Morning people are not born that way. Morning people are made. I find in my work that many ex-military people are morning people because of the discipline imposed on them to become morning people. I also have found that being a morning person is not necessarily what you can accomplish in the early morning...It's more about what it keeps you away from the night before.
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True champions relish the extraordinary efforts of those around them rather than be intimidated by them.
So this Norwegian fellow comes in my shop this week and tells me..."I need two stout batteries for my modahome!" I figure he must do a lot of dry camping off-grid so I show him our best LifeLine Batteries and tell him, "These are the most stout batteries that we carry." No No No he says...."I need da two that STOUT de ENGINE!" We both had a good laugh!
Proverbs says that a person who has friends must first show themselves friendly. I recently was musing about the thought that if a person has a beautiful smile, do people actually say nice or funny things to them in order to get them to smile? I remember my father saying that he would often say something funny to my father-in-law just to get him to laugh! Lloyd had a famous head-thrown-back laugh that everyone loved! If a person has a naturally dour demeanor, I wonder if people would actually hesitate saying something to them that would be humorous fearing they might take it wrong. There is another amazing passage that says "to those who hath...more shall be given!" Maybe a person who is often sharing things of value make other people comfortable sharing things of value with them so they just keep getting more and more. Makes sense to me!
He that doesn't know and doesn't know that he doesn't
know is a fool...avoid him He that doesn't know but knows that he doesn't know is simple...teach him He that knows but doesn't know that he knows is asleep...wake him He that knows and knows that he knows is wise...follow him Just sitting in my chair and looking at the garage sale sign leaning against our wall giving evidence of yesterday’s community garage sale. Two words within the words stood out as if written in red…RAGE and ALE. Funny thought that often the reason we have a garage sale is because of some trauma in our lives…financial woes,
having to move, death in the family, kids leaving home etc. Thus explains the “Rage.” The ALE is often the elixir to help cope through the rage! Of course another word within those two words is “SAGE.” There is a certain wisdom in all the various turns and valleys of life. Sometimes the answer is a tall cool glass of ale, and a garage sale! ********************************************************************************************************************************************* Thinking about the fact that we work at our job to provide our life. Which in turn often robs us of our time and enthusiasm for actually having a “life!” We do things that we…given the choice…would not do, and we limit the time in our lives that we are able to do things that we would choose to do. Strange. *********************************************************************************************************************************************** Mom told me some wonderful things yesterday and I don’t want to forget them! One thing was; She was standing in her backyard in Escondido California and looking straight up at the sunset. She said that it was one of the most amazing sunsets she had ever seen in her eighty eight years of life! The marmalade sky, patterned with clouds, were bright red cotton-balls of fire! She thought to herself that “just earlier, these were dark clouds!” “Earlier, these clouds blocked the sun. They were sinister and threatening rain!” The thought came to her that as our sun sets in life, we get to see ALL the things that earlier in our life were so daunting become a beautiful pattern of the glory of God’s plan FOR our life! Without the sun…or Son, none of this would happen. The other thing was; Jacob was a prodigal! He was told by God to return home! He often said, “The God of my Father’s.” But when he returned to his father’s house, it became “My God!” Mom said that we are “prodigals everyday!” In the morning we are in the Fathers house and we have everything! We then go out…and how often is our feeling…Father I have been a waster today! I have wasted your precious goods, I have wasted time! I have wasted time, effort and money on things that DON’T LOVE ME!! And they have left me empty and hungry! We often then return home in the evening…expecting punishment…and finding again, the fatted calf and all of the Father’s love right where we left them earlier! ************************************************************************************************************************************************* Our journey is hills and valleys, but a lot of it is just flat-land traveling as well! Not too high, not too low, just long sometimes long dry stretches that we all go through. Russell Stearns told us Wednesday night that both David and Joseph were asked by their fathers to go check on their brothers. He said that both were asked to do relatively simple tasks on what started out as very common days. Neither of them could have believed what was in store for them after those days! One was eventually made king of Israel and the other was made ruler of Egypt. Key word…eventually! Even then, it was a process, it didn’t happen overnight! We need to remember that incredible opportunity might lie in what seems at the time to be incredible common experiences! Then, we need the patience to allow the experiences to prepare us for the uncommon opportunities! ************************************************************************************************************************************************ The letter of the law is easier to apply to other people than to ourselves. When things happen to us, we start thinking about the spirit of the law. ************************************************************************************************************************************************ Writing is a bit like throwing up. You hold it-hold it- hold it…and then it just comes spewing out onto the page sometimes unrecognizable to what the different components were that went into the digestion tract of your brain. Like being sick, you often write of things that trouble you or hurt, and like throwing up, you often feel better when they come out. ************************************************************************************************************************************************ A mans need for speed! The other day I had a customer come in with a fully restored 1973 Chevy Chevelle with a 454 high performance motor and super charger. He was probably in his middle to late sixties with a full head of snow white hair. I’m not specifically an old car nut, but