Every hair on the back of my neck stood on end all the way to the top of my head.

I was totally creeped out.

What could do that?  Well, folks, I forced myself to re-read George Orwell’s “1984” again.  I am not a fan of Orwell and had not read this book since high school, but it is an important book that everyone should read.  It is not a great book and has a couple of boring spots, one of which is a twenty-four page book-within-a-book that basically seems to outline Orwell’s own philosophies and socialist ideas.  Keep reading though.  Even this has a part to play in the overall book itself.

I have said that I think everyone should read it, and I really think you should, even if some of the scenes disturb you.  That is the idea.  If you are one of those Christians that do not read any fiction or your whole reading background up to this point has been “Christian Romance” then you probably will find this book both disturbing and disturbed but, even so, I think it is important.

I also think Orwell must have been a load of fun at parties.

“It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.”  And so we are introduced to the book and the main character, Winston Smith, a member of The Party.  With pictures everywhere of Big Brother watching you, we enter his life.  Everywhere there are “telescreens” that are switched on continually and blather out the official news that the party wants you to hear.  They are more than receivers, however, they are also transmitters so the Thought Police can observe your every action.  They are trained in psychology and the reading of even the minutest detail of facial expression and can predict what you think better than if they could merely read your mind.  They can tell when you are going to commit a crime before you have even decided to do it.  Even if you have only had a bad thought you can be arrested and taken to the Ministry of Love. 

There are four such ministries…Oh man!  I had the book sitting on the top of the smallest pile of stuff on my desk so I could reference it for a couple of quotes and went to look for it to verify the names of the four ministries and the book is gone!  My heart started racing and my blood pressure went up.  You can say that’s stupid and illogical, but that just means you haven’t read the book.  Whew.  I found it in a different pile.  It’s not where I remember leaving it, however.

Okay.  There are four ministries which run the country, The Ministry of Love, The Ministry of Truth, The Ministry of Peace and The Ministry of Plenty.  The Ministry of Truth is where Winston works.  His job is to make sure the news says exactly what the party wants it to say even if that means going back and changing stories that had appeared before.  You make sure that there are no existing copies and/or have them all recalled, then rewrite the story to whatever fits the needs of the party.  The Ministry of Peace is concerned with the ongoing war efforts, the Ministry of Plenty controls the economic indicators and the Ministry of Love is where the Thought Police do their business of correcting aberrant behavior, such as thinking bad thoughts, like there may be something wrong with this system.

“Thoughts and actions which, when detected, mean certain death are not formally forbidden, and the endless purges, arrests, tortures, imprisonments and vaporizations are not inflicted as punishment for crimes which have actually been committed, but are merely the wiping-out of persons who might perhaps commit a crime at some time in the future.”

While I read this book, with the mustachioed Big Brother watching me, I thought of Saddam Hussein, The Taliban, Hitler, Iran, Communist China and the former Soviet Union Communists.  Their total power over people’s lives, the way dissenting voices were and are dealt with, and their proclamations of how their countries are full of peace and plenty parallel closely with this book.  Look at how Saddam had worked himself into all of the history books and compare that to the revisionist historians in our own country that want to rewrite the lives of our founding fathers and take any mention of God out of their lives.  Notice how they dwell on the character flaws that each one had and not the greatness, strength of character and faith that was required to pull off a rebellion such as they did.

Could the United States ever become Oceania?  I think that any time a political party wants the government to be in charge of something rather than the individual, we are at danger.  Obviously we must have laws, but the more the government gets involved in anything, the more dangerous it is and the more detrimental to society as a whole.  While I was standing in one of the ridiculously long lines at the driver’s license bureau the man behind me, we had been in line together for two hours at this time, told me that he had visited Communist and Socialist countries and this was what it was like to do anything.  Want food?  Stand in line for your ration.  Need medicine or a doctor?  Get in line.  Get the government out of it and the opposite happens.  Grocery stores and convenience stores and bookstores pop up everywhere.  There is competition and prices go down, service goes up.  If the government ran a bookstore, there would be many titles that would be hard to get.  1984 might be one of them.

Read the book.  Don’t read anything that might give away the ending, like introductions, prefaces, etc, but start at chapter one, “It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.” And read to the end, the last four words.  Don’t cheat yourself by sneaking a peek (I had to cover the last paragraph with a 3x5 card to avoid doing that) but just read it, even through the boring and tedious parts.  Maybe your skin won’t crawl and the hair on the back of your head may not stand on end, and perhaps you will come to hate Orwell and his writing as much as I do, but your way of thinking and the way you see the world will change.

