Friends

Texas apparently is a native word for friends. Looks like someone’s been pigging out on these West Texas bugs.

Grateful to be back out. Feel so much younger when you’re on a deployment.

Who would’ve ever thought a normal sleep cycle would make so much of a difference lolz

Sirens

Earworms don’t care what you’re thinking about 😂

For probably about 30 years … everytime you see an ambulance driving around…Dear Lord…

Please be with the one or ones who need that ambulance.

Please give them the strength you have given me so many times.

Please let their sins be forgiven.

And please forgive me of mine.

In Jesus’s name, Amen.

Yeah, you’re driving around a lot more than you used to, but still for some bizarre reason you’re seeing an awful lot more ambulances these days. Maybe it’s the season maybe it’s coincidence. Maybe it’s your imagination.

Said the same prayer for years every time you saw one. Then recently you thought about the forgiveness for sins.

You always said “please forgive them of their sins, and please forgive me of mine.”

Honestly, the rhythm was good. But yeah, eventually you realized that’s not something you can ask for, and for good reason.

Nothing wrong with asking for softening of hearts, though. Or whatever process it might unfold for the person to have their sins forgiven if they haven’t asked…

Whatever. However. God wants to run it. Just please let it happen somehow take a lot of the pressure off, not having to worry about the specifics sometimes. Makes it a lot easier to pray for people in ambulances too.

You don’t really think about it that often; mainly whenever you’re driving around and see an ambulance. Guess that’s why you never think about sitting down to write out a more rhythmic prayer.

That’s one of those where it makes a lot of sense to have the same prayer. You have no idea what’s going on in the ambulance. It could be a hypochondriac, or someone who will die before they get to the hospital, or anywhere in between.

It still counts as prayer if you don’t close your eyes lolz…. You’re driving and if you get an accident, the closest ambulance is already full.

Random thoughts from the road spoken to text. Maybe well probably with errors. You catch a few of them when you’re at a stoplight and can actually look. Could  always be worse though.

Been storming for weeks now to the point where the novelty has worn off and it’s getting annoying. The old urban legend has that you never take a shower during a thunderstorm. So you looked it up and while if that’s not actually good advice, pipes are metal and a decent number of people die every year from getting struck by lightning while showering in their own bathroom

Really annoying where you have to be somewhere at 8 AM. Tomorrow’s gonna be annoying, but hopefully not for being electrocuted. 

Driving a truck for work and dinging a car this morning enough to damage the brake light. You’re you so of course you wrote a note with your number on it so the guy could contact you and you could cover the damage. Or you could make it a huge headache for the company and jack up their insurance. You’d rather just pay a couple hundred bucks. It’s too easy to volunteer other people’s money when you screw up.

Guy seemed really cool about it. Several other small things happened here and there throughout the day that turned a horrible warning into “ you know what? Today actually wasn’t a bad day.”

Holy Spirit does stuff like that every once in a while. I mean nothing was catastrophic, but tiny little good things just kind of outweighed multiple instances of negativity and frustration.

Blessings of the Holy Spirit. Can’t even imagine what kind of person you would be without it in your heart. Bit of an anger complex and chronic depression, but almost no one would ever know.

You’ll be in one again yourself eventually. And someone will pray for you. So go enjoy the day. 🙂

Good Reasons

Well, this round of Sick has taken long enough. Just lingering and lingering at 95%, really not wanting to start exercising again and getting back into the group just because you’re not sure it’s fully gone.

After that disastrous sinus condition, you had 15 years ago, you just wanna get rid of it. Just sinus pressure and runny nose left. The first week was a misdiagnosis so it hasn’t actually been as long as it seems.

Still, you’ve been home for a month and haven’t really done anything productive after kicking ass for three weeks, and that’s just infuriating.

Could always be worse though.

Never thought you would hear from Flame again, but she’s definitely in the ‘worse’ category. Terrible medical problems before even getting two flavors of cancer. On top of it all, she finally got separated. Truth be told you never thought that would happen.

You’re always going to be doggedly encouraging, and being there for a friend who is fighting through cancer is something you absolutely would do no matter what, but you had to let her know you would have nothing to do with anything else. Nothing wrong with contact, but… yeah. 

