The ongoing adventures of the Thomas family at Chenoweth Farm
This September 4th is the 3rd time in my life that my government has, unbidden, designated me to be a certain thing:
To all of you who have wished me a happy day, thank you! To my government, however, I have a different response, namely… Continue reading “Six & Five”
We all have faith, don’t we? That is, we have faith in something. I might be the staunchest of atheists, yet faith in the possibility of staying alive, and making some progress in my endeavors, is required even of me as I get out of bed every morning. Over the years, when sharing my faith with others, I have been told, “… judge not!” This is meant, I have assumed, to shut the conversation down, or at least make sure my POV has no sharp edges. It has been spoken as a sort of talisman– once out in the space between us, it is supposed to guarantee that no unacceptable words will come from my side (or at least give cover for ending the conversation with a note of, “… I told you not to go there.”) While meditating on Christ’s words in Matt. 7:1 (the source of this idea), the realization came that I had significantly misunderstood it. In reality, the Lord meant to say, “Sentence not…” Continue reading “Judge Not … ?”
Remember the moisture vaporator that Luke was tending in Starwars? It is what allowed him to live and make a living on the desert planet of Tatooine. In 1978 it was an impossible concept, placed in the fictional world of George Lucas to support the plot.
Now, it’s real. Yes, you really can distill unlimited water, using only the sun, from the driest desert air (or any other air on earth) using what are called metal-organic frameworks (MOFs). There are 20,000+ of them Continue reading “Starwars as prophecy”
I’ve been thinking about this post all day… and I’m still not sure I should write it. Here it is, anyway, for a simple reason: I’ve never seen this before, and was not sure it was possible, but am now very concerned. This is possible. If you are not a parent and will likely never have an e-mail account, you can safely skip it. For the rest of you…
I was sexually assaulted this morning — sort of. As I was reading my inbox, a relatively attractive, smiling, unclothed woman popped up, with a phone number. The e-mail was simple, had clearly gotten by all my spam filters, and I didn’t even need to open it. There she was, in full glory, in the preview pane. There was no virus or attachment; just one “come hither” JPEG with a phone #. That said, I apologize for Continue reading “Inbox assault”
I’ve been enjoying my recent subscription to the WSJ, and today I found this short video clip about a $1M challenge between Buffett and a hedge fund manager (who gets paid whether his investors make $ or not). In 2007 Buffett called him and his tribe out, saying they were ripping off their clients with high fees, and claiming that an index fund (which tracks the S&P 500 exactly, for instance) would do better over 10 years. Now, ten years later, the contest is coming to a close and … which side is winning? Check the video to find out: http://on.wsj.com/2lzTvUY
Hint: the hedge fund guy moans that 2007 – 2017 was an “unusual period”. Did the S&P think it was unusual?? Ha!
This is the promised addendum to our 2017 news update. Hope you enjoy it!
As my parents began to forget things and struggle mentally a number of years ago, it became clear that they would need a more intensive “at home” care than we had planned on. When both were diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, I remembered what Dad had done for his mother-in-law in a similar situation, and then realized Beth and I were going to start a business we weren’t qualified or trained to pull off: a mini-nursing home. This past year, after Dad died in June and Mom in August, our careers Continue reading “Thomas Times Newsletter – More from TT”
It’s very unlikely that any of us will see what Thomas Yoxall saw on Jan. 12th- just 2 weeks ago. When he saw it, however, here’s what he did.
In many situations, what to do in the split seconds after an attack has begun is not that simple. This time, it was that simple. Hope someone like him is around if I or my family ever need this kind of help.
That must be:
Apparently, since the 1920’s, ambiverts have been all around us, and we didn’t even know it! Honestly, have you ever heard that word?? In reality, ambiverts are us. That is, most of us are Continue reading “Ambivert…”
UPDATE: Here’s a post I wrote in 2009, and then decided not to publish. I supposed it was the “Oz” factor – this idea that our current president was larger than life, and that I would be scoffed at because I suspected something funny was going on behind the curtain. Now that we are less than a month before the potential re-election of our emperor (that’s a future blog post), the WSJ has prompted me to pull this post out. It seems, according to William McGurn, that the curtain has been pulled back. In fact, Ozbama the Magnificent is not actually Continue reading “President Hussein (Ozbama)- “…not who we thought he was.””
So, I’m reading the Economist, a high-brow magazine based in London and available online. Middle East wars, macro-economic 
theory, election politics and … Snowball. Yep. The world’s most famous dancing bird (or so they say) who lives in an animal shelter in … Schererville, Indiana?? Anyway, the article is about high-powered research into whether & why animals dance, to music or otherwise. You can read the article, which is interesting, but that’s not what this post is about. It’s about the even bigger “elephant in the room” (read the article for the 1st one). That is, the plausible explanation for why humans dance that actually fits very well with the data, and which also would explain why (apparently) animals don’t, unless they mimic humans.
Could it be that we dance because Continue reading “Dancing in the darkness”