Posts by TerryWalstrom

6580001 · 2017-12-10T21:24:51Z

MissFit, thank you. I write because I must.
Getting people to read what I write is more difficult :)

6580001 · 2017-12-10T01:15:17Z

“MY FIGHTIN” NAME…”

A huge man to my right leans in close.
I catch the scent of stale menthol cigarette smoke.
He’s he speaking to....(I look around)...to me?
There is nobody else. I snap to attention, listening.

“My fightin’ name was Spyder.”

Strangers talk to me. It’s a thing. I’m that guy.
As the fellow commences his sprawling narrative I squint hard and appraise who I see.

Spyder is an enormous man--a man of color.
Lines in his face are crinkled paperback novels. He spins tales of punishment.
Puffy eyelids and yellowing sockets blink at bright sunshine outside.
His age?
I’m clueless.
My guess? At least a hard millennium. Jurassic era.
LIke me, an old dinosaur. THAT is why he’s telling me.
Telling me what?

Spyder gazes down at his fists like a jeweler admiring a diamond setting.
His voice is the bottom of a deep pit--the tolling bell at judgment day.

“These my bodyguards.” He clenches and unclenches his hands.

He torques his left wrist. There’s quick movement, a flash of the sleeve.
The meaty bulk snaps short a half inch from my chin!
I’ve flinched before I know what happened.

“This one I calls ‘Oh Lord.”

It floats in front of a me-a glint of light on a dark river.

His other meat-piston whistles at a blur in place of the first.

“And this is ‘Have Mercy.’

He laughs at his joke, then, turns back to the table and sips coffee.
The slurp rattles a bit.

All is silent. For awhile.

Spyder turns again. He’s facing me. I steel myself.

(Here we go…)

"You alright--ya know."

(Is he asking me or telling me?)

“You too.” (What else should I say?)

His body laughs. The face is sad.
The old man turns away and sips.

Finally, he rises on staunch limbs and exhales a long slow moan.
Not a weary sound.
Heavy construction equipment moving tons of stone. His machine is engaged.

“That’s what I’m talkin’ about!” He puts music into the words.

He shambles to a vehicle, disappearing like a magic trick.
Dead solid perfect. The image of his presence shimmers inside my head.

“What just happened?” I ask myself aloud.

All I’ve got from "Spyder" is what I’ve told you.
And there it is.

_______________

6580001 · 2017-12-08T16:08:41Z

Eventually, all of us (regardless of the religion of origin) walk the same path--but only if--we're willing to be wrong when facts and evidence do not support our beloved views.

6580001 · 2017-12-07T12:44:54Z

Here is an otherwise honest and intelligent fellow (former Mormon) who 'woke up' and realized all his previous efforts at providing apologist material needs to be refuted--by HIMSELF!
The parallel to JW thinking and our Old Life VS New Life approach to debunking former sincerely held beliefs finds quite an amusing mirror, IMHO.
Check it out. I think you'll see your time repaid handsomely.

http://mormondiscussions.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=45012

6580001 · 2017-12-04T04:54:53Z

Here is how I see it; no sentence is inevitable.
The author decides.
If I'm writing a difficult thing, one engendering a struggle, I simply rethink the sentence and rewrite it.
Problem solved.

6580001 · 2017-11-27T20:15:16Z

I'm morbidly afraid of spiders, having been once bitten as a child and having experienced a coma.
I'm morbidly uncomfortable having other people decide what's best for me or those who are important to me.
It's not quite a phobia, but I really find myself on my last nerve when somebody coerces me to do something I don't want to do. It has never ended positively.

6580001 · 2017-11-26T17:54:01Z

Math is a tool of thought which is represented in a particular manipulation of agreed-upon procedures which produces exact agreement in results IF and ONLY if the procedures (operations) are exactly followed.
Religion is exemplified by practitioners whose eisegesis is subjective and non-reproducible, as well as incompatible with every other exegete referencing Holy Writ in whatever translation may be proffered.

In other words, Math isn't Math without the rigor of Logic and Rules.
Religion creates meta-rules and no logic.

Creation begins with ZERO (invisible God and no universe) and divides everything by that Zero.
In Principia Mathematica, Bertrand Russell grappled with the meta-nature of set theory and discovered what religious minds have never acknowledged.
______

As Russell tells us, it was after he applied the same kind of reasoning found in Cantor’s diagonal argument to a “supposed class of all imaginable objects” that he was led to the contradiction:

The comprehensive class we are considering, which is to embrace everything, must embrace itself as one of its members. In other words, if there is such a thing as “everything,” then, “everything” is something, and is a member of the class “everything.” But normally a class is not a member of itself. Mankind, for example, is not a man. Form now the assemblage of all classes which are not members of themselves. This is a class: is it a member of itself or not? If it is, it is one of those classes that are not members of themselves, i.e., it is not a member of itself. If it is not, it is not one of those classes that are not members of themselves, i.e. it is a member of itself. Thus of the two hypotheses – that it is, and that it is not, a member of itself – each implies its contradictory. This is a contradiction.
_____

In Mainstream historical Christianity:
God is 3 persons in one.
In Math:
A set is a Many that allows itself to be thought of as a One. - Georg Cantor
_______
*Mathematical induction is a technique used in proving mathematical assertions. The basic idea of induction is that we prove that a statement is true in one case and then also prove that if it is true in a given case it is true in the next case. This then permits the cases for which the statement is true to cascade from the initial true case.
(Religion considers proof impudent and faithless.)

