weeks.  I know what the right thing to do is.  I want to do right, I suppose, in this circumstance, even though my heart isn't exactly in it.  What I want to do, I guess, isn't the thing I ought to do.  How many times in life have each of us faced those circumstances.  Prolonging the inevitable though has come at a cost.  I guess that's the way of the world, too... one of these days, I guess I'll learn the lesson. The signs are clear.  I can't put this decision off one more minute.  It's the day I have to decide... so there's nothing left to ponder, nothing left to think about.  The time has come! It's time to go out in the cold and hang the Christmas decorations on the front of the house!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone.

I slept in a little bit today.  Maybe it was the weather, but I just couldn't get going for some reason.  I finally got up about 9:00 this morning, had a cup of coffee and set out to start making the pumpkin pies. I found the pie plates and put the crusts in them.  Then it was off to the pantry to get the stuff to make the pies.  Sugar, check.  Spices, check.  Canned milk, check. Eggs, check. Pumpkin... um, where's the pumpkin?  I know we had a can because it was there the other day when I made sure I had the ingredients. I looked (and not just looked like a guy, I moved stuff!) and couldn't find it.  I hollered down to the mother-in-law and asked her if she moved it or something.  We looked everywhere and both of us will tell you, it just wasn't there.  Annoyed a little, I got dressed and headed to the grocery store to get another can of pumpkin. I mention from time to time, that my tastes in radio have changed a bit over the last...

WOW!  A blizzard.  I can't remember the last time we had a good 'old fashioned' blizzard here in Utah.  Usually it's a midwest thing.  It's been so long, I don't think people remember how to deal with one!  Well, ready or not, here it comes.... We're as ready as we can be on Lark Circle.  The snow blower has been serviced.  The winter gear is out and ready.  The furnaces are cranked up, warming up the cavernous house.  Wood is next to the fireplace and blankets are available to bundle up and keep warm, in the likely event the power goes out.  The truck has a full tank of gas because I have to go to work today.  No closure yet and I hope they don't wait till it gets here before they get smart and call the whole thing off for the night. The family of pussycats is hunkered down.  June fixed them a place to stay warm and dry, so no worries there.  Moo, the fat little one that likes me may become part of the family tho...

As promised, today's topic is just up to you....if you have something to share about what you're thankful for.  I'll get the ball rolling.  Today, I'm humbled and just thankful for God's grace and forgiveness most of all.  It's been a rough year, but in my heart, I'm truly thankful and full of joy at God's willingness to forgive us when we fall. What are you thankful for this year?

We were telling war stories last night at work.  One of my favorites was being in Alaska and going on a fishing trip.  We, by sheer dumb luck, happened to catch the front end of the red salmon run on the Russian River one summer.  We had several guys and a van and some free time so we were able to go fishing while we were TDY to Anchorage.  We had a great time, caught a bunch of fish, and experienced "combat fishing", Alaska style.  It's a favorite story of mine. As I thought about all the places I've been, I looked back and most of the time, we traveled in a pack.  Not by choice... inevitably the aircraft maintenance guys always got assigned a van.  They figured we all loved each other so they'd assign us a van to transport us here, there, and to work.  If you're just going to work, vans aren't a bad way to go.  When you're downtown, off base, though, it's a little tougher to get a group of guys to agree on where to eat, what to do, where ...

Today's blog is just about something simple as sharing a meal with someone.  I learned this from my wife and during our holiday celebrations, our home was always open to those with no place to go.  I invited a few people to Thanksgiving dinner that didn't have other plans.  No takers yet, but the invitation was made.  It's one holiday tradition I always enjoyed.  At first, I wasn't so big on it, but as Wendi knew, it adds to the conversation and makes the holiday brighter just to share it with others. Our first Thanksgiving together was spent apart.  We were deployed to Istres, France during the holiday but being the creative, ingenious Guard guys we were, we arranged to fix dinner in a huge airplane hangar for about 150 people.  At the last minute, we were informed some of our French Air Force counterparts were invited to join the meal.  We were worried we wouldn't have enough food but somehow everyone got plenty to eat.  My friends and I ...

Today's blog is about moral dilemmas.  We all face them.  Sometimes we all are faced with having to do something we don't WANT to do, but have to do.  So how do we deal with them? My story this afternoon is kind of stupid because it involves a thing.  In this case, it's a car.  I own this car and it's a good car.  I got what I thought was a really good deal, but the last two cars I thought were really good deals I wound up putting transmissions in.  Not so really good deals anymore.  I didn't want to get this car fixed but unfortunately, I won't have the money I thought I would to replace it.  There were more pressing things that needed attention in my life.  It was cheaper to just get the car fixed than it would have been to just replace the car and take a chance on another vehicle. The dilemma isn't getting the car fixed.  It's a spot of contention in my life with the Mrs. and I want to get rid of the car; to take that content...

