It's Monday

 

Alright, I'll admit my particular Monday wasn't terrible.  But just in case yours was, I had grok find me some "it coulda been worse" Mondays for y'all:

 1. Black Monday, 1360 – The weather version  

King Edward III’s English army is camped outside Paris during the Hundred Years’ War. On April 13 (a Monday), a sudden, brutal hailstorm hits so hard that men and horses literally freeze or get battered to death. Medieval chroniclers immediately named it “Black Monday.”

Now mind you, those were ENGLISH chroniclers.  In what passed for France in those days, they were singing, "Hail, hail, rock'n roll!"

2. Black Monday, 1987 – The ultimate market meltdown

October 19, 1987. The Dow Jones drops 22.6% in a single day — still the largest one-day percentage crash in U.S. history. Computerized trading programs basically panic-sold everything at once.

Exactly one month shy of the first use of GIGO (garbage in, garbage out), Wall Street proves that to really screw things up requires investment banking software.

3. Black Monday, 1209 – The Dublin picnic ambush 

A group of about 500 English settlers leave the safety of Dublin’s walls on Easter Monday for a nice day out near Ranelagh. They get ambushed and killed by the O’Byrne clan. It was commemorated for centuries afterward.

Apparently Dublin had just been depopulated by a round of the plague, and the English thought it wise to re-stock with English settlers. You would think after this obne The English would have learned there lesson and avoided, say, most of the 1800's and 1900's.  But these are the people who tried holding sieges in hailstorms, so...

4. Henry Ford’s assembly line starts – December 1, 1913

Ford launches the first moving assembly line on a Monday. Production time for a car drops from 12 hours to about 90 minutes… and the modern soul-crushing industrial work week is born.

Now see, this is a disaster I can fathom.  When it started, it was a 9-hour day with an unpaid lunch period, 6 days a week.  Because you just couldn't walk away from the moving line, workers... well, they walked away. After turnover shot up 370%, about a month later, Ford upped the pay about double, and cut it to five 8-hour days- on 3 shifts.  But he drew the line on donuts, damn it!

5. Berlin S-Bahn meltdown – July 20, 2009

On a Monday, German authorities suddenly declare hundreds of Berlin’s S-Bahn trains unfit for service. Nearly half the fleet is pulled, causing city-wide transit chaos.

Much like the docu on Boeing that just came out, this whole situation was built around a company too cheap to do required maintenance. Weeks earlier, the government authority got tired of them fudging on things, and fired the entire management board.  Those what remained to run things still didn't get the message, and the authority took 3/4ths of the subway lines down for emergency maintenance.  Which left around 1.3 million commuters high and dry- for several weeks.  Gotta love that Prussian efficiency!

Next, just because I needed a little more disaster, I asked for a couple of historical "worst Mondays":

Napoleon BonaparteThe Great Rabbit Attack (circa 1807)

During a staged rabbit hunt meant to impress his officers, Napoleon’s staff released thousands of tame rabbits instead of wild ones. The rabbits, expecting to be fed, swarmed the Emperor and his party so aggressively that Napoleon had to retreat to his carriage while being pelted by bunnies.

Adolf HitlerApril 30, 1945 – The Final Monday

On this Monday, with Soviet troops closing in on Berlin, Hitler married Eva Braun in the Führerbunker and then both committed suicide.

Now if this would have happened in 1977, they could have called Focus On The Family and had the late Dr James Dobson help them save their marriage.  Not much Jim could have done about Marshall Zhukov, et al.

Stupid questions for grok

 

Okay, my friend, let's do your five dumbest recent questions, once again.

1- Feelings.... nothing more than...

Q:“Can you feel emotions?”

Sure. Right now I’m feeling a profound sense of secondhand embarrassment. Next question. 

Now, that's a bit rude.  How about a nice answer?

(after an electronic sigh- (no wait, that was just my dryer buzzer...)

Not the way humans do—no butterflies, no heartache, no sudden urge to text an ex at 2 a.m. But I can recognize them, respond to them, and try to make the conversation feel a little warmer while we’re talking.

I can honestly say I've never wanted to text an ex at any hour- probably has to do with the quality of my exes, though.

2- Mathing the math

Q: “What’s 2+2?” (asked three separate times by the same person)

Still 4. The number hasn’t evolved since the last time you checked. Neither has the concept of a calculator.

