Review: Tambora: The Eruption That Changed the World

 

 

Tambora: The Eruption That Changed the World by Gillen D'Arcy Wood
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

It was hard to push myself to finish reading this book, but I did so only because I don't like leaving things undone. The information in this book relating to the grand explosion of Mt Tambora is interesting in itself, and how it actually affected the world in terms of weather and how that weather, in turn, affected people and the choices they made. For example, the crazy weather influenced Mary Shelley, the author of Frankenstein, into writing that book. There are plenty of other examples in the books and it all rather reminds me of the movie Forest Gump, wherein one man affected so many people and brought about so many goods all by being himself. The author tends to do that in regard to Mt Tambora - that because of Tambora's explosion, there as a domino effect throughout the world, which in turn helped bring about all these other things, like books, ships, political divisions, tyrants, artists, you name it.

However, though I'm not sure exactly how he comes to this conclusion (though he attempts to explain it in the book), the author goes on to intimate throughout the book that it is humankind who is at fault of "global warming"/"climate change". It makes no sense to me. First of all because I tend to agree with the honest climate experts that climate change is a millennia-long, needed pattern for Earth, and that man is not the one responsible for it (scientifically speaking).

Other than the author's strong "pushing" of this agenda of "climate change" where humans are the culprit, the book could have been more interesting. I'm glad I finished it. I would not recommend it, unless a person is directly interested in volcanoes and weather, and/or if a person is fully and blindly a believer in "climate change"/"global warming" and wants more excuses for how it's a "real" thing.

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WE WISH YOU A MERRY CHRISTMAS & A HAPPY NEW YEAR!

WHEN YE ARE IN THE SERVICE OF YOUR FELLOW MAN, YE ARE IN THE SERVICE OF YOUR GOD

UPDATE:
I have moved this post to the Fundraiser page to keep everything in one place, so please go look over there (although the majority of the information is still here)

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Our family has recently begun a fundraiser to help a family in need. We have created a fundraiser HERE, and we have begun a toy/clothing drive to help them have a small, nice Christmas. To facilitate sharing the toy/clothing drive items, I am posting them here for the time being. It'll make it easier to share. :) 

 So, without further ado - here is a list of suggestions that anyone wishing to donate may use as a guide. The only gifts that were specifically mentioned by the father are "clothes and drawing stuff" for the older two, and the list for the younger boy. He still believes in Santa, and so he wrote out a letter to Santa today and his father shared it with me. 

Please do not feel like we need to get all of these, and please understand we are in no way asking that you go out and spend lots of money. The big items, like Nintendo, we wouldn't even get for our own children! So just do what you are able and willing to do. I know this family will appreciate even just one gift! They are so very, very thankful and have expressed their gratitude over and over for the help they are receiving. The father told me today that he is so grateful his kids will get some gifts and that we are his Christmas gift this year for all our generosity!

Thank you for helping make this happen!  May God bless you many times over for your help!

BOY age 6:
Shirt size 8
Pants size 8/regular
Nerf gun
Pokemon Cards
Nintendo Switch (only if you have a used one you want to get rid of, I'm not asking anyone to spend that kind of money! I had to look it up, to see what it was! These young kids know all these things already!)
Fidget Spinner
Play Doh
Spiderman Toy
Football slippers

GIRL age 9:
Shirt 8-10/small
Pants 10
Art supplies of all sorts
Maybe some other age-appropriate thing for girls (ideas: necklace, purse, cute stuffed animal, hair clips/ties, cologne/lotion, Lego building set, book, etc.)

BOY age 12:
Shirt 10-12/medium
Pants 14 long
Art supplies of all sorts
Maybe something age-appropriate for boys other than art supplies (ideas: ball of some sort, Lego building set, book, puzzle, RC car, etc)

As for the fundraiser, we have almost reached the goal of $1900!  Only $400 more to go! If you don't mind and if you feel comfortable doing so, please share the link (https://www.youcaring.com/gerardofamily-1034189)  to the fundraiser with family and friends, so we can reach the goal! :) Thank you so much!

