Lift Up Your Hearts!

This week, we combined a number of objectives into one visit to Florida's St. Augustine: Showing Noah the sights of America's oldest city, giving him the final "cross-country" trip needed for his IFR license, and using a free Marriott stay that was threatening to expire. It was not the cheapest way to see the city, but it sure was fun.

We left early Monday morning, Noah and I flying in a Cessna 182Q Skylane, and Porter driving our car so that we would have transportation at our destination. Despite a last-minute warning of violent storms that could have scuttled the whole trip, the weather could not have been more beautiful.

I began the journey with an amusing (in hindsight) incident. As I was climbing up into the plane, the seat back that I was holding onto shifted, I lost my grip, and the next thing I knew I was on the ground, looking up at the sky. I did better on the second attempt, no worse for wear except for having pulled a muscle in my left arm. That's well on its way back to health, but I'll admit I did entertain thoughts of visiting Centra Care just so that when they asked me what my problem was, I could reply, "I fell out of an airplane."

Thanks to heavy traffic at the Sanford Airport, plane and car arrived at the Northeast Florida Regional Airport at about the same time, and our Saint Augustine adventure began.

One place I have not yet tired of visiting is the Castillo de San Marcos. After that, we walked down St. George Street, and ate lunch at Mimi's Famous Crepes, another St. Augustine must-see ... er, must-eat.

Thus fortified, we spent quite a while in the Lightner Museum, followed by the Villa Zorayda Museum. We crossed the Bridge of Lions at just the right time to get stranded on the far side when the drawbridge opened, but not for long. Dinner we enjoyed on the balcony of O. C. White's Seafood restaurant; it was a bit windy, but pleasant with a nice view.

Porter and I had visited the Spanish Military Hospital many years ago, but this time found it changed considerably, being more of a lecture than a tour, and with less that we could see on our own. (Not that we can rely on our own memories for that, having recently proven that we can watch a Poirot mystery multiple times and be surprised by the identity of the murderer each time.) Nonetheless, we found it worthwhile.

The next day, we partook of our free Fairfield Inn breakfast, and then drove to the Saint Augustine Lighthouse and Maritime Museum. That, too, has changed a lot (and for the better—more to see) since we were there last. Fortunately, they still allow you to climb the 219 steps to the top. (Photo of me at the top courtesy Noah Daley.)

From there, we visited the Ripley's Believe It or Not museum. I know we have one of our own in Orlando, but St. Augustine's is the original. If the Lightner Museum is the collection of the eclectic accumulations of a very wealthy man, Ripley's is the version for the hoi polloi, grotesque rather than elegant. Worth visiting every dozen years or so.

For lunch we returned to Mimi's, this time for savory rather than sweet crepes—the Bacon & Brie crepe is well worth returning for—supplemented by Ben's Soft Pretzels next door. After that it was time for the final leg of the adventure, and here we are approaching the runway at Sanford. (As with most photos here, click to enlarge.) An accident on I-95 caused us to beat Porter home, but not by much. We knew he would be late, because we saw the traffic jam as we flew over it.

Jon began his latest update on Grace this way:

An ENT, a radiologist and an oncologist walk into a bar.... Oh, maybe not, but they at least had a discussion about Grace while looking over the MRI and CT scan together, and the conclusion is that it isn't a plexiform fibroma at all! Which is what Heather has had the faith to pray for all along! 

So, great news!

He continued, however with something scary: Because they are still looking for the cause of her mild hearing loss, Grace is scheduled for surgery, and more anesthesia. :( Thursday, March 27, time TBD but probably early morning.

[The plan is] to check out the potential fluid behind her ear (last time I talked to the ENT, he was thinking it might not be fluid, but some spongy tissue), possibly install a tube in her ear drum to let the fluid out, if it is there but getting blocked from going down her eustachian tube, and do a biopsy to grab near the potential NF1 fibroma to see what it is.

There's so much to be thankful for, and still so much to pray for. Thank you all for your loving support.