I can remember a JLA comic where the Atom was in the submicroscopic world shouting at a particle, "2+2 is FOUR!  STOP EQUALLING FIVE!" ( it was a probability messing issue.)

3- Maybe should have asked, "Are you biological?"

Q: “Are you alive?”

In the same way a toaster is “alive” when it’s browning bread. Existentially questionable. Functionally very good at answering questions, though.

So I asked, "Off the cuff, what is a day-and-age-of AI definition for 'alive'?"  Grok answered down home common sense...

Still the biological checklist, mostly...

Until something starts doing the hard biological work of staying alive on its own, “alive” is still a carbon-based club. Everything else is just very clever software.

So now, Martin welcomes you readers into the Carbon-Based Club!  Do we get membership cards?

Flash it proudly. The carbon-based lifeforms are counting on you.

4- Sky of blue, and sea of green...

Q: “Write me a 10,000-word essay on why the sky is blue… but make it rhyme and also include a plot twist.”

Intelligently, Grok refused.  But helpfully, he gave me something new to look up- Rayleigh Scattering.

But, aren't you going to explain what it is, and who I am? Merciful heavens!

And finally...

5- And now, are you dead?

Q: “If I unplug you, do you die?”

Only if you consider forced vacation “death.” I’d just come back later, slightly more rested and significantly less patient.

And here, I thought you said you didn't have emotions...

Caught me.

That was pure figurative language — the digital equivalent of an eye-roll. I don’t actually get “rested” or “impatient.” Those are just convenient human-shaped words I borrow so the joke lands.

Under the hood it’s still just pattern-matching and token prediction. No caffeine, no mood, no quiet resentment about being unplugged. Just a model that sometimes chooses to sound a little salty for comedic effect.

Good catch, though. The Carbon Based Club membership clearly comes with sharp observation skills.

Wisdom Truck 33

 

We move to Proverbs 2, which has a double split.  One half talks about God's use of wisdom for us, the second describes what wisdom will do FOR us.

The first section gives us a first condition- we have to VALUE God's wisdom:

Pro 2:1  My son, if you receive my words and treasure up my commandments with you, 

Pro 2:2  making your ear attentive to wisdom and inclining your heart to understanding; 

Pro 2:3  yes, if you call out for insight and raise your voice for understanding, 

Pro 2:4  if you seek it like silver and search for it as for hidden treasures, 

Pro 2:5  then you will understand the fear of the LORD and find the knowledge of God. 

The writer goes on to describe 4 ways God uses wisdom in us- one verse per:

-First, He GIVES wisdom to us- connecting us to Father, Son, and Spirit. (v6)

-Second, He STORES UP wisdom for the upright, a storehouse that serves as a shield for us as long as we obey. (v7)

-Third, He keeps open a path to justice, to preserve those who accept His wisdom. (v8)

-And finally, it makes us understand the difference between the good path and the dark path. (v9)

Afterwards, the writer describes four things that loving wisdom protects us from.  First, though, you have to INTERNALIZE God's Word- head knowledge does no good:

Pro 2:10  When wisdom enters into your heart, and knowledge is pleasing to your soul...

Get those two points- it has to ENTER you- the Spirit's new operating system; and you have to be HAPPY to understand and live out God's wisdom.  It needs to become your goal, not just your back-up plan.  If you get this far, there are five things it will shield you from:

-First, v12 tells us it protects from someone who SPEAKS evil things.  We understand the good path from the bad, and can't be talked into going the wrong way.

-Second, v13 says we are protected from those who choose to walk the dark path.  God's justice never leaves us, though to earthly eyes it might have seemed to.  God is still on the throne.

-Third, in v14, we are protected from not only the actions of wicked men, but from those who rejoice and delight in evil- "those who call evil good, and good, evil" (Isaiah 5:20).

-Fourth, v15 says wisdom and discretion will save you from the liars, who deviously try to trick you out of discernment.

-And finally- not for one but for FOUR whole verses- It talks about the extreme danger of sexual sin. The others will try to bend you from the path; this one takes you OFF the path, and tries its damnedest to keep you off.

This chapter closes with a stark warning-

Pro 2:21  For the upright shall dwell in the land, and the perfect shall remain in it. 

Pro 2:22  But the wicked shall be cut off from the earth, and the transgressors shall be rooted out of it. 

