Show Me Your Papers, Herr Jenkins

I got my driver's license renewed the other day. Normally, I could do it online, but this time I had to go in person and present identification papers, because the new ones are "Secure Driver's License and ID". They wanted my birth certificate, my social security card and proof of residence such as mail from a bank. My birth certificate was the original that my parents got, when I was born in 197_. The man at the DMV told me most places won't accept those any more and I needed to go to the courthouse and get a modern one from the government. However, since it was already in the DMV system, they could take it. Whew. That saved a lot of hassle. The Secure Driver's License and ID is Real ID compliant. Real ID was controversial a few years ago, because it's New World Order compliant. So. now I have a driver's license/ID that's ready for the New World Order that complies to the standards and regulations of the coming global government. It's almost here.

It cost $32. I think it was $8.50 the last time, but I'm not 100% sure. That was for a four-year license. The new one is good for eight years. My personal opinion is that eight years from now will be during the Tribulation. The IDs for it are already here.

Carrie Fisher died. It was big news. Even before that I'd been thinking that a ton of famous people have died this year. I was right. One of my Facebook friends posted an article that says the number of deaths of famous folks is unusually high this year. It was too long to read, of course. ;)

This week there was a news story saying that a show I've never heard of has been cancelled. I forget the name of it.

The current president made a lot of trouble this week. I can't wait for the new one to get here. :)

Have a great weekend.

Happy New Year! If you're on the Gregorian calendar, that is.

Separating the Chaff

I was reading my Bible, when I had a thought that didn't seem to have much to do with the text. It occurred to me that in order to have a Godly business, someone would need Godly employees. By business, I don't mean religious institution. I mean any type of business where the owner is a Christian and focused on God and Godly principles. In the U.S. we can't "discriminate" against people of other religions who hate ours. We have to hire haters. Spiritually, this is self-defeating. It's not good to be unequally yoked. Spiritually, it invites attacks. The thought I had was that a business needs to be centered on at least one fruit of the spirit, and the haters will weed themselves out. The popular fruits are love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Pagans would not be able to manifest a fruit of the spirit on a long-term basis. People can fake almost anything but only for a season.

A while back I saw this article about a couple of young women who were videotaped torturing dementia patients. Taking care of dementia patients required love, patience, etc. The women in the article couldn't manifest those fruits, because they apparently don't have them. As a side note, performing righteousness can be thought of as manifesting the spirit of God. Performing evil can be thought of as manifesting a demon. Think of that the next time you see someone doing something wrong, demon manifestation. The setting in the article was a health care environment. From the hospital trips with my dad, I saw a lot of pagan health care workers and a lot of health care workers who didn't seem to care about people. This article didn't surprise me at all.

Many businesses focus on customer service. Service is a fruit of the spirit. If servanthood is the main goal of a business, people lacking the spirit of servanthood will eventually quit, because service is not their true nature. Or they won't be able to perform the job and be fired. The business will eventually end up with employees who manifest that gift. Over time a Godly business can develop without violating any laws. It's a natural process.

Food for thought. What if sloppiness or incompetence or lack of focus on detail in the workplace is more about a lack of a particular spiritual fruit than a physical or mental problem? Think about people who are clumsy in certain situations but highly dexterous in others. Employees may not be able to do certain things, because there's no spiritual assistance. They can't manifest that fruit(or gift). This might be a concept for moving people around in a company to the job that they're best suited for. I'm not a guru on all this. I'm kind of thinking out loud this week.

Focusing a business on fruits of the spirit should be the main goal. God can work through and bless that.

Merry Christmas!
Happy Hannukah!

Have a great weekend.

Book3 and YA Feedback

Progress continues on Book3, as I've been getting back into the swing of it. I'm going for a minimum daily word count of 1,000 for now that will have to rise later. Book2 is in its resting phase before one last going over. It should be out in January.

I don't do much politics on here, but I've mentioned the recent elections a few times, including the recounts and other shenanigans. Here's an update on those. Wisconsin did a recount. Trump gained 131 votes, making the victory even larger and more glorious than before. The recounts in Pennsylvania and Michigan didn't happen, because there was no proof of election tampering whatsoever, etc. Imagining that something might have happened is not proof of anything. More than once, I've imagined myself winning the lottery. The lottery commission refuses to accept my imagination as proof I won.

I received some feedback on a sample of the YA novel from a freelance editor. I thought I'd share it with you.

"Too much dialogue upfront when we don’t know who’s speaking or where we are—this is a touch disorienting. Try to give us a little bit more of a setting by weaving descriptions into the dialogue tags."
and
"In general, I really wanted to see more description of your setting. I think by strategically weaving in more description, it would significantly strengthen your world building."

Where the reader is would be in the cover blurb. The reader would automatically go into the book knowing what's going on. Nevertheless, she's not wrong. I tend to have skimpy physical descriptions of places and items, because that's a lot of extra work. :) And I don't like lots of description, when I'm the reader. I hate pages of description of a setting, only to be gone from that setting forever by the end of a chapter. What a cool place! Farewell!

I'm pretty sure I've mentioned doorknob authors before. Those are the guys that spend pages describing the glint of the sunlight off a doorknob and how that reminds the character of something from the past and suddenly I'm stuck in a lengthy flashback that usually doesn't matter to the story. I don't want to be one of those guys.

But. I need to listen to what this person is saying, since I know she's right. My descriptions tend to be skimpy. That's so true. What I think I need to do is use more description while avoiding the doorknob problem. I suppose I could work a little bit harder and stretch and grow. :) Book2 is skimpy in places. It wouldn't hurt too much to add a paragraph here and there in the final edit and more sentences. Same for Book3.
On a practical level, one way I could do that would be to have a larger description of a setting the first time it appears in the book and then reference it later in a less-lengthy fashion. Think back to descriptions of Chesquial and Millican. I spent a few paragraphs on those and referenced them later by mentioning a spire or something similar that would recall the initial description without trying to redo it.
Going forward, I also think I'll try to add a few more sentences in minor locations. I'm going to have to find a balance without going overboard spamming description after every dialogue tag. If it grounds the reader while at the same time adding content of real value, it can only make the stories stronger.

Have a great weekend.

YA, Book3 and So Forth

I went through the YA book polishing things and changing some of the jargon to make it more accessible to a wider audience. For instance, I used NPC multiple times instead of non-player character. Most things like that got changed. The jargon is all 100% real and easily identifiable to the target audience, but you know. Other people need to understand what's going on, too. :)

I also started going through the part of the Book3 rough draft that's done in preparation for getting back in the saddle. The rough draft is over 25% complete on that one. I've also started thinking more about the non-fiction book I want to do. It would be about things the general church doesn't know.  Why Sunday isn't the sabbath. Will the anti-Christ have 40 days of testing in the wilderness before beginning his ministry? Is the Rapture in the Psalms? Why all denominations are false. Why Moses can't be one of the two witnesses in Revelation(Hint: he's dead). Why the Tribulation must begin during autumn. Why Paul's ministry ended in spectacular failure. Etc.

