The title to this post certainly sounds like an ultra pompous statement doesn’t it?  But this is indeed what some Christians are saying when they cling to the “Sola Scriptura” doctrine. To say that God has nothing else to teach us besides what is contained the documents that were collected more than sixteen hundred years ago is depriving them of much needed help in living in the world today.  In that regard I feel deeply sorry for those that stubbornly cling to the concept of “Sola Scriptura”. They are depriving themselves of lessons God has been teaching the rest of … Continue reading I Don’t Care To Know Anything More About God….

Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt. Abraham Lincoln I haven’t put up a Lincoln quote in quite a while so here is one that interlaces with what Will Rogers also said. And it seems very appropriate to the current crop of presidential wanna-bes out there. The one who keeps his/her mouth shut long enough will become the nominee :) Continue reading Quotes – The Wisdom of Lincoln

  As promised here is another mural found on the side of a building during our recent visit to  Old Town Quebec. Continue reading In The Slow Lane – Another Quebec Mural

Source:  Golden decade is ending for defense industry, and stocks – USATODAY.com. The article above is about how our defense budgets and prosperity of the our military contractors might be taking a hit in the coming years of apparent austerity (that is except for the richest of us). It mentions that military budgets might be trimmed as much as 10% in the coming years, especially if the super committee in congress can’t re-direct the cuts to other areas. Here is a quote from the article; just click on the link above to see the whole article: The U.S. spent $1.3 … Continue reading All I Know – Where Did Our Debt Come From??

I shrink a little more each day. I am among a rather small percentage of men who suffer from severe osteoporosis. That along with three compression fractures that were caused by falling on ice about eight years ago has caused me to lose more than three inches in height. But now it seems I am also losing muscle mass as well. Here is an interesting article about that subject. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/31/health/research/31muscle.html?ref=business Below is a quote from the article: Why muscles wither with age is captivating a growing number of scientists, drug and food companies, let alone aging baby boomers who, despite having spent years sweating in … Continue reading Seniors Only — The Ever Diminishing Senior

Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/a-war-tax-its-still-not-a-bad-idea/2011/08/11/gIQAfJLwHJ_story.html Anyone who has seen much of this blog, particularly the “All I Know” category knows that I am pretty much anti-war in all regards. So, when I ran across the above article it immediately caught my attention.  Here are some words from the article. Click on the source above to see the whole thing. These days, one of them, Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.), believes such a levy should be on the agenda of the debt-reduction “supercommittee.” “These wars ought to be paid for and not put on a credit card so that our kids will have to pay for this in … Continue reading All I Know — How About a War Tax??

The condition called midlife crisis is pretty well documented. That is where a person is beginning the second half of his life and realizes that things aren’t going as planned. The response to that sometimes is constructive but often is isn’t. When people throw off their spouses, get a sports car, and look for babes (hunks, I guess for you ladies) to party with that is not a good thing in the vast majority of cases. I am convinced that there is a similar but often more constructive change that occurs to people as they move into their retirement years. I … Continue reading Remaking Yourself in Your Senior Years…

This is a continuation of my discussions of the book entitled “When God Is Love” by Philip Gulley and James Mulholland. Here is the quote for today: Working to make the world a more gracious place wasn’t a priority in the churches of my childhood. Some of this negligence was a result of apolcalyptic interpretations in which the world was doomed and damned anyway. One man insisted we shouldn’t work for peace in the Middle East because we were simply postponing Armageddon and the return of Christ. However, the primary reason the church didn’t have time to change the world … Continue reading If God Is Love (Part 5)

Stop Coddling the Super-Rich – NYTimes.com. Click on the above to see an op-ed piece by Warren Buffet, one of the richest men in the world. It clearly says something very different than the current Republican party mantra. If we could just send the same bunch of men to Washington for the good of the nation, and not for political reasons, we could have the most perfect government in the world. -June 8, 1924 Will Rogers But what do I know…. Continue reading All I Know — Stop Coddling the Super-Rich

This is going to be kind of serious post. It is hard to be humorous about this topic. I just went through a comments round with an old high school classmate and her friends on Facebook recently. She was passing on what I deem a rather inappropriate joke about throwing the president and first lady out of an airplane.  When I pointed out that “I don’t wish the death of our president and first lady under any circumstances” I’m sure I hurt her feelings. That was not my intent but maybe a necessary consequence of taking this action. Of course … Continue reading All I Know – About those Jokes…

This mural was on the side of a building in old city Quebec. We took this picture while there in July 2011. Continue reading In The Slow Lane — Quebec Mural

Trying to determine the nature of God is something many who are much smarter than I am have been doing since our very existence. I don’t pretend to have any answers that they have not considered.  But, I have been looking at a different understanding of God at least from a personal perspective. This new approach came from a comment on a previous post here on RLL.  In that post I was lamenting how I have  trouble reconciling the God of the Old Testament to Jesus Christ in the New.  To me these two faces of God have always seemed to be in … Continue reading The Nature of God….

