The First in the Deck Series

Our most recent DIY experience through the process.

Out With The Old, In With The New

Gotta love a new beginning, right?

Peppermint Shortage

Just a funny afternoon.

Coffeyville, KS

I loved this experience so much that I had to write about it. Then, through e-mails it spread to Coffeyville itself.

Photo Restoration

I had a lot of fun with this "old school" photo. It turned out too cool to not blog about it.

Kitchen Remodel (part one)

This is the first of a nine-part series documenting the remodel of our 50-year-old kitchen in our 100-year-old home!

Free 2022 World Cup Score Sheet Poster Download!

 It's that time again and I know there's at least a few people out there that know to look here for your next World Cup poster.

Free 2022 World Cup Bracket Poster Download

Well, hopefully, I haven't disappointed anyone.  I will say that I didn't bother looking for another high resolution World Cup appropriate image for the background.  I simply used the one from 2018.  Other than that, everything else got updated and I'm hyper excited now for the games to begin.  Bummer that we have to wait until November, but oh well.

Here's a link to the PNG version.  Also, I should mention that I put the time to the games in Central Daylight time zone (USA).  It's where I live, so sorry for all of you out there who live somewhere else.  You'll have to learn to convert to your time zone from this one.

Conscious vs. Sub-Conscious

Yesterday, Lyric and I were discussing a topic that I find very interesting; the difference between conscious thought and sub-conscious action.

There is much that we don't know about this subject and probably even more that we think we do know about this subject but don't really know.  In my experience, I have found that humans generally lack the humility to honestly admit that we don't know how things work, especially in our own minds.  With exponentially less humility than the general public, the so-called scientific community is far less likely to utter the phrase: "I don't know" with regards to the functions of the brain.  And, why should they?  They're professionals (meaning that they get paid to make statements with absolute certainty), and, the general public wants to believe them.

But, I like to marvel at the unknown mysteries of it all.  The concept of sleep, for one, is a subject for which I have spent hours contemplating in complete fascination.  Think about it.  We lay down at night and relax, and before we know it, we lose consciousness.  Does that not bewilder you?  It should.

Consciousness appears to even have stages.  There is "being half asleep", which is a state of semi-unconsciousness, where you are still partially aware of your surroundings and perhaps even privy to conversations happening around you, and yet still somewhat in a state of mental rest.  Even though you can rouse from this state on demand, you also feel an unknown force that's wishing to keep you physically in suspension.  Unlike sleep, your brain seems to still be keeping track of time.  When you do "wake" from this, you may have a fairly accurate sense of what time it is and how much time has passed since you entered this "half-sleep".

Then there is sleep, which is a state of unconsciousness from which you can be relatively easily roused if needed, but will also fade back into consciousness on its own when your brain sub-consciously decides that it's fully rested.  During this state, your sub-conscious is free to do what it wants without the direction of the conscious mind.  We call this dreaming.  Meanwhile, your consciousness is on vacation and cannot be reached by phone or email.  Otherwise, the factory is still in complete operation.  Blood is flowing, digestion is still doing its thing, etc. All systems are a go.  Only the CEO is out, but what does he do anyway, right?

Then, there is what I call being: "knocked out".  This is usually caused by a physical trauma to the brain or is drug-induced (which is probably also a trauma to the brain).  In this state, you may not be able to be roused at all for a time.  Or, you may be able to be roused with some extra effort from others.  In this state, your sub-conscious may have also gone on vacation along with your conscious mind.  They're off drinking martinis on some beach while your body is left with its most basic auto-pilot functions still working, like breathing and a beating heart.  You may also be spared the embarrassment resulting from a loss of muscle control of holding in your bodily waste in this state, or you may not.

Then, there are various degrees of a coma where you may have some auto-pilot functions working and some not.  This state differs from the aforementioned ones in that you cannot be roused by others.  You may come out of it, but it's anyone's guess when or if that may happen.  There are drugs that can induce a coma and we understand that the majority of people come out of said coma when the drugs are ceased to be administered.  But, like all good medical disclaimers, there is the slight chance that you will not come out of this state if put into it, and therefore will be plenty of legal documents that you (or your power of attorney) will have to sign acknowledging that you understand this risk and others prior to a doctor agreeing to put you in this state.