It's going to be both easy and difficult. Instead having a logical story over the course of however many pages, I'd need a logical narrative over one chapter. Each chapter would have to make sense on its own. Remember that blog in which I mentioned Book2 has a character who raised somebody from the dead, while in Book3 she doesn't have that gift? I wouldn't have to worry about things like that. On the other hand, a lot of the topics would never fill a chapter. Should I have a chapter with multiple subjects? Should I have multiple chapters where the subjects share a common theme? That's going to be the hard part. Some subjects can be explained in a few paragraphs. Which translation should I use? I usually use the KJV here, and it's the most authoritative by far. The problem is quite a few of the words no longer have the same meaning they did in 1611. Communications, for instance, in 1611 meant something like deportment or behavior rather than exclusively speech. Whenever I hear someone talking about a verse with communications in it, it's always explained in terms of speech and media, which isn't exactly what those verses mean. Speech was merely a subset of communications in 1611. The average pastor doesn't understand that words like that are even a problem. Not having to explain what words actually meant in 1611 versus today would make things easier.

The non-fiction book would be something I'd want to promote on YouTube, which is one of the reasons for the delay of that channel. The YA book would be promoted on the other one, which is one of the reasons for the delay on that channel. In addition to problems I've mentioned previously.

It's looking like a January release for Book2.

I had a dentist appointment on the 7th that I had to wait about two-and-a-half weeks for with only ten days of antibiotics after waiting to make the appointment to begin with. I got creative and made them stretch. I could use prayer for that and things like finances and the car I need, etc., if you're a praying person and are inclined to pray for me. :)

Book 2 Progress

Despite some obstacles, I finished going through the Book2 manuscript again. Things are looking good on that front. It should be coming out soon. I'll do a 99 cent pre-order for faithful readers and let it be full price at release. Probably $3.99 instead of $2.99. I'm thinking of raising the prices on all the books to $3.99. I'll have to give that some more thought. If I did that, I'd want to make a cheaper combined edition for each series. For example, the Messengers series could be $5 or $6 or likely a little more for a combined book instead of nearly $13 when bought individually. More thought needs to go into it, but that's kind of what I'm thinking.

I haven't mentioned it lately, but I've been practicing a lot for making YouTube videos. I don't have to be the greatest. I just need a certain level of polish that gives people a chance to listen to what I say without focusing on how well/poorly I'm saying it. I kind of want them looking past me and at whatever the message might be. Going on YouTube is a big step. I have reservations about it.
The software I got for the YouTube fiction series had a major update the other day that changed a lot of things. I've been exploring that. It's not all good news, but I think I can still use it.

The other day I mentioned an effort was underway to have recounts for the presidential election in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. There's no factual reason to do the recounts. One of the minor party candidates was able to raise millions of dollars by doing it. It might just be a money and publicity grab. After watching the news a little, a recount could change a few hundred votes, which would not alter any of the results. It's kind of like millions of dollars are being thrown in a hole. That reminded me of a verse.

Ecclesiastes 2:26 For God gives to a man that is good in his sight wisdom, and knowledge, and joy: but to the sinner he gives travail, to gather and to heap up, that he may give to him that is good before God. This also is vanity and vexation of spirit.

Heaping up refers to amassing wealth. The recount money goes to the states in which the recounts occur. It's like God's taking the money away from sinners and putting it to better use. I think this could work out very well for Trump. Based on what usually happens in recounts, nothing will change as far as the election goes. What will change is that people will see that Trump still won. He'll be able to use that to his advantage and show critics that the system worked. It would add a stamp of legitimacy to his victory he wouldn't have gotten any other way. It would silence a lot of critics. And his enemies would have paid for it all. What is meant for his harm would be turned to his good. There are verses for that, too. :)

Have a great weekend.

EM Drive and Sedition

A short while ago I mentioned the Cannae and EM drives and that it appeared the Cannae Drive was going to space. The EM Drive is making headlines this time. NASA has had a paper peer reviewed and published. They detected thrust. A lot of skeptical skeptics are still skeptical, because the EM Drive gives the appearance of breaking the laws of physics as we understand them. However, a scientist named Mike McCulloch has a theory that explains how it could work with know physics via Unruh Radiation. The next step is to test it in space. Rumors say China and the U.S. military have already done some tests in space. Who knows. If it works, it would be a breakthrough and make space travel much easier.

In more dangerous news, the Democrat party has revealed its true colors as the party of hate and intolerance. They and their allies are inciting people to protest and riot against democracy and inciting others to engage in sedition by intimidating and attempting to coerce the electoral college not to vote the will of the American people. They're also funding or attempting to fund recounts. The main criticism of electronic voting machines has been that they can't be recounted, since there's no paper trail. Why do they want a recount, when there are no ballots to recount?

These efforts are engineered to overthrow the election results and overthrow the will of the American people. Democrats lost fair and square but refuse to accept it. If they're successful, they will have overthrown democracy by changing the results of a legal election in a democracy. It would be the end of democracy in the U.S. There would be no going back, if the line is crossed. Both major parties already hate elections and cheat in them. The Hillary campaign was caught this year on video trying to rig the presidential election(Caution: a bit of adult language). The liberal media refused to cover it, because they're actively engaged in deceiving the public and have been for years.

If you're a praying person, this is the time to pray hard. The Democrat party is attempting to overthrow democracy in the U.S.

In book news, I'm still going through the rough draft and making final polishes.

Have a good weekend.

A Real Leader?

I finished going through Book 2 and have barely begun going through it one more time. The hard part is over. It shouldn't take too long, if I can make the time to sit down and get it done. Now on to the situation in the U.S.

I could make an argument that Ronald Reagan was the last truly American president. I think it's more obvious that he was the last leader elected to the oval office. Everyone since him looks back and tries to invoke him. If they were leaders, they wouldn't have to do that. They would simply lead. So, we haven't had a leader in the White House since Reagan. Trump could be the first leader since Reagan. He gives the appearance of being a leader. We'll have to wait and see how events unfold to know for sure.

Will he drain the swamp? To do that he has to work with swamp creatures in Washington who don't want to lose their habitat. If he has to work with them in order to get rid of them, they're not going to let it happen. How else could he drain it? It might happen something like this. One day we could wake up to find a breaking news story about a prominent leader of congress who has been exposed as a corrupt criminal. It would be someone no one suspects, possibly a member of an important committee or even a committee head. No one would know where the leak came from. I would guess the congressman would be a Republican. They would immediately suspect Democrats. They would also suspect other factions within the Republican party. I would be Rep vs Dem or Neocons vs Tea Party(Are they still around?) or Reps vs whoever. If there's retaliation and a second member of congress goes down, it would be like dominoes.

Or it could happen more quietly. We could wake up one day and see a prominent member of congress announcing he's not running in the next election, because he wants to spend more time with his family. Other congressmen would find out that he was being forced to resign and the scandal was being kept quiet. More resignations would follow.