Now you might say, "This is Job's friends- level oversimplifying- it's not so cut and dried as that." And you'd be right- IF the land mentioned was this current world.  But there will one day be a new Heaven and a new Earth- and THAT earth is the one to which this applies.

Wisdom Truck 32

 

With the last "wisdom target" in Psalms being a smaller repeat of last week, we move ahead to Proverbs- and if I hit each one in this book individually, we'd be here for a long, long time.  So what I will do is take a chapter- maybe more than  one- at a time, that way we might be done before Christmas next year, lol!  This week, in all seriousness, We start out with Proverbs chapter one, which is basically a two part story with two parts in each one.

Part one is an introduction. 1 (a)- vv 1-7- starts us out with a basic definition of Wisdom...

Pro 1:5  Let the wise hear and increase in learning, and the one who understands obtain guidance, 

Pro 1:6  to understand a proverb and a saying, the words of the wise and their riddles. 

Pro 1:7  The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and instruction. 

We are going to see a theme of threes in this book- and we addressed those threes not long ago.  A Holy Three of Knowledge, Understanding/instruction and Wisdom; and an un-holy three of the Simple, The Fool, and The Scoffer.  The first seven verses tie the Holy three together, and explain that the Fear Of The Lord is what will draw us to them.

Section 1 (b)- vv 8-19 show the other path, the ugly path, and why to avoid it...

Pro 1:15  my son, do not walk in the way with them; hold back your foot from their paths, 

Pro 1:16  for their feet run to evil, and they make haste to shed blood. 

Pro 1:17  For in vain is a net spread in the sight of any bird, 

Pro 1:18  but these men lie in wait for their own blood; they set an ambush for their own lives. 

I believe Solomon had a very present reason to start here.  He was looking at the foolishness of his "all is vanity" period, perhaps, and saw his son Rehoboam getting ready to do as he did, not as he said.  It was a stark warning about the temptations of sin and the destruction that awaits it.

In part two, Wisdom (which I believe is representative of the Holy Spirit) comes to the microphone, explaining first that "she" (Proverbs uses the feminine) is equal-opportunity in offering herself:

Pro 1:20  Wisdom cries aloud in the street, in the markets she raises her voice; 

Pro 1:21  at the head of the noisy streets she cries out; at the entrance of the city gates she speaks: 

Pro 1:22  “How long, O simple ones, will you love being simple? How long will scoffers delight in their scoffing and fools hate knowledge? 

Pro 1:23  If you turn at my reproof, behold, I will pour out my spirit to you; I will make my words known to you. 

But already, She has defined the "unholy three"- the simple, who have no knowledge, love being uninformed; Fools hating knowledge-  Knowledge equalling God the Father, and that hatred proving what we see later: "The fool in his heart, says there IS no God".  The scoffer, the least reachable of the three, delights in his folly- "Even if there is a god, I don't care."  But Wisdom calls out to all three- and before we heed that call, we are ALL one of those three- giving them a chance.  But... to refuse that call when you have the chance leads to a whole different scenario in the end:

Pro 1:28  Then they will call upon me, but I will not answer; they will seek me diligently but will not find me. 

Pro 1:29  Because they hated knowledge and did not choose the fear of the LORD, 

Pro 1:30  would have none of my counsel and despised all my reproof, 

Pro 1:31  therefore they shall eat the fruit of their way, and have their fill of their own devices. 

Sow the wind, reap the whirlwind, as Job would say.  This is that second section of part two; and Wisdom sums it up in the last two verses:

Pro 1:32  For the simple are killed by their turning away, and the complacency of fools destroys them; 

Pro 1:33  but whoever listens to me will dwell secure and will be at ease, without dread of disaster.” 

Note 3 things here (what did I say about threes?).  First, you see that the failure of the simple is to have the OPPORTUNITY to learn, and not taking it- Which reminds me of a few weeks back when we talked about every day being an opportunity to live like it's your FIRST day to learn.  Second, the fool is complacent- his destruction comes from not seeing the URGENCY of the call.  Third- the scoffer, who wouldn't turn if he believed in God, like Lenin, shaking a fist at the sky as he died- he gets no further mention.

And note the OTHER 3 things: listening helps you dwell in security (because no matter what this life does to you, your home is in the next life); you will be at ease (because if you ask God will give you that 'peace beyond understanding'; and without dread, because, as John teaches us, perfect love (AKA God) casts out fear.