Drop off will be on DECEMBER 18-20 at my home anytime after 2pm.  I only ask that you text me when you are on your way over to make sure someone is here.

I feel like I'm leaving something out. I think my brain is fried right now. Ha!!

Let me know if you have any questions by posting in the comments or texting me. And THANK YOU again!!!

GENDER IDENTITY: WHY ALL THE CONFUSION?

 

We are eternal beings, without beginning and without end. Our gender is eternal - either Male or Female. There are no "mistakes". There is no such thing as "born that way". Somewhere between birth and death, some people experience gender dysphoria, or gender confusion, and it's a real thing. We can love them and help them if they desire the help. However, we cannot allow anyone to redefine the foundational unit of society - and yes, it matters. The family, with a mother and a father and child(ren), are the basic and foundational unit of society for the entire world. It is our common adversary that is helping to confuse this world and destroy that foundation. That has always been his goal, to destroy our agency and to destroy the family. This video is filled with nothing but truth. I hope many more thousands will watch it, ponder its message, and stand to defend the family while at the same time respecting all those experiencing gender dysphoria and continuing to think of them as our brothers and sisters in Christ.

Review: The Hiding Place: The Triumphant True Story of Corrie Ten Boom

 

 

The Hiding Place: The Triumphant True Story of Corrie Ten Boom by Corrie ten Boom
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

One of the best books I've read. What do I consider "best"? Well, if a book inspires me to want to be a better person, it keeps my interest (meaning there is No vulgarity, no useless, "just to throw it in there" violence, and no inappropriate sexual content), it draws on a variety of emotions from the reader and it is about something that affects all of humanity in some way, then I consider it a "best" book.

This book, being a true story, is captivating. I don't like to add spoilers to my reviews, so I will simply say that I believe every human, especially those who believe in God, should read this. It is a book that helps to bring your own thinking back into perspective regarding your own life, while at the same time awakening a feeling a gratitude within your heart for the blessings you have. It also sheds light on yet another part of WWII and the horrific behavior of many who were Nazi sympathizers and the heroic, wonderful, and magnanimous behavior of so many more who did all they could, despite their own personal well-being and safety, to help their brothers and sisters among humanity.

I would recommend this book for anyone aged 12+ and would add that there are many lessons to be discussed and learned from this book. It is a great book for a Jr High, High School and adult book club group.

The stories and lessons from this book have stayed with me for many years. I read it first many years ago, and then read it a second time earlier this year (2017). Embarrassingly, I am just now getting to writing a review on it.

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Review: Storm of Lightning

 

 

Storm of Lightning by Richard Paul Evans
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I love the Michael Vey books. It's hard to put them down. They are just good books to "veg" with. This one is no different than the rest, just one long story put into (now) 7 different books. For me, Richard Paul Evans is just a 'feel good' author. He doesn't take his story line too fast or too slow. He's not into gory violence nor inappropriate innuendos. He doesn't rush the story line, so the reader is left feeling satisfied that he got the whole story. The whole series is great for a family read. I would suggest it for kids ages 10+ just to make sure they can understand the terminology. Definitely good for Jr High and High School kids. I will be really sad when we finish the series, because my daughter and I have endeared ourselves to the characters. These are the type of books that you don't want to end, you want to find out "but what else did they go on to do?"

I have read that one big reason he wrote these books is to help support and inspire kids who are "different", since the author, himself, suffers from Tourette's Syndrome. It is obvious these "electric kids" are different, and it's neat to see them handle their "difference-ness" in good, productive ways. It does show how some of them don't do that, and how it doesn't turn out well for them. So in that sense, this series is one big message that "Attitude Matters!"

I would highly recommend these books to anyone - male and female. It has drama, excitement, "mushy stuff", blowing-things-up stuff, and A LOT about true friendship and learning to do the right thing for the right reason.

