Month: June 2015 Page 1 of 2

We are all just some guy on the internet

On Tuesday, June 30, 2015

Sometimes I forget who I am. I read a blog post yesterday that was sufficiently interesting that I decided to click on the blog’s About page. The author is an example to us all. This lady knows who she is better than most. Here is part of what she wrote:

This really is just some blog. I really am just some…well…actually, “girl” might be a little inaccurate. I’m over 30 now, so I have to stop saying that, lest I begin to resemble those “girls” who cling to youth with all the grace of a two year old whose favorite toy is under the covetous gaze of his big sister. I’m just some woman on the internet. Take me as seriously as I deserve to be taken, and we’ll get along just fine. (See what I did there? Get Along? Right. Ahem. Expectations, remember? Low.)

Wow. I need a little more of that on this blog and in my life. Our whole family needs that. Credentialism is a bad thing. Pride in one’s own ability that actually came from God is a bad thing. Even our own good efforts are our due responsibility. No one ever gives their best efforts for more than a period of time. I am not saying we should not find joy in God given ability and even the fruits of our own efforts. God wants us to do that, but he also wants us remember from whence it all came.

Thanks Get Along Home blog for the timely reminder. The next time I write something particularly aggrandizing, do not hesitate to point me back to this post. Maybe that will help me remember I am just some guy on the internet.

Betty Blonde #358 – 11/30/2009

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Sweating the small stuff

By Dad

On Monday, June 29, 2015

In culture, Politics

The saying, “Don’t sweat the small stuff and it is all small stuff,” is one that resonates with me. There are big, important things for which all men are responsible, but we often get caught up in little stuff that really does not matter. Still, the steps taken by the judiciary in this country to facilitate evil requires a response from people of conscience.

A couple of days ago, Daniel Greenfield at the Sultan Knish blog wrote a post titled Be the Best Saboteur You Can Be about how, sometimes it is important to sweat the small stuff. When evil is perpetrated and no one in authority cares to do anything about it, the only thing poor schlubs like you and I can do is become saboteurs. Good saboteurs sweat the small stuff. In the article, Greenfield lists five things we can do. Here is part of point number two from his list which is my favorite:

2. Fight the small stuff

You don’t have to think in terms of a national movement. You don’t even have to think in terms of an organization. Those are things that we need, but you can fight the left in small ways at home.

I’m not talking about Sign X or donate to Y.

Just obstruct any liberal initiative, policy or program in your community. It doesn’t matter what. It doesn’t matter if it’s innocuous. It doesn’t matter if you agree with it.

Undermine it on principle. If you can, vote it down. Encourage others to vote it down. If you can’t, look for ways to tie it in red tape by attaching other agendas to it.

The left wins its biggest victories at the planning stage. Its activists come early and stay late. They propose their plans, rig meetings, use kids and the elderly as human shields, and get their way. They are not used to any real opposition. Particularly the kind that doesn’t bluster, but finds ways to tie their proposals in knots, to make them expensive and drag them out as long as possible.

Oppose them when you can. Concern troll them when you can’t.

If you don’t have that kind of position, think of the origins of the term ‘sabotage’. Workers threw their shoes into machines and stopped the machine. Don’t do anything illegal. Don’t do anything that will get you fired.

But if you have the opportunity to make a liberal program work badly, if you have a legal way to put more stress on it, to tie up the energy and time of the people running it, to make it worse… do it.

We’re the underdogs. We’re the political guerrillas. This is not our system. It’s their system.

Our job is to make it run as badly as possible.

I love that. “This is not our system. It’s their system. Our job is to make it run as badly as possible.” Evil is afoot. We have the high ground if we take it. Truth and history are on our side. There is neither a moral nor intellectual case for setting the course that has been set. Our job is to reject what has been forced on us. There is a great, even eternal cost for not resisting evil and quite probably a huge temporal cost if we do resist evil. It is worth it to resist evil. We already know the outcome of this story, that we win in the end.