Then, there is what most of us refer to as being a "vegetable" or "brain-dead".  This is when your brain might be performing some auto-pilot tasks but otherwise there is no real activity.  Doctors generally won't give the family of anyone in this state any hope of coming out of it.  They'll point to some statistics that equally provide no hope and usually recommend to the family that they no longer make any effort to keep the body alive citing that the 'person' who inhabited that body is already elsewhere.

Lastly, there is death.  The body has no pilot nor auto-pilot anything.  It's simply what was a biological vehicle that is no longer manned.  Depending on a lot of circumstances, it may be good for a few parts, otherwise it should be buried deep enough where none of us can smell it.

To be clear, this wasn't the conversation I had with my son.  I've gone off-subject, which I do a lot when I write.  He and I discussed how most of what we do is run by our sub-conscious.  For example, we don't think 'left, right, left, right' when we walk; we just do it.  We don't will our heart to beat, it just does it.  Our muscles are constantly making tiny adjustments to keep us upright when we are standing, despite no conscious thought being applied to the effort.  When driving, the vehicle becomes an extension of our bodies and we make adjustments to all the controls without conscious thought.  It's our sub-conscious, mostly, at the wheel.

We also discussed Rubix cubes since he's a cuber.  The conscious mind is deciding which algorithms to apply based off of the cases that it sees, but the algorithms are being executed by the sub-conscious.  Cubers call this "muscle memory" but the ability has little to do with the muscles, but more the sub-conscious.

I had the funny thought yesterday: since so much of our lives is governed by the sub-conscious, which do we think is more popular with others?  My sub-conscious or my consciousness?  Perhaps people like my sub-consciousness more, and my consciousness is just the nerd that comes along in the package deal.

Chew on that about yourself for a while.

9/11 Reflections

Today is September 12th, 2018.  Yesterday marked 17 years since the "September 11th attacks" and it didn't go by without some thought.  For those of you who have read my past blogs surrounding the events that occurred on September 11th, 2001, you know that I don't believe the official story which is what has become the historical narrative of what did occur that day.  I won't be going into the many details why I don't believe it.  That's not the point of this blog.  What I will be sharing is the epiphany that I had this past week as I reflected on the events that day.

(For those of you who believe the official story is what actually happened, bear with me for a moment.)

I was thinking about how it was possible that so many people could be lied to about something and believe it.  But, as I stewed on it, I realized that we all do that with new information as long as it doesn't conflict with our current beliefs.  Very few of us would have had any reason not to believe what we were being told at the time and certainly not those who didn't live through it and have thus only learned about it from the official narrative.

This willingness to accept a story as truth is dependent upon our beliefs already matching the background of said story.  In other words, it can't be too far fetched.  It has to fall in line with what we already believe reality to be.

There is a long-standing debate whether or not people are generally good or inherently bad.  I could easily get distracted by starting this now, but I will restrain myself.  Instead, I will state that, universally, all of us want to believe that people are generally good even if we fall into the camp that don't actively believe that to be the case.  This can be proven true simply by observing our expectations with social interactions.  We expect people, generally speaking at least, to adhere to a set of social norms and when people don't do this under our watch an emotional reaction takes place whether that be surprise, sadness, anger, annoyance or any combination of many emotional possibilities.  Ultimately, we want to believe that people want to be good and will be generally good.

So, all that said, it is easier to believe that a handful of bad people got together and coordinated a very successful attack on a country with a very capable defense system manned by a collectively incompetent set of people.  It's easier to believe in a small amount of evil and the incompetence of the many because that fits relatively close to what we all want to believe, as aforementioned.  Conversely, it's incredibly difficult for us to fathom the possibility that many more people were involved, had foreknowledge of what would happen, and even assisted in it being carried out.  And even more difficult to believe that these people were from our own government, assigned to protect and serve us.  We feel justified by our doubt because we also know that others would have found out about this along the way and we believe that all those "good" people would speak up and the truth would come out because that's what it always does, right?  The truth shall prevail.  Goodness will shine.  The good guy always wins.