Or Trump could be at a routine press conference or state of the union address and start listing names and crimes and say he has the proof in his office.

No matter what the first domino is, to drain the swamp Trump would have to stand up and lead to get the rest of them. It would have to begin in the Republican party.

That's just my opinion. It could work out some other way like Wikileaks. This is food for thought. The main point is that for the first time since Reagan we might see a real leader in the oval office. I hope so.

Still Free

This week a huge weight was lifted off my shoulders. Living under the Obama administration has been a burden. He broke his first campaign promise less than a day after taking office, and it was to his own people. Since then, it's been scandal after scandal with a corrupt congress failing to act, because of political reasons. Democrats don't honor the U.S. Constitution, and Republicans thought they could use the scandals to get votes. Obama has defended Islamic terrorism his entire term in office while declaring Christians to be terrorists(#72). Agencies like the IRS have been buying military ammunition. A lot of the ammo purchase stories are exaggerated or false. However, the IRS is an accounting agency with no enforcement powers. Why do accountants need guns? Hmm. Obama has boycotted the national day of prayer. The largest genocide of Christians in history is going on right now, and he never mentions it and has never been seen doing anything to stop it. I could go on and on.

The atmosphere of intolerance in the U.S. toward Christianity has grown the last eight years. From my observations we haven't had a Christian president since Ronald Reagan. But the presidents between Reagan and Obama were not actively anti-Christian the way Obama has been. There's a difference.

It looked like Hillary was going to be another Obama. It looked like she was going to be even more radical. She said during her campaign that Christians were going to have to change their beliefs. Video here. Another way of saying it is that she thinks her word is greater than God's word. The United States was founded by people fleeing religious persecution by tyrants who were trying to force them to change their religious beliefs. Hillary is the exact kind of person this country was founded to get away from!

The polls were saying she was going to be elected. The closer election day drew the more of a burden I felt. Between the ammo purchases and the declaration that Christians are terrorists and Hillary stating that Christians would be forced to change their beliefs, it was only a matter of time until the persecution became more physical.

The polls were wrong. Were they false propaganda the whole time? Were the pre-Brexit polls propaganda? Trump was elected. The Kenyan has 69 days left in office. Yes, he was born in Kenya. The corrupt Democrats and Republicans through spiritual ignorance failed to block him from running for office, when he was clearly not Constitutionally eligible. The Constitution is our covenant with God. Putting someone in office who was outside of covenant nullified a lot of blessings. If we don't follow our covenant, we don't get the blessings just like ancient Israel. According to the Bible, being ruled by a foreigner is a curse, and being ruled by a woman is curse. It looked like we were going from one curse to another.

But a lot of people have been praying. Our prayers were answered. If everything goes as it should, America will once again have a president who is under the covenant. Blessings that have been blocked will be able to flow. Pandering to terrorists will end. Persecution of Christians within the U.S. should greatly reduce, although the Democrats are extremely intolerant of other views.

Knowing that I'll have a president who doesn't hate me for my religious beliefs is such a relief. Is Trump a Christian? I have no idea. We'll have to wait and see the fruit. He's said some good things and some bad things. What I do know is he's not a muslim who hates Christians.

Up until now I've been assuming Christians would be persecuted in the U.S. before the Tribulation starts. Is it possible the persecution won't begin until the Anti-Christ is in power? Matthew 24:14 And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come. America is the largest exporter and funder of missionaries in the world. Is it possible that God will keep us free in order to fulfill that verse? I don't know. It's something to think about. If the dollar crashed, our freedom could vanish overnight. Will that too be delayed until the end? These are some strange thoughts.

World Champions

 The Chicago Cubs won the 2016 World Series. Rejoice! As I mentioned a long time ago, at the end of 2014 I was so disgusted that Braves' manager Fredi Gonzalez wasn't fired that I decided in 2015 I was going to switch to my second favorite team the Cubs no matter how many times they lost or how many times the Braves won and follow them full time rather than the Braves. It was very hard to do that when the Braves had a good team, and the Cubs were lovable losers. Then a miracle occurred. During the off season between 2014 and 2015, the Braves sold off most of the team. The Cubs acquired a new manager and new players. They made it to the playoffs in 2015. It would turn out that 2014 was the best year to make my number two team into my number one. I never had to worry about how many games the Cubs lost that year or how many games the Braves won. It turned out the exact opposite of how I thought it would.

Instead of following the Cubs on the side like I normally would, I was there for 2015 and 2016. The World Series win is amazing. When I was growing up, television channels TBS and WGN were broadcast nationally on cable and were called "superstations". A lot of people became Braves and Cubs fans. I didn't really watch them until the 90s. Back then, I mostly watched the Braves, but the Cubs were always there as my number two. I don't consider myself a hardcore, lifelong Cubs fan. However, I've been kindly disposed to them for a long time.

Destiny. This was the Cubs' years. Not even Joe Maddon's mismanagement in game 7 could derail a historic victory. After a solid year of managing, he choked when the pressure was the greatest. I have a video planned about that. For years, I've been wanting the Braves to win one more World Series before the Tribulation. Their owners aren't interested enough in that. Destiny. Their inability to do the right thing forced me to make the full-time switch to the Cubs before they started winning. Even if it wasn't the Braves, I still got to experience a World Series victory. And this year doesn't look like it's going to be the last time. It's amazing.

Eventually, Fredi Gonzalez was fired. I've watched some Braves games this year but not like I used to. The people who own the Braves don't care the way fans do. They care about profitability instead.

Despite watching the World Series, I was able to work on Book 2. It's going pretty well.

Have a great weekend.

Pitch to Publicity 2016

I got a little side-tracked by Pitch to Publication 2016, #p2p16. I recognized three of the editors with a couple more being kind of familiar maybe. I found out about it the day before the deadline but didn't have time to put something together. Due to lack of submissions, they extended the deadline by a day. Even with that, I was still rushed and didn't have a proper pitch letter. Remember the YA book I mention sometimes but haven't done the final edit on? It's in good enough shape that I sent the first 5 pages to see what would happen. Since the book wasn't quite done, I thought maybe I should work on enough of it to cover a larger sample in case an editor asked for one.

I added the editors I submitted the sample to on Twitter. They each said something like "all the submissions are great". All of them? Alarm bells. Then I started seeing things like "great pitch, great pages, too much work" and "great pitch, great pages, too much work for a month". Alarm bells. The Archive, Blog Posts and Success Stories pages on the site are all blank, and this is not a new event. Evidently, no one who has done this has gotten a book deal. Alarm bells.

Finally one of the editors tweeted to the effect that the manuscripts need to be grammatically and stylistically perfect. My comma usage is never grammatically perfect. That's what editors are for. :) There was no explanation of exactly how the whole process is supposed to work. Specifically, there's no FAQ. For example, they asked for 5 pages but have no margin or word count specification. Alarm bells. Etc.

