Reading is Fundamental

I took seven different videos of the boy's the other night when they came over with Alayna.  They speak for themselves.  The only problem is that one minute of video is about 100Mb and I think you can only upload about 10Mb at a time.  I've tried over and over ... guess I'll have to put 'em up on FaceBook.  

Started reading a book last year (a few months ago, I don't know).  I've made it to page 143 (of 590 pages).  Wow, at this rate I might finish it by 2016.  The really sad thing is that it is a most excellent novel by George MacDonald, Annals of a Quiet Neighborhood.  The dude is amazing, how he spins a tale.  I can listen to a good book being read to me by an actor as I drive around town.  I average about 15o miles every day, driving 3 to 4 hours.  Most books on CD are about 26 hours of reading.  So, 6 or 7 days of "reading" gets me through a book, so I can "read" 40 or 50 books a year!  So, you see why it takes me so long to just set down and read a book.  Oh, I love to read (for about 10 minutes at a time).  To me its kinda like running (which is another good time to "read" an audio book).  I can run for 30 minutes to an hour, but I am really ready to quit after about 10 minutes.  Its a little different, because I usually want to quit running because my legs are tired and I'm out of breath.  But the other day I ran slow for about 45 minutes, my legs weren't tired and I was hardly breathing.  My heart rate barely got above 120 bpm, but still I was ready to stop after 10 minutes.  I usually go for about 10 or 15 minutes and then do something different, like walk.  Reading is similar, only after about 10 minutes, I'm ready to watch TV, take a nap or get something to eat.

How I came about reading George MacDonald is kind of a funny story.  I did a little research on C.S. Lewis, and found that he really liked George MacDonald, so I looked him up and my search engine (way before yahoo or google) pointed me to a site where you could buy used books.  I mean really used books.  So I ordered one, and a book by John Owens, and low and behold, they were more than used.  They were antiques!  Ancient first addition manuscripts, probably from some old-guy's library and sold in an estate sale or something.  The book I got by MacDonald was a sequel to the one I'm reading now.  I read a few pages of it (over a period of several years) an thought one day that I'd like to read the story that inspired the sequel, so I looked on Amazon.com and found the book (used, but not an antique).  Unless you've bought an antique book that you never heard of before and started reading it to find that it is awesome, then you've really never experienced real reading.

Anyway, reading is fundamental.  You (and I mean alyson, amanda, or shannon, since I can't imagine anybody else reading this) should stop reading this and go get a George MacDonald novel and do some productive reading.  You can borrow my copy when I get done.

Christmas time is here.  Jesus Christ is Lord!  You know, Christ is not His last name, it is his title...His position.  In fact, Jesus is how we know him, but it is a fairly common name.  I've got 2 or 3 guys working for me with the same name.  No, that is not his name either.  The name of the Christ, Jesus is ... you guessed it ... it is LORD!  Oh, and you can know a lot of stuff about a lot of things ... like principles of Christian Life, or doctrines of grace.  You can know the law and keep it (to the best of your ability).  Or, you can be "free in Christ" and do anything you want.  But if you don't know Jesus the Christ as LORD ... well all you know and all you do is in vain.  It is vanity to be a Christian,  talk like a Christian, act like a christian and celebrate the birth of Jesus if you don't have an intimate knowledge of the God/Man.  If you have that knowledge, then guess what, He is LORD.  How, you might ask, do you get this intimate knowledge?  

According to Paul, you have to hear it.  You know the passage ... Rom 10:13-15, "For whoever calls on the name of the LORD shall be saved.  How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed?  And how shall they believe in Him whom they have not heard?  and How shall they hear without a preacher?"  So, the case for audio ... but it has been written and therefore, it must be read (preached).  Oh, and the next part is interesting ... the reader (preacher) has to be sent.  We need to put feet on the Gospel.  

Now, I will refer to George MacDonald here, because he is the one that made me think.  He wrote that Jesus IS the Gospel.  To know Him is to know the Gospel.  The Gospel is the GOOD NEWS ... about Christ.  The good news is ... Jesus Christ is LORD.  Oh, it is everything about HIM.  It is an inexhaustible book.  You can read Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, and you must, but keep reading.  He reveals himself in the whole book.  He is the WORD!  He created it, he breathed it, he lived it.  He even died it and resurrected it.  He has given us His Spirit.  The Holy Spirit lives in all who have called upon the Lord, an thus, he reveals himself in them (you an me).  We are living testament to Christ, Jesus the LORD.  