Betty Blonde #357 – 11/27/2009

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Orthodox Christianity vs. the Supreme Court

By Dad

On Sunday, June 28, 2015

In Christianity, culture, Politics

The New York Times, as the old saying goes, is like a broken clock. Even a broken clock is right two times per day. NPR and Time Magazine do not seem to be right quite that often. In fact, I had kind of relegated them both to the same category as purely naturalistic evolution–their chance of getting anything right is about equal to the mythical chance of a tornado assembling a Boeing 747 as it passes through a junk yard or a million monkeys typing at a million typewriters for a million years to duplicate a work of Shakespeare.

I still think NPR is in that category, but imagine my surprise when an article appeared in Time Magazine that perfectly articulated my thoughts on where we stand here in America now that the Constitution has no fixed meaning and can be modified on any whim of the masses. I am not one of those who believes the court’s latest indignity was done on the whim of five out of nine justices. If society was against them, the Supreme Court could in no way make these kinds of changes.

Society at large now defines “marriage” differently than those who hold to orthodox Christian beliefs. Christian, my son, made the statement that this is nothing new, society has been like this for as long as he can remember. Thankfully, his living memory is not that long–less than twenty years. Still, this did not all start with attempts to change the definition of marriage to accommodate homosexuality, but with some equally pernicious evils: the libertine sexual morays of the 1960’s and the acceptance of divorce with neither societal nor legal sanction and diminishing sanction by much of the church. Rod Dreher, the author of the article expresses my feelings about this very well:

…social and religious conservatives must recognize that the Obergefell decision did not come from nowhere. It is the logical result of the Sexual Revolution, which valorized erotic liberty. It has been widely and correctly observed that heterosexuals began to devalue marriage long before same-sex marriage became an issue. The individualism at the heart of contemporary American culture is at the core of Obergefell — and at the core of modern American life.

This is profoundly incompatible with orthodox Christianity. But it is also the world we live in today. Dreher goes on to describe the ramifications of all this for professing Christians and how times could get even uglier, but that it has happened before. It is scriptural that evil will ascend before the end. One of these times, when evil is ascending Christ will return. Whether this is that time, only time will tell.

In the meantime, I will consider reading Time Magazine again in a million years or so.

Betty Blonde #356 – 11/26/2009

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Making the point about our government schools

By Dad

On Friday, June 26, 2015

In Education

Lorena texted me this a couple of minutes ago after reading my previous blog post. It is a video that is quite illustrative of a point or two I was trying to make.

Government school teacher decides what is morally best for other people’s kids

By Dad

On Friday, June 26, 2015

In Education, Politics

This article in the Christian Post tells the story of a homosexual teacher of third graders who chose to resign after he colluded with the school’s Assistant Principal to read a book that promoted homosexual marriage to his students behind the backs of the student’s parents. The headline of the article outrageously lays the responsibility for the resignation of the teacher and the Assistant Principal on the parents. A paragraph in the middle of the article explains the real reason they resigned.

Due to the outrage among the parents, Currie and Goodhand felt compelled to issue their resignations last week. And Currie said he felt he could no longer teach at a school located in the socially conservative church community of Efland.

“I’m resigning because when me and my partner sat down and talked about it we felt I wasn’t going to have the support I needed to move forward at Efland,” Currie added. “It’s very disappointing.”

Bad grammar and all, this statement is at complete odds with the title of the article. It was the self-serving feelings of the teacher and the Assistant Principal that caused them to resign, not the justifiable outrage of the parents. The egregious act of indoctrination of young children to accept one side of an extremely controversial topic without first checking with the parents is bad. The arrogance of this government school teacher’s justification for perpetrating this outrage is even more staggering. He said:

I think that anyone who knows me as a teacher would understand that that is an absurd claim,” Currie said. “Every single decision is based on what is best for my kids, not what is best for Omar Currie. I am a champion for my kids. I fight tooth and nail for every single thing that my kids need.