 Whether we want to admit it or not, we all have been taught a worldview where goodness wins in the end.  And, we believe that we can just be lazy, sit back and let the truth come out and take over and when everyone else sees it and is on board then we can get on board, too.  "I won't believe it till I see it", they say.  But, what they really mean is:  "I won't believe it till I see that everyone else sees it, too."

I have really strayed from my intended subject which was considerably shorter.  What I wanted to share was the epiphany I had.  As I wondered how history could possibly be written incorrectly, I realized that 9/11 is hardly the only place that this has happened.  Then, I realized that I have many beliefs that fly in the face of the "official" historical narrative.  I believe in a history that others don't.

I believe that there was a global flood.  I believe that all humans are related to the first two humans, one who was formed from dust, the other from the rib of the first one, most certainly not from a previous less-human version which came from a previous even-less-human version and so on.  I believe that all material and immaterial was created by the God of the bible.  I believe it was created in 6 days.  I don't believe that any of it formed "naturally" which really only begs the question of "What is nature?".  I believe miraculous events happened throughout history including the rampage of ten plagues upon Egypt, the parting of a sea, a man born of a virgin, the instantaneous healing of blindness, leprosy, the lame.  I believe the corpse of a man named Lazarus was made to wake from the dead and be alive again.  I believe that Jesus was crucified, died and yet rose again by his own power confirming that he was and is the Son of God.  I believe that Jesus walked the earth and visited hundreds of people after his well-publicized death.  I believe the earth is thousands of years old, not older.  I believe that the earth is a few days older than the universe.  I believe that life begins at conception and that we are fully human at conception and are thus afforded basic human rights at that time.  I believe that angels exist.  I believe that demons exist.  I believe that heaven is real.  I believe that President Kennedy was murdered by factions of the United States government that couldn't control him.  I believe that governments have utilized terror events to manipulate civilian consensus so often that it has assumed the name of an old pirate tactic, false flag.  And, yes, I believe that large factions of the United States government were directly involved with the coordination of the supposed terror attacks on September 11, 2001.

None of the previous paragraph's content can be found being taught in public school's textbooks as actual history and yet I believe that it to be just that.  But, it's not just a set of beliefs.  I have evidence.  I have proof.  I have extensively studied all these subjects and know why I believe them to be true.  I didn't just blindly accept it due to some sort of upbringing or education.  Rather, I believe them despite my upbringing and education.

It's easy for people who don't agree with my beliefs stated above to assume that I've been led to believe these things by others and that I'm simply a gullible person.  They might even figure that I believe these things in blind faith.  I get it.  I grew up much like everyone else and I remember believing quite strongly about things I didn't even really know much about.  I trusted what was taught to me through repetition.  I know others do this, too, so I don't blame them for sticking to what they think they know.  I only fault people for resorting to ridicule when presented with something that they don't believe to be true.

9/11 for me will always be a time to remember the lives needlessly lost and grieve for them and the families that lost them.  It will also be a time that I strengthen my resolve to teach the next generation in my circle of influence the true history of the world.  Without knowledge of the truth of where we came from, we cannot understand nor prepare for where we are going.

Free 2018 World Cup Score Sheet Poster Download!

I've pretty much stopped blogging altogether.  However, it's that time of year life again for another World Cup!  I created a free World Cup 2018 Score Sheet Poster (mainly for myself) and for all others to enjoy!

2018 World Cup Free Score Sheet Poster Download
Here are links to the full-sized, high resolution PDF and PNG versions of the score sheet pictured here to the right.  They're pretty big files because I designed them to be printed at 24 inches by 36 inches.  Staples will print this as an "engineering print" (black & white) at that size for only $3.  Printing in color is best so that you can see all the flags correctly, but it's more expensive.  So, to each their own.