After absorbing this for a few days and reading tweets, which you can check out for yourself by following their Twitter links on the Editor page, I realized something. They're not looking for the best books. They're looking for books that need the least amount of work. Basically, they want books that are already agent ready or need an absolutely minimum amount of editing.

It's pitched as a helping hand, but the writers who need this the most are automatically disqualified by the 4-week editing time frame. The people who benefit from it are the ones who don't need this kind of help. They're already agent ready whether they realize it or not. As I write this, I'm still waiting to hear from two editors that haven't said they're done going through submissions to see if they want a larger sample. This late in the week, I don't really expect to hear anything.

So, if this doesn't benefit writers, who does it benefit? Follow the money. It's a publicity gimmick to drum up business for the editors, especially during a slow time of the year like the holidays, when writers are spending money on everything but editing services. It's essentially free advertising. However. It's not a pure scam. It may not even be a deliberate scam. It may just be poorly designed. One month is too short a time frame. To get the best books instead of the easiest books, it needs two or three.

At least one editor said she was going to send feedback to the authors. Submissions are limited to 100 per editor. Only two editors were listed on the site as having that many, although one mentioned receiving over 90. I don't know how many the one doing feedback had, but sending feedback is an incredible amount of work. I don't think a scammer would work that hard. Even if the whole thing is just a publicity stunt, some of the editors are putting real work into it.

Anyway. I know I should be more cynical about "free" opportunities and not be so disappointed, but I found this whole process to be extremely discouraging. Messengers isn't widely commercial, but the YA book is. I was hoping that somebody would see something of value in my work, even if it was a little rough, and be willing to take a harder look. To find out that I'm automatically eliminated and never had a chance to begin with really sucks. If I'd found out even a week earlier, I could have polished my terrible pitch letter and thought through some of the risky things in the first 5 pages such as the real jargon I used. Authentic and immersive world building to be sure but very, very risky for such a conservative industry. To an editor who hasn't seen my other books, it was probably an alarm bell.

The point is I got a little done on Book 2 but not what I should have. I tried to get the break I needed, and it didn't work.

Have a great weekend.

Behind the Scenes a Little

The weather turned last night. It was unseasonably warm with temperatures over 80(26.67C). Today it's about 65(18.33C). Why is that important? Because the cool front came with wind that knocked the power out and interfered with the blog. I don't have everything in life scheduled, but the blog is one thing I have a set time for.

I transferred the corrections from the printout of Book2 to the computer. Some of it was simple like fixing commas and typos. I had things like "barely had barely" and "be been" where I'd rewritten sentences and missed a deletion. They don't show up in spell correct. Not that that always helps. Part of working on books 2 and 3 required checking things in The Rise of Aethan Lightbringer. Right away I found a spelling mistake that spell correct showed the whole time, but somehow I didn't see it.

Other parts of transferring fixes to computer involved changing paragraphs or how a page flows. I had this one really weird sentence to start a paragraph.

“Eleven at last count,” Mussarev said. “As long as we were being bombed, we lost no one. ..."

What? That doesn't make sense, considering how many people died at that time. What was this guy thinking when he said that? I spent several minutes reading the context and pondering. He stepped off stage for a few minutes while the dialogue continued without him. When he came back, he kept going with his own thought, and I'm not sure what that was. I think he meant they lost no one in the air. I ended up deleting part of it and saving the original to a Remnants file to go over later. My Remnants file is a file where I save things, if I have to delete paragraphs or pages or sections. When I was getting back into writing, I hated deleting something in case I needed it later. It made it mentally easier to delete things into which lots of work had gone. I don't use one any more. If it needs deleting, I just delete it.

Something more disturbing was a discrepancy between the printout and the computer file. I use OpenOffice. There have been instances over time where I thought something had been changed by the program during the save process but couldn't prove it. This time the printout did not match the source file, and I don't remember fixing anything after printing. The printout said "is". The book's file said "his". His was the correct word. I've been thinking about getting MS Word for a while, because OpenOffice won't save the settings for widows and orphans. Maybe I should think harder about that. It's annoyed me the whole time I've used it and interferes with how a book looks in print.

So, the corrections are all done. The next step is to go through and work on things that are too big for the correction stage. I did a bit of it with the page flow changes I mentioned. Sometimes an entire page doesn't quite work. Usually, it's too choppy or feels rushed and needs a few extra sentences to smooth out the flow of it.

I'm still trying to get YouTube videos made. I need more wardrobe for the Messengers channel, and I've spent a lot of money lately that I hope will pay off in a few months. I checked a second-hand store this week but wasn't able to find what I needed, although I did pick up a shirt I can use later for a gag. One of the problems is I don't want to rush to get it all started only not to have enough time to get a video out every week. It takes a lot of time to make and edit and upload videos. I've been doing tons of research in the evenings. I can't do it all.

That's mostly where things are at the moment. Have a great weekend.

More of an Update

I finished up the first going through of Book 2 last week. This week has mostly been hours and hours of research I had to do for something else. It's more or less finished now. I should be able to apply it to the YouTube channels in future videos. I'll have more about that later, if it works out the way I'm hoping.

Book 2 needs to be gone through again. I'm starting to think about the YA book. It's getting closer.

Congrats to the Cubs! They beat the Giants to advance to the next round of the MLB playoffs. I was hoping they would play the Giants. They looked like an easy team to beat. The next round should be harder. They're playing the Dodgers.

It's been a bit of a long week. The tired had set in by last night. This was more of an update than a full blog. Last week's was a bit long. Maybe this one balances it out. :)

Have a great weekend.

Surprise in a Box

I've said before that things don't seem to be going my way. A lot of obstacles show up where none appear to be ahead of time. Maybe it's not as bad as I thought. In a previous blog I mentioned Lynx, a feral cat I take care of. There's a picture of him here. Last winter I made him a shelter out of a cardboard box from Walmart and a cat bed. I put plastic sheeting over it and duct taped it to make it a little weatherproof then put it on the back porch where he could find it about three feet off the ground.

This summer he decided he's domesticated. He uses the front porch now and hardly ever goes on the other one. It's been chilly at night recently, around 55F(12.78C). Last weekend I decided to move the bed to the front porch. When I got to it, the barrier I used to protect it from the rain had blown down. The box had some condensation under the plastic on the top. I reached inside and squeezed the bed some. It felt okay. I picked it up by the top of the door I made in the side and started carrying it around the house. It was kind of heavy, so I was swinging it a little and changed hands.

I put it down on the front porch and showed it to Lnyx, but he wouldn't go in. I tried to talk him into it. It didn't do any good. He would just smell the doorway. Once the tame cat noticed the box, he ran over to it, because he likes boxes. He wouldn't go in either. That's when I saw the tail end of the snake that was inside it along the bottom of the doorway. The bed had a pattern on it that made it harder to spot, even though they were different colors. The snake wasn't moving much. It seemed to be stuck.

I ended up having to take the box apart to kill it. Mammals rule! What appeared to have happened was the duct tape I put around the doorway so Lynx wouldn't get cut on the sharp edges pulled away from one side of the doorway when I was carrying it and swinging it and changing hands. Somehow in all the movement the snake landed on the sticky side of the duct tape along the side of the doorway. My hand was along the top of the doorway during all that.