He is so wrong on so many counts. They are not his kids. What is best for the kids in his class, especially when it comes to controversial moral and sexual issues, is not his decision. I am not sure about this government school teacher, but government schools in general have a horrible record relative to the teaching of reading, writing and arithmetic. They should get their house in order on those subjects and leave the moral and sexual instruction to the parents.

This guy is a product of the horrible education provided to education majors by the teacher education establishment within the university system in this country. Until we clean that house by recruiting higher quality students, getting rid of the rampant political correctness there and dramatically increasing the academic rigor of teacher education programs, we are going to have to deal with this kind of thing. The better option is to just not participate with the government schools by opting for homeschool or private school or, better yet, get the government completely out of the delivery of education. Milton Friedman had the right idea on all this.

Betty Blonde #355 – 11/25/2009

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Brilliant marketing strategy

By Dad

On Thursday, June 25, 2015

In General

This, I think, is a brilliant marketing strategy. It was the funniest thing I read all day. And that is after posting my favorite math joke. A quote from the article:

When one Chinese technology vendor, Qihoo, launched a new Wi-Fi router with a safety setting for “pregnant women,” a rival vendor took offense to the implication that their routers might be dangerous.

I think our new blog slogan should be “The blog that is so carefully written, it does not cause cancer.”

An infinite number of mathematicians

By Dad

On Thursday, June 25, 2015

In culture

The joke going around work*:

An infinite number of mathematicians walk into a bar.

The first one says, “Give me a beer.”

The second one says, “Give me half a beer.”

The third one says, “Give me a quarter of a beer.”

The bartender pours two beers, slaps them onto the bar and says, “You guys should know your limits.”

Update: It does not get any funnier than this–the math in the joke explained with a straight face.

*I know, I know. It is old and not that funny. The thing is I love that joke.

Public campaign for Kelly to start drawing again

By Dad

On Thursday, June 25, 2015

In Art, culture, Education

One of the great joys of this blog when the kids were in their undergraduate degrees was the reports they brought to us about happenings during class surrounding certain of their ultra-politically correct professors. Sometimes, even usually, they arrived via text messages from their phones in real-time. When I started writing about those events, Kelly drew me a Commie Professor logo to go with those blog posts.

I am quite happy to say this is all happening again in Kelly’s grad school experience. Good grief, she lives in SEATTLE, a veritable hotbed of anarchism and histrionic coffee house emotings. It is as close as one can get to Portlandia without actually being in Portland, but with the potential for anarchist rioting. The purpose of this post is to serve as a public shaming of Kelly to get her to illustrate and describe her encounters in the coffee shops, classrooms, conferences and gala events she attends so that this momentous time of her life as a grad student can be documented properly. She has committed to this and now it is time to put up.

The difference between graduate school experiences between Kelly and Christian (down in Tempe) is fairly stark. Part of that might have to do with the differences in the cultures of the schools. I think the bigger difference is between the nature of the material they are studying. Kelly’s anecdotes about school tend toward the absurd–almost like during her undergraduate degree. Christian has lots of anecdotes that are equally as interesting, but in a completely different way.

Serious is not the right word to describe what I think when Christian talks about his school and his work although the what he does definitely falls into that category. The work is so cerebrally intense that I do not think the people in his program have much time for consideration of much out of their academic domain. It is just very, very interesting. It is not just the work he and his compatriots do. It is also their interactions.

The difficulty of the material, the personalities and wide ranging cultures (different parts of the US, India, China, etc.), the research sponsors from important laboratories, think tanks, universities and industry, the frantic and frenetic race to understand insanely difficult problems before someone else with an off the charts IQ and an insane work ethic beats you to it–all of that is just jaw droppingly interesting. What these people do is beyond the boundaries of my understanding. In Christian’s case, it is down in the bowels of very hard math guided by his professor who just became a Fellow of the IEEE and is associated with all the luminaries in his areas of research. I am trying to figure out how to write about this in a compelling way to describe the extremely fascinating daily workings of Christian’s degree, but I might not ever be able to do it adequately. I will try if I get it figured out.

