Friday, December 7, 2018

"If I get married I want to be very married." - Audrey Hepburn


A low of 23 early this morning meant crunchy ground, a thick layer of frost, and a COLD MoHo. But because we both had to head into town early (we left at 7 a.m.) it made no sense to build a fire with its 2-hour lead time before the place begins to warm up. I turned on the furnace at 5 a.m. and set it to 64 degrees and then cringed every time it kicked on.

I was ready to go before Pam (typical) so I played with Buddy for 30 minutes to get him worn out before we're gone for the morning. I think he'd play fetch with the tennis ball until his legs fell off.
It's nice to have a real dog.

I streamed the last portion of Pres. Bush's funeral service this morning. Pathos.
The comments by Sect. of State James Baker, H.W. Bush's best friend, were potent and gut wrenching.
And the quip by one of the Oakridge Boys quartet that got the sons and their wives laughing was exactly the kind of tension reliever the service needed.

I kept waiting for some fuller, more precise explanation of why they were sure he was now in heaven. Something more than the fairly ambiguous comments about his love for God. I really want to think Pres. Bush and Barbara were justified by their faith in Christ's death for their sins but I heard no mention of that gospel or of the substitutionary atonement.
The Episcopal church long ago disassociated itself from the tenets of the evangelical faith but that certainly doesn't mean all Episcopalians, even all their clergy, have abandoned orthodoxy.

I wrote the above portion of this post yesterday and then, for reasons I can't explain, had a total crash last night. I threw in the towel and grabbed the pillow about 7:45 and didn't get up until 5 a.m. You do the math, but that's probably longer than I've slept since I was 15.
Something has me frequently exhausted and I don't know what that could be. Yesterday was not particularly stressful, I did a fairly normal workout at the gym, and I don't think I'm coming down with any bug.

Sean is a late-20's newlywed on staff at UFC who works with the college kids at U of O and helps out with the H.S. group. At the staff party Tuesday evening I talked with his wife about her job in an architectural firm. She's got her degree but is going through the long process of getting her full license, something that requires thousands of hours of work under a licensed architect, some continuing ed classes, papers submitted....
I asked about and learned some of her current job responsibilities and the rolls she'll have to fill in order to meet the requirements for licensure. I asked if she ever built the scale models that sit on board room tables to show the clients what the finished project will look like.
Turns out they don't do that anymore.
Almost everything gets done on a computer now though she said there's still some pencil-on-paper drafting for specific aspects of a project. But when it comes time for the finished modeling they do it all in a powerful 3-D program. Then the client comes in, puts on one of those gaming-type virtual reality headsets and looks at the mockup of the finished project through that headset. They can walk all around the building, look at it from any angle, and step closer or further away to see it in various perspectives.
How cool is that?!
She said the clients LOVE it and get all excited to see their building in virtual 3-D. After that experience a scale model on a table would be boring.
Who knew?

At just shy of 7 a.m. it's 22 degrees outside. Ouch! But this is supposed to be the last crazy cold night before a storm system comes in bringing rain and lows in the mid-30s.
Sally does not like this cold weather!

We may finally be reaching a modest return to sanity. Not because someone culturally railroaded has made an appeal to common sense but because a Christmas song from the 40's has shined the light on the nonsense of judging something from years (and years) ago by contemporary social standards.
"Baby It's Cold Outside" may or may not contain inappropriate and trigger lyrics. I don't really care. But it seems a majority of Americans think it's ridiculous to ban a song from 80 years ago because of a hash tab movement from last year.
Could we actually be close to a rational approach to our view of historical people and events?
Yeah, probably not. Now that we've torn down all the Confederate monuments. banned all the entertainers who ever made a crack about sexuality, and discarded our founding fathers for acting like flawed human beings it's probably too late to turn back the clock.

Makes you wonder what they'll say about the self-righteous prigs of today's social conscience movement in another 40 years.

OK, time for a shower and off to a meetup with one of the small group leaders.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Well said about Baby It's Cols Outside

John in SHoreline