Sunday, February 11, 2024

I've Always Felt It

It's strange to feel too. The strange deja vu from time to time. The vivid dreams that fill my nights and give me endless amounts of insomnia. The feeling of something coming. Something in the future that isn't here yet but is unrelenting in its travel and destination. 

Perhaps it's an extension of 80's Cold War paranoia preparation culture but it's real. Not just for me either. I firmly believe that there is a great many people that feel the same, something is coming because our country and culture cannot survive living like this. 

Our corrupt politicians have bankrupted the country for personal gain. It's Super Bowl Sunday right now, the Chiefs and the Niners are going to kick off soon and the country will watch. This distraction will keep America entertained while the world burns. Normally I'd be watching right along and enjoying the event. 

I can't. I've got a purpose. I've got to prepare. I want you to prepare.

Here's how. 

Food preservation. We can't do much about gas, water, or electric but we can concentrate on food for survival. If you have a garden, you're ahead of the game. The past couple of years I've seen up close and personally how fragile our supply chain is. I've shopped or delivered over 2500 runs for Spark. The pandemic changed everything. Now just the hint of bad weather will fill the stores with shoppers trying to provide for their families because they are unprepared. Our food supply is perilous, don't bet your future on it.

I don't want that for my family or friends. I want us to be prepared. I want YOU to be prepared as well.

Learn about bushcraft. Learn basic mechanical skills. I don't expect you to rebuild a 350 but knowing you can will benefit you. Learn to shoot, learn to shoot accurately in any condition. Learn to handle a knife, an axe, anything you think may help you later on.

Buy a freeze dryer. You can buy freeze dried meals already but the cost of a new or used freeze dryer will pay for itself in a very short amount of time. There is plenty of price comparisons out there to judge for yourself. Get to know your neighbors, help them prepare too. Tell your friends, family, anyone you don't want to see starving in a few years. 

Food is sky high now, wait a couple more years when the climate change terrorists clamp a stranglehold on food production because of co2 or anything else they say will be a problem. If that living cadaver John Kerry gets his way or that idiot Greta that dropped out of school instead of actually learning science and stuff then they firmly believe that the planet is over populated. And guess what? You are not the elite they intend to protect and save. 

Good food will be expensive or scarce. If the climate crazies get their way, and they might, it could be a luxury eventually. Be at the mercy of events outside your control or prepare yourself. I live in a state that every 5-10 years we get a storm that will take our power out for a day or more from damage. I plan on going on several solo camping trips and a supply of freeze dried foods take up little space and have little weight. 

Start freeze drying soups, meats, vegetables, fruits. Learn about it, it's affordable now to get a freeze dryer in your home now. One company called Harvest Right. Look into them. YouTube is your friend for research on this. Figure out your own system to helping your family and friends. Maybe every couple of weeks full day of food prep with everyone together and then again for the storage preparation. It can be a fun event, you are investing in your future wellbeing. 

This isn't politics, this isn't liberal vs. conservative. More realistically this is the ruling class elites vs. you and your family.

What are you going to do?

For me and mine, I just told you. 

Sunday, December 31, 2023

Happy 2024!

 So this post is about religion. If you don't want to know about what I believe or will be offended by the talk of Christ, punch out now. Come back when you need to know peace, this post will be here. 

I've been a Christian for as long as I can remember. Literally Sunday School at a small Baptist church in Hutchinsion, Kansas to moving to Missouri so dad could go to Southwest Baptist University and going to Mount Olive Baptist Church with our neighbors and even pastor lived across the alley for a while. Got baptized in the Pomme DeTerre river. It was cold. 

Always believed I was saved after that, said a prayer, did the baptism. Then life happens and things happen and you wonder if you're saved like you thought. You maybe get worried about it and say your prayer again just to be sure. You proceed about your life always knowing you've got that Ace card! No matter what, you're good! Look how good you are! You and your good deeds for all to see! If nothing else you can fake your way into salvation. And yes, you do need salvation. You do need repentance, and if you're asking, "who me?" Probably after you hear what I have to say or better yet have better men than I tell you themselves. 