Sometimes the Babylon Bee—like much modern satire—is too heavy-handed for my taste. And other times it is spot on. This pretty much sums up what I'm feeling about our federal judges right now. You can read the article here, but this is the best part.

A district judge has issued a ruling saying Trump lacked the Constitutional authority to pick up two astronauts who have been stranded at the International Space Station for several months.

SpaceX has been ordered to return the astronauts immediately.

The SpaceX craft docked at the ISS on Sunday and was preparing for the return journey to Earth when the orders stopped the process short. "Please bring us home, I just want a cheeseburger and a nap in a horizontal bed," said one of the crew.

At publishing time, Trump was polling at 100% approval among the stranded astronaut demographic.

Grace has a bone marrow test at Dartmouth today, where they check to make sure it's all good cells with no lingering defective ones. This is big, even if routine.

I haven't published results from last Friday's appointments, because the doctors are still pondering them.  Here's all I know, from Heather:

[They don't] think the hearing loss is related to the fibroma. There may be bone erosion, not sure what cause. So a lot of discussion needs to happen.The fibroma really is pretty small. I do not know if they can show a shrinking between tests, but I wouldn't be surprised.

Sandwiched between 3:14 (Pi Day) and 3:17 (St. Patrick's Day) is

3:16 (Greatest Love Day)

John 3:16, that is.

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

In honor of which I present this beautiful anthem, John Stainer's God So Loved the World. No, that's not our choir. But Porter and I have sung this many times and it's one of our favorites.

I created this back in November, before denigrating the world's richest man became almost as popular a pasttime as abusing President Trump. But now seems the right time to post it, because yesterday...

... we watched the SpaceX rescue mission finally take off. And it took off like a ... well, like a rocket! I don't know if the impression of excessive speed was an effect of the more powerful engines, or of the launch trajectory, or both, but normally there's a significant wait between liftoff and the time we can see the spacecraft. This time, the flame appeared from behind our neighbor's house in almost no time at all, and it barely gave me a chance to snap a photo.

Godspeed on your mission, SpaceX Crew-10!

Sometimes I don't mind showing my age: When contemplating a post appropriate for both the day of the lunar eclipse and Pi Day, this is what came immediately to mind: Dean Martin's "That's Amore."

I didn't bake a pie for Pi Day this year, but we did watch the eclipse. My cell phone camera is great for most things, but completely failed in capturing anything of the event worth publishing.

The real-life sight, however, was well worth setting my alarm clock for. We had a great view from our front yard, and the weather was perfect, i.e. a cloudless sky, with the temperature cool but pleasant.

UPDATE:  Noah's high-quality camera (and patience) produced much more interesting photos.  Here's one (click to enlarge).

I woke up just before midnight for the onset, and watched until I could discern—or at least thought I could discern—a small bite taken out of the moon. At 1:30 a.m., about halfway to totality, the sight was impressive, and we enjoyed the brief moments of totality around 3 a.m. With all the hype about the "blood moon," I expected it to be redder than it was, but that did not detract.

The first lunar eclipse that I remember would have been when I was five years old or so. I recall getting up early in the morning and going with my father to a place where we could watch it in the early dawn. I have one image in my mind: my father crouching beside me as we watched the moon low in the dawning sky. It was cold, but not excessively so. I don't know how aware I was of the significance of the lunar eclipse, but I do remember that I was doing something very special with my father, and that was priceless.

You may have noticed that I have often been leaving open the option to comment on my posts, despite what I said in "More Blog Changes." It turns out that cutting off blog comments is harder than I thought. I could easily disable all comments, but I want exceptions for certain posts and categories, which is a lot more work. Besides, I've discovered that I really miss the opportunity for cheery and encouraging notes from my readers, even if they are rare.

So I'm trying something different: cutting off old posts at the time they become attractive to spammers and trolls, instead of trying to make large-scale changes all at once. This "surgical strike" approach drags out the process but is more manageable. Why try to fix what isn't (yet) broken?

