I plant oats and we have an incredible thunderstorm

Twenty years ago I farmed twice the acres and I generally got things done.

This year has been a struggle. You would think I could plant 40 acres in a week before getting rained out.

Friday we had thunderstorms. I didn't really believe it would rain. The sunset Thursday was spectacular.

 

You think the nice weather will never end, until it rains, and then you think the rain will never end.

I plowed the 35 acre field that is getting 20 acres of alfalfa, and my nephew worked it down. I fought with the no-till drill. There was nothing wrong with the drill. Other than one little thing after another.

I have experimented quite a bit with planting wrenches and drill hardware. I can never get a reliable yield. Maybe the pH is off...

 

The extra ground plus another 10 acres is going into oats for hay. I had 3,000 lbs of Baylor oats that I got from my neighbor for feed. They were out of the bottom of the cleaning bin and were like 20 percent dust. I just rigged up a fan and dumped the bag into a bin while blowing air on the stream. This was sort of successful. Successful in covering me and the forklift with oat dust.

I figured if I had 20 acres to plant and 3,000 lbs I would set the drill at 150lb and all would be fine. I was going to put 8 gals of 10-34 fertilizer on but when I called for a price I discovered 10-34 was over $4 per gallon. 

But, we had a plastic tote with 150 gallons of greenish liquid that smelled like ammonia so I put 200 gallons of water with that and decided to pretend that was 10-34. It did make me feel better.

Of course the fertilizer rate controller would not work. I got from no-flow up to 20 gal per acre and the drill wouldn't lift. I fought with the hydraulics, switched hoses, then the fertilizer pump started leaking. Fresh rebuild so apparently I ran it dry... Ace POS pump...

Finally I checked the nozzles on the fertilizer boom. I am probably the only person on the planet who still uses a Blumhardt boom. For some strange reason I had a mix of blue pink and purple! I think the blues are drilled to purple so what ever I was doing I was putting a lot of fertilizer on. I have absolutely no idea...

I replaced with yellow and suddenly I was metering at 8 gal per acre with no issues at all. Other than the by switching hoses I manage to get the down pressure not to work properly.

I powered through.

The last four acres took most of Friday. I ran out of oat seed. Apparently there was a little more dust than I expected. I found a bag of Cayuse Oats from Derry Warehouse which was very clean. Cleaner than what we put into storage. 

I was using a dry fertilizer bin from Valley Ag to fill the drill. When I climbed up to look inside it was full of dust. So I dumped they Cayuse in to maybe dilute the mess. It sort of worked. I think I ended up planting about 250lbs per acre of the Cayuse. 

This is what happens when you don't check the seed rate. This is also pretty sad as I have a population monitor which I paid no attention until the "low seed  row 8," alarm would go off.

Oregon State University may not agree with me but, 250lbs per acre is actually an idea rate for Oat hay. I do not want thick stems. High Population should give skinny stems and more leaves. Or it will just get extremely rank and lodge and make crappy, wet, yellow, nasty oat hay which no one will buy and mill attract rats...

But, I digress... 

I rebuilt the middle valve on the stack, about four times. Finally I mixed in parts from my spare valve and it started working. But I also took the pioneer quick connect apart so who knows what fixed it.

You can almost completely rebuild the hydraulic valves on a pre-twentyfirst century White tractor without removing the valve stack. I wonder if the valves leaked from the factor... I have never seen a non-leaking White tractor.

 

I cleaned out the drill and went looking for my nephew who was rolling the worked ground. I found him just has the points came out of adjustment for the fifth (5) time on his Minneapolis-Moline Z. We put the flat roller on the White 2-155 and he took off to see his girl friend.

I rolled the no-tilled ground with the double corrugated roller as while they were calling for showers this week, I never really believe the weather man any more. I was one pass from finishing when the clouds opened up and we got rain. 

I managed to leave a trail of mud down the highway, which was promptly washed away.

My pickup was sitting in the worked field with a trailer containing a rather heavy air compressor. It took all my years of getting stuck experience to get out of that field without leaving too many ruts.

It was a nice day... 

The rainbow ends at my sort of well off neighbor's place. Or does it began?

We had a double rainbow which was complete with both ends. Wouldn't fit the iPhone viewfinder. The end is missing the shed with my pellet mill and the bags of Super Chick N that were being hit by the sideways rain blowing into my shed. Story of my life... 

 

A view I haven't seen in 20 years

Yesterday I plowed. 

