"When you've found out who God wants you to be, you'll never want to be anyone else."

-- Bill Johnson

We Know it Was You

Congratulations to my dear friend Maggie on the release of her second book! So proud of her. This one's a mystery novel for young people, and is superbly written, with crisp, sharp, and smart prose, interesting, nuanced, and unconventional characters, and themes that are complex, layered, and thought-provoking. Maggie has addressed some very deep and controversial subjects, while maintaining an intriguing story and an atmosphere of fun and humor, as only a truly masterful writer can, and produced something genuinely unique and memorable. Well done, sweetie! I love you.

Peter, Paul, and Mary - Wedding Song

I had completely forgotten that this song existed. It's one of those that gets overdone until it becomes so mushy, cliché, and sentimental that you get sick of it and start to hate it. All through the seventies and into the eighties, it was everywhere. Every time Hollywood needed to make a horrible "modern" wedding scene with self-written vows (gag) and artificial tears, this was the song they schlepped out.

But it popped up on my recommendations after I posted the other Peter, Paul, and Mary song yesterday, and after a break of thirty years or so from hearing it, I'm able to appreciate it again; it's quite lovely, both in its music and its sentiments. (I also never realized when I was younger how beautiful Mary was.)

Or maybe I've just become a sentimental fool.

I've composed another masterpiece, just now, while working in the garden. Sing it to your favorite tune.

Who's that grunting in my forest?
Are you a bear or are you a boar?
Are you a big, bad buck in rut?
Or are you just an itty bitty bunny?

Peter, Paul, and Mary - The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face

I'd never heard this rendition of this song before. Beautiful.

"It was like people just lined up to let her down, and then acted like it was her own fault for expecting anything else. If there was one thing she'd learned in Florida, it was how much people will resent you for expecting them to be anything but predictable and petty and passionless." -- Maggie Thrash, We Know it was You

Kathy's Song - Simon and Garfunkel

Sweet Thing

Final Results

 Have to re-hang the gate: it was done kinda half-assed like everything else the previous owner did, and it's not lining up properly (the big rock is to keep it closed for now).

 The deer had been at my strawberry leaves, and I was all set to stock my freezer with venison. Waited up for them early in the morning with my rifle, then saw that it was two does with fawns, and my soft-heartedness got the better of me.

I want to add a little white picket fence around the edge once the grass is fully established.

Beck - Ramona

I love this movie. And I love this song. The band in this movie is the best made-up fake Hollywood band since the Monkees.

Evidence for the above opinion:
Exhibit A:

Exhibit B:

Exhibit C:

Exhibit D:

Verdict: Sex Bob-Omb Rocks.

Free - Be My Friend

100 Years of of Armored Warfare

Today is the 100th anniversary of the first tank assault, at the battle of the Somme in France.

Try to imagine yourself as a German soldier in the trenches. You're exhausted, miserable, scared, cold, wet, and demoralized because the war has been stalemated for so long, and because of the enormous death toll on both sides. You're carrying a bolt-action rifle, and the new invention, the machine-gun, is the terrifying reason you're bogged down in these trenches. You grew up in a world of horses, carriages, woodstoves, and gas lights. Electricity and motor vehicles are novelties of the wealthy; your milk back home is still delivered by a horse and cart, the fields are plowed by horse-drawn plows, and both armies still have horse-mounted cavalry (although they've been rendered ineffective by machineguns and modern artillery). You may have seen a tractor once or twice in your life.

Then, early in the morning, after a heavy artillery barrage, you see rolling toward you with a deafening thunder of huge engines and the squeak and clank of steel tracks, thirty-two of these monstrosities:




You've never heard of, or imagined such a thing. Their development has been kept a total secret by the British government until this moment (in fact, that's why we still call them 'tanks' to this day: Tank was a code-name assigned to hide what they were really doing, making it seem like they were working on some kind of water-storage system. The original, official name was "land ships" and they were part of the Royal Navy).

My respects, both to the very first brave tankers who hazarded the inside of these experimental rolling beasts, filled with exhaust fumes, burning cordite, and deafening noise, and trying to do their duty while being thrown about the hard steel compartment by the movement of the vehicle over rough terrain, and to the infantrymen on the ground who had to face them.

Victory

It's still sinking in, that the battle with my weight is over. My whole life. Since my parents' divorce, when I was six. And now I've finally won--all that's left now is taking captives and riding down fleeing peasants. And burying the dead.

Not that we can become complacent. There will come a time of feasting and revelry soon, but then we've got to build castles on the borderlands, and establish patrols to watch out for new invaders. We must remain vigilant.

But I need to be clear: this is not my victory.

Non nobis, Domine, non nobis, sed nomine Tuo da gloriam.

194

My weight starts with a 1.

Putting up my Fence

 

And that will be the last thing for this summer's work--my orchard and vinyard will be DONE.

200 Pounds!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Well, here it is, as promised: 200 pounds, baby! Yeah!

As I expected, I still need to take off another 10-15 pounds and tighten things up a bit; drop down to about 12% bodyfat, so my skin can recover. Then I'll start eating and working out again, and put 10 or 15 back on in muscle: I've had to sacrifice some muscle to lose all this fat. But that's One Hundred and Fifty Pounds that I've lost!

What I'm NOT going to do: get a fake tan and ridiculous tooth-whitening, shave my body, and generally become one of those ridiculous mid-life crisis narcissists who you see in the ads and fitness magazines. I will have to buy some new clothes, though. Even these pants, which I bought about two months ago, are too big now.

What a beautiful day...feels like Autumn is coming.

"A writer is a person for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people."

-- Thomas Mann

Beethoven String Quartet No. 14 C Sharp Minor: 6th movement