While most of the barns in our portfolio were taken on one of our many road trips this one is just a few miles from our home. We pass it several times a week.  The backside of the barn sustained considerable damage in the Spring storms. I hope it stay up. Continue reading Indiana – 2011

GOP pivots on ‘birther’ questions, blames Obama for media attention Ok, here it is. Now that President Obama finally tried to put the birther issue to rest the radical right in the Republican party are hitting on him for wasting time with providing his birth certificate! They say he should be producing more jobs instead of settling this issue. It is just totally amazing to me how they will spin anything the President does to make him wrong. They say a picture is worth a thousand words. Here is what I think of this: This is so hilarious that I … Continue reading What's Obama Doing Wasting Time….

We visited Montpelier in Virginia a few weeks ago. James Madison is one of my heroes so it was good to make this connection with him. Continue reading My Hero – James Madison (and Dolly too)

I have been getting more questions lately from some in our old church asking why we haven’t been there for such a long time. I got a very heartfelt note in the snail mail today from one of those friends.  She said that she really misses my wife and me on Sundays especially in the Bible classes. She mentioned that when I had a disagreement with the pastor on a biblical issue she and her husband tended to agree with me more than the pastor on that issue. She was wondering where we have gone and hoping that we would … Continue reading Where Have You Gone??

One of my regular rituals is to go to McDonald once every month or two and get a steak & egg bagel for breakfast. I did that this morning.  I found a picture of one and included it here but it really didn’t resemble the one I got at the counter. Mine had the steak hanging out the right side of the begal while the egg and cheese were clinging to the left edge. :) It has been a few months since the last time I did this. I always sit at a table where I can watch all the people ordering … Continue reading Being Deaf Is Lonely…

Let’s finish up this journey through our tax code in the U.S. and its reform. I know many people out there think that taxes are just government shaking them down.  But I don’t see it that way.  I enjoy going to the store to get a gallon of milk and be assured that drinking it will not make me sick. I also enjoy driving down some reasonably good roads to get there. We all need to pitch in to make these types of things possible. Ok, let’s get on to fixing this tax mess we are currently in. The one … Continue reading More About Taxes….

The title question came to me from a fellow blogger of the Quaker persuasion. The premise around the question is at the end time will there be more people in heaven or hell? If you answer hell then it appears like satan wins. From an evangelical Christian perspective I’m sure the answer is satan will win.  By their very nature evangelicals believe that if you are not a Christian you are going to hell. This, like many things is a very black and white issue for them. Since it is widely known that the majority of people are not  Christian then that … Continue reading Is God a Winner or a Loser??

One of the things I have regrets about now that I am in my senior years is not having kept up with friends from my past. I guess that mistake is mainly a “man” thing as my wife has regular communications with friends she made over 50 years ago. The girl she shared an apartment with in Milwaukee in the 1960s is among several others still on her contact list. I have some very casual friends from my high school days but that seems to be about all. I just don’t seem to be able to maintain long-term friendships. I’m pretty sure … Continue reading The Depth of Friendships??

The picture shown above is of President Woodrow Wilson’s car from 1913 which is currently housed in his Presidential Library and Museum in Staunton Virginia. The library was somewhat spartan by today’s presidential libraries but it was well worth the visit. The reason I chose the his car to represent this visit is that it languished in oblivion for nearly 50 years before it finally found and restored. It’s nice that this little piece of history was not lost. Continue reading Woodrow's Car… Staunton VA 2011

We now move on with our recent vacation trip through Virginia. I must admit that I have been to this State several times and even to a couple of the sites we visited. But one city I had not been to was Staunton, Virginia. Among other things with was the birthplace of one of my heroes Woodrow Wilson. I’m sure not too many people put Wilson on such a pedestal but I admire him for his wisdom and foresight. Wilson spent the majority of his adult life in New Jersey as president of Princeton University and as Governor. He was … Continue reading Oh Virginia… Here’s To You Woodrow

Keeping in line with a few other of my blogs here is a barn picture taken in Virginia during our recent trip there. There didn’t seem to be as many of these types of barns there as I had anticipated. Continue reading Virginia – April 2011

One of our first stops in Virginia during our recent vacation was at Luray Caverns. I must admit that being deaf I have a fear of caves. If the lights went out I would totally panic for lack of sensory perception. It was neat but I don’t really care to see any more caves.  That is me on the left. The dark area in the middle bottom of the picture is my wife’s thumb :) Continue reading Luray Caverns – Virginia 2011

Why did God go to all the trouble to create the universe? By any standards that was a massive undertaking. I am one who believes in the day age interpretation of the Bible.  In the last century or so God has given us the scientific understanding to know that the creation of the universe took millions if not billions of years to complete. Why did he go through all that trouble? One explanation for God creating the universe and an infinitely small corner of it called the Earth was that he intends it to be a proving ground for what … Continue reading Earth As A Proving Ground???

This post is a continuation on reports of our recent vacation through West Virginia, Maryland, Virginia, and Tennessee. As mentioned a few posts ago Maryland was generally not quite what I expected after reading the book “A Journey Through Hallowed Ground” by David Edwin Lillard. The book centered around a trip down US 15 from Gettysburg to Monticello. From the book’s description I was prepared to see a number of small towns  gushing with history along this Maryland route.By just looking at a larger area map I should have been prepared for what we encountered but I guess the dreamer in my just wanted … Continue reading The Thing About Maryland….