appreciating small things

I remember in the movie "The Castaway" with Tom Hanks, the scene where he had been forced to live for weeks, maybe months, and only eating raw fish because he had no fire. He struggled and struggled rubbing sticks together to try and make his own fire. Failure after failure. And then on one effort he finally got some smoke. He puffed on it and puffed on it and added some grass and "Poof!" He had fire! It was so funny to see him all alone on the island that night having a celebration all by himself over his achievement. I remember him standing there on the beach with the fire blazing and beating his chest and loudly proclaiming "I HAVE FIRE! I HAVE FIRE!" It was, in fact, a very great achievement, and one which cavemen must have celebrated in the same way many years ago. But today something so simple as fire, is taken for granted by myself and everyone else I know. It's just a pack of matches or a click-your-bic away.

In the past year I've had my own challenges. Though nothing at all to compare with being stranded alone on a remote Pacific island? But challenges just the same. And though very difficult to work through, it has given me a hundred or more opportunities to appreciate many things that I've taken for granted all of my life.

There's a quote of mine on the side of the blog here that says a man's life is not measured by the things he has, but by the things he has chosen sacrifice and to live without. Henry David Thoreau moved out to the woods at Walden Pond and lived in a cabin with a table and two chairs and a bed. He wanted to make his life as simple as possible. He wanted to spend his time at Walden focusing on life and not on "stuff". I have found my own Walden here in West Texas. Perhaps not by choice, but a place of quietness and solitude and "aloneliness" just the same. (And there is a big difference in "aloneliness" and "loneliness".)

A few months ago, after making 1500 miles trips every ten days, from West Texas back to Missouri, I decided to just move out here. I had taken over a business from a failed partnership, that needed a lot of time and attention. As Machiavelli said in The Prince, to the young ruler "if you want to possess a city, go and live in it". That advice has a lot of meaning and implication beyond just ruling. I took it to also be wisdom for my business. That is . .If I wanted to turn this oil and gas business around and make it profitable again, I just needed to move here and live here and immerse myself in it.

It has been a struggle since the beginning. I inherited a business situation after my partners decided to let me have it all. Of course that meant me also getting all of the bills and liabilities and not just the assets. And there were nearly $100,000.00 of bills to be paid, not to mention $800,000.00 in bank debt. The sum of it all seemed, at times, to be staggering. However, as the chinese philosopher once said, "the journey of a thousand miles, begins with just one step". And that's what I did. I got here and took the steps that I could take. Each day I awoke and chose to do whatever I could do, and did not focus on the tasks I could not do.

I had very little in the way of money. No excess unless I would choose to pay myself before I chose to pay my creditors. I came to town and rented a small store front here on main street. I needed an office and a place to sleep both. The store front is simple but functional. And it's cheap. But it had no hot water and no bath tub or shower. Only a plain and small bathroom with toilet and sink and running cold water.

I've been here for over two months now and just been trying to survive and build my business back up and "make do" with what I have. And it's been a time of spiritual and character building for me too. In many ways. I have been . . in times past . . happy with much. And in the past year, I have learned to be happy and content with little in the way of material goods. I have, in my owns words, chosen to "live without" a lot of things that in years gone by I took for granted. I have had no hot water to shave with. And no hot water to shower with. But worse, I have not even had a indoor shower. I have had to adapt and "make do" with what things I did have. And to my great joy and surprise, I have learned to be content with whatever state I have found myself in. I have found another way to take a shower outside for this time. And I've discovered that you if you put the shaving cream on your face and let it sit for two minutes, that a cold shave will work just fine if you do it VERY SLOWLY.

One day I was complaining to myself about taking a shower with my neighbor's water hose outside in the dark. And . . to be frank . . I was grumbling to God. The next day I felt so bad, that . . in my own act of contrition and penance, at the end of the day . . I took my bar of soap out to the edge of town and stripped down and waded into the shallow waters of the Brazos river and took my "bath". It was not the most refreshing experience in the world. And on the way back, I came to appreciate more the fact that I did at least have clean water at my home to rinse myself with, even if it was not hot and even if it came from a water hose. I was grateful for what I had, rather than resenting what I didn't have. It was an epiphany for me.

