One Day at a Time

There is no better advice than "to take it one day at a time."

The old cavalier advice of "eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we die" is also another bit of advice worth noting.

My Dad used to tell me to "never walk when you can ride, never run when you can walk, never stand when you can sit, never sit when you can lay down, and never stay awake if you can sleep. For you never know when something might happen and you not get a chance to ride, walk, sit or sleep for a while.

Other roadside philosophy I like are
"First, do no harm. Second, see first."
"It is better to be taken advantage of then to take advantage of"
"the more things change the more they stay the same."
"If not I than who."

Most of these are simplify fies version of larger concept but ultimately are complete and beg only for the reader to meditate on. Second all of these are related and connected. For example beginning with the first to the last.

Plan but remember take it one day at a time for life has a way of happening as you plan. so take whatever joy you can from this day for it may be your last, and don't forget to rest step back and smell the roses when the opportunity  presents itself because life does have a way changing on you in the most unexpected ways. So do good when can taking responsibility for your actions understanding that while folks change they really don't. they are really still the same folks.  In the end when your days end "I want to be justified in my own house".

Politics

Well the vote is coming quick and the rhetoric is becoming more virulent with each passing day. My only big regret is that there is not a toggle to pull for "NONE OF THE ABOVE"

Yesterday on NPR Morning edition in discussions with two of their political commentators that if the democrats loss control of the Senate and of the House that there would still not be enough of a majority in control to move legislation of to take action.

This made worse in that both parties were finding themselves becoming even more polarize by labels of liberal and right wing Conservative with election to office of these demigods. That in short they were seeing fewer moderates being elected in fact they were the ones losing office thereby making it harder for bi-partisanship.

In short to the next two years will be even worse than the last two years. But then what did you expect when at the very beginning the Republican party made it obvious that they had no attention of agreeing to anything the Democrats proposed even at the risk of being seen as the party of No.

Combined the fact that they will have gained a few seats in Congress but not enough to drive the legislation will only make them more determined to unseat the current sitting Democratic President even at the risk of destroying the very thing they are elected to protect.

In the Shop

I am embarrassed to write on what I did but I am going to.

Yesterday I was cutting pieces for the table tops of course I was in a hurry so rather than measure and mark each piece as I cut I just took the first one used it then took the one just cut and used it to mark the next and so forth for the 16 pieces I needed. Then I put on my dado blade on the table saw and began making mortise and tendons.  This can be a tedious job and requires attention to detail.

When I was done my oldest son who was helping me and I began to dry fit the pieces together to make sure it all worked. Imagine my embarrassment when the mortise;s were good but the length of the 16 pieces used to make up the table top were at incremental difference in length. so that there was no way for them to square up.

By using the preceding cut piece to measure by I had built in a error caused by increasing the length with just the width of the pencil and as small as that sounds it adds up to a significant difference. I had always told my boys never ever do that because that is what happens and when I called my youngest that night and told him what I had done he laughed and reminded me of what I had always told them not to do.

Now I get to go through the pieces and make minute corrections until I get them all uniform. Sin at haste, repent at leisure.