Saturday, June 26, 2010

Laundry Day up on the Rim

   Today was laundry day… something that I really don’t enjoy! But as with most things, it has to be done. The only saving grace is that I’ve got some help… Not very good help, but help none the less…

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Here’s my only employee… Some times he’s a good hand with things, and other times, well you get the picture. he’s kind of small so that makes him very useful when it comes to tight spaces. Like when you have to take off an oil filter on your car, or pull things out from under the bed…

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On the bigger things, he needs a boost up… as sometimes all of us do. So I just put something he can climb up on and away he goes.

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Now how did you get up there? Oh well, at least I know where your at…

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And he needs a bathroom brake from time to time…

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I turned around for one second and he tried to fill the sink and go swimming. I had to tell him the sink was for washing his hands only, which made him sad…

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But he cheered right up when I turned on the air dryer, and had a little fun. He likes it when the hot air blows his hat off, but made me promise that I wouldn’t take his picture, as he is bald on top, and is real self conscious about it so I didn’t.

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After I put the clothes in the dryer, I couldn’t find him… Until I heard some faint giggling… I opened the door on the dryer, and lo and behold, there he was! going for the ride of his life!

It sure was a lot of fun doing laundry with the help of my little friend! Friends are really good to have, in fact, you can never have too many friends! Friends are part of what makes life worth living!

A true friend doesn’t care what color you are, or how much you weigh, or if you have some kind of physical handicap, or any thing else! A true friend just loves you for who you are… with all your faults and short comings!

And I am happy to say that I have lots of true friends! You know who you are, and I will leave you with this…

   I love all my friends!!!

 

                                                  I am what I am

Wednesday, June 23, 2010

Why am I always doing these crazy things

Yesterday I went for a hike down off the rim. It was a fairly strenuous endeavor… Well for me any way!

Actually got to meet some really nice people on the way. Something about the wild places that can bring out the

best in people… maybe it’s because they leave their pride behind…

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This view is from the Kiabab trail just off the rim… Beautiful isn’t it?

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Going a little farther now… Roaring Springs Canyon is below in this view… I’m going in…

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This is where it got a little discouraging… 85 degrees and rising… The thermometer on the wall is at the out door rest rooms… Though I just don’t see how you could “rest” much as the compost toilets are pretty stinky! Oh well…

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Here I am at the Supai tunnel, a man made (or woman made, I don’t know) tunnel, blasted through the rock many years ago. Guess you’ll have to Google it to find out how long ago…

I went as far as the Red Wall Bridge, sorry about not having any pics of it as the one thing I didn’t bring was extra batteries for my camera… Brought plenty of water, which is a MUST while hiking anywhere. EEven gave some away along the trail as some people would rather take extra batteries and not enough water… Go figure!

 

It was a wonderful hike and hope to be able to do a lot more of this during my time here!

                                                                                               I am what I am

Wednesday, June 16, 2010

The circle of life

Today I have been blessed to be able to participate in a wonderful thing!

I was sitting at my computer and felt something crawl across my foot, thought it was a fly or something so I didn’t pay too much attention to it…

A few minutes later I saw this in the kitchen floor

Baby quail

It was a baby quail, I think…

So I picked it up very carefully and took some pictures of it and sang to it while I took it outside to let it go…

There are a lot of nests around the house so I had no idea of who it belonged to.

When I put it down on the ground by the trees, it bolted for the woods. Sure hope it was able to find it’s way back to its mother…

At that moment I could feel the love of all creation returning to me as the little bird ran out of sight!!!

Times like this just make me feel so good to be alive and part of this beautiful dance we call life!

Thank you to the LONG LIFE HAPPINESS ONE WHOSE WAYS ARE BEAUTIFUL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

      I don’t know how to put it into words the feeling I have right now… So I’ll just say that love will hold everything together… and give you all another look at this beautiful little creation of our God!

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                                                                                                          I am what I am…

Saturday, June 5, 2010

The Parable of the pull tab

     This is a true story from my childhood, it took place some 40+ yrs ago, but I can remember it like it just happened…

 

       More years ago than I would like to admit, I was going for a walk on the beach with my dad. There are five brothers in the family, so he would take us out one at a time as I remember. A few times all of us would be out there, but it is really hard to keep track of five small boys on the beach…

Any now here is the story:

    One day while walking along the beach with my dad, I stepped on an old pull tab, and cut open my heel. The blood soon came and I freaked.

  My dad just picked me up in his arms and tried to comfort his frightened son the best he could. He brought me into the house and set me up on the kitchen sink and started the water running.

  He put my foot under the running water and my foot really began to bleed. I got even more scared and begged him to make it stop.

       I will never forget what he said to me, to this day it has been a comfort in times of trouble when it seems that it would rain forever.

    He said to me, “ I can’t right now, this cut has to bleed for a while, or else it will become infected. But don’t worry son, I am watching it and will not let it go on too long.”

 

    Those words have echoed in my mind and sank deep into my heart over the years…

Whenever we are wounded, we always try too hard to get over things, heal as fast as we can. This is not a good thing.

If we try to bind our own wounds, they will become infected. Some times a wound has to bleed for a long time before it will close up properly. There is no rhyme or reason in how long it takes to heal. What seems like a minor scrape bleeds continually for a long time. And what looks like a mortal wound, some times, can bring blessing from the most un- expected places.

   The thing is, each wound is different and yet the same in the sense that we don’t suffer any thing that is not common to humans.

  Each individual has their own threshold of pain, so there is no one who can say that they know how your wound feels except the Long Life Happiness One Whose Ways Are Beautiful. So there are only two who fully understand the depth of the wound, and really only One who knows the duration of suffering.