I should have looked more closely at the weather forecast. It is raining today. This is the worst thing that can happen on our soil. It will turn dry and card on top and stay wet underneath. It will be a mess...

We are planting alfalfa so thought it was time to plow. There is a definite hard pan. We do have a decent four bottom rollover plow but it requires singles and a fair amount of front end weights.

I drug the old Melroe 911 plow out of the bushes for this misadventure.  When Herschel went out of business we bought a set of plow shares for the Melroe as they were the last place you could buy them. The old shares were so bad it would no longer go in the ground.

So why would we use a pull plow in the 21st Century?

Because I was too lazy to pull the duals off the White 2-155 FWA and the 2-135 has developed issues once again.  Also the 2-155 I was going to use has a leak in the lower 3 point arm seal and I don't feel like working on it. Have to keep the duals on the 2-155 I use for no-till as that is going to happen as soon as the next field drys out. 

Also, I wanted to use the G1355 which doesn't have three point but it was stuck on the pellet mill and didn't have the dual tires. 

Now that is a pathetic way to farm.

This is a five bottom Melroe 911. It is actually plowing level. Supposedly it is 5 18" bottoms but it appears to have 16's on a frame built for 18's. They are the AC bottoms which are not as good as the Moline/Oliver bottoms. It is pulling very hard in our clay soil. I went from 3.2 mph to 4.1 mph by tightening up number 3 injector line. I think fuel consumption is around 10 gal per hr. I swear I can see the fuel gauge needle slowly and steadily move towards empty...

A rambling post about a bag of cookies, frustration, and what makes a good YouTube video

I have been outed once again! Well, not so much outed as acknowledged. Someone left a bag of cookies in my pickup and the bag says Lazy Farmer.

This could just be a commentary on how much I got done this winter or perhaps it is a direct reference to this bog. It is probably because I am so complementary towards all my neighbors. 

Excellent cookies! I have seen this packaging before. Sometimes it would show up in my truck when I had a real job...

 

Speaking of outed...

I was talking to the taco stand owner at lunch yesterday. His daughter's went to Linfield University. There is actually a trend. Someone should research it... One of the things Linfield HR said I had to remove from this blog was the commentary on what would happen when the Hispanic community figured out that sending their sweet daughters to Linfield to become nurses would actually result in them coming home with a girlfriend, crippling student debt, and an OnlyFans account. This guys daughters did not go to those extremes, but they came back with the liberal bullshite. They ain't working in no Taco stand. It's breaking his heart, not as much that they won't work in the restaurant, its that they are rejecting their father (IMHO). We had a good talk. There are certain things that don't exactly translate but you absolutely understand.

The University of course does this on purpose. It is socialization. The point isn't to educate but to indoctrinate. It isn't about getting a classical liberal education with your nursing degree. It is about separating the student from unearned income and changing their world perspective. 

Speaking of world perspective. I have been trying to boost my YouTube channel. I have been using AI to analyze why some videos instantly get 1000 hits and some only 35. I have not figured this out.

I have edited the description and tags on this video numerous times and no hits.

 

 

Rosco has always brought in the views but no with this video 

 

However, this short with similar subject matter-Rosco and an old truck, has over 1000 and that was in the first day.

 

 

This is an example of a Short which just keeps getting views. Rosco vs 1964 Ford pickup. Rosco wins... 

 

The short with the Detroit 6V-92 going downhill has like 3,000 hits. Keywords like Detroit Diesel, Minneapolis-Moline, G1355, and Cunningham Hay Conditioner, seem to bring in a lot of views. Especially if it is in a short. 

But I am a long way from becoming a Tristian Swartz. Perhaps I should take up smoking?

 

I do like this guy on YouTube, seems like a decent sort. Doesn't just talk at the camera!

 

This is the one YouTube Channel I actually watch. I know I need to click on more videos to build my feed and make friends who will click on my videos. But I don't... Other than Benny Hill videos and racist cartoons. That pretty much skews my algorithm. 

 

Stupid things Republicans believe that keep them from ever winning elections

I have found the No Kings protests pretty depressing. The left is so well organized and funded it is impossible to see anything but a future run by bluehairedfeckingidiots, (genuine term). 

The thing is, the people at the top don't care about ICE shooting people in general. They see it as an opportunity to win power and are quite happy that ICE is willing to shoot people because they are going to use that in the future. 

There is no real organized and effective opposition. This is the way power is transferred from one group to another. We think we are fighting about belief. They and fighting about power. The Old White Guy group is doing the same last gasp efforts as every other failing power group. No lessons have been learned from history.

