Lift Up Your Hearts!

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.

What would you do if you received this e-mail from your employer?

What would you think if refusal to comply were grounds for losing your job?

There's been a lot of weeping and wailing from Federal workers who received such an e-mail recently—and from many who purport to speak up for them.

I don't understand why.

I know what I would have done, before I retired from my medical center IT job, if I had received such a request: I'd have sat down and put together five of the most important things I'd accomplished during the previous week. The boss was the boss, after all, and this would have been a whole lot less onerous than when he instituted the "no jeans at work" rule.

Much as I like to grumble about needless bureaucratic requirements, this one seems both easy to do and reasonable to request. After all, I was being paid, not for the hours spent sitting at my computer, but for what I accomplished there. My boss didn't know the nitty-gritty of the work I was doing; most managers don't. They're hired to manage the overall picture, not to know the internal details. Keeping one's work in front of their eyes on a regular basis accomplishes several good things.

• It reminds them that your job is important. If it's not, something needs to change.
• It reminds them that you're doing the work you're being paid for. If you're not, you need to be mentored for improvement, or let go to find more suitable work.
• It reminds YOU of these things as well. This is important for your job satisfaction and your self-confidence, which will lead to better work and more accomplishments—unless it demonstrates to you that you are in the wrong job; in which case, the sooner you discover that and do something positive about it, the better.
• If you are on the wrong track in your work, it will alert them while there is still time to make a course correction.
• If you are on the right track, it gives them the opportunity to confirm your direction and strengthen you in that course.

I can't see any downsides. They're not asking for detailed documentation—just five bullet points. Except in very small businesses, where everyone's contributions (or lack thereof) are obvious, what employee doesn't provide documentation of his work? Shifts worked, trash picked up, papers written, classes taught, code created, meals cooked, patients treated, products sold, houses built, cars repaired—most of us are expected to show evidence of our productivity.

It's harder for the self-employed, which includes those of us who are retired. But it's at least as important. When the worker and the supervisor are the same person, some measurement of our success is essential, for our growth, our progress, and our mental health.

So that's why I'm taking the DOGE Challenge.

Nothing fancy; the idea is simply to take a few minutes during the day to note various things that I've been doing. Then at the end of the week I'll choose the five (or so) most significant. I'll be the sole judge of what's "significant"—see the point above about the worker and the supervisor being the same person.  And I won't promise to share the results here, since they could end up being too personal.

But it's going to be an interesting experiment.

I rarely post the music that our choir sings in church, because our sound system, which works well enough for sermons, is absolutely horrible for music. I have no idea why; Noah, who knows quite about about sound boards, says that ours is fine, better than what he has worked with in his home church. But something is so wrong I rarely can find the strength to listen to our recorded services, much less share them.

Yesterday, when our choir sang Ola Gjeilo's Lux Beata Trinitas, Noah played the oboe part on his clarinet, and recorded the audio on his phone, producing a much better recording, which I am pleased to share. We have sung a few of Gjeilo's choral works, and they are beautiful. Also, on our Viking cruise of the Baltic, we were pleased to discover a number of his instrumental works on the music channel in our stateroom—perhaps because he is Norwegian.

We sang the anthem during Communion. It was sort of a practice run, as we were missing some key choir members, but I think we did pretty well even so! We certainly enjoyed ourselves, and it seemed to be fitting as Communion music.

That's the bill for my first semester of college, in 1970. In 2024 dollars, that would be just under $16,000. (Inflation calculators differ, but not by much.)

Let's not look at the total bill, but annual tuition, which is easier to compare.

• Annual tuition at the University of Rochester in 1970: $2600 
• Approximate equivalent in 2024 dollars: $21,020
• Current annual tuition at the U of R: $65,870

Why is the inflation-adjusted cost of a college education at my alma mater more than three times what it was when I was there?

