Friday, April 29th
almost cut my hair...
...it happened just the other day
Then i read andy whitman's blog and cancelled the idea.
for years i wore my hair in a pony tail, then for no discernable reason i cut it all off. regretting this action about a year later i tried to grow it back but it looked horrible. so i gave up.
again for no discernable reason i decided to let it grow again. wonder of wonders, it seems to be working!
not on the forward part of my head of course. that has always been bare- at least as long as i remember and as long as photographs have recorded my history.
curious how this has worked out. at the time i was trying to grow my hair back out, i was under a great deal of stress, and perhaps this is why i was unable to grow the hair that i so desired.
another side benefit that i hope to have from growing hair is that i hope my headphones fit better. i've been really bad about listening to music, and being in central vineyard has really helped because there are so many music heads in this church. but i have this pair of headphones that used to belong to my grandfather and now reside at clintonville post office: delivery unit. they are not a half-bad set- a bit light in the low frequency range. but this is actually a good thing for my ears. i have a rather bad case of tinnitis: ringing in the ears: and this combined with a good dose of high frequency hearing loss makes it hard for me to understand the words even in normal speech. understanding the words in a heavy rock screaming guitar thumping bass mix is even more of a challenge. but although the headphones sound good and the cups are comfortable on my ears they have a tendency to slide around on my shiny head. more hair will probably not help so i will just have to remember to have a ballcap handy to wear when i want to listen and work at the same time.
so today i was listening to the mix andy whitman gave me at the old fffahhhrt's meeting this week. i won't comment on it yet because i've only listened half way through and being a "critical listener" (self imposed title) i woudn't dare comment unless i've listened to the entire mix at least 2 or 3 times.
jeff cannell has been feeding me ideas for the release of my piano cd (very pompous sounding wording again: "release") he has great ideas for doing it on the cheap involving making rubber stamps and getting generic cd cases. at first i thought this was a terrible idea but i think that he has actually talked me into it. nancy has already agreed to do the stamping. all that is left is to come up with a name for the venture. i proposed "fred kohn music" which sent pastor man into a paroxism of gagging. that name of course is far too commercial and pedestrian. he prefers a name that has something to do with not using blunt needles to cut records. so i thought of "no blunt objects studios" but nancy thought that name was pretty awful. so i'll keep thinking.
as it turns out there is a band called "blunt objects" as well as a band called "blunt instruments" so that whole concept was not as original as hoped. there is a guy who lives on my route that owns a record label called "dead canary records." i think that's a pretty cool name, especially if you know how they used to use canaries in coal mines.
Seasoning the Iron Skillet
That sounds like the name of a band or something! Our old teflon skillet finally upped and stripped itself of its teflon coating. I set out today with one goal in mind, to find a new skillet. I am amazed at the number of things to take into consideration when choosing a new skillet. Aluminum is now said to contribute to alzheimers. Fred and I are forgetful enough to warrant staying away from cooking with any thing akin to aluminum. Stainless steal is good, but over time is can knick and scratch and this influences the outcome of your attempt at cooking with it, or so it says on the back of the skillet box. Teflon dies on you with no warning. I experienced this one Christmas morning when I had family, a large number of them, over for Christmas breakfast. I served up a nice egg and cheese casserole only to find that as I dished up the concoction, it had a nice teflon coating on the bottom of each peice. Besides, I had read lately a complete litany of health problems potentially caused by this indestructible chemical, including several types of cancer, birth defects, and changes in cholesterol levels. SO, the search for the perfect new skillet continued through three stores and one item kept coming up over and over at each new location I tried, cast iron! I've had cast iron in the past and have HATED it, but then again, I was too inexperienced (a nice way of saying lazy) to "properly season" it. I decided to purchase the skillet and ordered a forklift to get it out to the car, and drove it home with the back of the car scraping the street. I swear the thing weighs 500 lbs. As soon as I got home, I got on the internet to see what the experts had to say about seasoning a cast iron skillet, and here is the result......
If the pan is new, be sure any adhesive label is completely removed.
Wash, rinse and dry the utensil.
Grease the inside surface with Crisco or other solid shortening. A medium-light coating, as you would grease a cake pan, is sufficient.
Put your greased utensil in a preheated 350°F oven for 1 hour.
Remove, cool and store the pan.