It’s easier for her to not think about the future for a now because she thinks she’s gonna die, and considering all the medical problems she seems to have had a couple years ago, including another two months comatose in the hospital with sepsis… sigh.

Growing old is more appealing than the alternative. But wow, you have so much to be grateful for regarding your health. 

There’s not much to be worried about other than possibly hurting her feelings, but truth be told… wow… you just don’t really wanna screw around with having to get to know someone new these days.

That means something, so you definitely need to work on yourself for a while. 

Gonna read 1 Peter tonight. You like him more than you like Paul. Peter was supposedly the ‘bull in the china shop’ kinda guy. A lot of mustard. And there’s something you can really identify with him about – denying Christ. It sounds terrifying. Like if you were being tortured, would you deny Christ? Would you be that weak? How strong is your faith? 

Peter was a total guard dog, cutting off an ear to protect Jesus. That’s something you could see yourself doing. But then that same bulldog denied Christ three times. Wasn’t even tortured (then) to do it.

Asked forgiveness when Jesus got out of the tomb and received it. And then like all but one of the disciples went on to die a horrific death preaching the Gospel. But that time, he didn’t fold.

Learning of the gruesome fates of the disciples is when so many questions in your mind met their end. Not one recanted. There’s just no way to square that. 

Jesus existed. Preached. Has disciples who were around for many, many years after His time on earth. All but one died excruciating deaths wow trying to spread the gospel. Not one of them recanted.

These are facts, born out by historic record. Jesus could be nothing but either The Savior or a con artist. And no con artist would’ve been good enough to go 11 for 11 on martyrs decades later.

1 Peter will be something short while you’re waiting for what He wants you to read next. Knowing your luck, it’ll be get another Paul book.🙄

Might try a light gym day tomorrow just to get back in action. You’ve been idle long enough. And if you get yourself sick again because you hadn’t finished fighting it off…?

Being sick and tired of being sick and tired of us a good reason.😂

Texas

Plans change. People shuffled. Money spent. Work needs doing. Second week of NoDak became One Week in West Texas. Night Shift even, so you’re actually really kicking ass. Lolz you were made for 6pm-2am.

Fun while it lasts though. Week three will be back in NoDak. 6am flight after working until 2am will be rough for the other guy flying back with ya. You’ll be fine though. 😂

Hopefully you’ll be back here. Love the flat prairie at night. Only the hum of one generator and a big speaker playing construction work music (ie endless AC/DC and Yankee rock), but on break… you can get far enough away from it to feel the quiet wind and look on the horizon to see far distant lights of wind turbines blinking.

It’s wonderful. First of its kind facility. You’re implementing your own policies to help out team leader.

lol and now they’ve moved on to Slim Shady doing all of his standing up. 😂

And of course they hit Sweet home Alabama thinking it’s actually a song people listen to in the south.

But it’s nice. You’re building something with interesting people. Far more alert and helpful. Nighttime is your home turf. Always has been.

Finally, a truck inbound. Game time. 😁

NoDak, Part IV

Sleepy. Another 5 AM at the airport. Another morning of Ted being squeaky out of fear. 2 to 3 weeks. Replacing 35 pound machines with 42 pound machines. The bulk is what makes it more difficult, but you’re getting used to it. Your squad putting up 10,000 in a week.. that’s what’s magic.

You really wanna do this at sea. There’s so much that’s like that. Although it is nice to be able to go out to eat.🤔

So worth it to stay an hour away from the site. Well for you. Too exhausted at the end of each day to cook anything other than an Advil soufflé. 

Two weeks on two weeks off. Yeah you could handle this for a while. Building up a good deal of strength by deployments and hauling beer kegs around when you’re home. Apparently it’s tough for them to find people. Got to the point where that’s not difficult at all since most of it is just driving. Easy money. 

Leaving the holy city in May always sucks, but you can’t complain. You’ve enjoyed so many of them; it’ll make next years’ more special. 

Hope Kristi Noem is good at her job and she didn’t get where she is because she’s gawjuss.