Trump could have pulled off a reprieve but we all knew what we were getting. The wannabe right wing of this county doesn't have the balls to actually deport illegals, or remove ethnic groups that want game the system and impose their violent religious extremism, or just shut down the violent anarchists and socialists that claim to be anti fascists. Or even just dump the Eptstein files. Instead Trump gets himself in a war by listening to the intelligence agencies he previously called, "The Deep State," and manages to just fumble away the midterms and create a powerful opposition group.

Conservatives don't organize or create a network to build on the new Trump voters. No they ignore every opportunity for success. Then they downplay what is the incredible triumph of a handful of NGO's, college professors, and one old dude with a billion dollars and they say the No Kings Rally is just "paid protestors." No Kings is an absolutely incredible example of political organization. People will be studying this in mass communication class for years.

Just basic research shows that No Kings is not paid protestors nor is it an organic freedom and social justice movement. No, it is a project by established progressive organizations including, Indivisible, Project 50501, MoveOn provided the messaging, analytics, media and training resources.  

Here is a link so you can read about it. (Obviously, if you are a progressive you will deny this research.) 

It is a classic leftist coalition of “like minded,” people and organizations. Sort of a expanded version of the cell type organizing systems of the past. These people are very communication savvy and understand the internet and have years of advertising and propaganda experience. Plus allies in education and media.

When you are talking well funded organizations you have the ACLU, Democrat Socialists, American Federation of Teachers, MoveOn, the whole Democratic Party, and others.

Then it drops down to regional and local groups. The Rural Organizing Project is one that operated a lot in this area, you have formerly Christian Churches, College activist groups, and then seemingly endless supply of old people that remember Berkley and getting nailed by a longhair or banging a hippie chick in 1960, or just reading about it and taking old people meds.

There is no one head to the snake, it is just a group of like minded people whose new religion is Confirmation Bias, but they just call it Truth. Knock off Soros and five other less well know leftists will take his place. Or they will just step up the funding from Argentina or China or Iran.

Likewise there is no reason to pay protestors. The protestors essentially pay to play through their donations to the local fundraising groups or the church offering. 

Those who are getting paid would be people who make it their career to be protest leaders or community organizers. Sure the signs look professional because they are professionally made. Do you think they are going to use crayon? This is no evidence. Don't diminish the opposition. It is a classic fail. 

What is the Republican response? There does not seem to be any conservative millionaires funding similar projects in my neighborhood like has been done with leftists for the local county board of commissioners or school boards.

Self proclaimed conservative activists, Candace Owens and Tucker Carlson blame Israel. Trump makes jokes about paid protestors and says thanks for making me King. (It was funny last year)

There was a little hope with Charlie Kirk but he was offed by the sexual deviant community and there is no one else. (or mossad-which is probably the same thing)  It all just fragmented into crazy conspiracy and self monetizing talking heads. There is no right wing in this country despite what the lunatic left says.

You would think that with the amount of time these conservative conspiracy nuts spend on the computer they could map out the progressive organizing strategy and learn from it. No Republican organizer that I know has read "Rules for Radicals," or looked at The Little Red book, or really got much beyond "George Soros is a real bastard," or those Democrats cheated in the election.

No, there is no widespread voter fraud, that is a fantasy to explain why we loose every election in Oregon. We don't vote, we don't have a system set up to groom local conservative candidates for local School Boards, County Commissioners, State Rep, and move them on up.

We don't have conservatives in the media skewing every story to a conservative point of view, we don't have chat rooms, private facebook groups, or weird online sex freaks to groom kids.

I need to go to work but I think my point boils down to this...

The group with the best propaganda advertising is going to win and they will come after the opposition. The left never forgets an enemy. We have 200 years worth of examples...

 

Unfortunately, there is no actual "right wing" in this country.  

I must NOT listen to Lars Larsen this afternoon. I may break my earbuds... 

I have the worlds slowest unloading auger. 

 

 

Adventures in Fertilizer Spreading Continue until I become bored with the subject and end the post abruptly with no real conclusion of anything (because the screen says "Your mac will go to sleep soon unless plugged in," and I need to go to work

Spreading fertilizer is a necessity. I know that the regenerative agriculture folks and the aggressive salesmen from HGS BioScience and the emerging Biostimulant Industry are pushing certain mythologies which like all legends, are based in important truth, but the most practical way to get yield is though N-P-K.

I lack an ag science degree and it shows. But I have Doane's Handbook from 1970 and it tells me Alfalfa takes a lot of Potassium every cutting and somehow I need to put it back. 