OK, this is all well and good but I have no crisco in the house, so I looked up alternative possibilites, and lo and behold, you can use lard! LARD??? :( who uses lard for anything these days? Besides I am a VEGETARIAN. So the search continued. I know what I was looking for, a website that said it was ok to use cooking oil. I found it, it was page 398,485,723 in the list of pages that google found for me in less than 0.30 seconds. SO, I've oiled down the skillet, and it is now "baking" in my oven at 350 degrees and has about 10 minutes to go. The dog is shivering by the front door, because it smells like there is about to be a spontaneous combustion in the household, but I am assured, by the world wide web, that with proper use and repeated seasoning, my new cast iron skillet will become a family heirloom! I asked my daughter if she would like to inherit my cast iron skillet when I die, she said "whats a cast iron skillet?" :eh:
Prayer Request
Howdy Friends....
I have a second interview with a very small Clintonville insurance company :compute:. I will find out on Monday when the interview is scheduled, but I'd like to ask for prayers for this interview. The hours are great, 1-5 in the afternoon, which would allow Fred and I to still have lunch together everyday, and the location of the office (next to Beechwold Natural Foods on High Street) is perfect for us to maintain our simplistic lifestyle. A second income would be nice and I think I am ready to venture out of the house on a part time basis!
Thanks in advance and I will keep you posted on the progress of the interview process
Monday, April 25th
The One World Government
I haven't posted anything political for quite some time, and so I don't feel too bad about doing so today. I've been thinking about politics again because of the discussion on Dave and Kara Hill's blog about "King George." But the pump was primed when I was driving across Nebraska and heard a radio preacher talking about the coming one world government.
He of course was referring to the scene in Revelation where the world is ruled by the unyeilding and all powerful hand of the beast (from the sea). The premill dispensationalists tell us that this is all future- that John just obediently wrote down this vision and that it didn't have particular meaning to him or to the time he was living in.
I don't buy it. If you take a good look at the politics of the believers in Revelation, they look an awful lot like what we would call these days anarcho-pacifists. That is, they don't fight (either on the side of the beast or against the beast) and they don't participate in governmental structures.
Is it a coincidence that during the time of John and for a couple hundred years later, the main political persuasion of Christians was anarcho-pacifism? I think that John understood the vision completely as representing his own time, and that this understanding also informed the writing of his gospel. There he identifies the one world government as "the world" and identifies its prince as Satan.
"The world" is run on 3 basic principles:
1. Civil Authority
2. Religious Authority
3. Money
Jesus rejects all 3 of these in the desert. Each of the desert temptations mirrors a later event in Jesus' life when He could have seized control of "the world": economically by the creation of bread, religiously when he drove out the moneychangers and merchants and took control of the temple, and in the civil realm by calling legions of angels in the garden of Gethsemane.
These 3 principles also appear in Revelation 13 as the two beasts and the mark without which no one can buy or sell.)
Historically we know that Christianity in the main turned away from anarcho-pacifism around the time of Constantine. It makes sense. At this time, the official religion was no longer paganism, but Christianity. The beast from the sea which had looked so ferocious became a lot more friendly, even cuddly.
Of course, if you are a premill dispensationalist, it shouldn't worry you too much that you're buddying up with the civil authorities. Because before they get ugly again, you'll all be zapped to another dimension in time to miss the real mess.
Saturday, April 23rd
Lessons Learned
Fred and I are sharing a blog now, I think thats cool! Here are a few things I learned on my three week trip to California
1) God is good, all the time
2) Mountains are pretty.....to LOOK at, not drive through
3) After 23 years together, Fred and I are a better team than I ever imagined and I love him more than I ever thought possible
4) Money brings out the worst in people and I'll gladly live in the lap of poverty and be happy
5) Material possesions are not important, but memories are, and if a material possesion is linked to a happy memory, its worth saving
6) China Town is not all its cracked up to be, and neither is Fishermans Warf
7) The northern coast of California and the Redwood Tree's are sheer proof there is a God in heaven
8) Tumbleweeds are fun and make a rather nice household decoration (please come by and see it!)
9) The only place under construction in the 2700 miles between California and Ohio is interstate 70 from the Ohio border to Columbus!
10) There is nothing redeemingly good about Salt Lake City, Utah, and I will not think I have missed out on something in life if I never see it again
11) Trucks suck but truckers are nice
12) Its hard to find good vegetarian food on a road trip, better pack a cooler
13) There is no place like HOME
14) There are a lot of satelite Christian radio stations across the United States, but there is more country stations than anything
and last but certainly not least.....