If you haven't used this sheet or one like it before to keep score of all the games then you are missing out.  By keeping track of all the outcomes for all the games, it adds a level of excitement to the entire tournament.

I've also added some links in the drop-down menu above (as pictured to the right) just in case.

As always, this is free of charge.  I hope you enjoy it!

New Roof

We are blessed to be able to put a new roof on our house.  We're especially excited about it, because our house needed it both practically speaking as well as aesthetically speaking.  We had a few shingles blow off entirely after a super-windy night and had several others that broke their seal and flipped up, creasing them to the point of breaking.  Upon further inspection, the vast majority of the shingles had had their seals broken and were thus subject to damage with future winds and likely had their nails securing them partially pulled up allowing for potential future leaks.

Our first obvious challenge was that we were provided enough money to buy the materials, but no more.  So, that left us with two options.  A: We would not put a new roof on the house and begin to experience problems in the future.  Or B: We could put on a new roof ourselves.  We went with B.

So, with that decided, our first order of business was to pick out and order our shingles.  That went fairly well.  We had to wait on them to be ordered, arrive at the store, and then be delivered, but it went pretty well.  Our next challenge was getting them on the roof.  We wanted rooftop delivery, but, apparently, our local Home Depot doesn't have a truck for rooftop delivery.  So, they have a third party company do it for them.  It's not cheap for this service.  And, I feel like Home Depot knows it.  So, rather than Home Depot telling you the delivery charge for rooftop delivery, they just change the price of the bundles of shingles you're buying.  You know, to muddy it up because they don't think that their customers can do math.  It worked out to just over $450 for them to rooftop deliver.

We were kind of floored with this price because I was hoping that delivery would be free or at the very least would be greatly reduced.  We were buying 123 bundles of shingles after all.  That adds up to a pretty hefty price tag.  Most box stores boast free delivery when you're spending thousands of dollars.  But, alas, there would be no foreseeable compromise.  So, we opted for the normal delivery which would still be on their pallets on the ground.  To their credit, they did put the pallets right on the ground exactly where we told them that we wanted them.  So, there's that.

My ingenuitive nerdiness came out with this challenge.  I designed a "shingle elevator" in Sketchup from materials that I knew I already had.  It went together fairly quickly and worked really well.  It's limitation was that it required three men.  One guy (my friend, Rodney) would have to pull bundles off the pallet and load them on the elevator one at a time.  Another guy (my friend and neighbor, Brian) would have to pull the elevator up using the rope and hold it while the last guy (me) would need to pick up the bundles and go spread them out across the ridge of the roof.  My use of the term 'elevator' denotes a sort of effortless tool.  I cannot stress enough how poor of a choice of terms this was.  None of the three parts to the job was, by any means, effortless.

I bought dinner for the guys, but, besides a lot of spent energy, that was our only cost to getting the shingles on the roof.  That was the evening of Thursday, April 6th.

We employed our son, Lyric, whose agreed upon paycheck would consist of a Playstation 3.  He had been wanting one for some time and we figured that this would be a great opportunity for him to A) learn how to roof a house, B) learn some more work ethic, C) earn the item he couldn't afford to buy, and, lastly, D) help complete the roof at a much faster pace than it would have taken me to do it alone.  He did a fantastic job and I officially changed his affiliation with it from "helping me roof the house" to "roofing the house with me."  :)

Finishing the job was an awesome feeling.  We got it done on Sunday, April 23rd, just two and a half weeks from the start date. Not too shabby for such a small crew.


Blind Faith

Last Monday night, we were watching the third episode of a television show on Netflix called "No Tomorrow".  The show is a little quirky.  I really enjoy most of the comedy of it, though I am annoyed at the usage of over-sexualized humour.  But, this isn't a review of the show.

There are no spoilers in this blog (in my opinion) in case you're worried about that.  I'll only summarize the basic plot that you would've known anyway if you had only read the tiny description of the show in the Netflix browser.  The premise is basically: girl meets boy, boy/girl like each other, girl falls for boy, boy tells girl that an asteroid is coming to destroy the earth in 8 months, girl thinks boy is crazy, girl goes on liking boy anyway.