I was impressed. This was a very well done restoration and just one bad looking machine. Jeff, the guy I work with however, is a huge car nut and I could tell that he was like a kid in a candy shop looking at this beauty. I managed to convince my customer to give Jeff a ride around the block and as they literally rumbled out the driveway, Jeff had this huge smile on his face of pure unadulterated joy! What flashed in my mind seeing his huge smile was Orson Atkin. He was an eighty year old man that lived across from our first little battery shop in Riverside California on Cypress Street. He rode around town in an old golf cart that he named Roadrunner. It was a three wheel job with a tiller for steering and because of probably hitting a curb too hard, it wobbled back and forth as he drove down the road. We became very dear friends. In fact, Orson was the Grandpa to Mark and I that we had never known. Mark was still in the golf cart business in Orange County and somehow, he came across a four wheel Taylor Dunn golf cart that we decided to fix up for Orson. It was like going from a clunker to a Cadillac for him! It had a steering wheel, windshield, lights, and fully enclosed doors for when it rained. Mark also hopped it up a bit so it was really fast compared to the roadrunner. We will never forget the first time Orson tried it out! He came flying up Cypress Street with a smile so huge that his dentures had trouble staying in! When he opened the door, he uttered a string of congratulatory colorful language which amounted to him declaring…”That thing hauls donkeys!” Even at eighty years old, the need for speed had not left the little kid inside. As kids, we just wanna go faster! Whether it’s running, or sledding or on our bikes, wanting to go faster is just in our genes. It must come from the Creator making most of the edible animals quite faster than humans. In order to try and catch dinner, our ancestors just had to keep trying to go faster and faster. I remember very well having a Honda mini-trail 70 when I was about twelve or thirteen. I sent away for a special ninety CC piston and had the cylinder bored out to match. I then mounted a Honda 90 carburetor on it by customizing the manifold at my Junior High metal shop. Somehow it all came together and man, did that thing fly! I remember one of my friends on his motorcycle clocking me near fifty five miles per hour on that bike! The fact that it was so small, made it seem like it was going all that much faster! Even today, I own an electric bicycle that can go forty miles per hour when the norm for an electric bike is about twenty. I would not be nearly as enthralled by the bike if it only did twenty! Just the way it is. Most of the time I get comments on my bike, it’s about how fast it is! Other bikers will pull up next to me at a stop light and their comment is often….”man, that thing hauls!” **************************************************************************************************************************************************** Loren Coleman: Wed Night Gospel Mtg 9/10/14: Jesus as the King and His Kingship compared to all of the natural kings who preceded him. Here was a cool thought…”A natural king loves himself and rules his subjects…Jesus loved his subjects and ruled over himself.” Brett just played his golf tournament in Utah at Jeremy Golf and Country Club in Park City. It was a beautiful place and sometimes beauty and good golf are an oxymoron. I don't think the altitude difference helped as well. He hit a nine iron 190 yards and was still at the back of the green on one hole! Anyway, the team struggled the first day when they had to play 36 holes and we were about fifty strokes behind our nearest competitor. I knew coach would be livid, but it's a work in progress. The second day, they played 18 holes and all did much better. Coach told me that it was a mighty quiet ride in the van from the hotel to the course that morning. Character is many times measured in the face of adversity. I've always admired that one kid on the basketball court who is diving for balls and giving it his all when his team is down by thirty points and it's obvious to everyone in the gym that they don't have any chance at all. That is character. I think our golf team showed that last weekend and I'm proud of them.
I was thinking today that Lord willing I will be fifty nine in the year 2020! I was musing as to whether or not we might have our own version of the "roaring 20"s" the way my folks did when they were kids? It seems like we might be just now coming out of our recession so seven years is quite a long time considering the cyclical nature of things. Is it possible that we would have seven years of boom, followed by the raging recession of the the twenties? I think that part of the crash of twenty nine might have been caused by the roaring twenties? One thing is pretty certain...there are people who will do very well no matter the economy. Some of the greatest opportunity is caused by the greatest need. I remember in the 90's during an incredible property "boom" that Rance King of RK Properties told me it was a "horrible time!" He said that everything was so sky high that there was nothing to buy! It's still a pretty good bet to "buy low and sell high!" There is your economic seminar for the day!
I got to caddy for Brett today at the Taft City Amateur Tournament and it was a lot of fun! He was teamed up with two of his CSUB teammates Nick and Matt. Trevor was one group behind us as well. Coach Osbourne was on hand to see how the team was doing. Brett shot a 73 and seemed to be scrambling all day! He putted real well and that always makes up for other parts of the game that are rounding into shape. Matt had an awesome Eagle on number 11 after making birdie on 10. A few bogies kept him from going really low. Nick almost drove the green on number 16...lucky he waited for the group in front to clear the green! Golf is a serious testament to perseverance paying off. Some of the most heralded players in the field came in with higher scores than you think they would shoot at BV! If you lose focus and get careless for just a couple holes, it can come back to bite you later. Almost everyone in the clubhouse is what-iffing and what-should-have-been-ing! "Man, if i just would have parred that one hole instead of doubling it, i would be right there with the leaders!" That's Golf!
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AuthorI have been keeping a journal since October 20th 1999. I was inspired to do so by the late philosopher James Rohn. I wish I could say that it was a "daily" journal...but I have skipped entire "years" let alone days! I plan to dip into the old journal for some of my favorite "musings" and then continue those thought calisthenics here in my "MUSINGS" category. Thanks for reading and hope you enjoy! Archives
July 2018
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