Ah....I see the Screw-Up Fairy has visited us again.

You got a problem?

It was a good day. I got a significant chunk of church work done this morning. More on that in a minute. Then I took Mike's suggestion and headed for Harbor Freight. Turns out they have a retail outlet less than 10 miles from us. I got a floor jack, jack stands, a grease gun and canister of grease, an oil drain pan and wheel chocks, all for well under $100. Thanks for the heads up, Mike!
That's a place a guy like me could spend a whole lot of money!

I worked on Gerta after lunch. We have a chance of rain this weekend so I decided to start with the inoperative wipers. My meter showed no power coming into the motor, no power passing through the fuse, no power anywhere. Thanks to a good wiring diagram in the aftermarket shop manual I got I could trace the various lines and discovered that a Previous Owner (PO), when he installed an aftermarket radio/cassette player, used the wiper's connection at the fuse box for his switched power. That's fine, but he really should have reinstalled the power line to the wipers after he made his radio connection. A 16" length of wire and a couple of connectors and I'm ready for rain!
From there to the driver's side window which was difficult to lower and almost impossible to raise. I took the door panel off and lubricated the cable channel that raises and lowers the glass. Now I'm ready for the heat, too!
Then to the back end where I installed new weather stripping for the lid of the engine compartment.
Classic Beetles have a chrome strip that runs down the center of the hood, a strip missing from Gerta's visage. I ordered a replacement and it arrived today, along with that weather stripping. But it didn't fit. Whassup wit dat?
A call to the tech line at Wolfsburg West and I learned that I have a '66 or earlier hood on my '67 Beetle. I knew it wasn't original because the outside is blue but the underside is the original yellow. But I assumed it was the correct year. Nope. And the chrome strip was wider for all Beetles prior to '67 (the only difference). Not a big deal; it's a pretty inexpensive part.

During the CBS evening news they ran three commercials for various prescription meds. Besides the troubling fact of three Rx ads in 30 minutes I'm bothered by the string of potential side effects and warnings they race through. Why does a pill to help men pee pose a problem if they're going to have eye surgery?

NOTE: the chances that your street will be blocked off for road resurfacing are proportional to the degree of anticipiss you're experiencing.

I can do this stuff:
Insane Feats of Strength

This morning I picked the songs we'll sing for the next two Sundays at Pathway. Part of that process is typing out the lyrics so Matt can have them ahead of time and I can copy/paste into the bulletin I prepare on Thursdays.
Typing lyrics is an interesting exercise, particularly so today. Something about typing the words makes me pay closer attention to their meaning. Thinking about what punctuation should go where increases that. When I sing the songs on Sundays I rarely give them the thought they deserve. Part of that is because my mind is dialing into my sermon, but I don't think I'd be much better if I weren't the preacher. This Sunday we're singing Immortal Invisible by Laura Story (not the one from the hymnal you may be familiar with).

Immortal, you are not like a man,
That you change your mind,
Or change your plan.
Invisible, our human eyes can't see,
The depths of your majesty.

Immortal, you are not bound by death.
You're the living God, my very breath.
Invisible, you are not bound by space,
But your glory is filling this place.
Yes, your glory is filling this place.

Keying in lyrics isn't a task ideally suited for an ADD mind, but I'm glad for the process. I'll get more out of Sunday's singing because of today's typing.

"Give a man a fish and he'll eat for a day. Teach him to fish and he'll eat for a lifetime"
True dat.
But if that meal of fish is the first real food he's had to eat you can be sure he'll be coming back for more. The food will make him stronger and eventually he'll be ready and able to do some fishing for himself. But apart from regular meals of solid food he'll never be ready to tackle fishing on his own.
It happened again today. I had a conversation with someone who just started coming to Pathway. "I've learned more in the last two weeks than I've ever learned going to church."
You have no idea how good that makes me feel. That is why we started Pathway Bible Church - to provide a place where the Word of God is taught and Christians are strengthened thereby. As I said Sunday, we think there's a dirth of Bible teaching churches in the West Valley and we aim to fill that void as God enables.
I knew a man now with the Lord who served as a lay pastor. He told me one day that he wanted to comission a painting. (Have I told you this before?) The painting would show an older shepherd standing next to a younger shepherd looking over the latter's flock. The sheep are laying on the ground looking weak and emaciated. The older shepherd says to the younger, "Perhaps you should try feeding them."
Too many malnourished sheep out there, and it's the shepherds' fault.