the fate of the western world

 

The first thing I have to tell you is that sleeping as you get older is a tricky thing. I can now go to sleep most afternoons, no problem. Going to sleep at 10:30 or 11:00 is an “iffy” thing. I may have been tired all day but at 10 to 11 PM I am not ready to sleep. 

And nowadays there is no way to sleep until 6AM. 

I always wondered why old people got up at 4 or 5 AM. Well the old person who uses my toothbrush gets up then because the pain wakes him up and so he just gets up. Maybe that is why other old people get up early. I dunno.

The second thing I have to tell you is that what follows didn’t and doesn’t happen at my house. This is important that you know this. That is because people call my wife and say to her, “Do you know what he wrote today?” Or, “Do you know what he’s done now?” Or something similar.

Many of you insightful people know that, by now, not much surprises her. You can tell her and she will just nod and smile.

So it is important that you knowing that this isn’t something that has happened at my house. I hope that your knowing this may reduce the number of calls to my wife telling her of the odd thing I’ve done or written.

Maybe you might think I heard this from the neighbors, or just made it up out of my own warped mind. Yeah, go with one of those.

As I understand it some couples snore. Both of them. And when one snores the other cannot go to sleep. So when they go to bed there is a sort of race to see which one can go to sleep first and get their “steam engine going down the tracks” sound going before the other person has the chance to do so.

So the first person to go to sleep “wins”. The other person is left to listen and try to pull the pillows over his or her head and block the noise of train engine next to them. This can be miserable because you want to sleep, but you don’t want to be rude to the person who was able to get to sleep before you.

It is what might be called, a “Mexican Standoff”. This is where two sides square off against one another and neither can make a move without knowing they both will be destroyed. Okay, I guess that isn’t what this is because no one is going to be destroyed.

Once one party is asleep the other party doesn’t want to wake them because they know how hard it is go get to sleep and stay asleep.

However, I’m told, one person may shake the other person and say “you are snoring”. In some cases the person doing the snoring can put on their CPAP machine mask and that might help. Or the message may be, without saying so directly, “go to the other room” and sleep with the dog. Or maybe they just come out with it… “go sleep in the other room”.

This is why fertility rates in the Western World has plummeted. Because of this the current Administration needs to address this issue. There needs to be studies. Doctors and researchers need to find solutions.

It is one thing when old people have this problem but when it happens to younger folks… and it does… the the fate of future generations hangs in the balance.

Congress needs to be called into special session, and required to do some actual work.

The President needs to sign an executive order. 

The Supreme Court needs to rule. 

We need action and we need it now!

But they would all have to fight the pro-snoring lobby which I hear is big in DC.

Please write your Senator and or Congressman on this important issue.

Psalm 131:1-2

 

i'm hiring

 

I am applying for the subcontract to place orange barrels on the highways.

Some of you may recall when construction zones were marked with actual barrels. Actual metal shipping barrels. They would cut up old tires and put them on the bottom of the barrel to keep them from rolling away.

Those were all replaced with orange plastic barrels.

I found out that the State Highway Department does not put those barrels out. They hire it done by subcontractors who have advanced degrees in barrel placement, or have cousins or other relatives that need something to do. The State estimates when work is to be done with a “lea way” of plus or minus 60 days and then has the barrel subcontractor place the orange barrels in an approximate time frame somewhere loosely around then.

The State did this themselves at one time but they were running short on manpower and there were not enough people to lean on shovels and watch that one new guy in the ditch, so that had to turn to outside help.

This is why you may drive for an hour past miles and miles of orange and / or yellow barrels with no workers in sight. The subcontracting company placed the barrels as per contractual obligations. The fact that work may or may not start in that vicinity in the foreseeable future is… well… unforeseeable and not at all the fault of anyone but you… for noticing.

I am certain that I can place those barrels as well as anyone else. Maybe better. So I called my Uncle Rudy and asked him to put in a good word for me down at the Highway Department. He said he would and so now I’m waiting.

In the meantime I’m asking for people to let me come to their driveway and place barrels for practice. You will need to have a longish driveway and be willing to use only half of it for some period of time. I may let you wear a yellow vest and have a flag that you can wave. You would be empowered to stop traffic going ingressing and egressing and ungressing and doing all sorts of gressing in your or near your driveway.

