Can you recommend another blog or web site I should be following? I already follow (and recommend) Sheep and Goats. From time to time I comment there and occasionally you will find Tom commenting here, as well. We’ve exchanged emails “behind the curtains” and he seems like a genuinely likeable Brother. I’ve also been introduced to “The Ultimate Bible Reference Library” and some other commercial sites such as “Theocratic Ministry School Software”. I use, and recommend, “Service Record” from Savard Software which comes as shareware with a nag-screen. If you hate nag screens as much as I do, you’ll send Br.(?) Savard the (lifetime) registration fee because you won’t want to get rid of the software. By the time you’ve used it for a few months you’ll wonder why it isn’t available over the literature counter. Well it’s not … get over it … but you can get it free online. This program is begging for an open-source simulacrum or Doppelgänger so as to speed translation and feature acquisition.

BTW, as I write this, Tom’s newest post contains the memorable line: “am I really so immodest as to think what is needed in the brotherhood is 7 million carbon copies of ME?” Read the rest of the post and I think you’ll agree that there is a need for all of us to be thinkers.

However, with so much of what a search turns up turning out to be, at best, ‘junk’ after a few pages (apostates and opposers have to show their cards eventually), I could certainly use your help in locating ‘the good stuff’. I’m sure that I have no more than scratched the surface, if that.

I define “The ‘good stuff’” as material that complies with instructions from the Faithful & Discreet Slave regarding the various “do’s and don’ts”.

You may notice that I’ve been steering toward a more open expression of my religious beliefs here. That trend is expected to continue. Along the way I will no doubt alienate some readers while becoming more attractive to others. I read all of the comments appearing here several times a week … so right here is a good place to respond with any recommendations you might have. Feel free to self-recommend, too. If it’s ‘the good stuff’, I’ll say so. If it’s not, I’ll say so.

Right here.

If you like the changes, please spread the word.

– Bill

This is a personal blog. So, with your permission, I’d like to take a moment to get personal with you.

Click here to read on, my friend.

Every once in a while I stumble upon that most fascinating of web pages … a quotes page. I’m in a generous mood today, so I’m going to share this one with you. The quotes seem selected with just a hint of an edge to them, a tiny scent of an acid wit and come accompanied by linocuts which you can purchase, if you so wish.

The link above is well into the middle of the site … be sure to scroll backwards as well as ahead.

Here’s a teaser:

You are going to let the fear of poverty govern your life and your reward will be that you will eat, but you will not live.

- George Bernard Shaw

After this has been up a few days as an ordinary post, I think that I’ll make it permanent page and every Friday pass along the best quote I’ve encountered during the preceding week.

Let your voice be heard, whether or not it is to the taste of every
jack-in-office who may be obstructing the traffic. By all means, render unto
Caesar that which is Caesar's -- but this does not necessarily include
everything that he says is his.
      -- Denis Johnston, _The Brazen Horn_

At what point does submission to God and to the “superior authorities” part company?

Try to be specific in your comments. Give guidance, not shadow.

The alchemists dream, they say, was to turn lead into gold. While it would have been nice to score a room full of gold for speaking a few words(*), in time the budding alchemist would learn that the dream was actually an allegory for the changes that would occur within. As he learned the discipline of his craft and changed from being the baser man to the refined one, he would realize that he had actually achieved that dream.

The metal gold might never come, but the human ‘gold’ had already been tucked away, well beyond the reach of thieves. (Mt 6:19-21)

For a long time I have posted pretty much whenever I felt like it on whatever topic pleased me at the moment. No focus, no schedule, nearly no readers. No discipline.

That’s going to change. All of it. Click here to read on, my friend.

I’ve recently begun writing about gardening in the Detroit edition of examiner.com, an online magazine specializing in local coverage of multiple markets (currently ~40). You’ll find me in the “Home & Living” subsection. But getting viewers to go there, while nice, is not the reason for posting this.

Don’t click on the above link just yet.

My first month’s pay is beginning to accumulate nicely and I’ll get paid again and again for writing the original articles. It’s called residual income, and it will build over time as I write additional articles. And that’s a key … linking new articles to previous ones gets the earlier articles re-read. They will then generate fresh income indefinitely. The more page views you generate, the more advertisements the Examiner can sell, the more money you earn.

It’s sort of like that “one penny today, two pennies tomorrow, four pennies the day after …” math puzzle, except that I don’t expect it to double each time, just steadily grow. Each new article is a link in a growing spider web designed to attract views. Each gives the reader value … and links to other articles that give them additional value.

They have a referral program, and that is why I am posting this.

With 40 markets, they still have vacancies for hundreds of topical writers (it needn’t be about gardening). I’ve referred four IRL friends. Three have read the deal, liked it and signed up. None of them chose to write about gardening.

The other has serious health problems and may be too tired to write at the end of her days work. Of the three who have signed up, one has begun posting and her earnings are already ahead of mine! (*)

It looks like “travel” is a hot topic.

You can write for them too.

Click here to read on, my friend.

In addition to changing the theme (overall design) of the blog this week, I’ve also deleted about 30 categories. Hopefully this will make it easier for you to find something of interest to read.

I am also working on an e-commerce catalog of some of the merchandise I and a helper make, a wiki for stuff that interests me but is not directly related to the blog (recipes and so on), another blog at http://nmwoodworks.com/gardening, an ftp site with some special interest audio and document files and, and, and …

As a result

As a result of deleting the categories, there are, at present, precisely 123 posts labeled “uncategorized”. Until I can assign proper categories to the orphaned posts, consider that category a ‘grab bag’ of sorts and an interesting study in the human psyche.

Well, mine, anyway.

The network news is tonight eulogizing the Rocky Mountain News. Let us all take a moment to solemnly reflect on the demise of a dinosaur that could have adapted but chose not to. yet another cherished institution.

Okay … I just had to get that out of my system. I feel better now. As usual, there’s more after the break.

Click here to read on, my friend.

© 2009 W. Canaday

You actually have two choices: the one will work you to death and the other will not. The one that does not work you to death will yield better results, but may require that you be a better sort of person than before. That’s right … we’re in for a personalitectomy.

Click here to read on, my friend.

You didn’t go to bed hungry last night

… because there was no food for you to eat. Each year millions of people earnestly diet because there is too much food available to them. Each year, millions die for lack of the essential rudiments of an adequate diet. They aren’t lazy. They work hard for the little they get. But the quality of their food is poor and its quantity wholly inadequate. Or, stated even more simply, calories in minus calories out is a negative number for too long.

You didn’t sleep outside against your will.

What you do in the privacy of your own campsite or backyard is up to you. But, last night millions of people slept outdoors because they had nowhere else to lay their head. If you had that choice, count yourself rich. Each year in America, the most affluent nation the world has ever known, hundreds die of exposure to winter weather. Tis the season to be jolly. Yeah, right. Whatever. It’s 3° F at 10 p.m. in Bloomington, MN tonight. Whattaya wanna bet some poor sucker freezes to death in this city (host to Mall of America) tonight, December 17, 2008?

Click here to read on, my friend.