It wasn't a baby but was still pretty small and looked like a rattlesnake with no rattles. After looking at snakes online, I thought it seemed like a cross between a diamond-backed copperhead and a black king snake. I've seen plain copperheads and king snakes in the yard but no rattlesnakes. I really can only guess. I'm not sure copperheads and king snakes date each other.

For me not to get bitten, everything had to work out just right. It didn't get me when I put my hand in the box. The tape had to come apart in the right spot. It had to be sticky enough to hold a snake, when most of the tape on the box was brittle and no more good. The snake had to be the right size to get stuck. It had to land in the exactly right spot. It had to get stuck at all and not merely jostled around. The head had to get stuck and the tail be free. There was a lot going on so I didn't get bitten at the time or later. Same for the cats.

A few days before that, I checked the weather on the Weather Channel. I have Directv. The weather guide takes a while to load. While I was waiting, there was a show about snakes on. I saw two people who had been bitten on the hand. It's copperhead season here. They've been running around having babies and stuff. I thought of that while I was watching it and turned it off and prayed for protection from snakes and for the snakes to be turned aside, etc. Maybe things aren't as bad as I thought. Maybe there's a purpose in all this. The devil set a good trap. Being three feet off the ground, I thought about snakes but didn't think one was likely to be in the box at that height. God watched out for me with the snake and turned it aside and trapped it in just the right way. Preventive prayer works. Even the traps can be turned backward and trap themselves. Psalm 91.

A Practice Video

Today's blog is a little late, because it's a video that takes time to upload and process. It's fairly informal. For videos intended to be more commercial, I'd go for a more energetic stage presence. I'd want those to be extremely scripted to eliminate the ums and pauses and such. This one is me talking to you about the studio and Book 2 in a more conversational way.

I taped it when I'd normally be eating lunch. So, if you think you hear my stomach growling, it could just be your imagination. ;)

Here's the link: https://youtu.be/d1ahdytAfJI When I checked it, it was in 240p. YouTube may need more time to process higher resolutions. It's filmed in 720p. If it doesn't show up in 720 later, I'll need to figure out why. It would have to be the conversion process from .mov to .mp4.

Edit: I had to reconvert the video. The new link is: https://youtu.be/uWQmrKDvtEI It's still not HD, but it's a lot better. I need to upgrade my video editor.

Have a great weekend.

Taxes and the Failed Video

I got some more done on Book 2 but little or nothing on Book 3. Slowly but surely, I'm getting there.

I almost had a surprise video. It was really close. I tinkered a few minutes with my studio setup this week and was ready to make a quick video last night. It turned out not to be quick at all. Between the retakes and an interruption, I think it ended up taking over an hour. I was sitting in the chair, as pictured previously, talking about the studio and explaining my general plans for future videos. The highlight was when my cat got in my lap. Unfortunately, I had a battery problem. I have this lavalier mic that takes one LR44 battery. I have two packs of them I ordered off Amazon for dirt cheap. It turns out they're all just about dead. I got sound, but it was very low and had a lot of white noise in it. The mic was $23 and change when I bought it. There's no battery indicator light on it. I either need to buy batteries at the store for much higher than Amazon, or I need to consider a new mic. I have a simple, wired one, but it's not as good as the battery one. I also need a camera tripod. I knocked the camera over at least twice.

Anyway, part of what I talked about on the video was related to my dad's death. Two or three weeks ago the company that makes his insulin pump tried to contact him to upgrade it. His was out of warranty. I eventually talked to them and let them know people in heaven don't need medical devices. Not in those words, of course. :) This week I had to go with my mom to the tag office. [For non-U.S. readers, this is a local government tax office for motor vehicles. They make us buy a license plate and then tax us every year for a small decal to place on it, or we can't legally drive the vehicle.] When we got there, they wouldn't let her buy the decals she needed because the titles were in my dad's name. They couldn't transfer ownership to her without the title[A legal document proving ownership, mileage, sales history, etc.]. We had to go to the bank and get the titles. This was all at the end of the day. By then, the tag office was closed. We had to go back a different day at the end of that day for her to sign a bunch of papers and pay taxes. The next morning she got a call that they had missed one paper she needed to sign.

I should mention we went to that office in 2013 to switch the ownership, but somehow it's not in their computer. Just somehow. So, that's three days to do one thing that should have already been processed[This is why Americans have so many guns. ;) Just kidding. It only adds to the other reasons. ;)]. It was like that after he passed away. It took months. Three years later little things like the medical company and the car tags still occasionally coming up. When someone passes away, there's a lot the family needs to do. Therefore, I've decided that we're not going to die. Dying isn't fair to our families. It's not fair to us. We need to live indefinitely. From now on, let's do that. So far so good for me. If you're reading this, then so far so good for you.

I might try another video later this weekend. One thing I could tell about the video was that even after all the practice I've done the past few months, I need to work on it more in front of the camera. I wasn't as compelling as I feel I am in practice. I didn't stutter and say um or things like that. A certain polish was there. I just didn't have the stage presence needed for a good video. The best part was with the cat. It loosened me up and relaxed me some. At the very least, I learned a lot.
I've made YouTube videos before, but I was never on camera. That's how I have a camera and lavalier mics by the way. In those it was me filming something while narrating. It's not the same.

Have a good weekend.

The Mold Strikes Back

After I posted about what I thought was the fix for the mold, the smell exploded. I've spent hours and hours through the week trying to get it under control. I had to take the air conditioner out and bleach the window sill. When I did that, I think I found the real problem. The window is equipped with storm windows, which go over regular windows. They're supposed to keep houses warmer in the winter and cooler in the summer and lower energy costs. Once I started cleaning the sill, I noticed a line of sealant at the bottom of the storm window. I also noticed a groove that allows rainwater to drain off the sill. Ah, someone blocked the groove, causing water to pool and create mildew and apparently drain into the cinder blocks below.

Even with the sill leak fixed, I couldn't get rid of the smell. I had to take part of the window frame apart, which led to the discovery that I could see daylight through the wall under the window where it wasn't properly installed. I bought some Great Stuff and sealed up the cinder blocks and the gap under the window. It doesn't cost that much in the store. I think it was $3.75 for the big gap filler.

So, that was a lot of how the week went, experimenting with this and that trying to fix the mildew and mold smell in that room. I discovered yesterday that I'm going to have to paint the sill while being careful not to block the drain groove. I know this isn't exciting, but it's how life's going. At least I didn't explain about the way the AC was throwing water around or how I cracked part of the window sill on the inside or how I had to saw part of it off to open up the wall or call the people who built the house monkeys again.

Nevertheless, I got a little done on Book 2 and Book 3. The Book 3 rough draft is now 25% done. It's crazy how fast it's going compared to Book 2, even with the obstacles. While working on Book 2, I noticed a character raising someone from the dead who in Book 3 can't be a Great Healer for story reasons. I also noticed a character in the beginning of Book 2 who wasn't around at the end. Oops. General Trifon, if you must know. Somewhere I lost him.