In the meantime, I am going to keep browbeating Kelly with continued public shamings until she starts sending me some illustrations and anecdotes I can publish here.

Betty Blonde #354 – 11/24/2009

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Insider information and judging justly

By Dad

On Wednesday, June 24, 2015

In culture, Politics

I traded a couple of emails the other day with a buddy who had some insider information about some events in the news. The news was reported in a very skewed way by the main stream media which made people in the middle and toward the right of the political spectrum howl. The insider information, and I trust the guy who gave it to me, led me to believe both sides had some points right and some points wrong, but mostly they missed the bigger point altogether. All this made me think about a blog post I wrote a few days ago titled Sometimes it seems like things are getting really bad. That post referenced an article that explains that, even though morality is in decline, there are literally two billion people who hold to what is right.

The backdrop for this was some discussions with the kids about how important it is to figure out what is true for one’s self. If someone makes a statement about the way another person thinks, acts or their very nature, it is best to take it with a grain of salt until it can be known first hand. No one has all the information and people change. I am still embarrassed (and ashamed, if the truth were known) about stuff in my past. There are a few people who know some of that stuff about me, but are willing to be my friends anyway. And the reality is that I have changed. I am different both in terms of values, priorities and discipline than when I was seventeen. I am glad for those who give me credit for that. It is good to give other people credit for the positive changes in their lives, too, and not base judgments on imperfect, incomplete and false second hand reports. We are probably missing the bigger point altogether anyway.

Betty Blonde #353 – 11/23/2009

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A great website about the Crusades

By Dad

On Monday, June 22, 2015

In Education

I found a great blog named Crusades and Crusaders. The blog’s About page says, “The purpose of this blog is to provide you, the reader, with information that is engaging, informative, educational and entertaining; information that is also well researched.” Boy Howdy. It is written by two degreed historians, one, Deanna Proach, who is a journalist with a Bachelors Degree in History from University of Northern British Columbia and one, Helena Schrader, who is a Foreign Service Officer and published (prolific) author of both fiction and non-fiction books with a Ph.D. in History from University of Hamburg. The depth and quality of the scholarship in this blog is amazing, especially because it is aimed, more or less, at a lay audience.

We are big fans of Rodney Stark having read many of his books. We first started to get an understanding of the truth about the Crusades from his book God’s Battalions: The Case for the Crusades that we used as part of our homeschool curriculum. This blog cites Stark quite a bit, but the focus is on History rather than Sociology. In some ways, that makes it a more interesting or, at least, a very different read than Stark’s work in that specific personalities are discussed along with specific events. There is a narrative to the articles that give a better feel for the culture, values and motivations of the people involved. You get to know people, not just facts. One of the features I especially liked was the review of books with an assessment of their historical accuracy. I highly recommend this website. I plan to make it a regular stopping place.

Betty Blonde #352 – 11/20/2009

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Father’s Day 2015 without the kids: McMenamins and Grandpa Milo

By Dad

On Saturday, June 20, 2015

In General

Father's Day 2015 without the kids at McMenamins in Wilsonville Lorena and I planned to work out this evening. We walked to breakfast, walked to lunch and we planned to go to the gym and work out before dinner, but we just did not have it in us. Instead, we ran across the parking lot to McMenamins and split an aboslutely fabulous hamburger and some ancho chicken chile soup. We completely blew our diet, but it was absolutely worth it. This is the first Father’s Day in a long time when we have been without the kids. In addition, we have Grandpa Milo duty (Alzheimer’s stuff for all those who have dealt with it and understand) tomorrow for our church meeting and dinner afterward.

I have to say Lorena and I had a great time. Christian is down in Tempe studying his fanny off. Kelly is up in Vernon, British Columbia hanging out with a boat load of young people when she really should be studying her fanny off, but we approve. She needs to be doing that kind of thing and Christian really should be doing that kind of thing, too. It was a great evening that I hope to remember for a long, long time even though my Dad’s memory problems makes me realize that memories are things we should cherish, not only because they are good memories, but a gift from a loving God.