Now, I come to the reason I am writing about this show.  In the third episode, the boy, accompanied by the girl, presents his research and subsequent findings to a scientist.  The camera backs out and the scene closes so that the viewers don't get to hear the spiel, but later it does come back in at the end of the speech and we hear enough of his close to understand that he got a proper platform for which to present his arguments uninterrupted.  Later in the show, the girl is confiding in her mother that he "sounded so smart and insightful and passionate" when he had the chance to present what he had found but that she's feeling conflicted because she still thinks he's crazy.  Then, for some reason I can't explain, she finds solace in her realization that his belief in the impending asteroid-earth collision isn't religion but pure math.  Armed with this new epiphany, she explains to him that she admires him for living by his convictions, admits that his way of life is positive, contagious, and adds real value to others.  She realizes that it doesn't matter if she believes what he believes.  She can continue to have a relationship with him and support him in his beliefs whether she believes them or not.

The real-life applicable takeaway I learned here is this: You can aptly present factual arguments, even in an inarguable mathematical format, and even those who love you the most may still choose to believe the opposite in blind faith.

I'm not saying that the boy is right about the asteroid.  It's a tv show.  I'm saying that the girl sat and listened to the boy, admitted that he made intelligent arguments, has personally witnessed the benefits of harboring this belief, and EVEN understood that it was simply a matter of mathematics.  She did all this but goes on to claim she believes the event won't happen.  Take notice that she didn't make this decision because she looked through a telescope, examined the research, plotted the course of the earth herself, determined the trajectory of the asteroid and found his math to be full of errors.  She simply and blindly chose to accept something else to be true.  Her decision to believe he is wrong is a purposefully uninformed decision.  She's knowingly choosing willful ignorance.

Now, perhaps the boy is wrong, in fact.  It still wouldn't justify the girl's decision to believe that he is wrong without first exploring the issue herself.  Ironically, she understands it only to be a matter of math, but doesn't bother to look at the math to look for the error.  She just assumes it's wrong.

I can mathematically disprove the supposed age of the earth being in the billions of years.  But, in showing people this math, I can't expect to convert someones belief system.  It's a very useful tool in reinforcing people's belief system who already believe the same things as me.  But, it's unlikely that it will serve as a very useful tool of conversion.  Most will just convince themselves that there is some unseen trick in the math or will just simply do like this fictional girl did and write it off through willful ignorance.

The reason why it won't help to convert people is because our belief systems are not necessarily grounded in facts.  We would like to think that they are, but our beliefs go deeper than that.  They're not intellectually born.  They reside in the heart.  No one is without bias.  Our bias' steer us.  If you want to see someone in inner turmoil, find someone who believes differently from how they think.  Regardless of what they may "know", they are a slave to their belief.  Belief and thinking can't indefinitely be out of line.  Eventually, one will win out.

That reminds me of something.  In recent years, I've heard the slang term "whip" used to describe a nice car in hip-hop songs.  The term is derived from a chain of slang starting with the first automobiles where the steering wheel was commonly referred to as the 'whip' since the steering wheel of the car served the same purpose as a whip did to a team of horses pulling a wagon.  Later, since the Mercedes-Benz emblem looks like a steering wheel, urban slang for a Mercedes-Benz became a 'whip'.  Even later, it would be used for any luxury vehicle.

Our beliefs steer us.  Like a whip, they control us.  We can break free of their bondage.  But, it takes something much more powerful than a thought, a desire, a well-delivered speech, a sermon, or a presentation of facts.  It takes an act of will.  It's a matter of the heart.  You can hear one of the aforementioned things like a sermon, for instance, and respond by willfully choosing to break free of your previous beliefs.  But, make no mistake.  It doesn't happen to you.  No one can force you into freedom.  You have to take those steps yourself.