At your discretion you may allow your wife into your driveway. It's up to you.

If you prove to "have what it takes"... if you can "cut the mustard" then I may be able to hire you. To put you on the team. 

Please let me know if you would like to start off by using your driveway.

And I'm looking for a snappy name for my orange barrel placement company so please leave me your best ideas.

Thanks in advance.

Numbers 6:24-26

 

life, as we know it, may cease

 

The Prime van went by our house today.

Just drove right past. It didn’t stop.

This never has happened. It always stops.

I once studied a “dead language”. I dunno why for sure. Nor do I know why the language died.

It wasn’t murdered. If had been murdered they would have warned us students. That would have been the first thing they would have said. For our own safety they would have told us the language was “whacked”. Iced. Offed. Rubbed out. Be careful who you speak to… you could be next. But they didn’t tell us that.

We were left to assume the language died of natural causes. It’s too bad because they had lots of good things in that language. The main thing I liked were the verbs. The verbs were very rich and robust. 

Let’s take the example of the Prime truck not stopping. The language would have multiple verbs for this.

Here’s how that might go…

The Prime truck is stopped.

The Prime truck is stopping.

The Prime truck was stopped.

The Prime truck will be stopping.

The Prime truck stops and usually always stops.

The Prime truck stops and always stops.

The Prime truck is in the process of stopping.

The Prime truck is in the process of stopping and will rapidly stop.

The Prime truck is in the process of stopping and will someday roll to a stop.

The Prime truck is stopping now and will always be stopping.

The Prime truck is stopped now and is in the process of always stopping to be stopped.

They would have a verb for all those listed above. In their language it might be the root word “stop” and then added suffix type endings to connate the other processes of stopping.

And so the Prime truck stops at our house. It always stops and will always stop and is even now in the process of stopping.

It is likely at this very moment being loaded which will begin the process of it soon stopping and will always be stopping in the future.

So you can see why I was amazed today when it did not stop.

The person who drives the Prime van and I are friends. We are close. He is like the brother I never had. I have a brother but the Prime driver is like the one I didn’t have.

I am not close to many people. This is because when people get past my ugly and grumpy exterior they find more ugliness and grumpiness on the inside. And so most people won’t be my friend. Those I’m closest to are the ones who really do not know me. These are the folks I feel closest to.

And so when this truck passed I shrugged at the driver trying to communicate, “Hey friend, what’s the deal?”. He just grimaced and managed a weak wave and continued on his way.

As you may have gathered we buy a lot from Amazon who are the folks who own the Prime trucks. I load up my electronic Amazon cart full of needs and wants and then enter the order it when I get a few things in the cart. Sometimes that is daily. Sometimes it is multiple times a day. 

Sometimes the items are emergency things required to continue life.

In the current case I was waiting for an emergency item and the truck didn’t stop and deliver it. The item in question are those cookies that are similar to the chocolate mint cookies the Girl Scouts sell. I also buy them from the Girl Scouts because you never know when you might need one or more of these to sustain life.

But the truck didn’t stop.

Life as we know it may cease. 

It is a sign. The universe may unravel.

amish buggy gallery

 

One of (maybe THE) most popular galleries on my website is "Amish Buggies". The link is below.

https://www.davidarment.photos/AmishFolder/Amish-Buggies

To those of you who live in Northern Indiana perhaps this isn't some exotic thing at which to look, because you see Amish buggies every day. But the majority of the world doesn't live in Northern Indiana, Ohio or Pennsylvania where the Amish reside. To the majority of the world this is quite an unusual thought.

And I would submit that there are many "English" who live here who are very interested to know more about the Amish. I hear conversations among us (the "English" who live here) as we puzzle about Amish adoption of technology, lifestyles, rumspringa, etc.

Now I've wandered from my point...

If you would like to see pictures of Amish buggies click the link above.

There is also a gallery on "Amish life" that you might find interesting.

Have a great day!

church of the living god

 This is a picture of a small church in the "hallers" of West Virginia, 1973. I took the picture because the church was so small. I couldn't imagine many people getting into the building.