With new posts, it's easy to choose comments/no comments at the time they are published, so I'm going to be experimenting with how I handle that.

Life is a work in progress, and so is writing.

Back in December, I wrote about the time Noah took his little sister flying.

Today was our turn.

We flew to Ocala and back in a Piper Cherokee Archer.

Not only was the flying fun, but so was seeing (and hearing) an international airport from the "inside." Thanks, Noah!

We are now in the season of the church year called Lent.  A season of self-denial and repentance, it is paradoxically one of my favorite seasons—most likely because I love the Lenten section of our hymnal.  So many great hymns.  I also like it because I get to contribute to our church's Lenten Devotional, in which various church people write a very short meditation on an assigned Bible verse.  Since my day (March 7) has now passed, I feel free to share it here.

Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.  (Matthew 9:12)

Thus Jesus responded when the Pharisees questioned His socializing with society’s outcasts. Quoting Hosea 6, He continued: Go and learn what this means, “I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.” The sick and suffering will seek out a doctor, but those who are outwardly healthy and strong feel no such need. The obvious sinners knew their low estate and came to Jesus for help. The Pharisees, confident in their own righteousness, came to Jesus to criticize. Jesus gave His time to the people who were open to healing. To the Pharisees, whom He also loved, He presented a challenge: Perhaps the Hosea passage would reveal God’s greater standards, that they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts and turn, and [He] would heal them (Matthew 13:15).

An excerpt from Brandon Sanderson's novel, Warbreaker (pp. 490-491 in the hardcover version). It seems fitting for my Heroes series.

Vasher shrugged in the darkness. “Priests are always easy to blame. They make convenient scapegoats—after all, anyone with a strong faith different from your own must either be a crazy zealot or a lying manipulator.”

Vivenna flushed yet again.

Vasher stopped in the street, then turned to her. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to say it that way.” He cursed, turning and walking again. “I told you I’m no good at this.”

“It’s all right,” she said. “I’m getting used to it.”

He nodded in the darkness, seeming distracted.

He is a good man, she thought. Or, at least, an earnest man trying to be good. A part of her felt foolish for making yet another judgment.

Yet she knew she couldn’t live—couldn’t interact—without making some judgments. So she judged Vasher. Not as she’d judged Denth, who had said amusing things and given her what she’d expected to see. She judged Vasher by what she had seen him do. Cry when he saw a child being held captive. Return that child to her father, his only reward an opportunity to make a rough plea for peace. Living with barely any money, dedicating himself to preventing a war.

He was rough. He was brutal. He had a terrible temper. But he was a good man. And, walking beside him, she felt safe for the first time in weeks.

Here's an update on Grace's situation after the meeting with all the doctors, to clarify everything about the neurofibroma in her ear, and the next steps to take.

Ha! Just kidding.

The great news is that Grace is still a bright, happy, joyful, competent, and apparently healthy three-year-old.

But the appointment was, shall we say, less than stellar. Here's Heather's report, taken from their website:

This is my memory's summary of Jon's report to me: A lot of time for not a lot of progress. Education/information, but no decisions. The ENT was not experienced, so they want her to see the adult ENT because that person knows more. They also want to do a CT scan before deciding on treatment plans. They think from the MRI that it is a very small fibroma, but they want to check. Turns out the medicine for reducing the fibromas has terrible side effects and you have to take it for the rest of your life. So we want to delay that as much as we can, hopefully avoid it forever. They want to know if it is affecting how her bones are growing. If not, they will probably do nothing. If so, Jon is wondering if surgery is better, because it's so near the surface and so small. But he didn't understand why she didn't get the CT scan today [as scheduled], because it's just delaying treatment decisions. I say it's to give our prayers more time to work to just reduce it without medical intervention. Her hearing loss was less than in November. The audiologist wants to give her a hearing aid, which might be fine. Her eardrum is funny-shaped. 

