Remote World - a Spinuzzi’s blog

Clint and I excitedly tightened our Swiss seats as we looked over the cliff edge, feeling like kids getting ready for their first roller-coaster ride. It was the hot August of 1993 in the middle of Guatemala. The Guatemalan Kaibil (Army ‘Ranger’) instructors were tying the rappelling ropes to a large boulder at the top of the cliff.

There would be no belay, no practice, and no instruction for this rappelling practice. There would be no emergency personnel or equipment in case of an accident. Just the way we we liked it – gung ho and high speed! Continue reading…

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Tired of those racy ad pics on sites you like to visit? Most of the time I don’t mind the ads all over pages I frequent, but some ads - like some I see on Xanga - can be offensive or distracting to Christians. I’ve been playing with a FireFox add-on that makes them go away. It is ‘experimental’, so watch for problems, but so far - so good here. The add-on is called “Yet Another Remove It Permanently” and can be found here.
It may take you a little experimentation at first to use, but it can permanently remove content from pages. You can remove images, divisions, styles, etc. An icon appears at the bottom right of your browser where you can enable and modify this plug-in. You then use your (right-click) context menu to white-list or black-list content. Wonderful! Kudos, kimabrandt!

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When we lived in Arlington, Texas on Ashbury Drive some of our neighbors wanted us to leave. Our family was just too strange. Not only did we raise rabbits, homeschool our children, and have way-too-many cats, we just acted different and sometimes the neighbors just couldn’t stand it. Take the incident of the firetruck for example.
Upon arriving home from a camping trip I discovered that the valve on our camping van’s propane tank was leaking. Propane was spewing out and there was no way to stop it. I connected a long copper tube to the valve, ran it about 6 feet away from the van and up into the air about 6 feet. Then I lit the propane. The flame was 6 to 10 feet long. I then set out a lawn chair and got a book to read during the long wait for all the propane to burn off. Our neighbor across the street peeked out and saw this conflagration. She almost had a conniption fit. “What was that crazy man doing now?!” her body language seemed to say, but not a word to me.
Soon the fire engine arrived lights on, sirens going. It stopped in front of my house. The firemen looked at each other and shook their heads. Some grinned. They sauntered over, looked around, looked at me in the chair. Continue reading…

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Sarcasm is the last refuge of those with no real argument.
Sarcasm is the last refuge of the fool
Sarcasm is the Last Refuge of the Powerless.
Sarcasm is the last refuge of poor debaters.
Sarcasm is the last refuge of the incompetent
sarcasm is the last refuge of scoundrels
Sarcasm is the last refuge of the weak mind.
sarcasm is the last refuge of a defeated wit
Sarcasm is the last refuge of a microbial mind
Sarcasm is the last refuge of modest and chaste-souled people when the privacy of their soul is coarsely and intrusively invaded. (Dostoyevsky)

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My daughter Erin found this going around on the ‘net long ago, and I thought it should make another round, because it is so true!

HAMMER: Originally employed as a weapon of war, the hammer nowadays is used as a kind of divining rod to locate expensive parts not far from the object we are trying to hit.

LEFT HAND: Opposable thumb, especially. Used to dampen sound of impact from hammer.

MECHANIC’S KNIFE: Used to open and slice through the contents of cardboard cartons delivered to your front door; works particularly well on boxes containing leather goods.

ELECTRIC HAND DRILL: Normally used for spinning steel Pop rivets in their holes until you die of old age.

PLIERS: Used to round off bolt heads.

HACKSAW: One of a family of cutting tools built on the Ouija board principle. It transforms human energy into a crooked, unpredictable motion, and the more you attempt to influence its course, the more dismal your future becomes.

VISE-GRIPS: Used to round off bolt heads and transfer intense welding heat to the palm of your hand. Also used to Continue reading…

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Trust comes naturally to small children, but we adults have been burned enough to know better. When we got some horses I took my youngest daughter, Arianna, down to the pen to show her the white horse, Buckey. As we approached, Buckey put his head over the fence in anticipation of our attention. I didn’t know this horse and so planned to stay on our side of the fence for now. Arianna was sitting cradled in my arm. When we got to Buckey my attention was on him to see how he would react to my baby. I was stunned by what happened next. Arianna with a gleeful sound literally leapt out of my arm and on to Buckey’s long face, hugging his head and laughing. In my mind, knowing how a horse will toss his head, I imagined Arianna being flung high and far by this powerful white horse. As fast as I could move Continue reading…

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The following is from the book “The Valley of Vision, A Collection of Puritan Prayers and Devotions”.

Mighty God,
I humble myself for faculties misused,
opportunities neglected,
words ill-advised,
I repent of my folly and inconsiderate ways,
my broken resolutions, untrue service,
my backsliding steps,
my vain thoughts.
O bury my sins in the ocean of Jesus’ blood,
and let no evil result from my fretful temper,
unseemly behavior, provoking pettiness, Continue reading…

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From age 6 to age 15 I lived in Dallas, Texas on Easton Road in a two bedroom home. The house was a brick pier-and-beam with oak floors, an attic fan (whole house exhaust), an evaporative cooling tower out back, and fortunately for me, a den. My parents occupied the master bedroom while my two sisters had the front bedroom. The den was used for my room. At first this was great, as it was a large room for a lone boy. This was especially nice for a boy who liked to experiment, build things, and more often than not - disassemble things.
When I was 12 years old my mother gave birth to twin boys. I was somewhat shocked when I found out that now I had to share my room with two babies. There was however, one thing that remained the same. That thing was in my closet. On the floor. In the floor actually. It was a continuing item of discomfort for me. This thing was simply a trap door: an access to the space under the floor. There were two things about it that really bothered me. One, of course was the fact that in the middle of the night dark things would push it up just enough to peer at me from under the house. Continue reading…

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Mr. President,
As a shareholder in our corporation for over 50 years I felt it incumbent upon me to write you concerning some irregularities in the way you are running the Company. When you were applying for the position which you now hold we, the shareholders of the corporation, were promised that you would bring about new openness and transparency in how the leadership operates our enterprise. You continued to promise this after we hired you for the job. It has come to my attention, however, that there are a large and growing number of shareholders in the corporation who believe that you have withheld information that may indicate that you have overstated your qualifications for this high-level job in the Company. It is this withholding of information I wish to address.

As you know, due to the unique nature of our Company all stockholders are equal in their importance to the Company, as noted in our Mission Statement which we have entitled “The Declaration of Independence”. Because of this it is important to address the concerns of even small groups of investors when they question leadership’s ability to run the Company. Because of our position in the marketplace it is paramount that our Company be perceived as one with integrity, yet you have allowed these questions to remain problematic for us, when it is apparent you could easily end the debate so we may move on to other matters that are pressing. This has caused us to become somewhat of a laughingstock to those companies we deal with on an international level. Our leadership in the world marketplace is being eroded by this foolishness.

Why, sir, do you continue to allow this to go on? Is it that you are waiting for these shareholders to make fools of themselves? This is not good leadership on your part. You were hired to run your office with integrity Continue reading…

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People who are not gun owners or pro-gun sometimes are unaware that oppression and genocide almost always occurs when citizens’ possession of arms is forbidden and only the government is allowed the power and protection of arms. Here are a couple of good articles you should read from the Thorn’s blog ‘Gunpowder Treason‘:

The Lie of the Second Amendment

And:
The Truth about Registration

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