"How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the gospel of peace, who bring glad tidings of good things!" (Rom 10:15)

Merry Christmas.  Jesus Christ is Risen.  He is Lord!

Two in one, Little Buck and Thanksgiving.

I went deer hunting again on Saturday.  I got into my ground blind on Saturday afternoon early and was amazed at how nice it was in the woods.  Very little breeze, temp about 55, sun shiny day.  Blue jay and crows occasionally breaking the silence.  At about 2:30 or so, I noticed some movement back in the woods.  Sure looked like a deer walking toward me.  After he cleared a few trees and bushes, I cold see it was a buck.  Antlers glistening in the sunlight as he raised his head to lick a branch.  I raised my rifle slowly but could not see a clear shot in my scope.  He disappeared behind some bushes and tree trunks, so I waited.  It is common for deer to just stand in one place for several minutes.  A bit later I saw movement again, a flick of the tail.  I raised my rifle once more and scoped his hind quarters as he walked away.  I'm guessing he was about 150 yards away, through a lot of trees and limbs on the ground.  I tried  a little rattle of the horns to draw him back in, but he did not turn.  After a few minutes, I tried again, with a grunt call ... nothing.  I waited, 5 minutes became 20 and nothing.  Then I saw another deer, up hill to my right, I'm sure I saw it, but when I turned, nothing.  It disappeared, like the buck I'd seen a few minutes earlier.  So, i watched that patch of brush from where I thought I'd seen movement, but nothing.  5 minutes became 10, 20, 30, and then, I heard some leaf rustling behind and to the right.  Slowly I turned and there he was.  A baby buck with little button humps on his noggin.  This guy grazed on acorns for the next 2 hours, till dark.  I watched him, hoping he'd let me know that a bigger buck was approaching.  He got alarmed when a herd of wild pigs ran through the forest in the valley below us, but he did not run away, just raised his tail high and watched the pigs until they were out of sight and we could hear them no more.  He plopped himself down at the base of a tree and chewed his baby cud for at least 30 minutes.  I made kissy sounds, bleating sounds, even buck-grunting sounds and he hardly even acknowledged me.  I took 10 minutes of video, but it is all pretty boring, just watching a little baby buck browse.  Anyway, it got dark, so I rattled my horns, which sent the little buck bounding off into the forest in escape of what he thought was a monster buck attack.  Walked back to my 4-wheeler, spooking up the pigs again.   Randy shot a pig by his stand earlier that evening.  

I'm glad OU put it on Tech yesterday.  It will make it that much better when OSU beats them next week.

Zach is home for the holiday.  Shannon will be home wednesday.  What a great time to have our two youngest children back home for a bit.  

Thanksgiving is here.  It is the season of thankfulness, introducing the season of giving.  I think that giving of gifts is right.  Some have decided that the gift giving is atrocious, making a commercialization of the birth of Christ.  but if you are truly grateful, then what should you do?  Give. Give back.  Give to others.  We bless because we are blessed!  therefore, thanks ... giving!

We had a pastor when we first got married, who said all the time, "You can't out-give God"  Only he said caint.  I loved brother Al.  Any way, that may be a bit redneck, but wow, how simple and true that is.  If Jesus would have been born in a castle, and laid in a golden cradle, he still would have been humiliated, compared to the Glory he gave up in order to take on humanity.  And then, he gave up his life.  He gave up glory and traded his life for mine.  How could I ever out-give God.  I gave him my kids when they were born.  I gave him my business.  I gave him my voice, my mind, my everything.  It's weird though, because even though all I have and all that I am is his, I still have it.  It's kinda like it's borrowed, and someday I may have to give it all back, but not really like that.  Its more like he gave me all that I have and said, now go and share it with everyone you know.  share the wealth, so to speak.  Only, not like Obama.  He wants to take wealth from others and share it.  God wants me to take what he has given me  and be a good steward with it.  Wow.  I think i might be a little wastefull with what he has given me.  

I was just thinking, some people give from their problems.  I mean, like the sacrifice of the lame lamb, or the rotted grain.  It's easy to say, when your child is bad, 'Lord, I dedicate this one to you'.  It's like saying 'you can have him or her'.  When you can't deal with a problem such as health or finance and you say finally, It's in the hands of the Lord now.  Maybe we should have put it into his hands to begin with.