You can likely read the sign, but just in case, it says... Church of the Living God in the Name of Jesus Christ Welcome.

On the door is a small sign that says "Please keep door shut to keep bugs out, Thank You" and it looks like someone has stuck a note in behind this sign.

On the side of the building is a sign printed over another sign. Both seem to say the same thing which is the name of the church as outlined above.

I was in West Virginia for a summer as a Missionary for the Southern Baptist Convention. I'd worked many summers and had after school jobs etc so I'd saved enough money that I thought I could do this one summer. I'm glad I did.

I was in a little church near Logan, West Virginia (not this church). The major thing that had happened there a year or two before was the "Buffalo Creek Mining Disaster" which took many lives.

photography... high contrast lighting

After

 

Before

Church lighting is difficult sometimes.

In this picture those "running the lights" in the church are focused on what is happening on the stage and not on the young people who have walked to the floor of the sanctuary. So they do not turn up the house lights. The folks nearer me are in the spotlights trained on the stage and those farther away are in the dark.

The human eye makes some adjustment for this so it is not as apparent to the church-goer as it is to the photographer, but still they should have had more light.

I took several exposures of this scene from my chair on the front row. In all but this exposure one of the boys is back "off the line" and this was the only one where you could see his face. None of the others were lit any better. So this was the best composition to work with.

As you can tell I cropped it so that pulled everyone tighter into the frame. As you might expect I used the sliders in Camera Raw and Lighthouse to expose the shadows and dark areas as best I could. It wasn't good enough. So I made a duplicate layer and then set it to "screen". I then made that layer to one of its own. I then reset the lower layer back to normal. That being the case the folks in the left of frame are now overexposed and those in the right of frame are almost correct.

I erased those on the left at some percentage (I forget now what the setting was). I usually start low and just erase until things start to blend in.

And I did some dodge and burn.

As always I shoot RAW and so pulling things out of darkness is often possible, but if you overexpose you cannot recover those "blown out" areas. So shooting dark is the best option when you have high contrast lighting. IMHO.

If you didn't follow any of that that is okay. If you followed some or all of it then you probably have your own way of doing this sort of thing and if you want to tell me about it "I'm all ears".

So as I said in the last post... this takes time. The more adjustments the longer the time.

The shoot at the church took an hour. It took me three more to come up with about 75 photos. This one was the most difficult.

Let me know what you think...

photography - church in the woods

Old Canadian Church before and after.

 This is an image from 2013. I found it on my website. For some reason I'd applied a technique to the image on the website called the "Orton Effect". It was way overdone so I trashed that image and went to search for the original. I found it on a hard drive and worked on it this morning.

This took sever al minutes. Maybe 30 or so.

Photography is not just about shooting a picture. Composition is maybe the most important thing, but a good composition is no good if you have an image that is blurred or has some other major problem that makes it unworkable. So assuming you have a good composition to work with and with no major "issues", to make it something worthwhile you will need to spend some time with it in Lightroom, or Camera Raw and then Photoshop.

This takes time. More time than you might imagine.

For every hour I shoot I typically spend two processing those images. There is one major exception that I won't go into here because I don't want to bore you to death.

Here is what I did on the above picture, as best I can recall. 

- There is (or was) graffiti on the far back window. I removed it.

- I was concerned that the top of the church was too close to the top of the frame so I need to add some sky and trees. I did that. 

- The additional sky and trees were not correct so I had to fix that.

- The composition was then "off" so I cropped it to something more normal.

- I worked on the sky trying to put some life there instead of it being just "gray".

- I worked on the overall color and tried to find some balance between darkness and brightness.

- The church was then too bright and need some sharpening so I did that.

- I added the ©David L Arment in and faded it in the left corner.

Looking at the picture now I maybe should have tried to do some lens correction because all the trees seem to be leaning inward. But I have spent all the time I'm going to on this image.

Was it worth the time. I don't know. Time will tell.

I do know that the original would not have had much of a chance. The "Orton Effect" image I posted had no chance of getting anyone's attention. Now at least the image has some chance of being seen.

