Author: RJ Walters

I am an Independent thinking, highly functional person who is deaf and has some unique views and challenges in life. Like all of us, I am a person who is composed of all my life experiences and that is what I write about here.
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More with Less

RJ Walters

Some probably think that the phrase “More with Less” is a recent invention but I was brutally hit with it in the 1990s. As my team around me was constantly shrinking the workload was constantly increasing. The above term was almost nauseous to me during that time. I wish I could have come up with some of the things in the Dilbert cartoon at the time. The last couple of years of my corporate life were not pleasant. I was working sixty hour weeks to do “more with less” (less meaning I was never paid for the extra hours!). No … Continue reading More with Less

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I didn’t know I had a choice…

RJ Walters

  I just came across this comic strip a few weeks ago. It is not one of my favorites but it does from time to time give me some ideas.   Better done well or not at all has been around for a while now but i never thought of applying it to me senior years and especially as far as my hubby is concerned. So I will be putting this one on the back burner for use when it is most appropriate. And the journey goes on.   Tags: or+not+at+all, Pickles+comic+strip Continue reading I didn’t know I had a choice…

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Is the Church Christian?

RJ Walters

Here is an excerpt from a book entitled “If the Church were Christian” by Philip Gulley. Several years ago I visited a museum and saw the skeleton of a dinosaur. As I read the plaque, I learned only a handful of the bones were original, that the remainder had been fabricated based on a paleontologist’s extrapolation from the authentic bones. In many ways, this is similar to what the church has done. There are only two passages in one gospel (Matthew 16:18 and 18:17) where Jesus mentions the church, and even those references are dubious. Many scholars suspect the Matthean … Continue reading Is the Church Christian?

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Multitasking??

RJ Walters

I just watched a episode on FrontLine (on PBS) about multitasking.  Kids today insist that they can do many things at the same time and almost all of them involve some form of electronics.  The FrontLine episode basically said the kids think they multitasking very well when in reality they don’t do any of the things well at all.  The brain is just not meant to do multiple things at the same time. I’m definitely not a kid anymore but I too can multitask if I need to but I prefer to work on one thing and then get it … Continue reading Multitasking??

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HGTV Dream House 2011 Intervention…..

RJ Walters

  Let’s pick on the TV folks for a few posts. I have always enjoyed seeing the new HGTV Dream House each year. But this year seemed to be different than the past.  I watched about five minutes of this years show and found myself a little dizzy and still wondering what the house looked like.  It seemed that every time I saw a picture it was either zooming in or panning out and lasted for no more than a second or so.  I tried several times to watch but the result was always the same. Thank goodness for the … Continue reading HGTV Dream House 2011 Intervention…..

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Jesus and Paul Comparisons – Harder than it looks..

RJ Walters

I am having trouble with my project of comparing what Jesus said to what Paul said.  There are several reasons for this difficulty. They, for the most part, didn’t appear to address very many of the same issues. There is so much baggage associated with this topic it is hard to not be prejudged by it all It seems I must extrapolate the two men’s actions as well as words to make any comparison. This leaves me with some basic questions. Did Jesus leave it up to Paul to fill in his blanks? Did Paul take it upon himself to … Continue reading Jesus and Paul Comparisons – Harder than it looks..

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The pen is mightier than the sword.

RJ Walters

One piece of trivia stuck in my head for a good number of years is the one I used as the title of this post. It was coined by an English guy in the mid-1880s. It is good to see that it still applies today. Pens tend to be sharp instruments both literally and figuratively but they are not as deadly as our ever-loving weapons here in the U.S. And they are a lot cheaper too. We could use the extra money for taking care of this medical quagmire we have gotten ourselves into or cashing in our IOUs to … Continue reading The pen is mightier than the sword.