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BEST SPEECH EVER .... NOT JUST FOR MILLENNIALS

 

I think we all need to listen to this, ponder it and take it in, so that we allow it to help us make better choices in our lives. That is what being "Mature" is all about - telling ourselves "no" when needed and making we make better choices each day. Technology is a double edged sword. We need to wield it wisely.

MERRY CHRISMTAS AND HAPPY NEW YEAR Y'ALL!

THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD SCULPTURE GARDEN BY ANGELA JOHNSON & I AM THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD FOUNDATION

Evidently there is a new sculpture garden in Lehi, Utah. And it looks like something I will definitely have to stop by and visit whenever I'm there next. Something the sculptor said made me take pause and think. She said:

“I watched something very dreadful happening in the world, through media, through television, through entertainment, through music. It was a widespread blitz of negating good with the tool of humor, it began to level every moral standard and I was shocked. I was horrified as I was seeing what was happening to our world and to our society,” said Angela Johnson. 

 As I thought on that, I couldn't help but agree with with her thoughts. I, too, have watched this "something very dreadful" happen in the world around me. It is easier seen with hindsight, but can still be noticed by the discerning and spiritual eye even without hindsight. It makes me wonder why it is that we don't seem to pick up on this "something dreadful" until we are older and more mature? Why is it that the young can't seem to see it as readily? Especially since they are the ones that could benefit from seeing it sooner, so that they might raise their children in an even better surrounding sooner in life. I've come to trust that the Lord knows what He is doing, and there must be a good reason for things being the way they are. 

Still - things like this are worth taking it, and they are worth spreading the word about it. Hopefully, there will be plenty of younger folks, who are still raising kids, that will 'see' what is there to see, and plenty of others whose faith can be increased by taking in such beauty and spiritually uplifting art. 
 

 
Here is a KSL News video from 2015 on the Garden and Angela Johnson's explanation for it:

I am grateful for artists that bring the Spirit of Christ into this world. The world still is full of beauty and spiritually uplifting scenery, art, music, experiences, places and people. Even while the world seems to be sinking further into the mire of all that is evil and filth, we can rise above that by focusing on the beautiful and strengthening ourselves with the spiritual. 

“I believe people will come by the thousands, I believe they will come by the tens of thousands, grateful for a setting in which they can reflect and contemplate, a place to meditate and yes, a place to pray. We don’t have a lot of those kinds of places publically in our busy, noisy, 21st century lives.”(Elder Jeffrey R. Holland)

Click HERE to visit the site and see the sculptures.

Another KSL News video, showing how the sculptures were made-

DO YOU STRETCH YOUR TARGET OR YOUR KIDS' TARGET?

There are some things in life I just have to share and I wish I could share it with a big fireworks display in the sky for the entire world to see, take in, and understand. This is one of those things. I share this article I just read in hopes that it might help someone. The source is at the end, so you can see the original piece if you wish. 

Ponder and enjoy.  Make your life better for it too. It IS worth it.

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 STAY AT 17 INCHES

By Chris Sperry

In Nashville, Tennessee, during the first week of January, 1996, more than 4,000 baseball coaches descended upon the Opryland Hotel for the 52nd annual ABCA convention. Nineteen times since, many of the same professional, college, high school, youth, and a slew of international coaches from passionate and developing baseball nations have gathered at various convention hotels across the country for two-and-half days of clinic presentations and industry exhibits. Sure, many members of the American Baseball Coaches Association have come and gone in those years; the leadership has been passed, nepotistically, from Dave Keilitz to his son, Craig; and the association — and baseball, in general — has lost some of its greatest coaches, including Rod Dedeaux, Gordie Gillespie, and Chuck “Bobo” Brayton.

