On The Road – Day 6 — Here's to the Arts

We spent a good bit of today at the National Art Museum here in Canada’s capital Ottawa.  In some ways the building was more impressive than the art it contained. I would say about one-third of the exhibits were for modern art which is really not so much my taste.  I picked out my favorite one in that area and I called it “Big Black”.  It was about a 12 foot square mural of solid black; nothing else!  They seem to have pictures just like that in about every modern art exhibit I have been to. But they did have … Continue reading On The Road – Day 6 — Here's to the Arts

If God is Love – Part 4

This is the fourth post in the series on a book by Philip Gulley entitle If God Is Love. Here is the quote for this one. This wrestling with our theology, though absolutely necessary to spiritual growth, often puts our lives out of joint. On several occasions, I thought, “Remind me again why I wanted to question and challenge the beliefs I was taught.” The answer, as with all change, is because what had once satisfied no longer filled me with joy and peace. This spiritual dissatisfaction is a divine gift. God loves us too much to let us remain … Continue reading If God is Love – Part 4

All I Know…Less Taxes, Less Regulation….

Less taxes and less regulation is the constant mantra that Republican party sees as a way to bring down the unemployment rates in this country. Everything else to them is seems to be utter nonsense. But let’s look at the facts around these two issues. Less Taxes — Taxes are currently the lowest they have been in 36 years, especially for the top 10% of income levels.  Most of this reduction came about almost eight years ago and yet there has been no significant blip on the employment levels in this country. Less Regulation – I don’t think anyone would … Continue reading All I Know…Less Taxes, Less Regulation….

On The Road – Day 5 — My Canada Adventure

As expected today was an exciting time. We spent most of the day around the Parliament complex. Here are some pictures of that. We also toured much of the area around the complex and went to the Museum of Currency. It was also a very beautiful day here in Ottawa, sunny and in the 70s. I forgot to take a hat along with me so now I have a sun burned bald head! Gotta remember the hat for tomorrow or I can expect some peeling scalp later in the week. The brochure provided at the places we visited gave us a somewhat … Continue reading On The Road – Day 5 — My Canada Adventure

On the Road — Some Initial Conclusions…

Here is another post on my experiences in our current trek through eastern Canada. I know I have only been in Canada for four days now but I am ready to come to at least one conclusion. That conclusion is that Canada is not famous for food.  Maybe they just take the “eat to live” mentality pretty seriously here. We went to a Mexican restaurant for dinner last night and that, along with most of my previous meals here, was the basis for this observation. When we sat down we were given the usual salsa and chips but the salsa was really … Continue reading On the Road — Some Initial Conclusions…

On The Road – Hello Ottawa….

Last night since we were on the road most of the day we ended up staying at a small motel without internet. It was clean and cheap so I guess I should be grateful and I am. We made the last trek through the pine trees this morning and into Ottawa. My first impression was that there was a lot of traffic for 9:30 on a Wednesday morning.  After that soaked in I started noticing quite a few older building in the downtown area. Since this is the capital of Canada I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised. We went to the … Continue reading On The Road – Hello Ottawa….

On The Road — Would you like gravy with that?

Here we are at the end of day two of our trek through Canada. Today was another road day for us. We made it from upper Michigan to Sudbury Ontario and are settled down in our hotel for the night.  I don’t know how many miles that is as I had to convert the car to metric when we got here so we would know how fast we were going. Don’t want to get a ticket for speeding. After we arrived we went out for dinner to a place called Hardrock 42. No, it is not one of those HardRock … Continue reading On The Road — Would you like gravy with that?