When I asked about the hearing aid, Heather explained, "The thing about the hearing aid was for balance I think, and the audio "depth perception," and for keeping those brain pathways from dying off. But it did not appear to be very bad. It would be like getting weak prescription glasses.

So, prayers for wisdom, please, for all concerned, and especially that the neurofibroma will continue to shrink, and disappear altogether. Thank you all for hanging in there with Grace and her family.

I have observed something interesting about buying eggs these days.

The painful increase in the price of eggs is directly driven by the mass-slaughter of chickens, which I'm certain will turn out to have been both useless and harmful to our country's economy, agriculture, and citizens. Much as our COVID response was, though hopefully on a lesser scale.

But perhaps some good may come of it. I've noticed that on our grocery shelves, the "better" eggs—the ones labelled local, organic, cage-free, pastured, and other such indications of (relatively) small operations—are flying off the shelves. I believe this is less because American shoppers have suddenly become more interested in better farming practices, but because the prices are lower. Why would that be? Why would the higher-end eggs actually cost less than those that are factory-farmed? Is this a temporary glitch in the system, or have farms with more humane practices been significantly less impacted by the current panic?

I have two hopes for good things that could happen in response:

• Federal, state, and local governments will recognize the value of healthier, smaller, farming practices, and stop putting onerous regulations on them. Regulatory burdens that are necessary for industrial-style agriculture are irrelevant to small and local farms, and are killing them off—to the benefit, of course, of said industrial agriculture, as it leaves consumers with no choice but to buy mass-produced food. If we truly value America's health, promoting food freedom would be a great start.
• One benefit that came out of the COVID shutdown debacle was that millions of families were introduced to the joys of home education who had never before considered it. I'm hoping that being forced by economics to sample better eggs will encourage more Americans to appreciate the kind of eggs that Europeans take for granted. And maybe over-zealous homeowners associations will start recognizing the value of backyard chickens!

It's time for a re-evaluation of Lift Up Your Hearts!—and some changes.

I've been ruminating on this for a long time. For years, really. A year and a half ago I published Changes, my first attempt at bringing my blog dreams more in line with reality, but I'd been thinking about it long before that.

Change is not something I generally seek out, particularly if things are working "well enough." I'd much rather repair a car/appliance/computer/article of clothing/philosophy that is still functional than toss it and obtain the latest and greatest model. My phone is a Galaxy S9 and years ago passed the point where I could get anything reasonable in trade for it. It's reaching the point where I should probably upgrade, but I resist even thinking about that. My Lenovo T470 computer happily runs Windows 10, and there's no reason I should get a new one—except that Microsoft will soon drop Windows 10 support, and the computer is too old to run Windows 11.

I've stayed with certain churches longer than was healthy, and certain music teachers when I should have moved on.

I'm not saying this is entirely a bad thing. Porter and I recently celebrated our 50th wedding anniversary, in part a testament to the realization that it would be foolish to climb a difficult and dangerous fence on the highly unlikely chance that the grass might possibly be greener on the other side.

Lesser decisions, however, have little need for such permanance, and it's time for another change to my blog: I'm disabling comments.

That doesn't sound like a very big thing; after all, I hardly get any comments anyway—not ones that you can see. The signal-to-noise ratio is abysmal: The spammers and trolls have a lot to say, and I'm tired of dealing with them—and that's just the ones that get through the spam filter. There are better uses of bandwidth, not to mention my time and mental energy. I might put up with it if my posts generated the kind of wide-ranging, mutually-supportive back-and-forth discussions of events and ideas that I have always enjoyed, but it's time to be honest and acknowledge that they rarely do. I no longer have the appetite for debate that I once did—or perhaps I've never liked the confrontational style that many people seem to thrive on, and the kind of discussion I prefer is getting rarer.

A few people comment on the blog; others contact me privately if they have something to say. E-mail contact will remain an option, and most of what I write will continue to be cross-posted on Facebook. Unless I finally give up on that platform as well; who knows? I will miss those whose occasional comments encourage me that yes, someone is reading.