The purpose of this post was to share with those of you who might have interest that it takes some time to get a good picture AFTER you get the picture taken. 

Thanks for your interest.

Praise

 

do not immerse in water

In our kitchen there are two chords plugged into the wall. One has a warning, as you can see from the picture. It warns not to immerse it in water.

I assume the other one is okay to submerge since there is no warning. Good to know.

Have a great weekend!

new favorite tree

 

This is my new favorite tree.

I always have a local tree that is my favorite. My first ever favorite tree died. Then it was cut down. Since then I've had several favorite trees.

My last favorite tree can be seen in a farm field to the North from the Pumpkinvine Nature Trail in an Amish farm field. Half of the tree is dead and half of it is alive. It is unusual.

My new favorite tree is near an Amish school outside of Topeka, IN. Maybe you can see the concrete blocks that the kids use to walk up the little hill and through the opening in the fence.

If you don't have a favorite tree I urge you to go outside and find one. Today.

dawdy house, guinea chickens, Amish pizza

 

I have an Amish friend for whom I do work. He paints pictures and I photograph them and send them to his printer. They come back from the printer and become calendars. 

He pays me, in part, with pizza, and fresh pie. His wife makes the pie and the local pizza place has the pizza.

On our last trip out to have pizza we were leaving his lane and these Guinea Chickens were out of the yard where they were supposed to be and across the road. My friend lives in the Dawdy House.

As we leave the lane the chickens were out. The chickens belonged to their grownup kids and my friends were a little concerned for their children's chickens that the traffic might run over a one.

Guinea chickens are like watch dogs. They are wary of things that are not normal and they can be loud if they wannabe. These seemed occupied with the idea that they had escaped.

As I said my friend lives in a Dawdy house that was build last summer.

Dawdy means (I think) Grandpa. I looked up to see how to spell Dawdy and there are multiple ways. It is Pennsylvania Dutch which is spoken by the Amish and is primarily an oral language without a singular spelling system. So if you see me misspelling something from now on just think to yourself: “Oh, he is spelling in Pennsylvania Dutch”.

The Dawdy House is often physically attached to the grown children's house. It is added to the existing house formerly occupied by the parents. Normally the kids move into the older part of the house and the parents move and occupy the new Dawdy house. The later usually being smaller.

My friends house is plenty big and he has a barn… of course… for his horses. His house is not attached to the kids. He has started to build work spaces away from his house in which he paints and does his illustrations. They are little cabins. I don't know why he has two, but so far he has two workspace cabins.

We went to town in one of our trucks, Pam and me and my friend and his wife. We went to a Amish run pizza place. We have some interesting restaurants here that are owned and ran by Amish and feature food from other cultures.

One is a Mexican restaurant out away from any town. They are only open on Friday and Saturday. I used to like going there until the service got really slow and we have not been back in a while. The Mexican food is what Amish think Mexican food ought to be. It is a hybrid of some sort. And it is usually pretty good. The restaurant used to be packed, but when I go by it now it doesn’t seem to be as busy. There are fewer and fewer buggies in the parking lot.

The Pizza place we were going to is also Amish. So you get Italian food… sorta… kinda.

They have a pizza buffet. So I went up to the buffet and was confused by the choices. I’m easily confused so this was normal for me. I carefully selected a slice of pizza based solely on it’s appearance. 

I was the first back to the table so I politely waited for everyone else to make their selections and joined me. Amish pray a silent prayer to God by themselves. Normally when we pray at meals we pray out loud. So I waited until everyone prayed and then we all started to eat.

I started eating my pizza slice and it was unusual. It had bits of ham. Okay that’s fine. Some melted cheese. No tomato sauce. No other pizza sauces that you might find on an Italian pizza. Then I saw egg. Scrambled egg. As I worked my way toward the crust there was ground sausage and… wait for it… white gravy. The gravy seemed tucked into or under the soft crust of the pizza. 

Although I’m slow, I realized here in the late afternoon I was eating a breakfast pizza. This just ain’t right I thought to myself. 

The best thing I had to eat that night was the garlic bread. It was good and the closest thing I had that day to Italian food.

