Good News

Ok, where to start?
For the last couple weeks I've spent my evenings and weekends working on my truck, which is my primary go to work transportation.
I finally got the motor in and running.
This was on the first key turn:



My little brother Tom turned the key. He was a big part in this operation.

When I was fifteen, my dad gave me my first car.
It was his go to work vehicle, a 1963 Ford Falcon.
He had just burned up the motor in it.
When I asked him how I was supposed to drive a car with no motor, he told me that he had located one, and all I had to do was take it out of the other Falcon that had been abandoned at our motel and put it in my car.
I told him that I wasn't sure how I'd accomplish that, and he said that I shouldn't worry, my little brother Tom, twelve years old at the time, would help me.
We lived in a rural area and our neighbor, who lived in the farmhouse next to us, was a mechanic and owned a gas station/garage at the nearest intersection. It was across the bean field from our house.
We used to hang out there a lot, as we didn't have video games, and the assortment of characters who came and went were among the most interesting fellows I've ever met in real life.
Harvey, our neighbor, liked to drink (as they say) and many a time, when his hand started shaking while turning a screw or placing a part, he would turn and ask one of us to go to the coke machine and get him a beer.
We learned a lot from Harvey, not all of it useful.
So Tom and I spent the summer of 1967 removing (you learn a lot that way) a motor from one car and putting it in the other.
Well here it is over forty years later and we were doing it again.
Tom is more the wrench than I am, He does a lot of charity work in his garage.
But I'm no slouch at it either.
I won't boor you with the details of the clever way I silenced that exhaust leak you hear in the video, but Tom was impressed.
It involved a soup can, but not in the standard way you might imagine.

So I drove it in to work today.
I work in Toledo about 48 miles from home. Hold that thought.

I recently argued that I should be in charge of a large capital project involving a robot installation tied to our injection molding machines.
I got my way and I have the project.
In reviewing the plans developed by an outside firm that had quoted the cell, I called a meeting to review what I intended to do, which was to modify those plans slightly and bring the work in house.
During the team meeting (trying to get others, the molding department included, to buy in to my concept), I had an idea I hadn't thought of previously and mentioned it. Another engineer on the team said that if I did that, could I do this? And I said that I thought we could.
We removed about $100k or more from the project, increased productivity and reduced complexity.
I have the go ahead today to proceed.

Yesterday, I was offered, and accepted, the position of Automation Engineer at a startup satellite facility our company is opening.
This new plant has commitments from a large auto company that will cause it to quadruple in size in the next couple years.

It is an exciting opportunity for me, and is an answer to prayer on a number of fronts.
I had decided to stay with this company for the last few months because I felt led to by my "spiritual compass". I felt led of the Lord to do so, despite the many frustrations I was still experiencing here and which upper management and I were in discussions to alleviate.
This is the payoff for that decision.

And it takes 52 daily miles, round trip, off my odometer.
It is the equivalent to a substantial raise.
I will finish my projects at my current facility and still be involved to some degree, at least in the short term, while starting up the new place.

And best of all, Scherie is now almost six moths seizure free.
This means she can legally drive and look for work again.

God is great, but He's also good.

Lincoln (the Movie) Review

I was on Bennett again this morning.

I saw the movie Lincoln Sunday and we talked about it.

I've been real busy (good thing) and will relate later when time permits, but you might enjoy listening to this.

Voting (inspired by Jess)

I'm for same day voting.
Forget the early voting nonsense.
Get your lazy butt in line and vote.
Then get purple dye on your finger like in Iraq.
Maybe the lines would be shorter if people only voted once.
I wouldn't mind if you shared this.
I'm trying to start something.

Sanctuary

A Sanctuary is a place set apart.
Sanctuary cities were set up by God in Israel as a place someone could flee to til things cooled down and they could explain their side of the story.
The medieval church claimed that privilege for the church building Sanctuary.
The meaning of the word really was that the room was dedicated or "set apart" for God.
A Sanctuary can be a place to get a way to.

This is my garage.

I bought that Ranger pickup late in 2009 with 60k on the odometer.

I gave $6k for it.

A couple years ago, my radiator went bad and I overheated it.

After repairing the radiator, it never overheated again, got 20 mpg, had good acceleration, but had a miss at idle.

I did a compression test and found a cylinder had 50 psi instead of over 100.

I couldn't see how overheating the motor caused a burnt valve.

The valves let the fuel in, seal the combustion chamber (where the ignited gasoline goes boom) and let the exhaust out.

A valve might have it's edge where it seals develop a hot spot (from low octane gas causing "pinging" or some other reason) and burn a small hole which would prevent sealing all the "boom" in the cylinder.

Well I've been planning on removing the cylinder heads which hold the valves and having them re-conditioned.

For two years.

Lately the engine has been acting worse and worse.