But I digress...

I wanted to finish my fertilizer spreader story from yesterday, while it still seems funny to me.

I left my gentle readers hanging with a road race story involving a diesel pickup and an 1970s LN8000 with a 6V-71 Detroit louder than the Plasmatics at a Bar Mitzvah, more pleasant to listen to than The Legendary Cowboy standing in a trashcan, and faster than a speeding min-bike. (at top speed maybe, obviously not in the quarter mile) 

I brought the spreader home empty as I figured that I needed to try it out before filling it with fertilizer. This proved to be a good plan.

The PTO did not easily slide, simple fix with PB Blaster. The PTO shield was pretty much shot but who needs safety features, little did I know this would result in wrapping up the pull rope multiple times.

I connected spreader to White 2-155 as it has a nice cab, a heater and ac, a radio, and will pull the POS spreader buried to the axles  has GPS and good flotation. When I pulled the trip rope no response. I sprayed PB Blaster on the trip mechanism, hit it repeatedly with a hammer, and adjusted the Bungie Cord that has replaced the spring on the trip bar. It is a particularly nice Bungie Cord with actual holes for the hook molded into the rubber so you can adjust the tension in important uses like replacing springs on farm equipment.

By the time I was finished with the fine tuning it was dark and I didn't load up.

The next morning I loaded up and was off to the races. So to speak... 

I did discover the spreader had an auto application feature that if harnessed properly would be a handy thing. As it was, randomly turning on and off was a bit of a frustration. I sorted that out with the hammer and once I knocked a little rust scale off the trip functioned better. 

But, the pattern was off. I think...

I was spreading 46 percent Urea on Orchardgrass for hay. I feel like we should be using 38-0-0-7 but everyone has stopped doing that. The guy at the fertilizer plant was asking me about that as I used to always get 38 for my hay fields. We stopped because 46 was cheaper and he said he didn't think it was anymore. 

But I digress..

Urea is bright white so I can see the pattern. I set the spreader by driving so the edge of the fertilizer hits the center of the last pass. The width is supposed to be 35 feet but I was only getting 32 feet at 540 rpm according to the computer.  Not wanting to run the tractor wide open I set the width on the GPS to 32 feet. 540 PTO on the 2-155 is around 1700 RPM on the tach. (This will prove to be a problem later when I get irritated and keep inching the throttle wider.)

The trip quits again. I am going back and forth. When I turn around  I pull the trip to shut off the chain and pull the trip again when I am turned so the chain starts. I can see it start but when I turn myself around to drive it shuts off and I don't know for like 100 feet. Eventually I get tired of getting out and I just leave the drive on. So I have a weird pattern. 

I can still see the fertilizer trail from the box that leaked last year.

Now what I should have done was call my friend that work at the fertilizer place and tell him my issues. Did I do that?

Nope...

I wanted to keep going and get it done before the rain! So instead of stopping and getting help like any sane person I just kept going like the grumpy and stubborn old coot I have degenerated into.

 

 By Saturday the feed chain was refusing to turn on with a full load. I took the main drive out to change fields. On this trip back, the little clip busted which keeps the lever disengaged and it dropped down and the drive started. I would not start in the field but I started on the road. Fortune was with me! I had a zip tie!

 

 

I fixed the latch mechanism with a strategically applied stainless steel hoseclamper! This exposed another problem. The main drive chain would also randomly skip and this was why my field acres and lbs applied kept changing. There will be "test strips."

 

 

Not having employees and having to worry about safety inspectors I was not worried about the bad PTO cover. I did not plan on wrapping my flowing skirt and long hair in the PTO shaft. However! The pull rope started catching on the shredded plastic and then wrapping on the shaft. Happened a couple times before I figured out just to swap ends of the PTO shield and have the shredded end on the tractor side. I am resourceful!

Injury was added to insult when the pin came out in the middle of a mudhole. Yes, you cannot see the two inches of water beneath the tractor but it is there. Fortunately I connected the safety chains just in case of such an unforeseen happenstance. Not sure how the safety clip came out but it did. Must be a common occurrence as it is tied to the tongue with baler twine.

 

 

No Peace in the Valley, 60 days of fertilizer failures, out of nine lives I've spent seven... Actually only four days but it seemed like a lot more... Another obscure song reference to drop my readership

Farming seems to be a series of cascading failures.  Somehow you over come them but only with sheer determination and sketchy practices. 