I think on our next outing we will go to the new restaurant in Emma that is owned by Amish and they serve American and Amish food. That might be better.

©David L Arment, 2026

May 22, 2026

Philippians 2:3b-4

 

my fav game needs help

 

I am getting really good at a game on the internet.

Maybe you have played it also (I wanted to say “to” but I wasn’t sure if it is “to” or “too”… so I said also).

The game has a couple of variations. You play it when you go to a website that you go to every day and sometimes a few times a day, but they are not sure who you are. With all the smart machines and people in the world you would think they would know who you are when you visit them every day. Grandma had dimensionia (yes I know that isn’t a word, but grandma won’t care). 

Where was I?

Oh yeah, Grandma couldn’t remember anything but she know who you were when you came to visit. And she didn’t have a PhD in computer science.

So anyway,

This game asks you to figure out in which of a big batch of pictures in a grid is the one that matches the word they give you and the example picture.

So, for example, it might say pick the bridges out of the group below. So you do this and then the magic happens….Your reward is that you get to visit the website you wanted to visit because you proved you are smarter than an apricot.

The variation that is the most fun is the one where you… using the example given above… pick a bridge and it disappears but a new image takes it place. You don’t get to proceed to the website until all the bridges are gone. This usually does’t take any longer than half an hour.

Sometimes I click out of the website and then click back in just to play this (or these) games. 

It’s not that I don’t have other things to do.

There are still reruns of “The Price is Right” that I haven’t seen yet. So there’s that.

I wish I knew who to contact to help them with these games. They need to think bigger! Like bigger grids. Grids like 10x10. That would be a lot of little images. Like it would be maybe 20 or so.

And they could offer up better clues. Like instead of saying pick the bridge image and then giving you an example of a bridge in a picture, they could have a bunch of people images in the grid and then the clue would be “pick out the person from this group that you think blows their nose on their sleeve”. The problem with my poor example is that everyone I know does this, except my wife.

So if you have the name or number or email or snapchat or WhatsApp or WeChat or telegram, or messenger, or chat-chat or someotherway to reach the people that make these games please let me know.

Many thanks,

jeremey is a jerk

 

“Jeremey!” It’s a whisper and a yell both at the same time.

“Jeremey!” It’s like she wants his attention but not the others at the table with him.

“Jeremey! Jeremey! Jeremey!” Its like machine gun bullets through a gun with a silencer on it like you might see on a 007 movie.

“Jeremey!”

“Jeremey!”

“Jeremey!”

And I’m trying to remember who we might know with the name Jeremey. Pam is much smarter than I am and she has a better memory so I just sit in my chair and wait for the meeting to start or for Jeremey to come over to our table… whichever happens first.

Pam is half yelling / half whispering at Jeremey who is with people who have yet to seat themselves at their table.

“Jeremey!” It’s a rhythm now. A cadence. A chant.

“Jeremey!”

“Jeremey!”

It is still a whisper and a yell both at the same time, but moving more and more to the YELL side of the balance.

We live in a community where almost everyone has hearing aids so I’m thinking poor Jeremey is having trouble with his. Pam isn’t giving up on Jeremey… whoever that is.

“Jeremey!”

“Jeremey!”

“Jeremey!”

Suddenly the rant ceases. One of the “Jeremey’s” gets caught in her throat.

I look at her and she has a smile on her face like she just told herself a joke and the punch line is in the process of “sinking in”.

“Jordan”, this she says in more or less a normal voice to the group at the table.

Guess what happens.

A man who works at the facility who was standing at the table the whole time turns around. His name is Jordan.

I look at Pam and she is giggling like a school girl to herself.

Jordan comes over to see what Pam wants.

So if you run into Pam be prepared to answer to whatever name she decides to call you.

Thank you for your attention to this matter.

bears and the crash

 

We a man “crashed” his motor cycle into the side of our RV. It was our second trip to Alaska in 2017.

He hit it broadside and we watched his head hit first and his body get trapped between his motorcycle and the RV.

My first reaction was, “Oh crap, he’s surely dented and scratched the RV.”

Pam’s was, “Oh my I hope he isn’t hurt... or dead”.