A final note to Christians who may have read the “Left Behind” series (I am not criticizing the authors, necessarily, who have made a pretty penny on the books, merely an idea that Christians may develop from them) and somehow have gotten in your head the idea that you will be able to avoid the Mark of the Beast and survive the Great Tribulation, forget it.  If you cannot live for God now, with His Spirit in the world, you will never last.  NO gentile will be saved after the Church is raptured or more accurately, “caught away”.  NONE.  If you think you somehow will, read 1984.  Orwell was not writing with a Christian audience in mind and to what little I know of him did not believe, but there is a definite application here.  Read this book and think about modern technology, GPS, the Internet, tracking chips for animals which are now being recommended for Alzheimer’s patients and many other advances above and beyond television, spycam style webcams for instance and you will see, NO gentile will avoid The Mark.

¹⁶And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads: ¹⁷And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name. ¹⁸Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.  Revelation 13:16-18

I am going to read “Hank The Cowdog in Let Sleeping Dogs Lie” next.

They moved the baby back to the first NICU she started in.  The one she had moved to was for babies that didn’t need as much attention and she was "de-statting" too much.  That means that her instrument panel was going off too much.  Her oxygen drops, etc.  She also threw up one of the bottles they gave her.  No, I don’t think anyone showed her a picture of Carter, but that could do it.

She has the "burp" tube back down in her stomach, which was to catch the acids from her reflux.  The feeding tube down her nose had to be moved back to her mouth as well because she was getting nosebleeds.

Oh well.  I don’t know what this means as far as holding her goes but I am sure it is a rule of the upstairs NICU.  *heavy sigh*  Alas and alack! 

I pick on Carter, but he is a good soldier and a good friend and you all would appreciate our country being defended by the likes of him.  (He still owes me $5 and that should prompt payment.)

As the good book says, "Life is full of ups and downs, so sometimes you gotta go sideways."

*Contented, happy sigh*  I was in the shower this afternoon and Margaret came in and she was crying so immediately I assume something bad but she says, “Can we go up to the hospital right away so I can hold the baby?”  She had just got off the phone with Ben and Isabel and found out that they are moving her to a less intensive Intensive Care Unit and more family members get to hold her now.  Of course we dashed up there lickety-split.  We actually got there before they had even started moving her.

Margaret held her first, but I couldn’t stand it.  I had to make sure I got to hold her, too.  So I sat and held her for a long time then Margaret got another turn.  A mere slip of a girl, she is a whopping 3 lbs 6 oz now.  She was so light it was almost like you were holding an imaginary baby, except you could see her and look at her face.  And is she ever strong.  Wow!  She threw her head back and stretched and looked just like somebody’s grumpy old grampaw (Not me, as I am a VERY YOUNG grampaw.  I just wanted to throw that in, in case anyone was confused about that point.)  and I could feel the strength in that tiny little package.

Ben and Isabel are going to be getting to feed her once a day now also.  Yesterday she ate 18 CCs and today she ate 23!  She is still fed through a tube down her nose at a rate of 10.5 CCs per hour.  The developmental folks say this is a good, normal starting point as she is not supposed to be born until mid-February sometime.  After a while they will feed her twice a day and just keep bumping that up, but they still don’t want her to burn up more calories eating than she takes in.

I looked at that baby I was holding and thought about the first time I held Ben and I felt awed by the magnitude and breadth of life.  I kinda choke up thinking about it.  When I first held Ben I remember thinking (You die-hard Trekkies will get this reference, but it’s true no matter if you are a Trekkie or not.)“The Human adventure is just beginning.”  Now, when I looked into the little sleeping face laying there on my chest, the progeny of my offspring, if you will, I thought, “The Human adventure continues.”  She took hold of the placket of my shirt just below the snap and held on with those ridiculously tiny fingers.

How can someone not believe in any sort of God at all?  “The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God…”  Psalms 14:1  Adam Clarke’s Commentary on the Old Testament says, “The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God—ìáð  nabal, which we
render fool, signifies an empty fellow, a contemptible person, a villain.  One who
has a muddy head and an unclean heart...”  Sorry folks.  The little person I held was not just the random happenstance of billions of molecules floating around that somehow congealed under a spark of lightning.  The little person (all little people) I held was created by God.

Anyway, my heart is full of joy and light and good thinks and good things.  A big Thank You to God for making this moment possible.  And a thank you to you, my wonderful audience, for letting me share this moment of my joy with you.