The mold smell exploded just as I was about to start the YouTube channels. In a way I find the setback giving me more inspiration to get them going. I've had this non-fiction book on the back burner for a while. It finally occurred to me I could use the Messengers YouTube channel to sell it. The That Don't Work channel would lend itself to selling the YA book. Casually sell. I could put a link in the description box or something not badger people. That would help me out a lot by doing the marketing I find so distasteful. It wouldn't take a lot for me to be able to focus on writing full time. I've been doing a little research on the side. I have a roadmap and some numbers. We'll see what happens.

Have a great weekend.

Mold and Dead Authors

It was a mixed week on the book front. I'm over 20% of the way through Book 3 but didn't get a lick done on Book 2. I've been battling mold this week because of the humidity, which is actually lower than it was in August. I couldn't figure out where it was. It finally turned out that a window air conditioner was leaking onto the window sill a little bit and was only doing it because I was running the air conditioner one degree lower than before. There was a strip of plastic beneath it that was catching and holding water. The A/C itself smells fine. That made it very hard to tell what was happening.

The plastic's gone. I've cleaned the sill with bleach and water. When it's completely dry, I'll paint it and make sure it's sealed. It's been a mess all week. I was trying everything, including shampooing carpets. I may have to get a new filter for my air purifier. The pre-filter for sure smells terrible.

Do you know how authors die and their books keep coming out? I've always been very suspicious of that. I understand how that happens now. I have the mystery/romance on the back burner until I can motivate myself to fix it. I have the YA book on the back burner until Book 2 is further along. I have the rough draft for Book 2 itself. I have half a rough draft for the space novel, which contains spoilers for the B'vellah War series. Book 3 is underway. Thus, I have three manuscripts in various stages of completion and two partials. I may have the Book 3 rough draft done before Book 2 comes out. That would make four books.

Publishers take forever to get a book out the door. That's how dead authors keep coming out with new books for a while. They have things in the pipeline. What I need to do is take a week off from everything and work on the books.

And where was the air conditioner? In the room with my YouTube "studio".

Have a great weekend.

Cannae Drive to Space

The Impossible Propulsion Drive is Heading to Space. This is exciting. The EMDrive has been in the news off and on for years. It's been controversial, because the physics of it isn't understood or is ignored. The big question has been, Since it doesn't weigh much, why doesn't somebody send one into space and see if it works and end the arguing? Finally, it looks like someone will be sending up a Cannae Drive. I haven't followed it like I have the EMDrive, but it's supposed to be similar in principle. If it works, then automatically someone would have to send up an EMDrive. Right? I would think so.

I've wondered if some big space propulsion breakthrough would happen, because of verses like Odadiah 1:4 Though thou exalt thyself as the eagle, and though thou set thy nest among the stars, thence will I bring thee down, saith the LORD.
How literal or how figurative is that? It's literal on the face of it, but does that mean going to the stars in a realistic time frame is likely? I hope it is. The Cannae Drive wouldn't go up until next year probably.

The EMDrive also made news this week. Peer reviewed paper. Yay!

I still don't like this deal between Solar City and Tesla.

I've been fighting an infection lately and have been tired. Things have been going slowly on the book front.

I downloaded some video capture software packages for the YouTube show but haven't experimented with them yet. I see the books as having higher priority. I already have video editing software. The new package would be to capture things on the screen to be edited later.

Have a great weekend.

Hodge Podge

Tesla wants to buy Solar City. That web site is a bit of a rag, so you don't have to read more than the headline, if you don't want to. I only skimmed it myself. I like Tesla. I wish I had one. I don't like this deal. Solar City has been in trouble for a while. Tesla hasn't made a profit yet. A company that can't make a profit buying a company that's sinking doesn't look like a winning move. I guess we'll have to wait and see. Maybe the shareholders will vote no.

Something I've noticed is older preachers bragging about not having a retirement age. They brag about how they'll keep going until God calls them home, because God didn't call them retire or quit or some such thing of that nature. Maybe they haven't read this passage:

Numbers 8:23-26 And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying, This is it that belongeth unto the Levites: from twenty and five years old and upward they shall go in to wait upon the service of the tabernacle of the congregation: And from the age of fifty years they shall cease waiting upon the service thereof, and shall serve no more: But shall minister with their brethren in the tabernacle of the congregation, to keep the charge, and shall do no service. Thus shalt thou do unto the Levites touching their charge.

Hmm, the Levites retired at 50. It sounds like a retirement age to me. Technically, the cohanim didn't have a retirement age, and Christians are priests like that, but the Levites were priests, too. A good argument could be made that the retirement age for ministry is 50.

The cool front never really materialized this week. It was cooler for a few days, but the humidity was still too high. I really looked forward to it, too. The temperatures are back up. This is the part of summer where it's a grind to get to autumn.

It's been a slow week on the book front. I've been plodding along.

Minor Update. En Train De

This week I took a bit of a break. I got a little done on Book2. Whatever is its title? I wish I knew. I got some work done on Book3, whatever it's going to be called. The rough draft is over 5% complete. I still need to check the outline and see how the things that changed in Book2 will affect it. It seems to be easier going than Book2.

It's been another wetter, cooler summer. The humidity's been awful. 100% one day. 97% another. Bust mostly in the 80s the times I've checked it. Even with it being cooler than normal, it's still hot. However, some relief is in sight. Around Monday we're supposed to get a cool front with very dry air and lower temperatures. I can't express how terrible August is in the south and how much I look forward to September and the lower humidity.

I don't mention it much, but I've still been doing my French reading and listening. A while back I started Alice in Wonderland, but I got tired of looking up words and read some other things. Lately, I've looked at it again. It's a lot easier now. I'm going to make it through. Maybe 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea will be easier, too. I tried it at the same time as Alice. Learning the word navire was extremely helpful in a lot of things. But anyway.

I think I've mentioned the reading and listening breakthroughs I had a while back where suddenly it was easier to read text and hear spoken French. Lately, I've noticed something else. Sometimes a French word will pop into my head as I'm talking as the next word I'm going to say. Of course, I don't say it out loud. :) I had one of those moments this week that stood out. There's an expression I've run into a lot in reading. Être en train de That's a link instead of an explanation, since there's not a concrete English way of saying it, and I think that's why it sprang to mind. It was easier for my brain than sorting through the several English ways of saying it. French is generally bulkier than English, but that's one phrase that's compact and says it all. I was with somebody who made some comment that we should do such and such, and I starting replying while the sentence popped into my head that we were en train de doing it right now! Of course, I didn't say it out loud. :) There's no sense looking weird, right? That person knew we were getting it done. It was a frustration comment.

 I've got run. Have a good weekend.

Is Book 2 Done Yet?