I want to start today's blog with a passage from Matthew 18:3 (NIV) And he [Jesus] said:  "I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven." I'm 46 years old.  I've been sick for the last three days and I have a stupid ear infection  A child's malady that has knocked me right on my butt.  The cold I have doesn't help, either.  All I want is a nap.  I feel like a kid again. I feel like a kid again in many ways, not just being ill today.  I have a happy heart and the wonder at the world just like a child.  I understand why Christians refer to this as being "Born Again".  I feel like I have a brand new life.  No, more than that, a brand new way of looking at life. I spend a lot of time listening to the Christian radio station.  I find a great deal of inspiration from the stories I hear on the radio and find it fascinating that just like so many others, I had to...

I think a lot of my friends are quietly (and some not so quietly) questioning my judgment these days.  I do things that aren't necessarily prudent.  I think some think I'm living under this delusion that if this or that happens in my life, that everything will be OK.  From an outsider looking in, I think I'd even question some of the things going on in my life right now, so I wanted to take the time to address this. My mother hit me with this:  You need to start taking care of you.  True, to a certain extent.  From a certain point-of-view, maybe I'm not.  The road trip is a prime example.  I could have spent the money on other things, like a new set of tires for my truck that I absolutely have to have.  I'm down to driving my truck right now and the first time that truck sees snow, I'm as good as dead if I'm driving it the way it is.  Only by the grace of God am I not being remembered with a little cross on the side of I-80, and for so...

3408 miles in four days.  That's what the odometer said when I pulled into the driveway yesterday afternoon.  That's a lot of driving.  It works out to be about 264 gallons of gas at 13 mpg.  I wore out a tire on the way.  I got into a wreck.  I smoked I think, a full carton of Marlboro Lights.  If I don't eat a chicken finger for a while, I don't think I'll miss them.  I do miss my dog.  He's fine, he's just living with Wendi these days. Bucket was pretty good on the road trip.  He'd just lay close, just let me pet him, and he'd let me know when he had to go.  We shared chicken fingers.  I think he knew something was wrong, though.  He seemed kind of sad, but Wendi told me he was really happy to see her.  That's good.  I went through a lot for that dog. The ride out was pretty uneventful.  It rained pretty hard so it took a longer time to arrive than I figured.  It was the drive home that was fun. ...

I believe in the power of prayer.  Not just for praying for ourselves, but people we know who are hurting, some beyond any measure that I can imagine. I'm taking the rest of the week off from the blog.  It's not a week for pithy comments, stories about my dog, or anything else.  It's a week for prayer and reflection. Please join me in prayer this week; remembering friends and family who are facing trials, that they may be comforted by God's presence in their lives. God bless, Dale

I talk a lot about my dumb dog, Bucket.  You may wonder about the name.  We got him from Petco on adoption day.  I didn't go looking for a dog.  He kind of found us.  We took him out on a leash, got to know him a little bit and left the store.  As we drove through the parking lot, I told the wife, "Something tells me we gotta get this dog".  I don't know what it was, but I knew Bucket was meant to be a part of our family.  It wasn't until about a month ago that I knew why. I literally gave my last penny to get Bucket.  We didn't pick the name.  He came with it.  He was found wandering around by Smith & Edwards.  After a time, nobody claimed him, so he was rescued by a family who rescues animals.  He was named Bucket, because as the woman told us, her husband said he's so dumb he has to carry his brains around in a bucket.  The name kind of stuck and here we are. As I write this, he's playing with his favorite ...

Forgiveness.  Not the first time I've written about forgiveness, but it's kind of been at the forefront of some things in my life these days.  I hear it talked about a lot on the radio and the Bible is full of stories of forgiveness.  You'll see some quotes from the Bible in this posting.  For editorial purposes, the quotes from Scripture are from the New International Version of the Bible (NIV).  It's a better translation for us modern-day folks. I'm going to start out today with Matthew 6:14-15:  For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.  But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins. That's pretty direct, and the words of Jesus himself as he's finishing a talk about how to pray.  The passages come at the end of the Lord's Prayer. In Matthew 18:21-22it says: Then Peter came to Jesus and asked "Lord how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins a...

In our society, it seems that this comment is heard more and more.  Marriage is just a piece of paper.  Have we become so casual about marriage that it boils down to this?  Somewhere in the Great Debacle of 2010, which is what the mess will now be referred to, I remember reading a comment that went something like, a divorce is just a piece of paper that undoes the first piece of paper. I think that I never paid attention to what marriage really was until I realized what it was.  I can't tell you how stupid that sounds, but in that little bit of idiocy, there's a genuine nugget of knowledge that cost me a hell of a lot to learn.  It wasn't something that I could learn or understand from friends, from this or that, from TV.  I had to blow mine completely apart to learn what it was.  I learned it from the Bible, from going to church, from doing some research online about it. Marriage is not a piece of paper.  It's not just a promise to your spous...