As the Good Book says, “If someone’s rejoicing, make happy with them!”

But Carter’s still ugly and his feet still stink and he probably hides in his closet and drinks pepsi, too.

What a day.  We had started out east when Margaret got a page from home.  This was unusual so we called back and found out Tabitha was sick.  We turned around and wound up taking her to the Emergency Room thinking she may have appendicitis.  Why are Emergency Rooms so abysmally slow, anyway?  6 hours later we were on our way with no problem.  Everything is fine, but she had scared us and it is better to be safe than sorry.  Margaret has a good instinct for when we need to go to the doctor so I always go with that.

Margaret even was able to sneak up and see the baby while we were waiting.  She is fat looking because she is short and weighs so much.  I still didn’t go because this thing I caught just keeps hanging on.

All of this did make us late of course but it was because we were late that I had the opportunity to see something I had never seen before.

Out on the eastern plains of Colorado are herds of Pronghorn Antelope.  We see them grazing many mornings, usually in the fields where the cattle are not.  They are small animals compared to deer and have a strange gait when they run.  It is almost as though they hop in a zigzag pattern back and forth, but very, very fast.  They can reach speeds of up to 60 mph.  Their eyes are set high on their head and if you looked through them it would be like looking through 8 power binoculars.

In Wisconsin where I grew up there are Whitetail deer which I would say are probably two to three times larger.  It is spectacular on a frosty morning to see a white-tail buck running across the field at a high rate of speed leaping effortlessly over any obstacle.  There is no fence high enough to slow him down.

Pronghorn Antelope don’t leap.  We saw a herd crossing Squirrel Creek road last evening, oh, around 5:00 or 5:30.  There must have been 40 or 50 of them and I slowed the car down so as not to make them want to stop crossing.  It was one of the strangest things I ever saw.  Not one of them jumped over the fence, they all crawled under!  Scott W had told me about this, but I had never seen it.  It looked like a river of brown and white flowing under the fence!  I stopped completely so as not to spook them and just watched.  I guess there might have been 42.  It was so strange, because, as I said, I am used to deer.  The idea of jumping did not even occur to them anymore than you would expect a Whitetail to think about crawling under a fence.  They looked like some sort of, I don’t know, maybe rodents or something the way they just wriggled under and kept going.  They were moving very fast, however and if I would have tried to come up to them they would have broken their line and scattered.

Remember The Good Book says, "Where were you when I made everything?"

3 lbs 7 oz!  They did an official weight on Sunday and that was it!  *Takes cowboy hat in hand and waves it in the air shouting "yee-haw!"*  They also tried to bottle-feed her for the first time yesterday also.  Isabel and Ben said she tried a couple of times, but was like, "Now what?  More changes?  I don’t think so."  She apparently didn’t quite ‘get’ what she was supposed to do.  The reflux is still there, but is going away little by little.  She is a little resistant to change, just like the rest of us.  I have a feeling that Ben is going to appreciate having Doctor Dobson’s book after a while.

Well, I am starting to feel better, but I still have some coughing going on.

What in the world is a pet for, anyway?  The definition I found in Encarta, (Since I don’t have an OED yet.) was:

pet  [pet] noun (plural pets)
1. animal kept at home: an animal kept for companionship, interest, or amusement

Now, if an animal is kept for companionship, interest, or amusement, why do you leave it outside in the middle of winter and the only attention you give it is when you remember to feed it.  Why do you let it run around the neighborhood caterwauling at 2 A.M. or howling at the end of its chain?  How is that your pet?  If it’s not your pet, why do you keep it and why do you think I want to hear it?

Still feeling a little peeved but I don’t have enough grumpiness to get a full-blown tirade going.  Oh well.

Remember, The Good Book says, "a righteous person cares about the animals he owns, but even the tenderest feelings of the wicked are cruelty."

14 and ½ inches long!  Margaret got to go up to see her and said she actually had some meat on her legs.  This was exciting.  It would have been more exciting if I had seen her myself, but no, I have to have this croupy, cruddy, cough thing going on, plus the digital camera is gone phooey.  I have a couple of Isabel’s black and whites to put up in the gallery, however.  She is a real artist when it comes to photography.

Has anybody bothered making any of the dreaded New Year’s Resolutions?  Time’s a-wastin’.  I had written some notes about being more organized and less of a procrastinator but when I looked for them on my desk, I could not find them, so I figure it will wait until tomorrow.