Once a person reaches their senior years should all the aspirations have been completed? First of all I guess I should make clear just which definition of the noun I am talking about. The aspiration I am talking about is: strong desire, longing, or aim; ambition: intellectual aspirations; a goal or objective desired [Aspirating or taking a breath is something all of us need to do. To stop doing that is to literally stop living :) ] Now with all this silliness taken care of let’s move on the to topic at hand. When we talk about aspirations it is typically about our youth. Things like “he aspired to be president one day”. … Continue reading Senior Aspirations…

I know of people who think having a passion about something is a detriment. They say “why are you going overboard about this (or that)”? This topic can be applied across life’s spectrum but I will try to limit this post to those of us in our senior years. Let’s look at how the dictionary defines passion: pas·sion [ noun] 1. any powerful or compelling emotion or feeling, as love or hate. 2. strong amorous feeling or desire; love; ardor. 3. strong sexual desire; lust. 4. an instance or experience of strong love or sexual desire. 5. a person toward whom one feels strong love or sexual desire Although the second through the fifth definition is not a bad thing, especially if it is directed to your mate of many years :) , the kind of passion I am talking about in this post … Continue reading About Passions..

OK, this mountainous Canadian cold is finally beginning to loosen its grip on me so I will start my regular blogging again soon. There is so much that has happened since my hiatus it is hard to even try to figure out where to begin.  I will be thinking about that in the coming few days and will begin building an advanced inventory of posts (I usually write a post about a week or so before it is actually used. That gives me plenty of chances to edit and re-edit). :) With all this budget and deficit stuff going on now I probably have enough to … Continue reading All I Know…Getting Back in the Saddle….

We made it home from Nova Scotia on Sunday afternoon. After doctors appointments on Monday we learned that my wife has a pretty severe eye infection and a rough Canadian cold. I can personally attest to the cold as I also got it!  Other than that we will recover. I will likely hold off blogging for a few more days and then try to get back to my usual schedule. It is nice to be home and our house sitter did a pretty good job taking care of things while we were away. Our tomatoes are in full ripe mode … Continue reading Back Home Again In Indiana….

Made another 500 miles today so should be home sometime tomorrow. Usually I don’t spend a lot of time on the Interstates. I prefer State roads and a more casual drive. In the last three days I have driven more than 1200 miles of interstates and have refined my opinion of them.  When I used to drive them about fifteen years ago they were mostly numbing. To be driving at a constant speed for hours at a time was deadening to the senses. But I have a different opinion of them now. It seems there are two modes to today’s … Continue reading On The Road — Interstate Driving is Tiring…..

My wife has decided that she wants to go home so we will head out this morning. It will take two to three days to get there from here. Since she is not feeling well I will be doing  all of the driving so it will be a long couple of days.  Give us a little prayer that we get there safely. And the journey (home) goes on… Continue reading Going Home….

Here I am banging on the keyboard in Bangor Maine. We made about 500 miles today which is the most for one day on this vacation. Unfortunately I had to do almost all the driving. My wife started feeling poorly yesterday so we cut our time in Nova Scotia short and started heading back this morning. She wants to rest and try to get a good nights sleep and then see how she is in the morning. We may just make a dash for home from here. It is about 1250 miles and will take about 23 driving hours.  I … Continue reading On The Road — Bangor Maine

Since I had a laid back  few days of letting my wife savor her view I thought I would pen some of my closing thoughts about Canada and the people we have met here. Canada has a complicated history – It is hard to believe that Canada was not Canada until almost 1860. Before that they were just a conglomeration of territories. They seemed to only come together because they thought they would be overrun by the United States after their Civil war. In some ways they are much like us in that they seem to be equally divided on … Continue reading On The Road –Thoughts about Canada

Not much to report today. We did wander into town for about four hours yesterday for lunch, shopping, and picking up food for our in-room supper tonight. Lunenburg is a very picturesque town as shown in this picture I bought. It was set up by the British in the early 1700s so establish an English foothold into the French dominated territory. Spent the rest of the day lounging around the motel room. We had dinner in our room consisting of some kind of lunchmeat of which I didn’t recognize and oreo cookies.  We will be going into Halifax today for … Continue reading On The Road–More about Lunenburg Nova Scotia…

I am sitting in a small motel room in Lunenburg Nova Scotia writing these words waiting for my wife to wake up to tell me what she has planned, or maybe doesn’t have planned for the day. Lunenburg is on the “South Shore” of this province. Two days ago I told my wife that she was going to be in total control of our time in Nova Scotia. I would offer no comments or suggestion and would agree to everything she decided. After the fact she seems to always say that I was the one who decided everything so I … Continue reading On The Road–Hello from Nova Scotia…

Will Rogers answer to education reform. It makes sense to me. . . . why don’t they pass a Constitutional Amendment prohibiting anybody learning anything? And if it works as good as the Prohibition one did, in 5 years we would have the smartest race of people on Earth. Will Rogers -January 4, 1925 Continue reading Will Rogers Quote

Here we are already beginning our third week of our Canadian adventure. Today we did something that we don’t often do and that is take a tour bus. We decided instead of driving the 100 or so miles around the island we would let Graylines do it for us.  It was a very pleasurable trip. Our driver/guide is a lifelong resident of Prince Edward Island (PEI) who told us much about the local history and how the island has changed during his lifetime. The bridge we went over is several times longer than we have ever encountered and several times … Continue reading On The Road — Day 14 – Here is to you Anne…

Today we spent the day meandering around the city of Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island. The island is much bigger than I thought. I expect it is 50 miles or more long and 20 or so wide. It is a separate province (State). We spent quite a bit of the day walking its mile long boardwalk along the bay and collecting a few souvenirs in the shops that lined it. After lunch (I had haddock with lobster sauce, Yvonne had a cheeseburger) we went to Confederation Hall which was where the original Canadian confederation was formed in 1867. The museum there covered the … Continue reading On The Road — PEI and the Canadian Federation….