In the Bible, there are a number of passages about lying.  It's in the Ten Commandments, it's talked about in the book of proverbs and elsewhere through the bible. Why do we lie?  It's been my experience that the more we do, the worse things get.  You tell someone a lie, they make a decision based on that lie, and the snowball goes downhill.  You have to tell one lie, then another and another to cover up the first lie and most always it ends badly.  Often you can tell a lie so many times it becomes your truth, and that's worse than the lie.  When you start believing your own lies as truth, your perceptions of reality become jaded, in my humble opinion. I've had my bouts with this.  But not anymore.  It seems that every time I've tried in my life to lie about things I've always been caught in them and it only makes things worse for me.  I've found honesty is the best policy. When does lying become stealing?  It can happen.  Wha...

If you're having troubles in your marriage, here are some helpful resources: The Bible.  It talks about everything from what marriage is to how to raise children.  The book of Proverbs is an excellent source of knowledge that still applies to this day.  The Psalms are of great comfort.  My favorite these days is Psalm 39, and Psalm 119. Your pastor and your church:  If you don't have one, or a church, may I suggest trying one or two until you find one that fits.  If you're not ready for church, find a Christian counselor.  Why a Christian counselor?  Because that person is trained to deal with your problems and can offer the foundation of a belief in God and Jesus Christ that will help not only heal your marriage, but your very life. A therapist:  Therapy is sometimes necessary.  I needed it.  I can share with you by e-mail the name of mine. Books:  Two come to mind.  "Getting the Love You Want", by Harville Hendri...

I had an interesting e-mail in my inbox tonight.  It's from someone I know, but have never met if that makes any sense.  I took something to heart from that e-mail, so I want to say this.  I have no intention of reopening the lid on my dirty laundry hamper.  It wasn't my intent.  I knew someone was looking at my blog that maybe could benefit from my story.  I think too that enough of it is out there that I don't need to revisit any of the who, where, when, why or how.  The what is the truth and that's enough.  I have a story to share and it's pretty easy to find my e-mail address and I think it's best to leave that at that.  If I can help someone, I'm happy to suggest the name of someone that helped me.  I'll repost the resource post.  i deleted it by accident.  I meant to delete a draft of a post I decided not to post, What I want to talk about today is how we touch lives.  I told you I don't know this person, but I've ...

As I thought about what to write, what words could I offer someone who has messed up their life as much as I have mine, a lot of the old wounds were opened up again.  I had to think about things that happened in my marriage that are very painful to me.  I thought, too, about the aftermath and the pain that's been caused because of even such a benign thing as me talking about my life.  That lesson was very painful, too. What words of comfort can I offer someone when I'm looking for the same thing?  That's tough.  My life these days is a roller-coaster of emotions.  Some days are better than others.  Today was a hard day, but I think I know what I'd like to say. Being unfaithful to your spouse is a horrible thing to do.  I tend to oversimplify, but in the end, the root cause of me doing what I did boils down to two things.  The first was refusing to accept an apology from my wife for something said in anger and the second was that I was bei...

You may recall hearing this little gem:  "No good deed goes unpunished...." I had to run to the store this morning.  I really need to quit smoking.  The beagle was out in the back yard so I thought I'd sneak out with Bucket for a little daddy/doggie time with him.  As soon as I picked up the leash and had Bucket hooked up, there's the beagle peering in through the glass with this excited look on her face.  She likes to go bye-bye, so I decided to take her too. The beagle is getting old and fat.  She can't quite jump up in the truck anymore.  She tried and missed.  As I went to help her, the leash slipped out of my hand and Bucket was off like a gazelle. I looked for an hour and couldn't find him.  As usual, someone did and turned him in to the doggie police. I met the nicest man today.  He's a dog catcher.  He had my dog, so a praise to the Lord for having him not hit by a car or taken away from me.  He makes me laugh. ...

Phone calls often change lives.  I received one from my mother that will take me another step down the path God has put me on.  A phone call forever changed my life...no check that... what I did to cause that phone call to happen forever changed my life.  I'll get back to the phone call in a minute, but as always I have to tell a story to tell this story. I had to drive to Salt Lake today to visit the lawsuit attorney.  I hope it's the last time.  On Saturday, this became a non-issue.  It's resolved and will never be mentioned again.  I only mention it now to bring closure to the issue for several of you that have followed the blog for a while.  How it was resolved, or for that matter, why, doesn't matter to anyone except those involved.  Those that need to know, know. I talk about smoking.  This afternoon, on my way to town, I lost my lighter in the truck.  I took an exit to find my lighter.  After recovering it, I pressed...