But yesterday I received a BIG blessing. I had been saving the money for two months and finally got a shower and hot water heater installed. And this morning, I litterally jumped out of bed at 5 a.m. and was so excited to know that I was going to take a hot shower and have a shave with hot water. It's probably a good thing that no one else lives downtown on this one block of main street. Because at 5:15 this morning anyone within a block of where I call home would have heard the sound of what probably sounded like a cave man yelling at the top of my lungs while I showered:

I HAVE HOT WATER! I HAVE A SHOWER!
I HAVE HOT WATER! I HAVE A SHOWER!

Life is great. God is Great. And time marches on.

The Chile Well and American Exceptionalism

While many may not believe in American exceptionalism anymore, there's a whole lot of people in Chile who do. Regarding that mine rescue, did you know:

The guy that designed the rescue module was a NASA Engineer?
The drill was made by Schramm, Inc. of Pennsylvania.
The drill bits were made by Center Rock, Inc. located in Berlin,
Pennsylvania.
The lead driller, Jeff Hart, and his team are from Denver, Colorado.
They are on loan from the U.S. Military in Afghanistan where they are
drilling water wells for our Forward Operating Bases.

Jeff spent 33 days on his feet, operating the drill that finally provided a way out Saturday for 33 trapped miners. "You have to feel through your feet what the drill is doing; it's a vibration you get so that you know what's happening," explained Hart. Hart was called in from Afghanistan, "simply because he's the best" at drilling larger holes with the T130's wide-diameter drill bits.

Standing before the levers, pressure meters, and gauges on the T130's control panel, Hart and the rest of the team faced many challenges in drilling the shaft. At one point, the drill struck a metal support beam in the poorly mapped mine, shattering its hammers. Fresh equipment had to be flown in from the United States, and progress was delayed for days as powerful magnets were lowered to pull out the
pieces.

The mine's veins of gold and copper ran through quartzite with a high level of abrasive silica, rock so tough that it took all their expertise to keep the drill's hammers from curving off in unwanted directions. "It was horrible," said Center Rock President Brandon Fisher, exhausted after limited sleep throughout the effort. Hart
called it the most difficult hole they had ever drilled, because of the lives at stake.

"If you're drilling for oil and you lose the hole, it's different. This time there's people down below. We ruined some bits, worked through the problems as a team, and broke through," Hart said. "I'm very happy now."

Miners' relatives crowded around Hart on Saturday, hugging and posing for pictures with him as he walked down from the rescue operation into the tent camp where families had anxiously followed his work. "He's become the hero of the day," said Dayana Olivares, whose friend, Carlos Bugueno, was one of the miners stuck below.

In a different day and age, Jeff Hart would be the most famous American in our country right now. He would be honored at the White House. Schoolchildren would learn of his skill and heroism. But because Jeff Hart works in an industry currently being demonized by (insert name for the clowns currently running our country) more people in Chile will celebrate this symbol of American greatness than America itself.

A History Lesson

Abraham Lincoln was elected to Congress in 1846.
John F. Kennedy was elected to Congress in 1946.

Abraham Lincoln was elected President in 1860.
John F. Kennedy was elected President in 1960..

Both were particularly concerned with civil rights.
Both wives lost their children while living in the White House.

Both Presidents were shot on a Friday.
Both Presidents were shot in the head.

Lincoln's secretary was named Kennedy.
Kennedy's Secretary was named Lincoln.

Both were assassinated by Southerners.
Both were succeeded by Southerners named Johnson.

Andrew Johnson, who succeeded Lincoln, was born in 1808.
Lyndon Johnson, who succeeded Kennedy, was born in 1908.

John Wilkes Booth, who assassinated Lincoln, was born in 1839
Lee Harvey Oswald, who assassinated Kennedy, was born in 1939.


Both assassins were known by their three names.
Both names are composed of fifteen letters.

Lincoln was shot at the theatre named 'Ford'.
Kennedy was shot in a car called 'Lincoln' made by 'Ford'.

Lincoln was shot in a theatre and his assassin ran and hid in a warehouse.
Kennedy was shot from a warehouse and his assassin ran and hid in a theatre.

Booth and Oswald were assassinated before their trials.