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 want to continue on with my report of our vacation through West Virginia, Maryland, and Virginia last month. This post will be about another of the five presidential homes we visited on that trip. I admit that one of my heroes in life is the fourth president of the U.S. James Madison. There are a number of reasons for that admiration not the least of which are the similarity between Madison and me. Compared to many of the other Founders Madison was a little guy. He was 5′ 7″ and small stature while most of the other famous people during … Continue reading My Hero.. James Madison

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??

Remember being a Christian is all about Jesus Christ. Everything else is small stuff. Continue reading Happy Easter Everyone

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….

While the governor of Indiana, where I currently reside, is not a Tea Partier he does seem to think along the same line. First of all we were told when he first came into office that the reason that more businesses did not move to Indiana was because they thought we were backwards.  The reason for us being backwards, at least according to him,was that we did not change our clocks two times a year as most other States do.  We quit doing that about twenty-five years ago. It just didn’t make much sense for us ordinary Hoosiers to be … Continue reading Some "Great" Ideas From My Governor….

I couldn’t leave our trip to West Virginia without mentioned on very interesting thing. The State of West Virgina was formed as a result of the Civil War. Considering that Richmond Virginia was the heart of the Confederacy it is surprising that the good folk in the northwestern of that state chose to remain loyal to the Union.  Part of that probably had to do with not many people up there could afford a slave, even if they wanted one, which most evidently didn’t. They were rewarded for their loyalty by becoming a separate State from those who chose otherwise. We didn’t … Continue reading One Last Thought about WV

Sundays continue to be a strange time for me. Up until last November I could always be found in a church pew on Sunday morning. At that time I was told by my church of eight years that my views of God no longer aligned with what their denomination expected of members. Instead of going through an inquisition I choose to separate my self from them. But I must admit that the very restricted and almost solo message of that congregation became somewhat numbing. You can only say “Christ did it all so nothing is expected of us” so many … Continue reading Sundays???

I tried to find one picture that would sum up my feelings about West Virgina. This is what I came up with. It is somewhat typical of the many small towns we came across during our visits. The franchises were far and few between in most of the areas.  And that is a good thing. Continue reading Summing up West Virginia

Ok here is what is making the news today.  See the full article via the link at the bottom of this post. It seems that some of these Tea Party electees think that not only is healthcare for the poor optional but so is clean air to breath and water to drink for all of us.  They have declared that many of these environmental issues are just too much of a nuisance for our poor business corporations who seem to be struggling to make more than a $billion in profits each month. So the rest of us will just have … Continue reading At State Level, G.O.P. Seeks Big Environmental Cutbacks – NYTimes.com

When we were visiting West Virginia the John Denver song kept creeping into my mind. It is indeed a unique State. Both in its landscape and how it was formed.  The picture above was from the State museum showing what the town looked like in the 1950’s. For those who did not live through that era this was probably a somewhat foreign picture. But I can remember my first visit to a drugstore soda fountain. It was a most enjoyable experience. Continue reading West Virginia… Country Home….

Ok, I admit this is not much of a barn but I’m sure it was a good one in its day. The photo below is somewhat typical of the many WV towns we encountered during our travels through the State. It is indeed a beautiful State. Continue reading West Virgina April 2011

We made it back from our “Journey Through Hallowed Ground” yesterday. As was the case with Dickens there were some joyful times and there were some disappointing times. :) I will spend a couple of posts here describing parts of our visit. Being a U.S. history buff this trip had a lot of meaning for me. Our first stop was in Charleston West Virginia where we, as usual, toured the capital building. We got there on a Saturday and went to enter the building and to our surprise we found no guards or inspection stations.  I think this was the first time … Continue reading We Are Back….

There is a lot of talk about the federal government deficits these days. Yes, we need to get that under control. One of the ways to do that is to reign in our obnoxious military spending. We spend many many times more per citizen on our military complex than any other country in the world. As a matter of fact we spend more than the rest of the world combined!!  If we reduced our spending to only ten times more per citizen than any other country we could cut more than $3 trillion dollars in ten years.  Yes, I am … Continue reading About Those Deficits….

At a time most employees can barely remember their last substantial raise, median CEO pay jumped 27% in 2010 as the executives’ compensation started working its way back to prerecession levels, a USA TODAY analysis of data from GovernanceMetrics International found. Workers in private industry, meanwhile, saw their compensation grow just 2.1% in the 12 months ended December 2010, says the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Source: http://www.usatoday.com/money/companies/management/2011-03-31-ceo-pay-2010.htm Ok, what is going on here?  I thought maybe the big shots learned their lesson from the financial meltdown but I guess not. They are still giving themselves ten times the raise that … Continue reading The Rich Get Richer….

I speak truth, not so much as I would, but as much as I dare; and I dare a little more as I grow older. (Catherine Drinker Bowen) I got the above quote from a fellow blogger a few months ago. I don’t remember exactly who is was but the quote hit me head on. As I grow older I seem to dare and say some things that I would not have said earlier in life. When we are younger we think we speak the truth but we always hold off some things as we don’t want others to know … Continue reading A Little More As I Grow Older….

I know this isn’t a barn but I guess you could label it a “historic” building?  It is the Longaberger Basket Company headquarters in Ohio Continue reading Longaberger HQ – Ohio 2008

This is a picture of me at the Great Salt Lake in 2009.  I am currently using it as a header for my homepage blog   RJ’s Corner. Continue reading The Great Salt Lake – 2009

Note: I am going to cross-post here from one of my other blogs. I couldn’t decide which one was the most appropriate so I will post at both. (ha) Since the Republicans seem hell-bent on rolling back Obama-care I wanted to talk a little about one of the effects of this action. I recently had to have a rather expensive blood test run for a potentially life threatening condition. My past employer who maintains my pension and insurance fund constantly tells me that he is under no “legal” obligation to continue providing me health insurance. If I had been a … Continue reading Going Backwards…. Again….

Since the Republicans seem hell-bent on rolling back Obama-care I wanted to talk a little about one of the effects of this action. I recently had to have a rather expensive blood test run for a potentially life threatening condition. My past employer who maintains my pension and insurance fund constantly tells me that he is under no “legal” obligation to continue providing me health insurance. If I had been a union member instead of management he could not make these threats. (That sounds like a topic for another near-term post :) ) So long story short I still have … Continue reading Going Backwards…. Again….

I saw an article recently about how people in the future will likely typically live to be 100 years old. At first thought that sounds kind of nice. I align with the old saying “Everyone wants to get to heaven but no one wants to die to get there”. I certainly don’t want to die, at least anytime soon. I still have many things left on my life’s to-do list. But it seems when I turned sixty my body warranty expired. Things just don’t work as well as before.  My back continues to deteriorate with more compression fractures. My knees … Continue reading Living to be 100???

  The Republicans are at it again. All the presidential hopefuls are coming out in force to say how terrible Obama-care is but offering no solutions themselves. I guess they think they got the house back with this strategy so they think they can win the presidency that way too. They seem intent on giving insurance companies back the right to deny coverage for “pre-existing conditions” and taking away possible healthcare from those who cannot currently afford it. They seem intent on making healthcare a privilege for only those who can afford it and denying it from everyone else. The rest of … Continue reading At It Again…

Found this one during our Wisconsin barn search last year. Not only is it an old barn but it appeared to be an abandoned converted barn :)     Continue reading Northern Wisconsin – October 2010

Its like stepping back in time. Yeah, that’s me walking down main street. Continue reading Virginia City NV–June 2009