Fix it or walk two miles has always been a motivator, or in this case, fix it or dig 5,000lbs of 46 out of a bin with a five gallon bucket...

I think it is something kids are not learning nowadays. 

I have been attempting to spread fertilizer. I think I did about 170 acres since last Friday. It has been a struggle.

Our local fertilizer plant provides Wilmar double-spinner ground drive spreaders for their customers. Last year they decided to start charging per day as people tend to take the spreaders and never bring them back. This money, I was told, was to provide maintenance on the spreaders. 

I hooked the White 2-155 FWA to the spreader this year for the benefit of GPS FWA and horsepower. I did not get stuck. Sadly the spreader may have left ruts in one or two hay fields. I should have waited two weeks. But last year we did that and it never rained again. This is Oregon

 

I have not noticed an improvement in spreader performance from two years ago... Not to be a crank...

I took the quiet Louisville, (1974 Ford LN8000 with a inline 671 Detroit and a 13 speed) to get the power bin. This will hold 10,000lbs of 46-0-0. We are too poor to be able to afford 38-0-0-7 like in the old days. By the time I get the box on the truck and loaded with fertilizer it will be close to 4 p.m. and I thought I had the spreader reserved for the morning.

I as I was leaving I saw the office lady and asked to reserve the bin. She said I needed to get it now as people just hooked up to them and took off with out telling anyone. Said they were going to put GPS trackers on them so they could at least find them again.

So I cruised home at high speed, actually got it up to 45 mph on Hwy 99W before I had to start slowing down for my road. 

When I was pulling out onto 99W I was a bit cautious. It is always embarrassing to miss the split right in front of the office so I didn't want to speed shift. Plus, this truck is slow with even a measly 10,000lbs. So, I did check both directions carefully. I even checked Northbound lanes so I could swing wide.

Just before the first corner I had time to check my mirrors and I saw a Dodge Dualie 4wd big arsed pickup coming up behind me fast. I continued with my shifting. Meaning, I kept my foot to the floorboards per usual shifting Detroit Diesel shifting instructions. The pickup kept comming...

I was just thinking about hitting fifth (gear 11?) and solidly into the corner when I glanced out the window and saw the pickup truck neck and neck with me and a Tesla coming head on. I decided to just split shift this one and opted for gear 4.5 (10?) rather than risk and embarrassing no-clutch shift gear grinding in the midst of a serious race.

The Tesla headed for the ditch and the pickup truck zoomed on by. When he got in front of me he raised a clenched fist out the back window. My windshield was dirty so I don't know if it was raised in triumph or anger or if he was telling me I was number one!

My stop was just ahead so it was time to start downshifting anyway so I really didn't spend a lot of time guessing. I turned into my road home and pulled over to let anyone else behind me go around as I really feel bad about inspiring suicidal drivers.

I went back with the pickup to pick up the spreader. 

I should have known better than to take spreader number six. But, I saw the liberal amounts of grease applied and I visualized success. 

As I was leaving with the spreader behind my pickup the super helpful hispanic guy (who I can finally understand after a decade) suggested I fill up to save a trip. 

I thought about my favorite quote from Ronald Reagan, "Trust but verify..." I opted to bring the spreader home empty.

This was a sensible plan. What would have been an even better plan would have been to pull the drive trip in the parking lot to see if the drive engaged, and to pull out the PTO shaft to make sure it wasn't stuck, and to make a sharp turn on the pavement to see if the drive axle would shift two inches to the right and knock off the drive chain. 

But I didn't do that...

Suffering was to follow...

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHMp_HV6a4s

"The Shape I'm In," has been stuck in my head for a week. Perhaps I can pass the pain on to someone else...

I trouble shoot a parasitic battery drain and fail. Also don't like cities and go off topic several times

 I am not becoming more tolerant. 

Yesterday I made an hour and a half trip to work on my daughter's roommate's car. There are three friends from college living in a big old house in Eugene. They are just off I-5 and behind them is an old hippie Co-OP from the 1970's that has been renovated into a shithole.

Actually Eugene is pretty much a shithole. 

I propose that shithole be included into Websters this year. It would be a proper noun describing a place infested with dirty hippies, hookers, homeless, meth addicts, strip clubs, porn shops, used record stores, crappy food trucks, medical marijuana shops, and bitchy old white women with stupid sandals and boyish haircuts holding up anti Trump signs. Probably could change the pronounciation to Shitehole' and it would give it an illegal immigrant feel.