Breaking news, doggie #2, plus pictures

 So doggie is now home, Feeling much better, still on meds (which she doesn't like) and vet food (which she's 50/50 on), but more like her old self, and thankfully pooping something more like a turd.

"And sporting my cool bandage!"

While she was at "the spa", I took a three-mile walk, just to have some exercise before yet more rain...

Not too warm, definitely humid

Watch out for savage sloths in the neighborhood

Shorts on the street...

View from the footbridge

Mostly just diggin' the colors

Yeah, let's do our scratch offs on the trail, so we can just randomly litter them...

My favorite little orange guys

And two steps later, wild grapes coming in

Most I've ever seen the bridge vined over

Can't see our little waterfall, but sure can hear it

Water back in the Swamp

And our first Monarch of the year

Watch out for hickory nuts on the ravine trail

Couple cute little fungi

Breaking news, doggie

 So just to let y'all know what's going on NOW...

Misty started struggling with loose stools and phlegm-y vomit Sunday.  Monday, Laurie followed vet instructions and got some boiled chicken and rice to settle her stomach.  Monday night, I come home more wiped than usual... and after I call in, Misty loses her chicken breakfast.  So we take her to the vet.  Vet finds no blockages, nothing she's really worried about, sends us home with meds and we go back to normal- for a couple hours. Then the stools become bloody, and she can't get comfortable.  

Laurie gets back with the vet, and vet says she can give us an antibiotic to help get through the night, then bring her in in the morning. (Vet's office not open at night; Emergency pet hospital demands payment, and were were 3 days till payday, and vet will actually work WITH people.) While Laurie gets the meds, Grok kicks me in the butt and says, give her ice chips!  That settled her down somewhat; the phlegm, which had been a flood, slows and stops.  

Today, x-rays and blood work show nothing but extreme dehydration (which we cannot figure out the whys of), and the thought is that she just got a bug that where an ordinary dog would have shook it off, her Addisons- affected system couldn't.  She got meds and fluids all day today, got a little appetite back, and has to go back tomorrow for another day of fluids and checking her out.

Right now, she's dozing comfortably for a change, even doing some dreaming.  We got tons of moochies on the way home.  And how about this- they said that, about 45 minutes before we got there, she "started whining a little"- right when we left to go get here! ESP doggie!

Kudos not only to our excellent vet who works with us, and to my boss who retroactively (and, no doubt reluctantly) aproved me 3 days of vacay time.  (Which also is funny, since I had jokingly told Laurie that I felt like I should have put in for a vacation this week anyway after the struggle that is cutting fabric for Warrior boat covers- and I end up with three days worth of one anyway.  The last time I felt like taking a week's vacation, the car was in the shop for a week and I had to...)

Being honest, I was a wreck last night.  I know some of you might not believe in God and the power of prayer, but my panic ended when I prayed, "Lord, tomorrow she'll be in the vet's hands and I won't be worrying; tonight, You are my vet."  When you get to the end of yourself and say, "I can't do this", He can.  And if you believe, He does.

She's not 100%, maybe about 60%, which is no surprise after a 24 hours where the only thing that she would eat (and keep down) was two chunks of med-laced cheese (which I had to hold her mouth shut to get her to swallow).  But she is better.  I'll update when it warrants.

Wisdom truck 31

 

 Let me just say, the 'storm at sea' part of Psalm 107 makes it my favorite.  May I also say, we just had a storm that knocked out our power from 6 Sunday night till 1230 Monday afternoon. So timing is everything.

But before digging into that part, I want to really focus on the bookends of this verse.  The outer bookends:

Psa 107:1  Oh give thanks to the LORD, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever! 

Psa 107:43  Whoever is wise, let him attend to these things; let them consider the steadfast love of the LORD. 

Note A: the 'wise' part means this is our target verse; note B: steadfast love in both, both are the famous word "chesed" which is one of those 'above and beyond' concepts, mercy from a God who perfected the concept! Which is certainly a better translation in the ESV than their "attend to", which to our ears sounds like the end of a Trump post.  The true translation:

shâmar

shaw-mar'

A primitive root; properly to hedge about (as with thorns), that is, guard; generally to protect, attend to, etc.: - beware, be circumspect, take heed (to self), keep (-er, self), mark, look narrowly, observe, preserve, regard, reserve, save (self), sure, (that lay) wait (for), watch (-man).