I had some distractions this week, but the rough draft for Book 2 is done. I still don't have a firm title, though I may stick with the Aethan Lightbringer theme. If you've followed blogs about some of the other books, you know what comes next. I need to go through the whole thing fixing and polishing. After that it needs to rest a month. Once it's rested, I'll need to go through it again looking for things I couldn't see when it was too fresh and have it test read. Then it will be out the door. Yay!

During the rest phase, I need to figure out something about the cover. I also need to go through the YA book, get it test read and get it out the door. It would already be out, but I couldn't take time away from Book 2 and delay it even more. People are waiting on 2. The YA is virtually unknown.

Something I want to do during the rest phase is get some work done on Book 3. I had an outline for 2 and 3 before touching 2. I stuck mostly with it, but some things changed. I'll need to think about how that will affect 3. It won't be drastic. I'm thinking about a limited daily word count that would give me enough time for the other things but still be progress.

YouTube
About 8 weeks ago I was talking about a YouTube series and how the software I needed for it was delayed 7 weeks. It was supposed to be out the 9th. It was delayed again until today. I'm downloading it. One of the distractions this week was researching how it works. I feel confident about getting up to speed quickly.

Book 2 Winding Down

It was another decent week on Book 2. The best day was over 2,000 words. The worst was 11+ to 12 hundred. It wasn't a spectacular week, but it was good. I can now see the end in sight. I imagine there's going to be more work than usual once the rough draft is finished. I'll have more info on that, once it actually is finished.

I looked at a couple of cheap video cameras for the YouTube channels. The one I have now was bought in March 2010. The battery lasts around 20 minutes. I have three or four of them, which will help but would be inconvenient to work with. The two I looked at this week have batteries that last about 2 hours. They won't work for what I want to do, but they're a starting point. I'm going to try to get by on what I have while doing research over time.
The other day I ran across a special offer for Popular Photography of 2 years for $14. I ordered it. I figured it would help me with YouTube, and the price was amazing. The articles are more interesting than I would have thought. Except things I can't understand, because they're very technical. I'll have to pick it up over time.

I ordered a vest for a second "costume". It arrived today. I want the writing videos to be separate from the others. The writing costume is too outrageous for anything but that. I kind of have no more excuses not to make a video, although I really need a third outfit. I'm still trying to figure out the look I want for each category.

I have to go help some, so I'm out of time.

Word Counts and the Devil

It was another good week on the writing front. Having a minimum word count that's substantial enough to matter is really working for me. For some reason Book 2 is hard to write. It's going slower than it usually does. I always have a high word count in mind that I feel I should meet in a day. It's hard to explain, but this book requires a lower word count. It's taken a while to figure out and accept that. If I was doing this full time, it would all be different, of course.

I don't read a lot of what writers say about writing, but sometimes I catch an interview or a blog. I might read part of a book in which some writer is talking about writing. Word counts vary widely. Some seem impossibly low. I couldn't fathom it before. Now, a light bulb's gone on. It must depend on the type of book and the circumstances. My best day this week was about 1,800 words. The worst was around 11 or 12 hundred. The other days were in between. A "normal" word count for me is 2,000 with some days ranging to 3,000 or so, if there's enough time.

On to other things. I have a ton of YouTube channels I subscribe to and never watch. I have blogs I follow but don't often read unless there's a catchy or useful title. This week one of the blogs had a title that drew me in. It's by a Christian writer. At some point in the blog, the person confessed to not believing in a literal devil. What? Doesn't believe in the devil? How does that work?

In my twenties I hit a particularly rough patch where I started to wonder if God and the devil were really real. It was like God wasn't there. Life seemed not just hard but supernaturally difficult. One day it occurred to me that I believed in the devil. I could find no other explanation for the evil I was facing. But I was still alive, so he had to be restrained somehow. If the devil was real and restrained, then God had to be real, too, and restraining him. In a sense, the devil is proof of God.

How on earth can this person claim to be a Christian and not believe in a literal devil? He's in the news every day! If people don't believe in God, I can understand that. He's not flashy. He doesn't go around showing off. He's lucky to be in the news every week. But the devil is flashy. He does show off. I see his work every, single day without fail.

I kind of suspect that writer, who is neither young nor old, has never truly suffered yet.

On to the U.S elections. I ran across a picture that says it all.

A Feral Cat and Green Lint

I came across this story:  French Authorities Cover Up the Torture, Disembowelment of Paris Attack Victims. It's about the Islamic terrorist attack at the Bataclan music hall in Paris. As the title suggests, it's a little graphic. Governments withhold and filter information in order to control the populace. I prefer it when the truth is told, even if it's hard to hear it. This happens enough in the U.S. It's a shame to see it in France, too, and about something so important.

I've been feeding this feral cat for several years now. I named him Lynx. Most of the time he would eat and leave. Sometimes he would sleep for a while and leave. Last week he decided he was domesticated. He hasn't left since, which is causing a lot of friction with the outside cat. I took his picture as he was laying near the edge of the driveway.

He meowed, when I clicked to take it. I thought it was cute. I'm able to pet him now. He's very needy.


Book Stuff, etc.
I'm still seeing steady progress on Book 2, which still has no title. What is it called? I don't know. I've changed my writing approach a little. Like with the videos, mentioned below, there never seems to be enough time or energy. I'm trying to write on the side, and it's not always easy. This week I experimented with a minimum word count per day that's lower than my ideal word count. It seems to take some of the pressure off and makes it easier to write, once I'm at the keyboard. I had a good, steady week. I get more than the minimum done, so that's good. I may have to raise it.

A while back, I ran across a business that was being run more like a hobby than a business. Basically, it wasn't working. I have a video planned about it. I think talking about my observations and how I realized it was a hobby and not really a business would help people who want to turn a hobby into a business or help people whose business is floundering in a certain way. I was thinking about that this week. There was one simple change that needed to be made at that business that in my opinion would have turned things around, but the owner wasn't interested.
Maybe I need to think of writing more like a business than I already do. What if there was one simple change I could make that would boost sales? I'm going to have to think about that. Obviously, the first change that needs to be made is the covers. But there might be more that needs to be done.

When I was working on the "studio", I washed the green screen. I took a picture of the lint to post, but when I sent it to my computer, it never showed up. This is what green lint looks like.

I've been practicing to make some videos. There never seems to be enough time. When there's time, there never seems to be enough energy.

Is Truth a Crime?

This was a good week on the writing front. Before that I'd been battling an infection that drained my energy. My niece was in town for almost two weeks. But this week was almost back to normal. I'm getting closer to seeing the end in sight. I can always use prayers, of course.

Last week I didn't get to mention the attack in Texas in which five police officers were assassinated. Obama blamed the police. If you're a European reader and it's not reported there, almost everything he says about race is inflammatory. It's like his remarks are designed to create racial animosity between whites and blacks. Some people have figured this out.
I say that to bring up censorship. The media seemed allergic to calling the attack last week Islamic terrorism. The current president was born in Kenya and raised Muslim. He refuses to use the phrase Islamic terrorism. I've seen one story focusing on the Islamic ties to the attack. Several of the suspects in the attack attended a mosque.

