The Three Challenges

The Three Temptations of Christ (Luke 4:1-13)

The first temptation the Devil laid before Christ during his 40 days in the desert was comfort.

The text of most translations reads "Bread" which, as modern readers we interpret as necessities. But the text also says that he did not eat for "days" which likely was understood by the contemporary readers as "daylight hours". Regardless of whether it was "daylight hours" or "24 hour days", Jesus survived so the bread was not a necessity, it was a comfort.

The second temptation was earthly power and all that went with it, popularity, wealth and adulation or feared by the masses.

The third temptation was despair. The most common interpretation of this passage is that the Devil is goading Jesus to "dare" God the Father but it seems more likely to me that Jesus had a foreshadowing of his future, was tired and low blood-sugar and was on the verge of giving up.

Boring sermons

According to Thomas Götz from the University of Vienna (Austria),
"Boredom develops when we feel over-challenged or under-challenged by an activity or task—a sign of an unsuitable level of control. And it also develops when we deem the value of the activity low."

The typical, modern interpretations of The Three Temptations are either over-challenging or under-challenging. Those interpretations are cherished because they seem to let us off-the-hook in terms of having to embracing and implementing their message.

Asking us to not eat or drink any nourishment for 40 days feels over-challenging if I am to fulfill the duties of stewardship God has given me. Being less focused on "comfort" is within my ability.

Being offered control over all the nations of the earth is not something I will ever experience, but illusions of "Greater power, responsibility and authority" are/were dangled in front of me at every turn. Most of those opportunities came at a cost of doing important things less-well or shifting my responsibilities on to an unwilling or less-able person.

Not daring God is an under-challenge but comparing my "what-is" to what could-have-been is an ever present temptation. I need to remind myself that I need to focus on what I can-do rather than what I cannot-do.

What I cannot-do is infinite. What I can do is finite. Maybe I can only plant three fruit trees an hour and the world needs millions of fruit trees. I need to focus on the fact that three hours of planting trees results in 9 more fruit-trees which could conceivably produce 1000 pounds of fruit per year during their peak years of production.

I didn't know Canadian Provinces could levy tariffs

Doug Ford, the king of Ontario, Canada announced that Ontario is going to levy a 25% tariff on the electricity sold to the United States.

If so, that will impact very-deep-Blue Minnesota and New York and blue Michigan more than it will impact other, less "Progressive" states. From an industry standpoint, the indoor cannabis plantations will be impacted more than the other industries.

What an odd way of thinking: "An enemy of my enemy is my....enemy?"

Commercial Real Estate in D.C.

I wonder how much electricity will be save when they turn out the lights on the buildings being vacated. Air-conditioning is a very-high electricity draw and Washington D.C. is almost unlivable without it, especially in large, commercial buildings.

We will be fine here at Casa ERJ. We have shade trees near the house and windows that open and close. Mrs ERJ and I are both healthy and heat-indexes up to 100F are not a big deal. We have a clothes-line and can mothball the clothes drier and I can take shorter showers when bathing.

Chicks, Trash Trees and Scion wood

I moved the Nicotiana rustica seedlings into individual cells. I ended up with 27. I will launch another "flight" around March 21 since I have no idea how fast these will grow or their frost resistance.

Southern Belle and family came over and picked up the chicks and the box and heating lamp and all of the other paraphernalia.

Later, I took over a live-trap so she can reduce the population of raccoons and possum. While driving over, I saw 9 deer run across an open field that had been in soybeans last year. It seemed odd to see deer at 1:30 in the afternoon. Then I saw two pit-bull "type" dogs following them. I didn't recognize them but one had a collar. No telling how far away from home they were.

While I was over at Southern Belle's, we talked about the advantages of various locations for the dog run, the chicken coop-and-yard, the rabbit hutches, the salad garden and so on. The cost of running underground wire was discussed because I thought UF-B (underground) wire was only available in 100' and 250' lengths, which would incentivize keeping the chicken coop within 90-ish feet of the house. Turns out Amazon has fairly competitive prices and you can buy it from them in 125', 150' and 200' long rolls.

We also talked about the trees that she might want cut down. She has several female Box Elder (Acer negundo) in her yard and some women prefer that their houses not become infested with Box Elder Bugs. She also has an assortment of Silver Maple trees. Silver Maples are notorious for being vulnerable to damage from ice storms.