It's a backwards concept to most of us.  But, in Christianity, it requires that we first come to God and accept Him, before you will find it intellectually sound to do so.  Until then, the spiritual blinders are still on.  And, no amount of intellectual pursuit will get you there alone.  If you, the reader, are one of those who don't believe in God, would like to, but don't feel like you can because intellectual roadblocks exist in your mind that are keeping you from accepting His existence, the relief I have to offer you is this: Once you surrender your will and choose God, there is a seemingly infinite amount of intellectual pursuits that stand to justify the choice you made.  Again, it sounds backwards.  But, what I'm suggesting to you is that, despite what you may think, your roadblocks are not intellectual ones after all.  It's completely a matter of your will to choose to step away from the beliefs you've held many of which are baseless.  So, make the choice.  You won't be disappointed.

'59 Slow Progress

I've barely seen my truck in the last ten days or so.  I've had some other things going on.  For example, last weekend, my only real goal was to clear out some space in the shop so that I could move some of our "project" furniture being stored in the garage out to the shop.  It has been getting cold here in the Ozarks and I was determined not to spend another winter morning scraping the night's precipitation of my car windows.  Up until this last weekend, we have had this oversized two-car garage with only one car and a whole lot of stuff being stored in it.  Though, I'm happy to announce that after just 367 days of owning this place, I finally have spaces for both our main vehicles indoors.  :)

With that not-so-little project out of the way, I'm happily back to doing '59 stuff. Yesterday, I worked out a deal with a guy who was selling this front bumper on Craigslist.  It's for an 87-91 GMC van but it fits beautifully across the front of the '59.  Those vans were called a "square body" which works out perfect on the very flat front end of my truck.  Before I bought it though, I wasn't sure how it would look on my truck.  There was no way I was going to drag my truck to Springfield to dry fit it to see and it was highly unlikely that the seller would let me borrow it until I made a decision.  It's in situations like these that GIMP comes to the rescue.

I went online and found a photo of one of these vans that was taken at roughly the same angle as another photo I found of a '59 without a front bumper.  With GIMP, I copied the front bumper from the van and superimposed it on the '59.  I had to do some resizing, rotating, and perspective shifting to get it all lined up and believable.  With the end result looking fairly convincing, it was easy for me to make a decision on whether or not I thought this bumper would be a good look for my truck.  I decided that it was and proceeded to wheel and deal for a good price.


I also found a nice chrome rear bumper yesterday, as well.  It was priced to sell for sure but I was the first one to contact the guy and still managed to knock the price down a bit.  The guy I bought it from couldn't remember which of his many vehicles he's owned in the last several years that it came from.  I don't really care, I guess.  It's in great shape.  Most of the '57-'60 model Fords didn't come with a rear bumper.  It must have been an option at the dealerships because I've seen several online that do have uniform rear bumpers, but the vast majority of ones that I see in person or online have no rear bumper.  Some people even go without a front bumper.  I don't like the look of the front without one, though.  It's a bit too cartoony and feels lacking.

I like the rear without a bumper just fine but I have a good reason for why I wanted one anyway.  When I drove the '59 it was at stock height.  I was able to reach over the side of the bed and touch the bottom with ease.  I could grab almost anything out of the bed without getting in it.  But, now, with it's lift on the '84, the top of the bed comes up to my armpit.  So, not only will the rear bumper provide some balance of chrome from the front to the back, but it will also make getting in and out of the bed a world easier by providing a step.  And, of course, it will serve its actual purpose of protecting the truck from potential fender benders, I hope won't happen.

So, in the above's poor example of a well-lit photograph, I've got the bumper being propped up to almost the height it will be when installed. I couldn't get it all the way in place because I have to notch out the bumper on each side as indicated by the blue line in this photo.  This cutout will make the bumper appear as if it were custom for this truck.  Once cut, I can slide it up another couple inches and there won't be any gap left between the bed and the bumper.  That will make it look a lot more natural.

The rear bumper already has brackets that appear like I can just bolt them right on to the back of the truck's frame.  I'll know for sure once I make the aforementioned notches in the bumper.  The front, on the other hand, is going to need brackets.  I removed my OEM '59 brackets and they won't fit.  However, I think that I can modify them.  More on that later, I'm sure.

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