Go lay down!  Not you, the stupid dog!  You can get up.  Every time I cough, she thinks there is something very wrong with me and comes and puts her paw on my knee.  When I chase her away, she is certain that it is serious, so she comes right back.  If I ignore her, she puts her cold, wet nose right on me wherever she can get at.  She does not do it right away; of course, she waits until I am intent on doing something else, then she sneaks up on me and gets me, usually on the underside of my forearm.  It is all very annoying.

You want to know what else is annoying?  I’ll tell you what else is annoying.  Why do people think that signs are meant for everyone, except them?  Well, besides the obvious contempt some people have (soosan) for speed limit signs.  If the sign in the park says, "Keep your dog on a leash at all times while on the trail" why is your stupid, ugly nasty little yapper an exception?  And no, I don’t care that "He doesn’t bite anyone."  I don’t want to come around the corner on a trail and meet a 200 pound Great Dane without a human attached!  "Oh, he’s friendly."  A number of years ago one of my children was deathly afraid of dogs.  I mean screaming, running, crying terrified, even to see one on the leash across the street.  We never knew why and they have since overcome it rather nicely, but your quaint little remarks about it when you are responsible to keep the stupid creature on its leash in the first place just don’t cut it.  Who do you think you are?  And of course, you can’t call the cops, because even if they would respond to such a call, it would not be a priority and the idiot letting their cur roam free would be gone.  Not to mention what your nasty, vile, reprehensible creature has done in the middle of the path that I have just stepped in with my new $250 Tony Lamas boots!

Here’s another thing, too.  Sunglasses are NOT a cool fashion statement when you are carrying on a conversation with me.  Take off the sunglasses and look me in the eye. 

And where are people’s manners any more?  Do you think when you chew with your mouth open that I want to see that train wreck?  Or hear it?  And when did bodily functions become acceptable table talk?  And whatever happened to "Excuse Me," "Please" and "Thank You?"

Can you tell I am feeling grumpy today?  That idiot’s dog in the park set me off.  I don’t really have $250 boots, but it doesn’t matter.  I should be able to walk on the trail unmolested.
But I must say, there are some good things going on.  My wife and I went to lunch yesterday and the hostess seated a young couple with two children next to us.  They were probably 5 and 8 years old and I expected the worst.  Was I ever in for a pleasant surprise!  They were soft-spoken, said "Please" and "Thank You" to the waitress, didn’t fight or bicker or throw food or anything at each other.  The parents didn’t scream and yell at them every couple of minutes, but they had a nice, quiet lunch and spoke in normal conversational tones!  They just behaved.  It was beautiful.

Then a couple of teenage young men came in and got the other booth near ours.  Here again, they said, "Please" and "Thank You" to the waitress and spoke to her like she was a real person and then, get this, they paid their bill and brought back an appropriate, even generous amount and left it for a tip!  I was really impressed.

As the Good Book says, "Life is full of surprises, sometimes."

Hi everyone.  I was offline yesterday as our phone wouldn’t produce a dial tone, just a little static.  Called the phone company, they came out and found a critter had chewed the cable!  Our dog isn’t the chewing kind, so it had to have been something else.  Maybe a stupid skunk.

I didn’t feel like doing much on the computer the last couple of days anyway, but we need to have the phone.  I still feel pretty cruddy, but not as bad as the first day.  I figured I would blog, er, online journal, a little bit so you would all know I am still here and no, you can’t be rid of me that easily.

We had some snow and cold temps.  It was light and fluffy because the temperature was around 0 F.  When it is warmer, the snow is wetter and heavier and good packing snow, perfect for snowball fights and making snow forts and snowmen.  The fluffy stuff is what the skiers love.  Yes I live in Colorado and no I have never been skiing.

The temp here in Colorado Springs went up just enough to melt the snow a little, then when the sun went down it froze over, creating ice.  Fun driving.  Actually, you can usually get around okay if you just go s-l-o-w.  Four wheel drive does nothing for ice.

I really don’t feel good yet, so I will leave you guys for now.

Remember, the Good Book says, "watch out for the other guy, he may not be watching out for you."  Or was that an old Public Service Announcement?

Woo-hoo!  She is a 3 pounder, now!  I am really excited about that.  I have the Colorado Creeping Crud again, however and am not a happy camper.  I hate being sick, especially when I have things to do.  They are letting Savannah be next to her mom’s skin more now.  This is a good thing.  Taking medicine isn’t.  I always have a strong reaction to meds, so if something makes a normal person a little drowsy, I crash.  Perhaps that is why I don’t feel like I have much to say this morning.  It’s in there somewhere, but it doesn’t want to come out.