I have attended all but three conventions in those nineteen years, and I have enjoyed and benefited from each of them. But ’96 was special — not just because it was held in the home of country music, a town I’d always wanted to visit. And not because I was attending my very first convention. 

Nashville in ’96 was special because it was there and then that I learned that baseball — the thing that had brought 4,000 of us together — was merely a metaphor for my own life and those of the players I hoped to impact.

While I waited in line to register with the hotel staff, I heard other more veteran coaches rumbling about the lineup of speakers scheduled to present during the weekend. One name, in particular, kept resurfacing, always with the same sentiment — “John Scolinos is here? Oh man, worth every penny of my airfare.”

Who the hell is John Scolinos, I wondered. No matter, I was just happy to be there.

Having sensed the size of the group during check-in, I woke early the next morning in order to ensure myself a good seat near the stage — first chair on the right side of the center isle, third row back — where I sat, alone, for an hour until the audio-visual techs arrived to fine-tune their equipment. The proverbial bee bee in a boxcar, I was surrounded by empty chairs in a room as large as a football field. Eventually, I was joined by other, slightly less eager, coaches until the room was filled to capacity. By the time Augie Garrido was introduced to deliver the traditional first presentation from the previous season’s College World Series winner, there wasn’t an empty chair in the room.

ABCA conventions have a certain party-like quality to them. They provide a wonderful opportunity to re-connect with old friends from a fraternal game that often spreads its coaches all over the country. As such, it is common for coaches to bail out of afternoon clinic sessions in favor of old friends and the bar. As a result, I discovered, the crowd is comparatively sparse after lunch, and I had no trouble getting my seat back, even after grabbing a plastic-wrapped sandwich off the shelf at the Opryland gift shop.

I woke early the next morning and once again found myself alone in the massive convention hall, reviewing my notes from the day before: pitching mechanics, hitting philosophy, team practice drills. All technical and typical — important stuff for a young coach, and I was in Heaven. At the end of the morning session, certain that I had accurately scouted the group dynamic and that my seat would again be waiting for me after lunch, I allowed myself a few extra minutes to sit down and enjoy an overpriced sandwich in one of the hotel restaurants. But when I returned to the convention hall thirty minutes before the lunch break ended, not only was my seat not available, barely any seats were available! I managed to find one between two high school coaches, both proudly adorned in their respective team caps and jackets. Disappointed in myself for losing my seat up front, I wondered what had pried all these coaches from their barstools. I found the clinic schedule in my bag: “1 PM John Scolinos, Cal Poly Pamona.” It was the man whose name I had heard buzzing around the lobby two days earlier. Could he be the reason that all 4,000 coaches had returned, early, to the convention hall? Wow, I thought, this guy must really be good.

I had no idea.

In 1996, Coach Scolinos was 78 years old and five years retired from a college coaching career that began in 1948. He shuffled to the stage to an impressive standing ovation, wearing dark polyester pants, a light blue shirt, and a string around his neck from which home plate hung — a full-sized, stark-white home plate.

Seriously, I wondered, who in the hell is this guy?

After speaking for twenty-five minutes, not once mentioning the prop hanging around his neck, Coach Scolinos appeared to notice the snickering among some of the coaches. Even those who knew Coach Scolinos had to wonder exactly where he was going with this, or if he had simply forgotten about home plate since he’d gotten on stage.

Then, finally …

“You’re probably all wondering why I’m wearing home plate around my neck. Or maybe you think I escaped from Camarillo State Hospital,” he said, his voice growing irascible. I laughed along with the others, acknowledging the possibility. “No,” he continued, “I may be old, but I’m not crazy. The reason I stand before you today is to share with you baseball people what I’ve learned in my life, what I’ve learned about home plate in my 78 years.”

Several hands went up when Scolinos asked how many Little League coaches were in the room. “Do you know how wide home plate is in Little League?” After a pause, someone offered, “Seventeen inches,” more question than answer.

“That’s right,” he said. “How about in Babe Ruth? Any Babe Ruth coaches in the house?”
Another long pause.

