Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blind-folded fear. –Thomas Jefferson’s Letter, 10 Aug. 1787 I am going to combine my usual Sunday post on things inspiring/spiritual with my usual Thursday quotes. Thomas Jefferson, like most of the founding fathers was a Deist. That is he believed in a God who was in control of the universe but not so much into our daily lives. His quote above is very contrary to many religious communities today. Questioning the existence of God … Continue reading Check Your Intelligence At The Door…

We have a few very old maple trees on our property. The one shown here is pretty well hollowed out and that is where our cat Dexter likes to spend time. He climbs trees like a professional. This hole is about 15 feet off the ground which is no problem for him. Several times a year someone will stop and give us a quote to take down the tree but I always so “its time has not come yet”. I am old and not so pretty anymore but I don’t want someone to “take me down” so I treat this … Continue reading Home Away From Home…

The future is a scary place for many of us. We primarily see things that are out to get us and hurt us. We cling to the past as the good old days. The thing about that is that the past was simply not the good old days as we remember them. We seem to have an abject fear of letting our children out of our view for fear that they will be abducted. But the fact it that these are safer times in that regard than they were twenty, thirty, or even forty years ago. We as a country … Continue reading To Face The Future…

Nearly all of 2014’s best-paying jobs require an advanced degree, according to a new ranking from the job portal Careercast.com. Seven of the 10 most lucrative positions are in the health-care industry. SOURCE: The 10 best-paying jobs of 2014 – Yahoo Finance. It is interesting to see that seven of the ten highest paying jobs are in our unsustainable healthcare sector. I doubt that this relation is coincidental. Note that the numbers above are the average. Many make much more than this. We seem to always knock the lawyers but they are pretty far down on the list. The guy … Continue reading 7 Out Of 10….

I know the Rolling Stones song goes “I can’t get no satisfaction” but for purposes of this post I am going to change it a little. I have been fully retired for about eight years now and was semi-retired for six before that. One of the things that I have found the most difficult to keep a handle on in these retirement years is stimulation. In other words for it “I can’t get no stimulation.” and without stimulation my life sometimes seems to just be spinning in place. In the corporate world of the 1990s it was always about doing … Continue reading I Can't Get No….

Another quick snapshot of my blog InSearchOfAmerica. Visit it by clicking on the mosaic map just to the right of this post. Rapid City, SD – A City of Sculptures I love all the sculptures in downtown Rapid City. Many celebrate our Native Americans. What could be more American than to celebrate the original inhabitants of this great country. Too bad it took us so many years to realize that….. Continue reading Celebrating Native Americans….

This is a continuation of last Friday’s post about why I blog and why I have been around longer than many of my blogging friends. The above title with a slight modification is from a song from Carly Simon in the early seventies.  I am not really taunting you here it is just that like so many of my blogging buddies have been doing lately I sometimes wonder if I should go on with this blog or just hang it up? Last Friday I mentioned some of the reasons that I blog.  I thought I would finish the thought with … Continue reading You're So Vain, You Probably Think This Post Is About You…

I have ever deemed it fundamental for the United States never to take active part in the quarrels of Europe. Their political interests are entirely distinct from ours. Their mutual jealousies, their balance of power, their complicated alliances, their forms and principles of government, are all foreign to us. They are nations of eternal war. –A Thomas Jefferson Letter, 11 June 1823, to President James Monroe Thomas Jefferson just didn’t trust government very much. He was always skeptical that they would get us involved in things we had no business being involved in. The constant wars in Europe were one … Continue reading Never Take An Active Part…

When I think of the word covet I think of the tenth commandment. Here is what that says “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, nor his male servant, nor his female servant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbor’s.” I know covet is an old word so let’s be sure of the meaning. Covet – wish, long, or crave for So this last commandment means you should not wish for or crave anything that your neighbor has. But isn’t craving things that others have kind of foundational … Continue reading All About Coveting…

This Sunday post is going to take a personal drift.  Some of my antagonists over the years say that I have a smug attitude about Christianity and that I proclaim to be the only one who has all the answers. I hope these views are an exception rather than a rule for most who read my Sunday posts. But just in case I want to tell you what I think about that view of my words. First of all it hurts me that anyone would take that as my message about being a follower of Christ. If you are one … Continue reading Having All The Answers….

1. When he got tired of her outbursts. 2. When the trust was gone. 3. When his wife became a glorified roommate. 4. When the math didn’t add up. 5. When he was suffering from depression and she laughed it off. 6. When he realized she didn’t believe in his dreams. 7. When he disagreed with her on how they’d raise their future children. 8. When he became indifferent to the cheating. 9. When he decided to put his daughter first. 10. When he realized that having hobbies of his own was off-limits. 11. When he had the commute from … Continue reading 11 Reasons Men Leave Their Marriages

The new iPhone will make mobile payment easier by including a near-field communication chip for the first time, the person said. That advancement along with Touch ID, a fingerprint recognition reader that debuted on the most recent iPhone, will allow consumers to securely pay for items in a store with the touch of a finger…. “Love it or hate, Apple drives a lot of standards in the industry,” Bajarin said in an interview. “They are the mover in these markets. When they do something, the industry seems to follow.” SOURCE: Apple Said to Team With Visa, MasterCard on IPhone Wallet … Continue reading Apple Innovations…

Now, the fact that we call It “It” implies that this certain something is a little squishy and difficult to define. You just know It when you see It. Still, there are some obvious components. Good looks certainly help. So does confidence. Gravitas, swagger — both help you have It. And it’s often very important to be cool — whatever that is. Competence and the notion that you’re a winner who can get things done? Now that’s It. JFK had It. Reagan had It. Clinton had It. So did George W. Bush. And Obama — well, let’s just say he … Continue reading The "It" Factor…

I am bringing this picture collage over from my picture blog at InSearchOfAmerica. It is one of the many small and almost abandoned towns we have visited over the years. I’m not sure but I think it is located in North Dakota or Nebraska. I once considered trying to document these types of small towns before they become extinct but after a dozen or so visits to small towns like this one  I gave up the idea. It proved just too depressing and that is not what I wanted to accomplish. But, here’s to you small town America…. Continue reading Small Town America…

I am getting up there in years (approaching seventy) and it seems I have a different sense of what is important to put into my brain now than I have had in previous years. I spend about a half hour every morning going through my selected new feeds on the Internet. Several of those feeds have various stories about this person or that.  For the most part they are celebrities of various ages but they tend to be in their teens and twenties I think. The stories are usually about some outrageous thing they have done or worn lately. Some … Continue reading They Don't Know My Name And I Don't Know Their's