What I think I'm seeing in Texas is an Islamic terrorist attack that's not being called that. The Fort Hood terror attack  was called "workplace violence" despite the fact that the Muslim terrorist shouted allahu akbar throughout the attack. It took the president six years to call that attack terrorism. Since he'll be out of office soon, he'll probably never call the one last week terrorism.

That brings me to the Nice attacks. American media was quick to say we shouldn't blame Islam or Muslims for that attack. Donald Trump was attacked by the media for "jumping the gun" for even mentioning the possibility. I read a French article about the attack. It talked about Islamic terrorism and how that's what the attack looked like. It referenced a terrorist who called for Muslims to attack people with cars, etc. (Which by the way, I was happy I could read. All that practice is finally paying off. I didn't have to look up many words. It was really nice.)

Today the American media stories about the Nice attack are about the driver's road rage conviction and about some other crime he committed. One article called it a "truck attack".

I hope that wasn't too rambling. My point is censorship. The current political administration has created an atmosphere in which the media is discouraged from reporting certain facts or saying certain things or using certain phrases. Some of the direct censorship is done though legal means by use of "national security". Some censorship is done by intimidation. For instance, news organizations get money from readers/viewers. Interviews interest readers/viewers. Administration officials selectively grant interviews based on how favorably a news source reports on the administration. If news sources fail to report certain things, they can get the interviews. Without the interviews, they lose money. The media censorship becomes self-censorship. Most of it takes place behind the scenes, though occasionally someone will speak out.
Sometimes reporters die mysteriously. This has nothing to do with the government.

A guy named Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel kills a bunch of infidels, and the American media can't quite figure out what's going on. And I'm supposed to believe this is freedom of the press and democracy. When did telling the truth become a crime in this country?

But that's not all the news. Last week a 61-yr-old man in Ontario using only his fists got into a fight with a mother bear defending her cub. How did he fight that bear? Like a boss.

Equal Justice Under the Law?

I've mentioned my internet speed is low, and I need an upgrade. I check with my ISP every month or two to see if the switch I'm hooked into will be upgraded. With my ISP being in the local paper so much this year about this problem, it was looking good. They've received a $175million government grant to get it done after all. I talked to someone at my ISP. My switch is not on the schedule, which means in all likelihood it won't be done this year. :(

I found two wireless options, but they're available down the road and not where I live. One of the things I need the extra bandwidth for is uploading YouTube videos. I was hoping something good would happen to make that easier. I suppose I'll start making videos and just deal with the problems. What kind of problems? One of the channels I watch has sound glitches. The guy who runs that channel has to re-upload affected videos to make it go away. He said it takes forever. Sometimes he has to do it three times for a single video. I don't think my videos will be very short. But on to bigger things.

As you've probably seen, Hillary will not be prosecuted for her crimes, crimes that FBI Director Comey admitted to under oath.(Ignore that fact that Trey Gowdy looks like Legolas.) People have gone to jail for sending ONE email with classified material in it.Hillary sent over a hundred, and those are the ones they know about. Thousands of emails were scrubbed from her server. Even some Democrats are mad about this one. As far I know, there's someone in jail right now for sending one classified email. They need to let that person go.

The rich are above the law in general, etc. I didn't want to go into all that. I want to take you behind the curtain and show you something the mainstream media will never cover. http://www.cnn.com/2015/10/21/politics/joe-biden-not-running-2016-election/

That's Joe Biden last October deciding not to run for president after months of speculation. The speculation began when it looked like Hillary would be going to jail. The Democrats were going to run Biden instead. Then suddenly, he didn't run. At the time it didn't make a lot of sense. The FBI was onto Hillary. But she kept saying their investigation was no big deal and other things like that. She even lied and said it was a security review. The FBI does criminal investigations. It was a criminal investigation, and the FBI contradicted her publicly.

The Democrats would never have allowed her to run if there had been any chance she would be in jail or on trial. She would have been forced to step aside. It would have been too embarrassing for the party and too damaging to other Democrat candidates. Joe Biden(or Bernie Sanders) would be the candidate today. I have to conclude that the decision not to prosecute was made last October at the latest and Democrats were informed of that. Everything done in the investigation since then has been for the sake of completeness. If anyone objected the decision, the Democrats could point to an exhausting investigation and say that it's all over and done, let it rest. The proof that they knew ahead of time is that Biden didn't run.

I further conclude that Republicans have also known since last year that there would be no charges for Hillary's crimes and took advantage of it to beat her up in the press to improve their side's chances in the next election.

I hope this peek behind the curtain was enlightening. Personally, I need to be paying closer attention when politicians do and say things that don't make sense in case it foreshadows something they already know. The press will never cover these types of shenanigans. Backroom deals are being made all the time.

We live in a strange world. How strange? Imagine if you could buy a prosthetic tongue that would let you lick your cat. Available for pre-ordering now.

Cursed Blessings

Sometimes it seems life isn't fair. Things just don't go the way they should. It's like we're cursed. Sometimes it's not even our fault.

Psalm 59:3 For, lo, they lie in wait for my soul: the mighty are gathered against me; not for my transgression, nor for my sin, O LORD.

Bad things happen, and it isn't necessarily because of sin. In that verse it wasn't David's sin. It was other people sinning. It reminds me of generational curses. The Bible talks about curses being visited upon children to so many generations and blessings to thousands. It doesn't seem fair that people can be punished for something that happened several generations back. By generational curses I mean things like hereditary diseases, hereditary poverty, etc. Any kind of hereditary handicap that's physical or mental or emotional, etc. When something is chronically wrong or hindered in some area of life.

I've talked before about how my dad and two of my first cousins on his side were killed by medical professionals, all at different locations. It seems like a generational curse at work on that family line. Is there some sin a few generations back that we don't know about? Who knows.

What about all the blessings the Bible promises? There are tons of blessings, but personally, I'm having a hard time seeing them manifest. Is it my fault, or is it because of some generational curse? I found a really fascinating verse.

Malachi 2:2 If ye will not hear, and if ye will not lay it to heart, to give glory unto my name, saith the LORD of hosts, I will even send a curse upon you, and I will curse your blessings: yea, I have cursed them already, because ye do not lay it to heart.

Blessings can be cursed! I don't remember ever hearing this talked about. People always talk about the blessings and how awesome life is supposed to be, and if it's not, it has to be bacause of some secret sin. Whatever. That's not what my Bible says.

I assume blessings can be cursed for other sins and not just the specific one mentioned in the verse. I assume it's a general principle that blessings can be cursed. This could really explain a lot. What if there are generational curses on blessings? Fascinating concept. That, too, would explain a lot. I'm not sure how to break a generational curse, especially when there's no idea what the sin is. Not very encouraging, is it?

That's something I was thinking about this week. I think it's interesting that blessings can be cursed. I thought it was worth passing along.


Book Stuff
If anything has been able to get in the way of Book 2, it has.