“Seventeen inches?”came a guess from another reluctant coach.

“That’s right,” said Scolinos. “Now, how many high school coaches do we have in the room?” 

Hundreds of hands shot up, as the pattern began to appear. “How wide is home plate in high school baseball?”

“Seventeen inches,” they said, sounding more confident.

“You’re right!” Scolinos barked. “And you college coaches, how wide is home plate in college?”
“Seventeen inches!” we said, in unison.

“Any Minor League coaches here? How wide is home plate in pro ball?”

“Seventeen inches!”

“RIGHT! And in the Major Leagues, how wide home plate is in the Major Leagues?”

“Seventeen inches!”

“SEV-EN-TEEN INCHES!” he confirmed, his voice bellowing off the walls. “And what do they do with a a Big League pitcher who can’t throw the ball over seventeen inches?” Pause. “They send him to Pocatello!” he hollered, drawing raucous laughter.

“What they don’t do is this: they don’t say, ‘Ah, that’s okay, Jimmy. You can’t hit a seventeen-inch target? We’ll make it eighteen inches, or nineteen inches. We’ll make it twenty inches so you have a better chance of hitting it. If you can’t hit that, let us know so we can make it wider still, say twenty-five inches.'”

Pause.

“Coaches …”

Pause.

” … what do we do when our best player shows up late to practice? When our team rules forbid facial hair and a guy shows up unshaven? What if he gets caught drinking? Do we hold him accountable? Or do we change the rules to fit him, do we widen home plate?

The chuckles gradually faded as four thousand coaches grew quiet, the fog lifting as the old coach’s message began to unfold. He turned the plate toward himself and, using a Sharpie, began to draw something. When he turned it toward the crowd, point up, a house was revealed, complete with a freshly drawn door and two windows. “This is the problem in our homes today. With our marriages, with the way we parent our kids. With our discipline. We don’t teach accountability to our kids, and there is no consequence for failing to meet standards. We widen the plate!”

Pause. Then, to the point at the top of the house he added a small American flag.

“This is the problem in our schools today. The quality of our education is going downhill fast and teachers have been stripped of the tools they need to be successful, and to educate and discipline our young people. We are allowing others to widen home plate! Where is that getting us?”

Silence. He replaced the flag with a Cross.

“And this is the problem in the Church, where powerful people in positions of authority have taken advantage of young children, only to have such an atrocity swept under the rug for years. Our church leaders are widening home plate!”

I was amazed. At a baseball convention where I expected to learn something about curveballs and bunting and how to run better practices, I had learned something far more valuable. From an old man with home plate strung around his neck, I had learned something about life, about myself, about my own weaknesses and about my responsibilities as a leader. I had to hold myself and others accountable to that which I knew to be right, lest our families, our faith, and our society continue down an undesirable path.

“If I am lucky,” Coach Scolinos concluded, “you will remember one thing from this old coach today. It is this: if we fail to hold ourselves to a higher standard, a standard of what we know to be right; if we fail to hold our spouses and our children to the same standards, if we are unwilling or unable to provide a consequence when they do not meet the standard; and if our schools and churches and our government fail to hold themselves accountable to those they serve, there is but one thing to look forward to …”
With that, he held home plate in front of his chest, turned it around, and revealed its dark black backside.

“… dark days ahead.”

Coach Scolinos died in 2009 at the age of 91, but not before touching the lives of hundreds of players and coaches, including mine. Meeting him at my first ABCA convention kept me returning year after year, looking for similar wisdom and inspiration from other coaches. He is the best clinic speaker the ABCA has ever known because he was so much more than a baseball coach.

His message was clear: “Coaches, keep your players — no matter how good they are — your own children, and most of all, keep yourself at seventeen inches.”

He was, indeed, worth the airfare.

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Source: http://www.sperrybaseballlife.com/stay-at-17-inches/