• Is the education three times better than it was then? (Highly doubtful.)
• Are the professors being paid three times as much? (Not the ones I know.)
• Are the graduates earning three times the salaries? (A quick investigation indicates the entry-level salaries for a position similar to my first job in 1974 are, adjusted for inflation, very similar to mine back then. But that's far from the whole story. I was in a tech field—computing, the early days—where one could easily expect a salary that justified the cost of college. How many of today's graduates can say the same? Today, far more students are "attending college," but studying what they should have learned in high school, and graduating with degrees that give them little hope of commensurate employment.)
• After four years of college, are today's graduates that much more mature, responsible, capable, well-read, well-rounded, generally competent, and prepared for adulthood—employment, marriage, parenthood, and contributing to society? Are they happier and more well-adjusted than we were? (A small minority are very impressive. But for far too many, college has been a tragic waste of both precious time and an obscene amount of money.)

If the parents in each generation always or often knew what really goes on at their sons’ schools, the history of education would be very different. — C. S. Lewis, Surprised by Joy, 70 years ago

Eventually parents are going to wake up to what a poor job colleges are doing. — a math professor friend, 25 years ago

When is this bubble going to burst? — me, now.

I have been making homemade yogurt off and on, using a couple of different yogurt makers, for five decades. Mostly off, because good yogurt is readily available, and it was just so much easier to buy it at the store.

Recently, however, I've fallen into a system that works well for me. And all because my Anova Precision Oven, which we bought for other purposes (sous vide, bread baking), makes it easy to hold the milk at a fermenting-comfortable 110 degrees.

This glass jar, which I conveniently had in my cupboard, holds one quart. I fill it with milk, microwave it to 180 degrees, let it cool to 110 degrees, stir in some yogurt from the previous batch, stick it in the 110-degree oven, and forget it for eight hours or so before putting it in the refrigerator. Voilà: delicious, homemade yogurt! It tastes great, even with no added sweeteners or flavorings, but I especially like it with homemade granola, local raw honey, and fresh fruit. Now if only I had a reliable source of raw milk!

I have used the 180/110 degree settings because that's what one recipe I found specified. In the future, I plan to play around with the temperatures, which I understand changes the thickness and acidity of the end product, but I'm very happy with this as it is.

I usually use about a quarter cup of the previous yogurt batch as the starter for the new one. Recipes I've seen recommend anything from a tablespoon to a cup. I may play around with that, too, but a quarter cup works fine, and a cup sure seems excessive. Possibly the larger quantity make the process faster, but eight hours works for me.

I took my initial starter from a tub of Stonyfield Organic plain whole milk yogurt, which has been my favorite for years.

Recently, the Stonyfield yogurt was buy-one-get-one at Publix, the price at which I wouldn't hesitate to snap up a couple of quarts. This time, I wondered: should I grab some, even though I now make my own? Here are my calculations:

Publix prices:

• Publix milk: $4.79/gallon. One quart makes approximately one quart of yogurt.
• Stonyfield plain yogurt: $5.25/quart
• Yoplait plain yogurt: $3.39 (Publix yogurt was just a little less, but I forgot to write it down.)
• Stonyfield plain yogurt, BOGO: $2.63/quart
• Homemade yogurt: approximately $1.20/quart, not taking into account the electricity used, nor the value of my time; it takes very little of either.

Even at BOGO prices, making yogurt at home is a great deal. I'm so happy to have figured this out. It's amazing what a difference finding the right tool or procedure can make!

Whatever you think about Facebook, there's no doubt it can be unintentionally amusing

I mostly find its "Reels" feature to be annoying, and have more than once looked without success for a way to turn it off completely. The short videos it shows are mostly reposted from Tik Tok, which I don't otherwise see. Sometimes they are interesting, sometimes they are genuinely informative and helpful, but all too often I find them infused with a negative view of life, even when they are undeniably—even addictively—entertaining.

Sometimes, however, something unexpected shows up and catches my eye.

If you don't have access to Facebook, you may not be able to watch the video, unfortunately. I spent too much time trying to find a version I could embed here, without success. I hope that link will take you to something you can see, but if not, it doesn't matter.

My readers know that one of our granddaughters plays on her high school girls' soccer team, and that the team has been wonderfully encouraging and supportive of her family during her sister's leukemia journey.

Here's another way they showed their character.

What caught my eye (more accurately, ear) in this video, and made me listen all the way through, was that it's not often when I hear mention of their tiny New Hampshire high school in nationwide media. I think this is the only time I have, actually. So it made me jump.