I believe in the Jonathan Edwards' version of an angry God hanging by a thread of His Mercy. When you understand repentance, you understand what that means and you are driven to your knees by one question only, "Why Me, Lord?" That's it, your life is different from that point on. When you understand what repentance is and that it's not saying a prayer once when you were 9, that's when your life is different. You won't understand how, and your journey might take a very long time as mine has to reach this level of understanding. Thanks in large part to lots of time in the parking lots waiting on orders. 

One of my absolute favorite theologians is Dr. R.C. Sproul. His teaching genius is that he can relay incredibly complex topics in terms anyone can understand and give the reasons how and why while asking what you're thinking while you're thinking it. 

This is reformed theology by the best teacher in my lifetime. Dr. R.C. Sproul. 

This is far harsher. This is Dr. John MacArthur and on the universal question, "If God exists, why is there suffering!"

Dr. Voddie Baucham inspires me. This is his sermon entitled, "The Politically Incorrect Guide to God's War on the Wicked."

Paul Washer is the most intense pastor I've ever heard. He's nothing but the Gospel, it consumes him. Christ and nothing but Christ for him. Mr. Washer has many many incredibly powerful sermons and he does not play nice. If you are a fake Christian, trusting in something you may have silently muttered once and living like hell on earth, you are in for a reckoning if you listen to this sermon. He's famous for being very blunt and straightforward and this is the intensity of what the world needs right now for a true world wide repentance. 

I never know when my last day will be, neither will you. We don't know when that last heartbeat is coming through illness or accident or catastrophe. I never know when the last time it is to tell you I love you, so be prepared to hear it. When I'm gone, many decades from now I'm sure but I don't know, don't be sorry. Don't be sad. Know I'm with family that I know will be there. I'm with many amazing saints and theologians. I'm in a very good place and I hope you will find repentance. 

I did so many stupid things after my divorce. I lived it up and it wore me down. I felt empty still. I've documented for years life at my job and how it became a way of life. I've documented many many things about me that may be of help to someone someday. 

When you truly understand what Grace is, how unworthy we are of it, and how it's freely given. Then you will understand how this right here is where I'll be. This is prehaps the most uplifting sermon I've ever seen about how great it is to be a Christian. Dr. Derek Thomas goes into great detail on if there's dogs in Heaven

Look, if nothing else understand this parable from Jesus from the Gospel of Luke: 

The Rich Man and Lazarus

19 “There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and lived in luxury every day. 20 At his gate was laid a beggar named Lazarus, covered with sores 21 and longing to eat what fell from the rich man’s table. Even the dogs came and licked his sores.

22 “The time came when the beggar died and the angels carried him to Abraham’s side. The rich man also died and was buried. 23 In Hades, where he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far away, with Lazarus by his side. 24 So he called to him, ‘Father Abraham, have pity on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in agony in this fire.’

25 “But Abraham replied, ‘Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, while Lazarus received bad things, but now he is comforted here and you are in agony. 26 And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been set in place, so that those who want to go from here to you cannot, nor can anyone cross over from there to us.’

27 “He answered, ‘Then I beg you, father, send Lazarus to my family, 28 for I have five brothers. Let him warn them, so that they will not also come to this place of torment.’

29 “Abraham replied, ‘They have Moses and the Prophets; let them listen to them.’

30 “‘No, father Abraham,’ he said, ‘but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.’

31 “He said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.’”

I want to see you there and I love you so much, whoever is reading this. I don't want you to be in God's Wrath in unrepentant sin and yes it is God's Wrath. 

Let's see what 2024 brings, shall we?

Friday, December 29, 2023

The Death Dealer and 2023

 This will be my year end reflection. My final project of 2023 is The Death Dealer from Frank Frazetta. I'm putting the story of why I like it and why I painted it the way I have in the description so you don't have to reread it here. It marks an end of a turbulent year in the world and I am glad it's leaving. 