Betty Blonde #351 – 11/19/2009

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Visiting Albany for the first time in seven years

By Dad

On Friday, June 19, 2015

In General

Cluster Oaks house in Albany 2015 I am administering some research my company is funding in the new Robotics program at Oregon State University so Lorena and I ran down to Corvallis this morning. We got there way to early so we decided to run by our old house on Cluster Oaks Dr. in North Albany. We had not been back there for over seven years. The place looks amazing. The trees we planted have shown dramatic growth. The new owners of the house painted the porch posts a really ugly maroon color and changed the fence line, but other than that, the house looks similar to the way it looked when we left. The corner feature to deal with the services in the corner of the property still looks great. We would have liked to see the stamped concrete patio Grandpa Milo put in the back yard for us and also the beautiful kitchen, but we had to get moving to our meeting. The amazing part about the whole neighborhood are all the trees Grandpa Milo gave to everyone. They are growing and growing and growing. It will be even more amazing in another seven years.

Betty Blonde #350 – 11/18/2009

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Man of steel

By Dad

On Thursday, June 18, 2015

In General

I just wanted everyone to know that I saw this on the counter of the kitchen at work which means it was available to whoever got there first–three quarters of a Krispy Kreme donut. I passed it up. I almost fainted just from the smell of it, but I passed it up. I am really wondering whether life is worth living anymore if I have to give this kind of thing up.

Perfidious anti-Israel bias in the news

By Dad

On Thursday, June 18, 2015

In culture, Politics

I received an instant message from Christian yesterday about an article posted on Yahoo News. The headline in big bold letters said:

Israel army kills West Bank Palestinian: Palestinian security

In his instant message Christian said, “Pay special attention to the 3rd paragraph.” The third paragraph says the following:

An army spokesman told AFP that a Palestinian had died after he threw an incendiary device at a jeep and the vehicle overturned on him.

How is that for unbiased reporting? Bury the lead and pump the politically correct version in the headline. That’s the way to do it. About a week and a half ago a great article came out in The Alegmeiner titled Israel’s Supports Must Stop Using These 13 Phrases. Among other things, it explains why it is wrong to refer to Samaria and Judea as the “West Bank” and how the use of the terms “East Jerusalem” or “traditional Arab East Jerusalem” is just wrong, too–“The 19 years between when invading Jordan captured part of the city in 1948 and was ousted by Israel in 1967 was the only time in history, except between 638 and 1099, when Arabs ruled any part of Jerusalem.”

The article is a succinct primer on how much of the media tries to force the narrative a certain politically correct direction when it comes to reporting on Israel.

Betty Blonde #349 – 11/17/2009

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Another archaeological find featuring a Biblical name from the era of King David

By Dad

On Wednesday, June 17, 2015

In Christianity

Here, here and here are a couple of articles on the find of a piece of pottery with the name of Saul’s son, Eshba’al, on it. We really do not have much from that era, but confirmation of the veracity of the Bible and even some of the personalities described in the Bible are slowly starting to accumulate, including a direct non-Biblical reference to the House of David itself. Here is an interesting article from Biblical Archaeology review that lists 50 People in the Bible Confirmed Archaeologically.

Betty Blonde #348 – 11/16/2009

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The Senior Developer

By Dad

On Tuesday, June 16, 2015

In Software, Technology, Work

The guy who has been most responsible for the success of the company for which I currently work sent me an article titled The Role of a Senior Developer. In the world of factory automation, there is a phenomenon that repeats itself on all large projects no matter the company, client nor industry. The phenomenon is this: A finite, specific amount of time is negotiated to deliver the product, the mechanical engineers, electrical engineers and assemblers all use a little more time than they were allocated and the software engineers are expected to make up the time that was lost. A Senior Developer who has the ability and will to “own” the technical decisions and guide the more junior members of the team is essential.