This tsunami thing is really terrible.  I can’t imagine what the conditions are like, especially when someone like Colin Powell, who has been around the block a time or two, says, “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

You know, we are living in the last days of time.  And ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet.  For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places.  One thing about earthquakes is that whenever there was an earthquake in the Bible it was caused directly by God.

The Denver paper ran an article about giving to the relief efforts.  It said that while most Americans watch the news and ask, “How can I help those people?”  Con men sit and think, “How can I scam someone using this?”  If you decide to do something, make sure you check out the organization first.  Things you especially want to ask are:

If I donate money to this organization, how much of the money actually goes to help the people and how much is eaten up in overhead?

Is the money earmarked specifically for this purpose or does it all go into one big fund that this organization then disburses to all the causes it supports as well?

If I donate food, bottled water, clothing or other items, how will they be shipped?  When will they be shipped?

Is this an organization I would normally trust or donate to?  Have I received help from them in the past?  What was that experience like?

You guys can probably think of other questions as well, which you are welcome to leave in the comments section.  I don’t have any links to organizations because I haven’t checked any out yet.  Just make sure you know where your money is going or what is going to happen to your stuff.

Remember, The Good Book says, “It is better to give than to receive.”  (Especially in this case!)

Welcome to the New Year!  Where are the jet packs and the flying cars and stuff?  Ah well.

I want to tell you all that there are still nice people in the world.  I was looking up Savannah Melodies on the web and came across a very nice website that sells the plants called Scarbrough’s Garden @ http://daylily.net/scarbroughsgarden/garden.htm. Well, it seemed to me a user friendly site and they invited questions.

I had a very pleasant correspondence with Mr. and Mrs. Scarbrough which I had planned to cut & paste here but was having trouble with the web-based e-mail format transferring correctly without a bunch of work.  I told them about Savannah and how I was interested in the flower but that I have a notorious black thumb.  They e-mailed me back saying that they would send me a free one in her honor and were confident that it would do well here, even under my hand!  Isn’t that cool?  I think it is a very nice gesture and wanted to share that with you.  They have a very nice site and I would recommend it.  If you are interested in growing any of the things they offer, please consider them.

In other news the Lake Superior State University has issued its list of words and phrases that should be banished from the language for Mis-Use, Over-Use or Uselessness at http://www.lssu.edu/banished/ among the words and phrases?  Blog!  While you are there, you may also wish to click on the link that tells about the Unicorn Hunters.

Our New Year’s celebration was not as eventful as Christmas.  We had church and a chili cook-off afterward.  Since I became a teetotaler sixteen years ago, the holiday has become more reflective and restful.  The kids go outside and bang pots and pans and the Ad-a-man club shoots fireworks from the top of Pikes Peak.

We did celebrate my little buddy, Dale’s birthday, though.  He turned 40 and we gave him a big black bag full of as much over-the-hill stuff as we could find.  We (Russ and John and I) went to the ARC and got him some caps and slippers and other wardrobe enhancements.  We even found a "Grumpy Old Men" hat like Walter Matthau wore.  I gave him a six-pack of prune juice and a jar of prunes as well as a "Depends."  We had great fun at his expense, but, well, it wasn’t our idea that he turn 40.

We are praying for the families of the victims of the tsunami and earthquake.  I would like to refute the allegation by the UN’s Jan Egeland that the U.S. is stingy, however.  I would, but I won’t take the time.  Whenever there is a disaster anywhere, who is the first on the scene?  Americans.  Often times privately funded organizations.  Who was first on the scene when hurricanes devastated Florida?  George W. and Jeb Bush.  Monetary or humanitarian aid from which countries?   Well, Americans have always been both fiercely independent and magnanimous at the same time, since before we became a nation.  Religious "heretics" came here to escape persecution because they wouldn’t go along with the status quo but stuck to their values and beliefs.

I don’t have all the numbers handy on all the unpaid loans America has given and all the money we are giving as a nation to this problem.  You can’t really add it up because they call for helicopters and we divert 37 from their current military mission.  We have private organizations and radio and TV stations and churches that take up the cause.  Anyway, I am proud to be an American and proud of our Texas Cowboy President who represents the core values of the majority of our country.

As the Good Book says, "Fear God and respect your president."

The Good Book says, "Thou shalt not kill." Also, "Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee..."

-------

Real bedside conversation between me and Abigail, while looking at Savannah:

Abigail:  Dad, could this baby have been aborted?

Me:  Yes.

Abigail:  That’s sick!

Me:  Yes it is.