So 2023 started off as a real chance to put the pandemic behind us and get on with our normal lives again. I had applied for plenty of jobs and got a handful of interviews. Nothing much to speak of but I was doing ok driving and trying to find myself again without the base anymore. Without knowing it I had become institutionalized where I came to depend on the place. It became engrained in me and a way of life.

Getting over that was hard. It took a lot of time to get over and to even understand what was happening. I was driving every day and making the ends but not gaining anywhere. I was ok with that though, I had a comfortable life. Drive in the morning, hobby until bed. Enjoy being free. 

I went to the Christmas party and my shop wasn't my shop anymore. The office where I spent the majority of my adult working life was gone. Just space now, the decal room is now the office. The shop looks horrible now overall it's meh, not the same feeling. The whole vibe was different, uninviting, colder. The whole building was different but it kept me from being overly nostalgic about the place. Talking to all my buddies again was great and confirmed I made the right decision. 

Then August came around. An event that changed my life and turns out was pretty good now. It was a very rocky start though, I told the stories of how I was going to walk anytime I felt it wasn't working. Well those days are over, I feel invested in my job now. I enjoy it on a few levels too. 

I've been doing things the way I know how to do, deconstruct it, look at it from a few different angles, put it back together and get rid of the spare parts. 

That's what I've done and I've found ways to get the students interested in learning this tech to make a living at things. I mean it is school right? We all get educated in some capacity to wind up in the supply chain at some point from a producer to a consumer, we all share this in the workforce. The more education, the theory goes, the better place you have in the supply chain. 

So why not get the students learning how to make something with their own imagination and profit from it? I mean it's kind of my class and I'm in charge of teaching what I think needs to be taught within the bounds of school policy. So that gave me a mission to figure out how to do it for this second semester and keep it within school policy. 

Goodbye 2023, hello 2024, let's do better huh?

You can check out my painting video of The Death Dealer here on my channel, RetJetPainter. 

Monday, October 16, 2023

Rest In Peace Scotty

 From a kitten to dying peacefully, Scotty lived here his entire life and died this morning at 14.

He was a good boy, loved by his family and gave back more love than he needed.

My 2,800th post is in honor of Scotty. Rest in Peace Scotty.

Do pets go to Heaven?

There is a wonderful sermon by Derek Thomas from the Ligonier conference in which he addresses this.

https://youtu.be/qBgeJKyxhvA?si=I42yW9I0dpL_BDzc

One of the best I’ve heard and has so much love and grace in this sermon.

Sunday, October 15, 2023

First Nine Weeks

 I'm on fall break. Last week was the end of the first nine weeks and we had our first parent-teacher conferences. I had a handful of people, mostly the kids that have parents that are involved in their kids' lives. I was told I'd rarely get to see a kid that needs it. 

So last weekend the world woke up on the doorstep of World War 3 as Hamas decided to attack Israel. It's a mess over there. A lot of YouTube channels are going full-blown PreTrib Millenial out there. All kinds of Bible prophecies are quoted. It's crazy. 

I'm not dogmatic about it. I tend to believe in a Partial Preterist view that says most of the prophecies in scripture were talking about the end of an age that was punctuated by the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple by the Romans. 

Who knows what will happen but it's scary. We've got two carrier groups over there now, rumors about Iran and if they will or won't enter the conflict. Give the Dimocrats the reigns and boom! Wars, rumors of wars, destruction, inflation, and the elites prosper as they drive our country into financing one war and threatening another. 

They won't be happy until they've wrecked every vestige of a once great country. 

Thursday, September 21, 2023

Day One

 Yesterday was payday. That was really the start of an official day one for this new encore career. 

It put things into perspective. Clarified the pathway I suppose. I got things paid up and on the first it's pension day! So I'll be in great shape for the foreseeable future. Like did a Dave Ramsay projection and down to living on my pension alone and be comfortable. And that's with an extra $500 kicked into retirement every month and driving when I want to. Which is pretty nice. I can count on about 100 every time I go out.