WWJD? I’m sure Pam’s reaction was a lot more appropriate and Christ-like than mine.

Here is how it all unfolded. We were in Alaska. I was driving and Pam was looking out the window. We turned a corner and she saw a brown bear mom and three babies. She squealed with delight at seeing them and quickly communicated to me what saw, knowing that my camera and I would want pictures.

I saw a broad area on the side of the road and jammed on the brakes and pulled in. The area was covered in river rock. River rock does not pack and the bed of rock was deep so we threw rock everywhere as we came to a quick stop.

I jumped out with the long lens I had at the time and tried to take pictures.

As we were doing this a motorcycle came around the curve just like we had done moments before. He also saw the broad opening on the shoulder. He also pulled in and he also found that the river rock would not help him stop. He threw rock onto the side of the RV and his body and motorcycle hit the RV.

He went head first and he was trapped against the RV. Pam and I rushed over to help. I thought for sure he was going to be in bad shape. Thankfully I was wrong and he got up, brushed himself off and we all tried to look at the bears.

The bears were up against the tree line and the commotion of humans trying to stop their vehicles drove them into the forest. We waited and I got a shot of the mom and one cub.

The picture above was taken during the time described herein.

the worst salesperson

Grandma Jo was the worst salesperson in the world. I’ll give you some examples and you can decide for yourself.

As I’ve told you before, she was very frugal with her money. In other words she was cheap. She wouldn’t spend money on anything. And often in her effort to save money she would buy things that were so awful that she had to spend additional money to make this normal.

Once she purchased some candy bars at one of our “scratch and dent” grocery stores. She would take a bite into one and find out it was not to her liking. She would look at the person closest to her and say something like… “This candy bar is awful! Do you want it?”

Everyone would laugh at the idea of eating something that someone else thought was bad. And Grandma Jo would laugh along.

Once she purchased a chair. Obviously it had to be cheap. I was surprised it came from a store and was new. She had me go pick it up because I had a truck and at the time a good back.

We went and she paid for it. The store people showed me where it was and I braced myself to pick it up. It was very light weight and I overestimated the weight and jerked it off the floor thinking it was heavy.

As I carried it to the truck I could see some of the components that should have been wood were cardboard.

The chair sat in there living room and people would set in it until it began to “list to port”. It was leaning. If you sat in it you were “cock eyed”. Uneven. 

So everyone knew to avoid that chair.

When grandma had visitors she would tell them the chair was awful, it leaned and then asked if they would like to own it.

No one took her up on the deal.

It found it’s way to the happy hunting grounds where chairs go to their eternal rest.

Grandma Jo was a “pill” and not a good salesperson.

We all had a good time with her “cheapness” and she laughed along with us.

Concert Pictures - Ben and Rose

 I take pictures for the Blue Gate Performing Arts Center of concerts. I've come to like doing it. And I've learned doing "on the job" self-training. I say that because concert pictures are taken in dark concert halls and the lighting is something you have to learn how to control in you camera settings.

But I digress, even before getting started.

You can see the concert pictures on the website www.davidarment.photos and then looking for the "concert" folder, which the website calls a "gallery".

Last night was an experience because it was a young couple who are or were Amish. And another artists Conrad Fisher who was Amish as a child. The place was packed. And the crowd was predictably Conservative Mennonite, Mennonite and Amish.

There were lots of bicycles outside. A fact brought to my attention by the managment of the Blue Gate. And there were more than the usual number of "Amish taxis" ie vans. I only saw one buggy while I was walking into the venue.

So everyone was predictably very nice, polite, kind and it was a very pleasant evening.

You can see the pictures from last night in the concerts area of the website if you wish.

grandma jo and the candy bars

 

Grandma Jo was a pill. “Pill” is an idiomatic word when used like this meaning she was a colorful character. She was full of surprises.

On one occasion when we visited her house, which was very close to ours, and she was eating a candy bar. She had reached an age where her attitude was something similar to, “I’ve lived this long I’m going to enjoy what I can”. And she did.

She was a miserly person. They took the buffalo off the nickel because of her. She would squeeze a nickel (5 cents) until the buffalo died.