The upside is that she has a magnificent specimen of an American Basswood south of the house.

Removing all of the trees that are likely to be problems will leave her yard looking barren so her current plan is to remove them over a period of time and to replace them with relatively fast-growing trees purchased in 7-gallon containers.

Then I spent a couple of hours cutting and labeling scion wood for the upcoming grafting season. 

• Chestnut: Szedgo, Schlarbaum
• Mulberry: Illinois Everbearing
• Persimmon: Lehman's Delight, Barbara's Blush

This makes two days-in-a-row of not going to the gym.

A random fig cutting

 

Ballistic Gelatin and Running on a Treadmill

It is common for people to criticize the data generated by shooting projectiles into a block of calibrated, ballistic gelatin. One frequently hears comments like "Where are the bones?" and "How can they know where the bullet will hit?" and "Does it represent muscle or fat or a stomach full of pizza?"

And then based on those objections/rhetorical questions they will dismiss the data as being "completely meaningless".

Similar reasoning is applied to running on a treadmill. "What kind of surface does it mimic?" and "How does it account for wind-resistance" and so on.

What ballistic gelatin offers is that it is much more repeatable than shooting bullets into bodies at various angles and extracting the projectiles. Given the degree of variability in body composition for the various entry points and the vector, one would conceivably have to shoot a thousand rounds and go through a minimum of fifty cadavers to evaluate a single weight-caliber-construction-impact velocity to be able to make any authoritative conclusion.

Using ballistic gelatin to quantify terminal ballistics has been around for a long time but it got a huge boost after the FBI shoot-out in Miami in 1986. There were failures in tactics and there were failures in the bullets.

Prior to the shoot-out, it was generally assumed that the 9mm projectile that expanded the most violently was ALWAYS the best projectile for police work. The thinking was that the shooter who bled-out the quickest fired fewer return shots back at the cops.

Two key take-aways from the shoot-out were that bullets not only had to expand, but they often had to "defeat barriers" before getting to the final target. Bullets might have to penetrate a vehicle windshield or through heavy clothing. Bullets might hit the target but might have to penetrate, angling through a heavy fore-arm before hitting a chest. THis is easy to visualize if you think of a cop shooting at a goblin who is holding a gun and aiming at the cop. That bullet has to punch through a bunch of muscle and bone before it gets to lethal, highly vascular organs.

The group tasked by the FBI with improving the bullets used by cops finally agreed upon a minimum penetration of 12" in ballistic gelatin and a maximum of 18" (due to concerns of over-penetration). That included bullets that went through a variety of "barriers" that cops were likely to encounter while attempting to bring a bad-guy to justice.

One barrier that proved a tough nut to crack was the four-layers-of-denim barrier. Not because it stopped the bullet but because it packed the cavity, or hollow-point, at the front of the bullet. Unlike fat or liquid, fiber does not bulge sideways when compressed. The plug of denim in the hollow-point prevented the bullet from expanded and over-penetration and lack of bullet expansion was a problem.

The fine folks at Lucky Gunner tested many varieties of defensive ammunition in common handgun calibers. They even shot ammo from long and short barrels to give us information about the trade-off between ease-of-concealment and reduced-terminal-performance.

Hogs

Hogs are in the news, again. (Story behind paywall. Sorry)

Some of the "failures" from the Lucky Gunner testing can actually shed light on the parameters that would make decent projectiles to carry if high-speed pork might be on the menu.

Two of these are 180 grain, 40 S&W and one is 165gr. They penetrated between 11.9" and 13.8". Note that the hyper-velocity 115gr 9mm bullets that was popular in 1986 did not penetrate as deeply as these did.

Two of these are 180 grain and one is 155 grain 40 S&W. They penetrated between 28.4" and more than 32" (having traversed the entire 32" of the two gelatin blocks placed end-to-end).

Do you notice any similarities between the ones that did not penetrate more than 14"? Do you see anything different in the ones that penetrated more than 28"?

That is right. The ones that penetrated more deeply did not deform, they did not "expand".

So, if somebody wanted a handgun with excellent penetration, a 40 S&W firing "solids" i.e. bullets designed to NOT expand, in a weight range between 155 and 180 grains might be on to something. If you are a hand-loader, the Berry Plated 180 Flat Point has lots of data at the Hodgdon's reloading site with six powders generating more than 1050fps out of their 4" test barrel. At least two of those powders, Longshot (1150fps) and CFE Pistol (1092fps) are relatively available.