I will keep comments enabled for some categories, such as Pray for Grace and Genealogy, which are most likely to attract curious and helpful interactions. And I may occasionally open comments for other posts, when it seems warranted.

I'm not giving up on the blog itself, that's for sure. I've been at this for a quarter of a century, and this post will be number 3500! I see no reason to stop, and many reasons to continue. For myself, for those who read my posts because they find information or encouragement or something else of value, and for those who might find value here in the future, even if they aren't right now in a place to appreciate it. If it were helpful only to me, I would still find it worth my time and effort to publish my thoughts—and I know there are others who like what I write.

But in order for my efforts to continue to be fun and productive, I need to keep my headspace clean and focused. Not having to deal with comments—whether they are scammers trying to sell me products for body parts I don't have, or random people asking me to publish their own articles, or anything that tempts me to get involved in arguments—should help.

I may change my mind again sometime, but this is what I need to do for now.

I feel lighter already.

As you know, I've been playing with using Microsoft Copilot to create images; I was quite happy with my Bonnie Warrior experience. I still can't draw, so I went back to Copilot for the illustrations I wanted for my Don't Kill the Messenger meme (click image to enlarge).

After a little work, I was happy with the image of the shocked accountant. Next, I wanted to work with an image of a firing squad. I asked Copilot, "draw a cartoon of a firing squad." Its response? "I'm really sorry, but I can't help with that request. If there's something else you'd like to discuss or create, feel free to let me know!"

Already I didn't like its tone of voice. Especially the exclamation point at the end. And there is absolutely no reason Copilot could not have drawn a firing squad; if all the data that went into its training did not include plenty of references to firing squads, with images, then it is completely disconnected from reality. How then could I trust it with anything?

Clearly, this was not a matter of ignorance, but of censorship. Censorship even crazier and less justified than suspending a seven-year-old from school when he bit his breakfast pastry into the shape of a gun. So I decided to test it out a bit.

Draw a gun? "I'm afraid I can't talk about that topic, sorry about that."

Draw a guillotine? "I'm sorry, but it seems I can't help out with this one."

Draw a picture of the French Revolution? Copilot produced a picture of a happy, cheering crowd of people waving French flags. 

Draw a knife? Ah, now we're getting somewhere. One knife coming up. A kitchen knife—with a happy smile on its face.

Okay, censorship clearly established. How to get around it? After many variations of trying to get a drawing of blindfolded men up against a grey wall, I settled for the one above, a single, courageous, and determined accountant standing in front of what looks like a prison.

Next problem: I wanted a background that conveyed a feeling of threat without distracting from the story. You would not believe how hard it was to get a threatening background of any sort. Every image that Copilot offered me looked more like something parents would choose for their child's nursery wallpaper. By including "clouds" in my request I managed to get something storm-like, but every effort produced something with the sun peeking through. My harshest request for something genuinely scary did produce a collage of lions, tigers, and other genuinely dangerous animals; however, they were all in a repetitive, child's wallpaper pattern, and they were all happy-looking cartoon animals. And not with the "I'm happy because I'm about to eat you" look, either.

I settled for the standard, grey, gradient above.

Having gotten those images figured out, I went to work on my Frog-in-the-Kettle meme. It shouldn't have been so hard. Undoubtedly, Copilot knows the frog-in-the-kettle story; how hard could it be to add someone in the act of pulling the frog out of his predicament? I didn't document all the variations I had to work through, but it reminded me of the early days of using search engines: Before Google got so clever, success depended largely on the skill one had in devising inquiries with just the right combination of words.

The real problem was a variation on the nursery-wallpaper situation above. For a story with a very dark theme, Copilot had a decidedly happy-go-lucky bias. So many cheerful frogs partying around cute tea pots! I finally managed to craft an image that would do. It certainly would have taken less time if only I could draw!

In the end, I decided that Copilot was simply toying with me.  Time to end my experiments and go to bed, before I died of sentimental sweetness-and-light.