Month: April 2018

Hey reader-land, sorry for the long pause.  This week has been a wee bit nuts, but I’ll have more this weekend.

So!  Visit to UMass #2 will be on Tuesday!  Another day trip up and back.  This visit is just a small one to check on how I’m doing month-to-month.  Actually, it’s a really short appointment.  Like 20 minutes short.  The flights and drives are quadruple that time – but I’m not going to complain, it’s for SCIENCE!  (And my own health.  You know, the whole “living” thing.)  Second thing is, we are flying to Hartford, CT this time.  Cheaper and the same distance to drive.  (A fun fact, Woooooostah is in the middle of Boston, Hartford, and Providence.  So, depending on the day, any of them might do just fine.)  I’m not sure of everything that is in Hartford aside from financial institutions, but I did find out that there is a place called Mark Twain’s house.  You may have heard of him, he’s quite famous, I’ve heard!

So, I’m pretty excited.  Any visit is a good sign that I might be able to get on this trial, and the prayers that i don’t get placeboes are welcome!

I’m going to piggyback here with something, and I may write a separate post on this too.

Continue reading “Next trip, April 17 (Rant)” →

(No pics today)

So, Catholic topic, and one that isn’t even high on a list of things to get mad about.  I happen to have had an experience/thought on this today at mass and decided, you know what, I’m gonna say it!  I’m a fan of versus populum.  To those not knowing, it means that at the mass the priest at the altar is oriented toward the people, versus, oriented toward the tabernacle at all times (also known as “ad orientem”).

Traditionally, the Catholic Church faced “ad orientem”.  We are talking at least 1500 years.  That’s a long time, and it’s not got anything wrong with it – tradition (small t) speaks of facing the east to the rising sun as the symbol of the universality of God, and other reasons I’m too lazy to look up.  So let’s just lay it out there that ad orientem is good and beautiful and great. Continue reading “In defense of “versus populum”” →

Life is like an RPG.  You know what I mean, you meet your companions at an inn and you are given a quest in life (get to heaven).  Go save the princess.  Destroy the dragon.  Clear the dungeon to defeat the giant and avenge your father’s death.  Find the magical sword of… incontinence, I don’t know.  Life is like that.  You have your quest companions and you try and help each other along the way to get to heaven, making the world a better place as you go.  Along the way in your RPG quest, you get side quests.  In life, you get them too!  Sometimes, the side quests help you complete the main quest.  Sometimes, they are pointless.

My side quest idea always includes hobbies, interests, frivolous pursuits, things that aren’t necessary to complete in life to achieve the main quest.  That might include work too.  So, building an ultimate “superchair”?  Side quest.  Go-Karting?  Side quest.  Fast cars?  Sports enjoyment?  Racing?  Side quest.  None of these things are bad things, by the way.  Our enjoyment of these things are not sinful, or evil, or bad in any way, unless we allow the enjoyment of these side quests to detract us from the main quest.  If we don’t complete the main quest, then we fail.

I’m just going to share a side quest that my friend Jim got me hooked on, my brother-in-law added to, and my friend Rich enabled more.
I like fast cars.  I like pretty cars.  I like racing cars that are pretty.  And I really am lucky that occasionally I get to drive them:

And, of course:

But of course, remember that these are side quests.  Let’s use them to help further the main quest, shall we?

Hey Reader-land!

I got a note from UMass yesterday, after I let them know about my fall (the study wants to know EVERYTHING) that my bloodwork came back normal and eligible for the trial.  She says my blood so far has qualified me.

Step one complete!

I must say, I hadn’t heard anything and I wrote asking “do I have cancer, or something?”  I would laugh at the irony!

Also, side note.  God has blessed me with very good health in this time.  I’m as healthy as an Ox (with ALS), so that’s very good!

Thank you all for the prayers and kind thoughts!