15) GOD IS GOOD ALL THE TIME
Nancy
like night and day...
I didn't fully understand this phrase until Nancy and I followed each other from California to Ohio. i was driving the minivan full of stuff and nancy was driving grandpa's car- a buick skylark full of stuff and two dogs. the first day we got to salt lake city and tried to follow each other through it even though it had already gotten dark. of course we lost each other.
we had a plan that we followed. i got through the city and pulled off to the side of the road on interstate 80 and waited for her to catch up. i had been shaking all the way through salt lake city, but after i stopped i had the leisure time to have a full blown panic attack- complete with screaming and pounding the steering wheel. later nancy said that she had been waiting at least 5 minutes after she pulled up behind me for me to realize that she was there and we were together again.
the next big city we had to follow each other through was omaha nebraska. this time we went through it in the day. it was somewhat harrowing (more for nancy than me this time) but we made it through without major incident and never lost each other.
like night and day
one regret i must mention- somewhere in the midst of 'why oh ming' there was a gas station which proclaimed its name in large letters- MAJOR GAS, and then in smaller letters below proclaimed FOOD STOP. together it was a rather amusing picture. we had decided on the way back that we would stop and get a picture, but unfortunately i missed the exit!
one good memory was our stop in buford wyoming: population 2. yes, it's a real city! i went into the gas stop there and asked the attendant, "so, where's the other half of the population?" I knew that she was sick of hearing that line, but it was so good i couldn't resist using it! as it turns out she didn't even live in buford, she lives in cheyenne. but buford is an honest to god town, registered by the state for the last 139 years.
it's good to be back. for some reason i'm going to go help rocky and grant move their stuff today. i've been sorting through stuff for the past 3 weeks and yet i'm excited to help them move. i can't quite figure that out- except that i've learned that all of our stuff has stories and memories associated with it. of course the stuff isn't what's important- it's the other that is.
yesterday nancy spent a large chunk of the day cleaning up an old hutch we took back from granpas and i spent a much smaller chunk stuffing an old pair of speakers grandpa made with fiberglass. i must say that the old hutch looks pretty damn good and the speakers don't sound to shabby.
i think grandpa would be happy that they are being put to good use.
Wednesday, April 20th
Letters from Grandpa
here are a couple of letters mom found while going through my recently deceased grandpa's papers that I found interesting:
537 Russell Street
Vallejo, California 94590
May 9, 1979
FILLpro Division of
JH Industries, Inc.
Santa Ana, California 92705
Dear FILLpro,
I have just completed an instalation of your FLAP JACK flapper
tank ball. Through no fault of yours, it took me more than an
hour to do the job. I am wondering if you might have other
models which might save me time in the future.
I have a bastard brand of one-piece low-boy toilet, which is a
wonder to behold and amazingly quiet to observe. In fact, it is
a sort of showpiece in our household. Unhappily for me but
expectedly for you, the original flapper tank ball ceased to
function. Since then, I have learned more than I want to know
about the hidden constraints in the design of this ostensibly
simple mechanism.
The problem seems to be that in this one-piece construction, the
clamp holding the flush valve in place interferes with the
flotation chamber on the underside of the flapper. On your ball,
as well as the one I tried previously (which may or may not have
been yours), this chamber projects about an inch and a half
below the valving face. My installation permits a maximum of one
inch. By use of a soldering gun, I have been able to reduce the
extension of the chamber and compensated for the lost buoyancy
by attaching fishing floats to the sides of the flapper.
My next to most recent effort failed because my hand method
resulted in an elliptical shape which would not always seat. I
think that I have found the correction, but think that an
original design would work much better.
Do you happen to have a product which will solve my problem? If
so, how may I obtain a half dozen?
Sincerely,
David B. Mitchell
FILLpro's reply:
Dear Mr. Mitchell;
We appreciate your recent letter to us concerning our Flap Jack
flapper tank ball.
Our Flap Jack will not fit your particular application and we do
not have another tank ball that will.
For your trouble and expense we could send you one of our toilet
tank fill valves. However, it also may not fit your low-boy
toilet. Please refer to the enclosed brochure and let me know if
it may fit.
Sincerely,
FILLPRO
Patrick Geraghty,
Vice President-Marketing
PG/slm
Grandpa's response:
Dear Mr. Geraghty:
Thank you for your letter of May 16 concerning my problems with
the flush valve in my low-boy toilet. I felt that the odds in
favor of your having another model of tank ball that would solve
the problem were very low, but thought I would write just in
case. While the technique of modifying your standard Flap Jack
are fresh in my mind, it would probably be smart of me to do
some more for the future benefit of myself, my widow, or other
owner of the home.