The Eagles sang, "To Busy Being Fabulous". They have a video of the song on Youtube, but I can't find it on itunes. Oh well.
shannon's home for the weekend. Getting her wisdom teeth out. ouch.
I'm going bow-hunting. Should be peak-rut. Hope to finally see the monster buck of my dreams walk within a few yards so I can 'cut-a-lung'. In 25 years of bow-hunting, I've never killed a buck with my bow. I may have to stay in the woods the whole week-end. Hope not.
Anyway, Zach will be home next week-end. I'm pumped.

What song did the eagles sing at the cma last night?

Uploading pictures is not fun on this website.  On facebook, I just click and boom, 60 pictures up.  On webshots, click click and boom, like 300 pictures up.  that is why my blogs are picture free for the most part.  I'm not sure why my girls like blogger.com so much.  

It rained all day, I started it out with an upper body workout, 2.5 mile interval run on the treadmill, a three egg omlet (egg-beaters, not real eggs ... too much colesteral) and my first inspection in Pryor, OK.  Ange came over for dinner.  Talked to Zach for over an hour on facebook IM.  talked to Shannon on the phone.  Pretty darn (DARN) good day.  By the way, still waiting on a picture of a bunny to upload.  What is up with that.

Thurday

Went for a run this evening.  2.5 miles in 25 minutes, 5 minutes of cool-down.  Then my lovely prepared a swordfish steak smothered in roasted peppers on a bed of romaine lettuce and drizzled with balsamic vinegar.  Wow!  now to settle down to an evening watching ER.  Call me crazy, but I love ER.  Can't believe it is the last season.  I've been watching ER since George Clooney was a doctor.  

My cousin Robert Bruce Bacon and I once shot an alegator snapping turtle with a b-b gun.  It took about 100 bb's to kill the monster.  Then we drug it out of the woods, through the sandy bottom creek to his house.  we were so proud.

In Batesville, AR we went on an exploration hike, down to the dam and came across a 'wild' tomatoe plant that had several large green tomatoes. We picked the tomatoes and some how, i don't remember how, but we carried the tomatoes over to the bridge across the White River, climbed the steel trusses of the bridge to the top, and out over the traffic below.  We then dropped the tomatoes onto the cars and trucks.  It is hard to judge, but we finally landed one tomatoes onto the windshield of a car, which stopped and looked all around for the source of the tomato bomb.  She never looked up!  We were again, quite proud, and after hearing all the stories of stuff our dads had done when they were kids, we went back to Grannies house and told on ourselves.  They kinda yelled at us, but we really didn't get into bad trouble.  Grannie gave us more grief than our parents did.

Uncle Bob, Robert's dad, took me, Robert and one of Robert's friends to some caves that we crawled through, waded through, and nearly swam through.  We weaved ourselves through boulders that had fallen from the roof of the caves, nearly got lost several times but had the most fun as we explored the unknown of darkness under the earth.  Crystal quartz, stalagmites and tites, and just downright cool stuff, we spelunked for hours before we finally found our way out of teh maze of tunnels and caverns.

Uncle Bob made one man sail boats that we took out to the lake of the pines and I got blown across the lake by a freak thunderstorm.  

Blogging is so hard for me.  I have lots of things on my mind, but I cannot think of anything excellent to say when I sit down to the dashboard.  I feel like a cello.  There is deep rich tone, but when I draw my bow across the strings, all I get is irregular screechy tones.

Oh well, I'm taking the day off tomorrow to go hunting with my Thompson Center Omega muzzel loader.  Wake up at 4:00, dress and drive 70 miles to the lease.  load my weapon, jump on the 4-wheeler and ride into the woods, set down in my ground blind around 6:15, set till 6:45 in the dark, then set some more, at least till about 11:00, go eat lunch, then back in the woods, walk around till about 4:30, then set down till dark, walk out, ride back to the truck, drive home and shower about 9:00 pm.  Sounds fun?  What if I see the monster buck of the woods, shoot him, track him down, field dress him, load him on the 4-wheeler after a photo or two, and then head home.  More fun?  

OK, my cousin Robert Bruce lost his 15 year old son today.  Joseph was bike riding with his brothers Samuel and Joel, turned left in front of a speeding car and was killed.  I want to go out there to be with the family.  They live in North Carolina.  I haven't seen him since the twins were crawling.