6580001 · 2017-11-23T18:32:27Z

Today is Thanksgiving and I decided to feed myself the old-fashioned way.

What is it like to stand in line outside (to go stand in line inside) for a Thanksgiving cafeteria meal?
This is a question I can now answer!
____
First off, in previous years I've attempted to eat at LUBY's cafeteria on Thanksgiving and the line was always longer than Disneyland's Pirates of the Carribean ride.
The geriatric cavalcade of blue-haired grannies, balding dudes who remember Hoover as President and who display bellies in the 4th Trimester, queued up ahead and behind me.

These folks share one common trait. If they can't complain about something then life jest ain't worth livin'.
For instance? They are hungry and it is somebody else's fault.

I saw some sneaky human beans pretending to wander to the front of the line and penetrate the entrance as champion line-cutters.
WHAT A MISTAKE!

The starving old coots would not stand for such feckless folly!

The codgers surrounded the offending miscreants and used their canes and walkers as cudgels to pound them into dog food. Hardly a scrap of human flesh remained.
I was impressed.

The rest of us applauded. We spend so much time streaming soap operas and watching CSI re-runs, we consider violence and murder mere entertainment.
___
I had the foresight to accept my roommate (the cute one) Terry's offer of a stale jelly donut this morning. It was harder than a Baptist's head.
But, I accepted it with uncommon grace as I microwaved it on high for half an hour but when I took it out--it was fatter and heavier, possibly in violation of most of the Laws of Physics.
I consumed it (as locusts might well say) with appreciative heartburn.

So, standing in line at LUBY's was no problem as far as suffering starvation is concerned. Three pounds of sugar is like a whole season of BREAKING BAD rolled into a half hour of flashes of high-octane energy.

Once I pushed my way inside (scattering wheelchairs and dispirited white-haired fogies) and observed the timeworn patrons shouting repeatedly to the servers their list of demands (like Cuban hijackers), how they wanted it, and yelling for "MORE GRAVY," I knew I was in for some distractions.

1. The guy in line ahead of me who wouldn't acknowledge any of my conversation turned out to be Croation. Some excuse!

2. The food servers, if given weapons, might have caused some damage.

3. Soggy turkey and soggy ham aint' my idea of a tasty treat. I opted for fried fish with extra tartar sauce. In other words, a half-serving.

4. I declined a drink or dessert. That would have added another five or ten bucks to the bill. Momma didn't raise no stoopid childrin.

5. I ate quickly and exited, satisfied our Pilgrim forefathers probably annoyed the hell out of the indigenous peoples with demands for "MORE GRAVY."

All in all, it beats sitting down at a large table with pesky relatives waiting on some straggler to wander in and take their seat so the REST of us can eat our cold food.

And that's the cork in the bottle of that Thanksgiving experience!

6580001 · 2017-11-23T17:52:37Z

This airport is LOVE FIELD where Southwest Airlines is based.
https://www.airplane-pictures.net/airport.php?p=1419

6580001 · 2017-11-23T16:27:46Z

My father-in-law told us the story of the man (He had met him at a gathering of devout Jews, back in the day) who invented the kit.
"Who is that man everybody is making such a fuss over?"
"Oh, that's Chares Doppelt. He made a lot of money off his invention. It's not the amount of money he earned which as accrued such respect and deference you are seeing here at the temple. It is the amount of $$ he has pledged! Now THAT will set you up for some real keester smooching."
Charles Doppelt, a leather-smith from Germany invented this handy little bag made out of leather back in the early 20th century. It was introduced as a “toilet bag”, however, over the years, a more appropriate name of “Dopp Kit” became more and more widely used. In American culture, the word "toilet" has more of a dirty connotation to it. During the second world war, the Dopp kit became widely popular as these kits were introduced into the military. Samsonite purchased Doppelt's company in the 1970s in order to produce and register a trademark on the Dopp kit.

TerryWalstrom

Posts by TerryWalstrom

Oh Lord. Have Mercy. "His Fightin' Name was..."

TerryWalstrom

Oh Lord. Have Mercy. "His Fightin' Name was..."

TerryWalstrom

Mormon Apostate discovers he must now refute his former apologist stance

TerryWalstrom

Mormon Apostate discovers he must now refute his former apologist stance

TerryWalstrom

Punctuation within and without quotation marks

TerryWalstrom

What phobias do you have?

TerryWalstrom

If mathematics teacher made a mistake, would it mean mathematics itself is wrong!

TerryWalstrom

Thanksgiving Eve--Misadventure at the Airport

TerryWalstrom

Thanksgiving Eve--Misadventure at the Airport

TerryWalstrom

Thanksgiving Eve--Misadventure at the Airport

TerryWalstrom