We will be wounded in this life, there is no stopping it. The only thing that can be done is to renew our minds and hearts so we can better understand our own heart and soul. Thus allowing for the healing process to begin. That process usually begins shortly after the wounding. There are some things that happen first, but healing begins pretty quickly rather we know it or not.

  The problem comes when healing is delayed and allows for the growth of bacteria and once again infection occurs. I’m not saying to try to forget… That’s probably the worst thing to try to do. But there are things that can be done to cleanse a wound to allow for quicker onset of the healing process… Dr.’s call it “debreeding the wound” where the edges of a wound are trimmed away so good tissue can be joined together.

  Some times we are led to the threshing floor, the place where even angels fear to tread. And our hearts go through a debreeding  process that is very painful at the time.

Don’t get me wrong or misunderstand, I’m not saying that the wound was for our own good, it’s what was done with that wound that is the point.

When some one I love has been wounded, the only thing that I can offer is love… It’s really the only thing worth offering!

Because we have the capacity for great sorrow, we also have the capacity for great love, and as both are traded back and forth there is a beautiful collision. When the sorrow of one heart collides with great love from another the condition for healing created… One can never truly heal alone and apart from others, we need to be comforted.

Remember, it is not necessary to remain strong during times of great sorrow, there is strength enough in others to help us. The Long Life Happiness One will move heaven and earth to come to our rescue when we are in need. To help heal our hearts.

I know that we live on a wild planet, and as our technology advances, there will have been created new ways of suffering as mankind becomes more and more ambitious with his preoccupation. I fear that we haven’t seen any thing yet…

    Now having said all that let me leave you with this,

I believe that we can help heal one another with the love that has existed from ever lasting to ever lasting. We can create situations that the natural out come is healing. And it is only with love, does any one stand a chance for any kind of wound to heal properly.

So when some one you love has been wounded, just love…  No need to grab the tourniquet right away… Better to just express your love and open your heart and ears…

                                                                                             I am what I am

Friday, June 4, 2010

All in a days work

I take big pieces of steel and turn them into smaller pieces of steel. The process from start to finish is not really rocket science, if you can do simple math and have a good understanding of how to follow what is called a “cut list”, then you should do ok. By the way, a cut list tells you how much material to cut from a single piece and how much “drop” you should have left over for future use.

   Not following the cut list sets one up for not having the material that is shown in inventory. Not a good thing.

Here is the steel as it lies in the rack with great anticipation, I can almost hear them saying, “Oh, choose me! Choose me!”

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The next step in the process is to somehow get it out of the rack, you might have to dig one out, but the fork lift is available to help with that, just don’t turn the rack over in the process. It’s a drag to clean up. So having got it out of the rack it is placed on the roller beds to be consumed by the Great Gobbler, or the Shear of Sanity. Its the green one, and the way the punch is set up you will go crazy trying to get holes punched in the right location.

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After the steel has gone through it’s transformation, it winds up in purgatory, the place where it waits for me to label it with a part number and job number. Also where it is decided whether or not it gets further transformed.

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The cut list tells me what dimensions the blank will be, the coalition drawings tell me what to do with the blank. Those you see on the clip board above.

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Above what you see is the final stop before going on to their place of final attachment. where they will become part of a sky scraper or a football stadium, or a race track or hospital. These in the pic are destined for an Am Track Maintenance Facility in parts unknown. 

You already know what I do to feed my soul, this is what I do to feed my body. 

                                                                                                                                                       I am what I am

The Ranger is cool

Some times it seems that the world has gone mad, and the Ranger says,

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The stock market crashes, and oil slicks seem to be the norm, the Ranger says,

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The Mayan calendar says we only have two more years, and the Ranger says,

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Our leaders some times don’t their own mind and the Ranger says,

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There are times when it seems as all is lost and it’s time to let go the oars,

And the Ranger says,

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So if the Ranger says don’t worry, then why should we? The world will run it’s course, and if we want to

ride along we have to learn to have more joy and less worry…

I remember Alfred E. Newman saying, “What me worry?” And now the Ranger says it too!

I guess with that kind of reasoning we should listen. 

Now when I say don’t worry, It’s not that we should be apathetic towards life, or not participate. No, far from it!

We should participate in the things that are occurring in the world and our own back yards. We should be preaching

a message of love and reconciliation. The natural world will heal it’s self given enough time, regardless of what we do.

It is the world that the people created with it’s systems of governments and every other tangled web of deceit, that

can be changed with one thing and one thing only… Universal love with out condition! All the problems that people face

in their personal and national relationships are caused by the lack of unconditional love. And the fear that results from it.

  For if you know that I love you, then you also know that you have nothing to fear from me. You would know and

understand that I would have no ill will, conjure up any plots or schemes to do harm, and therefore you would have no

cause to have to try to defend.

  For if I love my neighbor, than I seek the betterment of that soul. And if we all have this love for one another, than all

reasons for borders, class structure, or any thing else that preoccupies us will disappear.    We all have a stake in this life.

And the quality of this life can be changed completely by that one simple thing.

Never again would we hear that somebody died because they were too hungry for too long. Or that some one was killed

because of some one else's selfishness.

People would live out their natural lives to an old age, and would have been at peace with all others and

have no fear of the next part of their journey.

    It’s an easy thing to do… This love thing. The hard part is letting go of ourselves. It’s hard sometimes to put others

before ourselves, and esteeming others as better than ourselves. But those two points are the biggest stumbling

blocks that keep humans from achieving what we were really intended for. A life of beauty and abounding love!

So when you hear some one say don’t worry, try not to get upset, especially when things are really rough.

Just tell them you love them and really don’t worry…

 

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I would like to show you the Ranger in disguise… Ain’t she sweet!

    

 

     I am what I am