She was very proud of her miserly ways and so she bragged about the bargain she had found in this candy bar.

She had purchased it at one of our local stores that specializes in out of date or dented can type goods. We have way more than our share of these type stores. The candy bars were four for a dollar. Back then a dollar was worth more then than it is now. In any event, she had four candy bars for which she had paid one dollar.

I asked were are the other three candy bars. 

They were no good she said. “I had to throw them away”.

Not being great at math, but being pretty good at logic, I said, “So that candy bar cost you a dollar.”

She looked momentarily confused and said, “No it cost twenty five cents. I just told you they were four for a dollar.”

But if you threw all of them away but one the remaining one, the one you could eat cost a dollar.

“No” she said defiantly, “It cost twenty five cents.”

I don’t know if she understood or not. It wasn’t worth a continued discussion that would not turn out well had it continued.

She was a pill.

symbiotic relationship

The owner of this field told me if it were not for the windmill he would have cut down the tree... and... if it were not for the tree the windmill would not still be standing on it's own.

symbiotic relationship

Revelation 3:20

 

Embrace the Pace

 

Don't be in a hurry if you visit Amish country... especially in the spring. 

In normal times you can get behind a horse and buggy and it may take a while to "go around". In the spring if you get behind farm equipment being pulled by horses, it can be even worse.

Be ready to relax and take it easy.

What do you measure?

 

If you are in an organization what do you measure?

Show me what you measure and I’ll tell you what you consider important.

When I did “mergers and acquisitions” and “turn arounds”, I would always want to see what was being measured. It would tell me what they thought was important. NOT what they said was important but what they REALLY thought to be important.

What do you measure?

Not too long ago I asked a person in charge of an organization what their mission was. They told me. In the answer I found nothing that could possibly be measured. 

The point here goes along with the old saying… “What gets measured gets managed.” The converse is true, “What gets managed is measured”.

If there is no measurement taking place in your organization... well... you are without a rudder.

If you are measuring things that do not reflect your mission or vision, then you do not really have the mission or vision that you think you have.

What do you measure?

Psalm 37:4

 

Fern

 

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Subtraction by Addition II

 

Subtraction by Addition part 2

We went to a botanical garden today. It reminded me of the blog post of a couple of days ago.

The garden is acres of land that has fields and ponds and running springs. It has at one border a big river. It is a wonderful outdoor place.

In my opinion in recent years it has "lost it's way". The grounds have been let go and that started at exactly the same time they invested in a very nice, large building of classrooms and exhibits.

A place known for the outdoors spent lots of its valuable time, money and energy building an indoor venue.

Subtraction by Addition

IMHO

(See previous post if you are confused.)

Pam and Dad Troyer's Cane

I was in the car repair shop. Pam is related to the people who fix our car. She is the cousin to the man who works on our cars. In this part of the country everyone is from here and everyone knows everyone else.

'Cept me. 

When I say "everyone is from here" you are saying to yourself, "No that is not possible". But it is. Everyone that is here, is from here. 'Cept me.

As I was there I noticed ad small barrel in the corner of the waiting room. It was full of canes. Canes like people use to help them walk.

Pam was walking with a cane after having a "procedure" done in Fort Wayne. She was walking with a cane that someone gave her that looked like it cost twenty five cents at a garage sale. It is a metal cane with some of the paint rubbed off. It gets the job done, I suppose. We both are pretty utilitarian and no one much cares what your cane looks like. Right?

I had never seen a barrel of walking sticks and canes in a barrel in the corner of any room. Maybe I didn't understand what I thought I was seeing.

So I asked. 

I am far from fearing people will think I'm stupid. I just ask. I was correct it was a barrel of canes.

"In fact", says the proprietor who is Pam's cousin, "One of the canes in there is Grandpa Toyer's". I asked if it would be okay for Pam to use it and they seemed delighted with the prospect. 

I went home and told Pam and she was very quickly walking with "Dad Troyer's" can. (see the pictures below).

I don't quit know what to think of this. To me it is kinda sad when people start walking with canes and have these old people problems.

All of us old people have our issues. Someday I'll tell you some of mine. Then you will really be bored.