Matt Briggs, the guy who wrote the article completely nails the situation with respect to the Senior Developer. It is not enough to be smart. A senior developer has to be able to work under the pressure of impossible deadlines with management and customers looking over his shoulder. He has to make judicious use of all the resources available to him. If he does not get it done, it will not get done at all. He has to have both the will and the knowledge to make the decisions about the technology and application of technical resources. It is not for the faint of heart. I love it that Briggs identifies one of the core qualities of a Senior Developer as the realization that he cannot do it all and his job is one of service and empowerment of others and (my word) humility. Here is the core truth of the whole matter as explained by Briggs:

A senior developer understands that you cannot do everything yourself, and that their primary role is to help their team get better, in many of the same ways they themselves strive for personal improvement.

A senior developer understands that leadership is not about power, it is about empowerment. It is not about direction, it is about serving.

Full disclosure: While I have worked as a developer, I in no way believe I am the kind of Senior Developer described in the article. Really, I am a Research Engineer and develop new technology so, while I have difficult deadlines sometimes. It is nothing like what is described above. All of us who work in the factory automation world depend on Senior Developers’ for our jobs.

Betty Blonde #347 – 11/13/2009

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Can you have blue eyes and be Mexican?

By Dad

On Sunday, June 14, 2015

In culture, Politics

Blue-eyed Mexican girl I LOVE Sarah Palin. The following is from her Facebook post about Rachel Dolezal, the white chick who claimed to be black so she could get a good job in the NAACP and the other white chick who claimed she was “native American,” so she could get a good job as a professor at a politically correct university. This is almost a perfect storm. It is old now, but the meme going around the internet right now that goes “An Indian and an African walk into a bar… Just joking, it’s just two liberal white women” really IS funny. Here is part of what Palin said:

Ok, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t laugh… this hard. I know this isn’t a victimless crime, what this white chick perpetrated. But it’s a most crystal clear picture of so many screwed up things we’ve let society adopt as the norm. Namely, the practice nowadays of judging someone not based on character, but on skin color. Our original civil rights freedom fighters are rolling in their graves over the backward steps we’ve taken lately. It’s politically incorrect to call out Elizabeth Warren for falsely claiming she’s American Indian, or dinging Obama for just making up his former multi-ethnic girlfriend, and I guarantee I’ll be branded a racist for laughing at this Rachel Dolezal story. Whatever. Dolezal is an unsatisfied lily white leftist who believes the only thing less politically correct than being a white girl is to be a white guy today.

Kelly is the blue-eyed Mexican girl in our family. The funny deal is that the Mexican side of the family has as many or more blue-eyed, light-skinned people as my lily-white, Anglo-Finnish side of the family. Her first language is Spanish and her mother’s family has been in Mexico for centuries. She has actually gotten called out on here racial insensitivity toward Mexicans by white women at school on a semi-regular basis. One of my favorites was when a girl got offended and told Kelly off because she was not offended by some cafeteria workers wearing sombreros and fake mustaches on Cinco de Mayo. Kelly embraces the affirmative celebration of all things Mexican. How can you not love sombreros and fake mustaches on Cinco de Mayo.

The jokes about these posers are a ton of fun. The subjects of derision could not be more worthy.

Update: Lorena just sent another hilarious one: Click here.

Update II: Found this link to the sombrero and mustache incident (described above). Great fun was had by all!

Update III: This just in from our favorite government school teacher, (lily white) Trisha via text message:

I am thinking about going back to college… I think I can afford it if I claim trans-race. I don’t look it, but I feel Mexican! Affirmative Action and all that. I thought I might claim some imaginery children as dependents…because, although I don’t have children, I fell like I do! I am working on making some salsa and getting a tan! Thoughts?

Trisha, this is a slam-dunk! You are blood related to Mexicans! You EAT salsa and some people you know have kids! You are in with the win!

Betty Blonde #346 – 11/12/2009

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Sometimes it seems like things are getting really bad

By Dad

On Saturday, June 13, 2015

In General

This article reminded me of I Kings 19:18. There is a lot of evil in this world. It has been that way since antiquity. Things are going to get a lot worse before they get better. Marcus Borg, Bart Ehrman, Tony Campolo and David Neff are wrong, intellectually dishonest, self serving and on the wrong side of history.