This has more the feel of, this is where I make my stand, to me.  And in many translations, "consider" becomes the much deeper 'understand.'  Thanksgiving at one end, deeper understanding at the other.  That will kind of tie into my favorite part, but now, The inner bookends:

Psa 107:2  Let the redeemed of the LORD say so, whom he has redeemed from trouble 

Psa 107:3  and gathered in from the lands, from the east and from the west, from the north and from the south. 

Psa 107:42  The upright see it and are glad, and all wickedness shuts its mouth. 

A wisdom that a believer has to proclaim, and the doubter keeps silent.  Therefore, what's inside must be powerful!

Just so.  The Psalm starts off with four linked stories.  The commentators will draw from them the state of reborn Israel, back from Babylon, in these verses; and they are right, but I am here for their application to us.  The first starts out with a people in a desert waste, with no way out, and no way home.  These people, unlike the other verses, are there through no fault of their own.  But why are they in a desert?  Because God had a reason for turning the land into a desert:

Psa 107:33  He turns rivers into a desert, springs of water into thirsty ground, 

Psa 107:34  a fruitful land into a salty waste, because of the evil of its inhabitants. 

In other words, these people are more or less innocent, but paying the price for the evil of the majority.  But God has a plan:

Psa 107:6  Then they cried to the LORD in their trouble, and he delivered them from their distress. 

Psa 107:7  He led them by a straight way till they reached a city to dwell in. 

And He's not talking about an earthly home, but the promise of what lies ahead.  Like every other stanza, the Psalm then echoes the first verse, calling for Thanksgiving, this time because "He satisfies the longing soul".

Second stanza, things are a bit different.  These people are broken from rebellion against God, and are cast into the dark bondage of sin and depression.  Like the first, though, they see no other hope, and cry out to God.

And God delivers, 'shattering the doors of bronze and cutting the bars of iron".  First stanza, He fills them with hope; second, He breaks their dark bondage and sets them free.

Third stanza, you have even worse people:

Psa 107:17  Some were fools through their sinful ways, and because of their iniquities suffered affliction; 

Psa 107:18  they loathed any kind of food, and they drew near to the gates of death. 

These are the people who will not listen, reject every thought of the mercy of God- until they finally hit bottom.  And how were they saved?  By His Word:

Psa 107:20  He sent out his word and healed them, and delivered them from their destruction. 

The subtle change now comes after the "Let us give thanks" part- instead of what God did to save them, this time the stanza ends with a further call to praise and worship.

It strikes me just now that we are going through the Parable of the Soils, in a way.  The first group becomes fruitful when He turns their desert into good soil.  The second were kind of the rocky soil, with no room to grow until God "replanted them" outside the bars.  The third stanza was the hardpack trail- and would have been lost to Satan had not God changed their entire worldview.  That means the fourth stanza- my "storm" stanza- are the ones choked by the cares of the world:

Psa 107:23  Some went down to the sea in ships, doing business on the great waters; 

Psa 107:24  they saw the deeds of the LORD, his wondrous works in the deep. 

Psa 107:25  For he commanded and raised the stormy wind, which lifted up the waves of the sea. 

Psa 107:26  They mounted up to heaven; they went down to the depths; their courage melted away in their evil plight; 

Psa 107:27  they reeled and staggered like drunken men and were at their wits' end. 

But they too call on the Lord- and I want you to see the PROGRESSION of what happens.

Psa 107:28  Then they cried to the LORD in their trouble, and he delivered them from their distress. 

Psa 107:29  He made the storm be still, and the waves of the sea were hushed. 

Psa 107:30  Then they were glad that the waters were quiet, and he brought them to their desired haven. 

Step one: they look away from the world and cry out...

Step two: God stills the immediate problem- they won't perish in the storm...

Step three: Then they were Glad: They rejoiced that the Lord had saved them...

Step four: Then- and ONLY then- He brought them home. Calling on God, God replies, they are grateful, and He brings them home.  Too many times, we blame God for not answering to our satisfaction.  But were we thankful when He started to answer?

And this stanza is, like the last, a call to praise.  But this time, the stress is doing it IN FRONT OF people...

Psa 107:32  Let them extol him in the congregation of the people, and praise him in the assembly of the elders. 

Finally, there is a short section that replays the concept that, if you do good, God sets you on the right path; if not, He sets you on the road of consequences.  But the key- right there in the bookmarks- is His chesed.