On The Road — A Couple of miles…

I am now sitting in a hotel room a few miles east of Ste St Marie Michigan. We will head through there and up into Canada in the morning. We drove across upper Wisconsin and Michigan today. It was as it has been for the many time I have been here, all pine trees with not much in between. In some ways that is an appropriate way to start this trip which is intended to be a relaxing one. Waiting for my dear wife to get ready to go across the way to the local Pizza Hut for dinner gives … Continue reading On The Road — A Couple of miles…

On The Road — Canada here we come…

We got the great-nephew married yesterday and will be heading north in a few hours. It was an interesting few days visiting with the out-laws, I mean in-laws,but I am more than ready to get this vacation officially on the road. One thing I had forgotten about was the ferocious mosquitoes they have here in northern Wisconsin this time of year! I suppose they will be even bigger in where we are going. Continue reading On The Road — Canada here we come…

If God is Love… Part 3

This is a continuation of my expose of the book by Philip Gulley entitled If God Is Love. In this post he talks about Dualistic Theologies. Dualistic theologies reduce the questions of life to one: Are you saved? Nothing else matters. The purpose of life it to answer that single question. Of course, simply saying “yes” is not enough. You confirm your salvation by accepting Jesus as Lord and Savior, getting baptized, and receiving the Holy Spirit. Until you have done these things, your life has no meaning. When salvation is defined so narrowly, it too easily becomes a status … Continue reading If God is Love… Part 3

Gettin Ready…

Got the HHR serviced and ready to go for our Canada/New England adventure We will be off soon after the Fourth. When I have internet access I will be posting about each day’s experiences. But, given that for the first few days we will be in some pretty sparsely populated areas there may be some unreported days. I’m not sure how much wi-fi there is in Canada so this is all a guess with me. I do know that data roaming in a foreign country is VERY expensive so I won’t likely go that route. We have been in Canada … Continue reading Gettin Ready…

Policemen of the World…

America can carry herself and get along in pretty fair shape, but when she stops and picks up the whole world and puts it on her shoulders she just can’t “get it done.” – Will Rogers March 15, 1933 Wow, it is amazing that Will wrote these words almost eighty years ago. They couldn’t be more true today.  The Republicans want to continuously talk about wasteful government spending but they seldom talk about reducing our military budgets. We spend many many times more per citizen than any other country in the world on our war machine! Why is that? I’m just a simple … Continue reading Policemen of the World…

Being Compassionate is "Brain Surgery"…

This is going to be one of my “deep” posts so hang in there. You won’t find much humor in it but hopefully you will find something to think about. What does it take for a person to become compassionate? It seems that due to the hard economic times we have been in for the last ten years or more that we are becoming a nation of primarily looking out for ourselves. I am just a simple guy but I can understand some of this. Many times a person who had a stable middle class job is now struggling with … Continue reading Being Compassionate is "Brain Surgery"…

The Rites of Retirement….

One of the rites of retirement is being able to take a vacation pretty much whenever you want.  Well, my wife and I want! We will soon be heading out for our Canada and New England trip. This one could take up to a month of our time. That is another privilege of retirement, we can take as long as needed.  We have a house sitter who will take care of our animals and such as long as we are gone. We plan on going into Canada via Wisconsin and then traveling the interior to Ottawa. Then up the St. Lawrence seaway to Nova Scotia … Continue reading The Rites of Retirement….

It's Done

It’s Done… (but it’s never really done) I finally completed the merging of five of my six blogs to this site! I hope you like what you find here. Don’t forget to bookmark this new blog and remove any of my old ones (I will not be closing them but they will no longer be updated).  This will make my life a little simpler and make it easier for you to see all of what I have to offer in the blog world. I have also purchased one of the premium themes (Tapestry) to make your browsing a little more … Continue reading It's Done

If God is Love (Part 2)

This is a continuation of my collection of snippets from the book by Philip Gulley entitled If God is Love. The Psalmists boats, “Do I not hate those who hate you, O Lord? And do I not loathe those who rise up against you? I hate them with perfect hate. I count them my enemies” (Psalm 139:21-22). Hatred, when directed at those we have judged wicked, becomes a sign of religious devotion rather than a grievous sin. The enemy is not loved, but destroyed, not prayed for, but preyed upon. We can protest religious hatred and violence are sins of the past, … Continue reading If God is Love (Part 2)