How cool is that?

I kind of played a cool card with a few of the kids today. I impressed a few with my knowledge of anime. Then I topped that with Thing 2's foreign exchange experience and her love of anime too. It's only because I promised Thing 1 that I wouldn't play the My Oldest Daughter is a badass roadie and does set changes at festivals! She's loving her life as much as any 29 year old would!

How cool is that, that me, just this average guy trying to keep my head above water most of his life has been this amazingly blessed as I've documented over the course of these 20+ years. 

Thursday, August 24, 2023

My First Week

 I've learned sometimes things are the same even though you're in a different career. I've had a lot of ridiculous professional development-style classes before school even started. I'm not a rah-rah-rah kind of guy. In fact I needed that valuable time and if I had been hired a week before I'd have been able to learn that in my printing lab all but four printers don't work or need serious maintenance. 

So...that's how this started. 

It also has had only one small blip so far, a mild trouble maker kept pushing the wrong button. A brief loud voice later and he chilled out and then transferred out. Since then this job has been a fun job almost. I mean other than the ridiculous stuff I don't care about. 

I've got two classes making their own board games. I don't know how to teach what the other teacher was teaching. He just had a course set up to teach via YouTube. While it is a necessary and usually really efficient way to learn the basics, he kept it up with more and more of them on worthless projects the kids would have to leave at school ultimately.

Nahhhh son, That's not what I do. I got a damn master's degree because I liked the creative aspects of commercials and was interested in how certain types of stimulus triggers a buying response. Basically I broke down complex situations into simple bites. 

Bite one. Get rid of old curriculum after I figured out old boy there was lazy. His courses were designed for him to stay behind the desk. So that had to go. I wanted to see their progress and challenge what they were doing in an engaging way. 

So for the start of the class we are doing tutorials until they catch onto how Blender works. Then after that I am going to guide them into making things they want to make and then teaching them how to make it into a .stl file and we will print it and they can paint it. They will have two things out of this course. 

    Uuuuummm...(a) maybe? They'll have tangible proof they can make something.

    (b) They will be reminded all year long they can use the skill they are learning now and turn it into a marketable skill, in which they can create and sell their own works. Because I'll remind them. I want them to be able to learn something in high school that is only limited by their creativity but can be lucrative for them if they really work at it. 

Bite C. The Game Design course is my favorite course really. Teach it twice. I ditched the old "sit behind the desk" curriculum and made up my own. We are treating this like a business in the early stages. We will have a working prototype by end of semester and then play test, balance, and prepare for market in the second semester. And perhaps, yes we might be able to market it. To be figured out at a later date. This was the trouble maker's class and I had a hard time getting through to anyone but a few. Then boom, the clouds parted, the angels sang, and we had a really good time ever since! Everyone has bought in!

Basically because of the same situation as the design class. We are in reality making templates and developing skills to use and edit those templates into a proud creation of their own that they can market and maybe make some extra money off of or maybe invent a new genre of game altogether! I want them to be prepared for the workforce and maybe have a bit more opportunity in their lives. 

The print lab is a wreck. I've got 4 reliable printers. So I spent my entire year's budget on five brand new printers like I have. They are so simple so we will be able to focus on making stuff instead of failed prints. And that's about it. I got some wash stations and some resin and isopropyl alcohol. Whole budget is gone now for the year. 

But we'll have really good printers now and hopefully if any money comes in or is donated to the program or something I want to add in ten more. As old as this equipment is in the lab now, the new resin printers can cut that time a dozen times over for one print. So we won't need as many as the lab has. And then I really don't have a marketing idea for this class other than the same in the other two classes. Learn the technology and find a niche you can market. It's not rocket surgery. 

So to boil it down, so far if the year keeps going like this, I might return for a second year.

I'll keep you informed.