We had a wonderful day at the Acadian village yesterday. We got there just as it opened at 10am and spend the next four hours experiencing the Acadian life of the 19th century. We had a little rain but not enough to put a damper (pun intended) on the day. There are about fifty building in the village and most of them had an interpreter to tell us about the person who owned the building. All of the interpreters were bi-lingual and I guess they got their clue for your first words as to whether they would talk in French … Continue reading On The Road — Oh Those Acadians….

White House shifts in unpredictable debt debate – USATODAY.com. Political analyst Darrell West of the Brookings Institution said the administration’s willingness to adjust when the situation warrants could put the president at an advantage. “Leaders have to adapt to changing circumstances,” said West. “And if they don’t, their rigidity undermines the political process.”    This whole article talks about President Obama has constantly been changing what he wants to accomplish with all the debt talks. As the quote I pulled out mentions that leaders have to adapt…. but what I don’t see here is that the only one that seems … Continue reading All I Know — "White House shifts in unpredictable debt debate"

We Moved from our hotel this morning about 180 km to Riviere-du-Nord to visit a historic Acadian village. Unfortunately the weather did not cooperate with us today. We spent most of the morning and afternoon in constant rain. We found a motel close to the village and checked in. It is another pretty inexpensive motel so I did check out the bed before making the accommodations. ;) After checking in we headed for the village and managed to go through about 20% of it before finally surrendering to the rain and heading back to our room. The rain is supposed … Continue reading On The Road — Day 11 – Those Ornery Acadians…..

This will be a short post as I have already done one today. Here we are at the end of day 10 of our Canadian adventure and we are now in New Brunswick Canada. As I had hoped Yvonne agreed to skip the rest of the peninsula trip and to move on to another English speaking province.  Coping with french only was becoming tiring to me.  We drove about 350 km today to get to Campbellton New  Brunswick which is the gateway to Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island. I’m sure the New Brunswick folk don’t consider themselves a gateway … Continue reading On The Road — Goodbye Quebec Province…

I watched the sun come up this morning over the St. Lawrence River. It was 5:00am here when that event occurred.  It turns out that the bed in our little motel room just proved to be too hard for my bursitis so I spent most of the night in a chair waiting for the aforementioned event. It was worth it. The only other person arousing at that hour was a lonely fisherman. I watched him for about ten minutes. He didn’t catch any fish but I don’t suspect that was the true reason he was out there. I think he, … Continue reading On The Road – Day 10 – Oh What a Beautiful Morning…

I seem to have a medical condition that is somewhat rare today.  No I am not talking about Cochlear Otosclorosis that caused my deafness  many years ago but one maybe even more rare. That condition is called a “Bleeding Heart”. I know this is a condition that my fellow Republicans loathe. Whenever they want to diss someone they call them a “bleeding heart liberal”. But I have to admit that I can’t help having this condition. It is just part of who I am. My heart bleeds for those around the world and even in our own country who don’t … Continue reading My Rare Medical Condition….

I seem to have a medical condition that is somewhat rare today.  No I am not talking about Cochlear Otosclorosis that caused my deafness  many years ago but one maybe even more rare. That condition is called a “Bleeding Heart”. I know this is a condition that my fellow Republicans loathe. Whenever they want to diss someone they call them a “bleeding heart liberal”. But I have to admit that I can’t help having this condition. It is just part of who I am. My heart bleeds for those around the world and even in our own country who don’t … Continue reading All I Know — My Peculiar Medical Condition…

It seems every day in our visit to Canada is not without its challenges. But, then again that is what makes life interesting I guess.  It is kind of like in 1987 during our first vacation as a married couple I lost my wife in a WalMart store in Bozeman Montana. I don’t remember too many other details about that vacation but I do remember searching for my bride for over an hour before I found her. But, that is a story for another post so I will get back on track. We are now in a small motel room … Continue reading On The Road — Day 9 — Another Interesting Day….You Can't….

This is day 8 of our Canadian adventure and we just left Quebec City. That was the last major city we will see in Canada. While Quebec was much more enjoyable than Montreal it was still a hectic time. But we did find the major stopping point we were looking for and that was Place Royale. It was part of the very old Quebec that has been completely restored back to its 1600s roots. That is except for the 21st century add-ons. Here is a picture of the main square in that area. Of course this area is adjacent to … Continue reading On The Road — Adieu Quebec…