"I think age is a very high price to pay for maturity." - Tom Stoppard

I'm not feeling real politically correct tonight.

I'm running into problems with Ilsa at a rate that exceeds my rate of solutions. I did two things this afternoon - work on cleaning the engine compartment of 50 years of grease and grime and remove the left rear fender. That's the bad one for which I've already secured a replacement. 

These fenders are held on with something like 10 bolts underneath and around the upper curve. The bolts go into what is called a "captive" nut. That is, the nut can't be reached from the back side and is therefore locked in place. 

In the case of the fenders each of the square nuts has a groove on all four sides that rides in the sheet metal of the body. That's what holds them in place while the bolt is turned in or out. Alas, if the bolt is exceedingly rusted the torque required to turn it, even after a liberal application of PB Blaster, will twist the square nut and make a mess out of the sheet metal that's supposed to hold it. Something like this: (click to enlarge)

I cut the fender out using tin snips since it's headed for the scrap heap anyway. But I still have the problem of that bolt and the captive nut that isn't. 

OK, the rapture didn't happen. I'm sorta bummed, since I'm looking forward to heaven. No, I didn't expect it. This guy is a whacko who has a history of missed predictions and seriously bad interpretations of clear biblical passages. But if even a blind squirrel finds a nut occasionally God coulda yanked us out of here tonight just as a "gotcha" thing. 

That IMF guy accused of sexually attacking the maid in the NY hotel - you know, the French guy with the hyphenated name - is Jewish. I didn't realize that until I read that detail online. The article said his Jewishness is an issue in France because the Jewish people there were proud of his professional accomplishments and his status in the international community. They also looked forward to having the first Jewish President of France. All that pride has now turned to embarrassment. 

For reasons I can't explain I remember the address Dr. Jack Dean made to the student body at the beginning of my freshman year at college. He warned us against the danger of idolizing any human. I'm sure he was thinking about the tendency of college students, freshman especially, to put a favorite professor on a pedestal. He reminded us that only God will always live up to our expectations and all humans, no matter how good they are, will inevitably disappoint. When, not if, that happens our spiritual life will take the hit and the results can be disastrous. 

Learn from your profs, inside and outside the classroom, but remember they're humans just like you with faults and sins of their own.

Years later as a professor at that same college I thought often about that address, but from the other side of the lectern. I also think of it as a pastor. And one of my favorite verses is 2 Cor. 4:7, a verse I quote to myself almost every Sunday, either on the way to church or on the way home... or both.

"We have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us."