Eugene is a desert island of commie shit heads in an ocean of people who work for their living. The landscape instantly changes. I never thought I would be saying Junction City or Coburg would be a better place to live. But as soon as you are out of the smell of Medical Marijuana dispensaries you see less trash and people working for their living.

We walked down to the Thai restaurant down the street. She does live in a handy location with a bus line and food with in walking distance. Also, meth and weed and a liquor store. The Thai food was good. I like noodles. I got my Pad Thai a little warm and broke out in a sweat to everyone's amusement. 

But, I digress...

The car is a 2004 Honda Accord and it has a parasitic draw on the battery. I unplugged the alternator and still got a spark connecting the ground. I started unplugging fuses but that was a fools errand. 

Some "friendly" car bros stopped with their Hellcat Charger Orange hot car to see if we needed help. I briefly reconsidered my reluctance to get a concealed carry permit. Sometimes I would feel more secure with the 19ll. As usual a little cheerful banter changed the day.

I changed the battery and gave daughter a voltage tester and said if it dropped below 12 volts by Sunday to call me.

I have a friend from College who lives a little south of Eugene on the way to Mt. Pisgah. Mt. Pisgah is a sore subject for my buddy. Apparently it used to have private access and somehow the county or state got a hold of it and now charges access. 

My buddy likes to fish near there and forgets/ignores parking passes and got a $150 fine. He was pissed and refused to pay. He confided, "I think my sister secretly paid it because she was afraid I would go to jail." 

I had called him before going to Eugene and he stopped by to offer help. He has been having tractor issues and I have been promising to help him. So I went to his place to see if we could figure out why his tractor wouldn't start.

It was a physical relief getting out of town... 

He has a John Deere 3038 compact tractor with a loader that his dad bought years ago.  When you turn the key to run position the solenoids activate and the fuel pump starts. Nothing on the start circuit. 

We check the jumper wire under the seat, still connected. Checked the electric PTO. PTO circuit supplied power to the dash when on. We found the neutral safety  switch buried under the floor boards. There is no brake switch with this model.

It is probably the starter switch as this is a known issue.

He wanted to take me to dinner and introduce me to his new wife. 

We went to McShanes Bar and Grill which is right at his access off of I-5. He said he discovered it when he had to exercise last winter. It was the mid point of his walk were he could have a Coors Light and turn around for home.

We had a pint of Guinness  and Fish and Chips. The newest Mrs. D is very nice. We also got to witness sex trafficking and a drug deal. There was a cute barely legal cowgirl hooker in a white leather mini and a lace top and cowboy boots. Straight out of the CMA awards and a nasty methed out girl who had obvious bruises and a twitch. The pimp was a 30 something Bro-looking sort of hispanic guy with track pants and sandals. We got to see the hot girls underwear or lack there of. 

You just end up feeling unclean. So we started talking about college... 

I found it even more depressing to talk about George Fox University. My friend stays in touch with all our classmates and I don't. My daughter and her roommates are all George Fox graduates or at least were there until COVID. There is a certain institutional cynicism that runs just below the surface of everyone but the five percent who met their perfect spouse and live in a marriage blessed by God or who got actually got a real job.

Of the five friends I have from Fox I think I am the only one who is still married to the person they dated in college but we got married years later so I am not sure we even count. 

I am also not sure any of my friends still even make a pretense of attending Church and I am even more convinced that their kids do not. I don't know if this makes more of a statement about us or about Christian Higher Education. 

When I contrast this with people I have reacquainted myself with from High School I find more permanent marriages and higher genuine relationships with God. Christian Colleges attract a lot of dumbasses. You get cynical. 

The second day my daughter was at GFU this lady approaches her and says God has something special for her. She gives her a bubbly speech about having a special purpose and calls her by name. So, this lady was a couple years younger than me, and apparently never left GFU. When we were signing in I had one of those talks with her where you don't quite remember who she was but you should.  I had laughed about it with my daughter. So when she was approached with a personal speech my daughter thought maybe she figured out who we were and was kind of expecting some connection. The lady hands her a pink Bible and did not remember her dad. In fact, after a week she didn't remember my daughter. 

To some people this fills them with happiness and a feeling of acceptance. To others it is the start of cynicism...

Speaking of cynicism. I need to go spread fertilizer.  

While I was attempting to extract myself from parking I see this truck pull into the street. This is a two way street but not really. The thing is, there really is no good outlet. This was a typical GoogleMaps misadventure and he was there for quite a while. There was just enough room for me to extract myself without using excessive amounts of sidewalk space. I am probably not going to move to the big city anytime soon...