It has 138,000 miles on it now. The body looks like it came off the showroom floor.

Last week the "planning stage" was over.
Last Sunday afternoon my brother and I pulled the heads off the truck. 2 1/2 hours.
We were confused. There were no burnt valves.
Monday we took them to the machine shop to have them re-conditioned.
Tuesday we were told they were junk.
They were so cracked from the overheating that they were unsalvageable.
There were many cracks in the valve seats.
This made us question the condition of the engine block.
New heads and gaskets, chain and water pump would come to around $600.
My brother's friend found us a used motor from a friend of his for $600 with 98k miles on it.
So Friday we went to the yard and got the motor.
Saturday I spent most of the day preparing to yank the motor out of my truck.
It's all ready to be pulled today when I get home from church and the the church Thanksgiving dinner. The turkey for which, Scherie stayed up until 2 am preparing. And I stayed up with her.
I'm about to leave for church.
I'll have a choice when I get home.
Pull motor or nap.
We'll see.

By the way, there's a communist in the White House.
Actually, quite a few.

Veteran's Day

My Dad (Normandy, Bastogne).
My Uncle Babe (South Pacific Island Campaigns Silver Star)
My Wife Scherie's Uncle Ed (Navy/ Korea)
My friend Nate (Pearl and Normandy, Bronze Star, MSgt)
My Brother in Laws brother Rick and sister Rhonda (USAF/Vietnam)
His son, my nephew Tom (Marines/Desert Storm)
My friend Jeff (Marines/Can't tell you, Would have to kill you)
Myself (Vietnam Era/NATO and Tactical Air Command)
My stepson Scott (Navy SCPO/Underwater)
My niece Caridad (USAF/Okinawa)
Her sister/my adopted daughter Charity (Army/Iraq)
Their sister Kenna and her husband Andrew (Navy/Japan)
Their brother Tim (National Guard)
My friend Chris (Army 11B/Afghanistan)
My friend Debi (Army)


By the way, I'm name-dropping.
I'm proud to know these people.


I'm in good company.

It's Sunday

I just watched a DVD called More Than Dreams.
Rather, I watched the first two of five vignettes.

The video represents the stories of five muslims, from five different muslim nations, who each has a vision of Jesus Christ calling them to Him.

I've heard of this phenomena for a few years now.

Each person is struggling to know God and to know His will for their life, to have a close relationship with Him.

What struck me most was the first story of Dini, an Indonesian girl who is struggling with unforgiveness, even after becoming a Christian.
Events conspire to bring her to a position where she must deal with this, even as she tells her story to a stranger on a train. Very remarkable, moving story.

As I watched this, I realized that I must come to grips with the unforgiveness, bitterness, anger and hostility towards those who enabled Obama (and Obama himself!!! Lord Help Me!) to ruin this country.

Og at Neanderpundit was describing his feelings about this and I found myself in agreement.
Yet I have two women in my church (friends in fact, both of whom were very supportive of Scherie while she was recovering) who are also in the Bible Study I moderate/teach, and they both voted for Obama.

I cannot let this anger impede my responsibility to teach that class, or interact in church. (and life).

This morning I was watching Dr. Charles Stanley speak on TV. And he was speaking about forgiveness, and how we must walk in forgiveness to walk with God.

I get the message, now I need the technique.

I must balance my sense of righteous anger at the situation with the knowledge  that they really do "Know not what they do".

The same goes toward the millions of Christians who could not get off their butts and pull the lever for the mormon.

I must forgive them also, whether they want it or not. I'm sure they don't.

I'm disgusted.

Malware Redux

Uninstalling Obama . . . . . █████████████▒

Failed to remove offending item.

Remove all media.

Reboot System.

Hamelin Town

They voted for the Piper.
The children will pay.

Breaking Election News!!!

Tanie took Scherie to vote and I met them at the polls.
Scherie was voting still and Tanie was waiting when I got in the short line for our precinct.
The other precinct line was down the hall, back again and out the door.
We were talking and she said she was gonna run to McDs and get a coffee.
One of the poll workers turned and said she wished she had a coffee.
So we bought coffee for all of them.
They still wouldn't let us vote twice.

Uninstalling Obama . . . . . █████████████▒ 95% complete

Almost there.

Deliver us from evil.

I was on Bill Bennett this morning and commented on Z's Sunday Faith Blog and my comment there.
Feel free to listen.

Change you can believe in

Resistance is futile...

The president who left our Ambassador Stevens to die said earlier,
during an interview with Woodward in July,
“We can absorb a terrorist attack.
We’ll do everything we can to prevent it, but even a 9/11,
even the biggest attack ever . . . we absorbed it and we are stronger.”…

Do you want to "be absorbed?"
I don't.
Oh, that was a rhetorical question.