Since the problem is of my own making, your offer of one of your
toilet tank fill valves came as a most pleasant surprize.
However, it will not fit my low-boy toilet, a possibility which
you foresaw. But I am impressed by the design, and think it may
be the answer to another problem at my Church, due to ballcock
plungers getting stuck because of infrequent usage.
If this new story is nearly as good, I would appreciate your
sending me one of your hydrostatically controlled Fillpro Fill
Valves to try at Church.
Sincerely,
David B. Mitchell
I have no record of whether FILLpro sent the valve, or whether it worked.
One more interesting letter:
537 Russell Street
Vallejo, California 94590
March 7, 1978
Luxury Leather Footwear
c/o A. E. Nettleton
P. O. Box 740
Syracuse, New Yourk 13201
Attn: Don Duggan
Dear Mr. Duggan:
Last year I ordered from you a pair of Mainstream 1114 shoes,
and I have just received a pair of Kings Road 1112 shoes.
Together, these two pairs of shoes probably come close to my
total investment in footwear during the preceding 68 years. You
see, where I grew up, each Fall they used to come out into the
hills to round up the kids, put shoes on them, and make them go
to school. So I never learned how to really take good care of my
shoes.
Except for my 18" dress boots from the mid 30's whcih are now
too tight in the calf, and my 18" surveyor's boots from about
the same time which now are more out-doorsey than I am, my
oldest still serviceable shoes are a pair which were purchased in
the late 40's. Noting that the materials in my new Kings Road
shoes served some poor lizard for the whole of his life, I would
like to care for these shoes so that they will likewise serve me
for the remainder of my life.
Since this goal can hardly be original, I would expect that you
have already prepared some sort of instructions on the care of
reptile leathers, and would appreciate your sending me a copy.
I appreciate your providing a pair of Shoe Keepers and gold
fabric bags with each pair of shoes, but now have a problem. If I
have four smartly styled gold bags hanging from the one
available hook, how do I select the two most appropriate for the
occasion?
Sincerely,
David B. Mitchell
there is no record that grandpa ever received a reply to this letter. :smiley2:
Monday, April 11th
Why, oh Ming?
well, we drove out to california from columbus in a mere 3 days (actually a bit less, we arrived early evening on the third day). it was amazing to me what a beautiful state Wyoming is. i rode through it several times in my childhood as we as a family would drive out to california and back and never noticed it.
interesting that the entire state of wyoming only has about a half million people in it- less than the greater columbus area.
i was asking a waitress in a wyoming restaurant about the state and she said, "i am so OVER this state! there's nothing here but a bunch of dirt!"
as i've been going through grandpa's stuff, i realize how much i am like him. grandpa was an obsessive compulsive, totally unable to throw anything away. it has been "interesting" to go through his computer storage- first the cassette tapes that he used to back up his TRS-80, then his 5 1/4 floppies, then his 3 1/2" floppies and then his tape drive data tapes.
i attended the ceremony this morning where they buried grandpa's ashes in the ground and i was surprised by the intensity of my emotion. after the ceremony i went in the church and played "great is thy faithfulness" on the piano. it seemed to help.
Saturday, April 2nd
2 deaths this week
Grandpa passed on Easter Sunday. Mom reports that they spent a pleasant day at Bernie and Kathy's. Grandpa ate well and enjoyed a glass of wine. As they were walking out to the car he collapsed and was pronounced dead at the hospital. He was 96.
Terri Schiavo also passed on this week under much different circumstances.
Like everybody else (it seems) I'm tempted to draw comparisons and conclusions from these circumstances. But when it boils down to it, either all deaths are tragic, or none of them are. Here is a Bonhoeffer quote that helped me this week:
We pay more attention to dying than to death. We're more concerned to get over the act of dying than to overcome death. Socrates mastered the art of dying; Christ overcame death as the last enemy. There is a real difference between the two things; the one is within the scope of human possibilities, the other means resurrection. It's not from ars moriendi, the art of dying, but from the resurrection of Christ, that a new and purifying wind can blow through our present world. Here is the answer to Archimedes' challenge: "Give me somewhere to stand, and I will move the earth." If only a few people really believed that and acted on it in their daily lives, a great deal would be changed. To live in the light of resurrection - that is what Easter means.
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