Yet I have left me seven thousand in Israel, all the knees which have not bowed unto Baal, and every mouth which hath not kissed him.

Elijah was discouraged. He thought he was the only one left. He was not. It is all good. God IS in control.

Betty Blonde #345 – 11/11/2009

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Biscuits and gravy, trains, and a visit from Kelly

By Dad

On Friday, June 12, 2015

In Cooking, culture

Pam's Farmhouse (Raleigh) menu Pam's Farmhouse (Raleigh) biscuits and gravy I think my buddy, Troy, sent me these images just to torture me. We regularly met at Pam’s Farmhouse in Raleigh on Saturday mornings before we went into the lab to work on the GaugeCam project at NCSU a few years back. Very high on the long list of benefits of living in Raleigh is the stellar quality of the biscuits and gravy generally available in the South and the very specific benefits of Pam’s Farmhouse Restaurant where they only take cash, they serve their iced tea in Mason jars and the waitresses call you “Hon.” There might be a place here in Oregon that does biscuits and gravy right, but we have not found it yet.

Kelly goes back to University of Washington

That little bit of nostalgia was the latest in a series over the last couple of days. The anniversary of Lorena’s father’s death was a big part of it, but Kelly’s visit on the train got me to thinking about the several momentous train trips I had taken–A trip to Klamath Falls from Albany to visit cousin Merle when the kids were little (we saw a herd of elk a couple of feet from the train while moving slowly up a steep grade) and a trip from Portland to Idaho where I met a Catholic priest who became a lifelong friend.

I had completely forgotten about a great train trip my buddy Curt N. and I took from Boise to Denver on the train to visit our friend Karen K. That was one of two trips Curt and I took together to visit Karen, but the second one was a New Years eve trip to Seattle. Both trips were momentous high marks of my (relative) youth. The thing that triggered the memory of this trip was Karen K’s comment on the tribute post to Grandpa Lauro. I was so happy to see Kelly is maintaining the family tradition as is just as inspired as us about the train. It really is a great way to travel and all this brought a tear to my eye (especially the part about the biscuits and gravy)!

Betty Blonde #344 – 11/10/2009

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Missing Grandpa Lauro for a year now

By Dad

On Thursday, June 11, 2015

In Christianity, Family

Grandpa Lauro and Mattias One year ago yesterday, Grandpa Lauro died. He was 71 years old. The photo to the left is of Grandpa Lauro and his youngest grandson, Matias. I was trying to think of a way to describe him and it is hard. Of course he was a genuinely Christian man, but that word has been diluted greatly in our day and age so it just does not say enough. After considering it for awhile, about the best I can do is describe some of his accomplishments. There is not time nor room to describe all his accomplishments, but I will try to describe what appealed to me.

He was extremely erudite. His erudition probably was a result of voracious interest in, among other things, music, art, history and theology. He did not have a high level of education, but three of his sons graduated from world class engineering Universities. His fourth son is an entrepreneur and on the verge of earning a law degree. He participated in his community and was politically active, mostly at a local level. He earned a diploma in Music with a focus on Violin from the local University.

His greatest accomplishment, though, was the impact he had on those around him, particularly his family, but also the people with whom he worked, his neighbors and many life long friends. He gravitated to “the least of these.” He loved them and they loved him. His funeral was the most amazing funeral I have ever attended with hundreds and hundreds of people who came to show their respects. A special letter arrived from a man who had not seen him since he was a little boy but on whom he had a profound positive influence. He had this same impact on others when he was young as he had on me as a middle age and older man. The attendence and reverence of the people at his funeral were a manifestation of that influence.

I respected him very, very much. The thing I respected most about him was his fierce love for his God and a fierce dedication to the greatest commandment of them all, to love others as Jesus loved them. We miss him and look forward to the day when we can be together again.

Betty Blonde #343 – 11/09/2009

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