I was surprised that the 9mm bullets did not penetrate as well as the 40s even when they had similar sectional density and velocity. For example, a 124 grain 9mm bullet has a sectional density almost identical to a 165 grain .401" bullet and common, defensive loadings offer almost identical velocities. However, the undeformed 40 cal in 165 blew out the end of the gelatin blocks while the undeformed 9mm averaged 26". That is at least 20% more penetration in favor of the .40

What a day of "volunteering" looks like

The Bible is very clear about not parading about and trumpeting about our good-works. The reason given is that people who do good-works for attention and for a moment under the spotlight to preen will have already received any merit those good-works would have otherwise earned them.

On the other hand, sometimes there is merit in sharing what kinds of volunteer activities are accessible and how much effort is required as a pump-primer for others. No pressure, here...just a log of what I did yesterday.

The day started off at 6:30 AM when Quicksilver was dropped off. I watched a half-hour of Shaun the Sheep. The up-side is that it had two of my favorite episodes, The Dirty Farmer and Pigs Swill Fly.

We fed the chicks and she played with two of them. We washed hands afterward. 

Then we played Hide-and-Seek.

After that I changed a poopy diaper.

Then we watched about a half-hour of a phonics video.

I handed off Quicksilver to Mrs ERJ at about 9:15 AM.

Then I jumped into the truck to drive to a local high school to donate blood. It was organized and staffed by the National Honor Society. I was a walk-in but was shuffled in front of waiting students who were very willing to be out-of-class a little bit longer. I was finished and back in the truck by 11:45 AM.

I swung by a book store and bought a couple of books and was back home by 12:30.

A short nap.

Then, at 3:00 PM I was off to help at a local Friday Fish Fry. The funds went to support the local Parish school. The actual work-loading of the task I was assigned was approximately 40% so it was much less than arduous. I was back home by 7:30.

I don't want to imply that ALL of the jobs at the fish-fry are 40% loaded, just the one that I was trusted with. The guys who were putting the food on the plates were 100% loaded all night long! Unfortunately, the "foot-print" made it impossible to off-load any of their tasks.

I took care of the chickens. Talked with Mrs ERJ for a bit as we shared what we had done during the day.

Summary

Mundane tasks that need doing. The glue that holds the world together. None of them were done to put money in MY pocket, although Southern Belle pays us...that money ends up buying toys and cowgirl boots and things for Quicksilver.

I understand that many people cannot donate blood for various reasons, but you DON'T have to be a super-athlete to do it.

I understand that many people cannot stand for long periods of time, but the organizers of the fish-fry HAD jobs for people who could not stand. Two people manned the tub of ice where the drinks were sold. One was on portable oxygen and the other has a degenerative neuro-muscular issue. They were able to be productive while sitting.

So, that is why the tenor and tempo of my blogging will be "different" for the next little while.

Spring comes slouching in*

The power garage door opener went in-op the day before yesterday. The diagnostics went quickly. The root-cause was deduced to be the wipe-seal at the top had walked downward over the +twenty years and was now in the path of the bottom of the door as it traveled out-and-down. The motor current went up, signaling an obstacle and it reversed.

I applied a hammer to the tiny box-nails that attached the wipe-seal to the frame and it went up easily. Knowing that it happened once and that the nails had lost some of their grip, I added three, pole-barn siding screws.

Mrs ERJ showed her appreciation and my name is once again engraved in the Hall-of-Heroes.

Super-secret video of ERJ performing a task around the house, showing the high-level motivational patterns common in bloggers.

Mac-and-cheese

Based on input from you guys, I am sorting through the various brands of squeeze-pack cheese M-n-C available in the area.

So far, all offerings Quicksilver and I tried have been acceptable.

Thanks for the feedback.

Running notes

4.18 miles in 60 minutes yesterday. No drama.

Moved the chicks to a larger box

They are now in an "apple box" from the local grocery store. They grow quickly.

Spring comes slouching in*

A turn of phrase so excellent that I had to steal it. I stole it from True Blue Sam

Windows 11

Apparently, the super-nerds are competing to see who can load-and-run Windows 11 on the "smallest" platform.