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Become Wise…

RJ Walters

There is one book about retirement that I keep handy and look at almost every week. It is entitled 101 Secrets for a GREAT RETIREMENT by Mary Helen and Shuford Smith. One of the dog eared pages is on number one hundred – Become wise. One of the things old people are supposed to be is wise but to tell you the truth I have a way to go on that topic. I think I am more in the process of growing wise than the end result. Here are some of the words found on that secret. The heart of … Continue reading Become Wise…

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The Risk of Growing Entitlement Spending (or not)…

RJ Walters

I am going to admit up front that I am going to pull a “sneaky” here. That is I am going to use some data in a way the author never intended. I can just hear you say “I am so surprised, that has never been done before!” Okay, okay you are not really doing that. More likely you are not terribly surprised as this sort of thing happens all the time. But anyway here goes. As the title ( I added the “or not”) indicates the originator of this graph intended it to shock us into the action he … Continue reading The Risk of Growing Entitlement Spending (or not)…

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E pluribus unum

RJ Walters

I spent today housebound recuperating from my recent rib fracture so I had a lot of time on my hands. Much of it has been spent sprucing up my various blogs. This one got a new header and captions. During my hours at my computer today I glanced at the penny on my desk.  I don’t know why it is there but it got me to thinking about the phrase used as the title of this post. E pluribus unum is latin for “One of Many”. No, I couldn’t read that phrase on the penny, my eyes are not that good anymore, … Continue reading E pluribus unum

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Ice and Seniors Don’t Mix….

RJ Walters

No, I’m not talking about some new cocktail here I am talking about the ice storm that recently raced across the U.S. For this particular senior the combination is very unpleasant indeed!  One of the results of my deafness is that I have no sense of balance anymore. I cannot walk in the dark as my brain needs some reference point. The balance mechanism in my ears don’t do that anymore. So, long story short I took a serious spill on the ice this week and cracked some ribs. This is not the first time so I knew what to expect and … Continue reading Ice and Seniors Don’t Mix….

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Jesus Christ – Lord and Savior

RJ Walters

To me the title of this post is the perfect blend of words.  We must acknowledge that Jesus is our Lord and we must also acknowledge that he is our Savior. Those two conditions are very different so lets study them some here. Jesus Christ is my Savior — Jesus was very clear that one of the reasons he came was to die for our sins. That is something that I have trouble really understanding but I take him at his words. Accepting Jesus as our savior is a leap of faith that requires not much else. It is big … Continue reading Jesus Christ – Lord and Savior

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Ah Perfection…….

RJ Walters

Ok, how many of your old married guys thought of your wife when you read the BC comic above? Come on now fess up.  After twenty five years of marriage one thing I have come to the conclusion about is that women think they were placed on this earth to “fix” the men they married. According to my wife I need a lot of fixing. :) It is a long term process so after twenty five years she is only just now getting started. Another thing I have found out after many years is that most wives don’t think they … Continue reading Ah Perfection…….

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Democracy, The Old Fashioned Way

RJ Walters

Can you imagine a democracy that was the result of the people living the country rising up and not from an invasion by the U.S.? What happened to the Bush Doctrine? I thought we were the democracy builders for the world? What are those Egyptians trying to do put our military out of business?  Glenn Beck and his crowd were right up front cheering the invasion of Iraq to “free” the people but it seems when its done the old fashioned way he is against it.  Unfortunately when you let people form their own democracy it sometimes doesn’t come out as … Continue reading Democracy, The Old Fashioned Way

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Jesus and Paul – Some Initial Thoughts

RJ Walters

I have spent some time with my comparisons between Jesus’ words and Paul’s. I will be posting my first comparisons in the next week or so. But I wanted to talk a little about what I have found so far.  As Sam, who commented on the last post, indicated I have found that a big part of the differences between Jesus and Paul lay around the way we look at Paul’s words.  Do we take each and every word to be for all circumstances and for all eternity or was he  just addressing a particular situation in one of the … Continue reading Jesus and Paul – Some Initial Thoughts