The short version of the story is that some of the team members did not want to play against a certain other team on their schedule, which included a boy in their lineup. First, in principle, because theirs is a girls' league, not a mixed one, and also because they found the boy physically threatening. The team's coach handled the situation extremely well: those girls who objected to playing that game were excused without any penalty, and the team played the game without any fuss. Somehow it made the news anyway, but I'm proud of the way they handled the situation calmly and fairly.

Our granddaughter? She played the game, with the support of her parents, even though they all thought it unfair for a boy to be on the opposing team. Why? I can't speak for them, but here are a few reasons that came up in our discussion:

• After all she's been through, Faith wanted to support her team, and to play soccer.
• It wasn't the other team's fault that they had a boy on the team—it was a state ruling that forced them to do so.
• Boys and girls often play successfully on the same soccer team—although that's usually at the younger levels, before males gain a significant physical advantage over females.
• They've played against other teams with girls she found more physically threatening than this boy.

The game was played successfully and without incident. I honestly don't remember which team won. In a way, they both did. Don't misunderstand me: The teams should never have been placed in this position, and the state rule that made it happen needs to be fixed.

But bad things happen in this life, and when they are met with quiet grace, that deserves to be celebrated.

These are the preliminary results of Grace's MRI. The NF1 team isn't available on Wednesdays, but the oncology team was merciful and gave them what they knew. You can get more details on the Daley Ponderings post.

As previously mentioned, Heather noticed a spot in Grace's ear last summer, and when the NF1 doctors heard about it, they were concerned that it might be a plexiform neurofibroma, and so scheduled an MRI for today to take a closer look. While it has shrunk on the surface, it is still there inside her ear canal, and they officially diagnosed it today. It is a benign tumor, like most NF1 tumors that she is at risk for. Typically, they will grow and cause problems as they bump into other things, though sometimes they stop growing and might not need anything done, and really rarely, especially in children, can shrink and/or disappear.

The great news is that it doesn't appear to be impacting her brain at all. In all likelihood, however, it is the cause of the mild hearing loss in Grace's right ear that has been observed consistently since before her transplant, but was always attributed to something else, such as her having a cold or recovering from covid. And once again, it was Heather who noticed the spot in Grace's ear, though it took months for the doctors to become concerned. How on earth do doctors decide when something needs to be looked into, and when "wait and see" is the better option? Sometimes intervention works best when it's done soonest—and sometimes it really is best not to intervene at all. I think teachers must have the same dilemma.

I'm very glad that one of Grace's doctors specializes in both oncology and NF1; I suspect she will be getting notified directly of everything medical that happens to Grace from now on, because communication amongst doctors doesn't appear to be all that it should be. The NF1 specialists, by the way, are at Dartmouth, not Boston, which is a much more manageable drive for the Daleys. It's shorter, for one thing—and there's no Boston traffic to deal with.

Hopefully today we'll see what the NF1 team has to say. They already have an audiology/otolaryngology appointment scheduled for March 4, and hope to get both oncology and NF1 doctors involved as well for a group discussion of what the next step should be.

Now for two fun stories from yesterday's adventures.

The oncologist confirmed that Grace is "one in a million," saying that she had never heard of a three-year-old undergoing an MRI without sedation (which was my [Jon's] request), and she did a terrific job. She winced once at a loud noise, and then fell asleep to the soothing sounds of the MRI. (And that is sarcasm, if you couldn't tell.) She twitched a little as she fell asleep, but her head had some padding around it to hold it steady, and I was told the pictures came out great.

Grace had been nervous about "going into the machine," but I know no one better than Jon at calming a child who is angry, fearful, or upset. And Grace has had more than a year of practice at lying still for medical procedures. I suspect that a good part of the reason the doctor had never seen nor even heard of a child that age not requiring sedation is that most parents don't know it's an option. Just as I finally discovered that dental procedures and colonoscopies go much better without anesthesia, but few dentists or doctors give patients this option. Kudos to Grace, and kudos to her parents for their strength in following through with what they knew was best.

They gave her a stuffed unicorn to keep her company in the MRI, and she named it Candy Corn. And she insists that it isn't a boy or girl, but just "Candy Corn," which has caused much debate among the kids about whether she understands the question, or whether unicorns have a different set of genders...

Now you know why unicorns are extinct.