Microsoft is a great seller of new computers as each release of their operating system seems to demand ever-greater speeds and memory resources.

One of the keys to hugely shrinking the resource requirements is to start the system in "Safe Mode". Safe Mode does not activate certain modules that are resource pigs.

From the Microsoft site: Safe mode only loads the most basic system components and drivers of the system, and disables other add-ons.

(Firmly placing tin-foil hat on my head) Those modules look like they are trawling through your data in a decentralized, "data-mining" kind of way and (presumably) sending it back to the MS mother-ship. That data could include voice-to-text of everything the microphone picks up, image processing of video picked up by the camera and so on. MS is know for powering up your unit when it wants to run system downloads, what stops them from being able to keep your mic and camera running in stealth mode?

As a low-end user, I don't see a lot of disadvantages to running in Safe Mode. That probably means that Windows 12 will not have that option.

Life moves on

Tariffs

This seemed like a good time to order a small, centrifugal pump. 1/2 hp. Suitable for transferring fluids from one IBC to another or as a booster pump. Made in China. Currently costing between $35 and $40 a unit.

 

Flexible agriculture

Southern Belle is unfamiliar with movable building technologies. Technologies like concrete piers, skids and even "chicken tractors"

Moving a building seems much more pleasant than shoveling chicken sh!t.

The base for a shed built on skids

Sometimes there are tax advantages to having "movable" buildings because they cannot be assessed as a permanent part of the property and therefore cannot be increase your property taxes.

D.O.G.E. and the Supreme Court

DOGE faced a reversal in the Supreme Court. According to the "news", the SC said that DOGE does not have the authority cancel contracts (i.e. the payment of) after the goods had been invoiced as "delivered". At least that is how my brain interpreted the news articles. It was spun as a failure for the Trump Administration because it limited the powers of DOGE.

At the risk of angering some of my readers, I think the Supreme Court decision was proper. I don't think the Government has any business coming in after-the-fact and disrupting business contracts where there is no crime and is no victim.

"Contracts" are "sacred" and legal decisions that weaken contracts or make them easy to break has a chilling effect on investment and the willingness of enterprises to explore new technologies.

As a historical reminder, the aggressive court rulings made during the City of Detroit's bankruptcy resulted in a rewriting of a hundred years of prior case law when the "rights" of the employees were given priority over the rights of the bond-holders. That resulted in much less enthusiasm regarding investors purchasing Muni bonds. 

In a similar way, the rights of the employees were also given priory over bond-holders during the GM bankruptcy hearings. Holders of GMAC Demand Notes were "stiffed" while hourly employee pensions were untouched. That ruling had a chilling effect on industry being able to raise funds in the bond market and undoubtedly accelerated the "Pension De-risking" trends of the 20-teens.

Viewed through this lens, the rulings of Judge Juan Merchan will be ruled null-and-void. His court "pried" in on private business transactions that both parties found totally satisfactory (the assessment of some collateral) and ruled it to be felony fraud.

The iggles are back in the nest

By the time you read this, both of my traveling children should be back in the mid-Michigan area. All matters of business (personal and otherwise) were satisfactorily concluded.

Interrupted sleep

 

My alarm clock phone blew-up with texts last night.

A Communist Wealth Redistribution Comrade crashed a stolen car into a cop-car and then fled the scene. One of my siblings lives in the neighborhood where this happened and three more live a bit east of there.

One of my sibs was following the chase with a police scanner app and was keeping the rest of us updated. His last reported sighting was in an old golf course east of where the vehicle crashed.

I would make snide comments about "living in the city" but those kinds of things happen every place there are people. That is why I have steel, exterior and bedroom doors and they have high-quality deadbolt locks. I have "hurricane film" over the windows. I also have security cameras and motion-activated, exterior lights and a German Shepherd sleeping in the living-room. It is not paranoia to make my house unattractive to home-invaders, nor is it a sign that I lack faith in God.

From the comments on yesterday's post

"We sort what we can use (some times there a half dozen jars of peanut butter between the three boxes )etc and pass the rest to a family with eight kids and are part of a home school network so nothing goes to waste!!" 

That was too good to leave buried at the bottom of a long list of great comments.

My perception of modern "home-schoolers" is that they are great at networking and sharing. And if they are home-schooling, then it is likely that they are a single-income family and money might be tight.