A Curious Instrument

As I look back on my life so far, I remember again that I am profoundly blessed and I thank God for his watch-care for me and my family. It can all be summed up in one word: gratitude . My mom generously gifted the house in Tucumcari to us and we were initially preparing it for sale until Lisa suggested living in it, her continuing love of the area coming through. After a huge downsizing, she is snuggly nesting in her new place. I still work my weekdays about a hundred miles away in Portales and spend time with her on the weekends. I am grateful for the generousity of my mother! Speaking of the job, I am blessed to continue my work at Eastern New Mexico University , administering some computer servers and applications. It can be a bit more pressure than I prefer and I will surely appreciate retirement when it comes, but it is fine employment that lets me provide well for my family. Few jobs pay as much in this area and I have friendly people to work with, so I hope I am not found...

Young people expect a lot and they are angry and vengeful toward previous generations and often toward God for not meeting their expectations . Some of my kids find me to be a poor father. I am actually quite a lot like my own father and I think he has been pretty good in the main. Mom was a fine mother as well despite the usual imperfections. My wife and I worked to make sure that we had a better relationship than any of our parents could manage - my parents divorced when I was just entering adolescence and I was determined that I wouldn't do that when it was my turn.  I haven't divorced and my children didn't have to deal with that damaging situation . We generated better circumstances than the previous generation but that just wasn't good enough as far as some of my children were concerned. It is like climate change.  Children lack any sense of history , especially if their parents never read them Grimm's fairy tales , so they don't understand that thing...

Socialism is an imaginary human management system that will not work until every human is under its management. In no case will *every* human submit to such a system without some external and absolute tyranny, which also won't work. Liberty is the state of mortal being that is ordained by God. Every human enjoys liberty insofar as they exercise it. Everyone exercises some liberty even if they have no intention of doing so. You cannot fully abdicate your liberty to others, no matter how much they or you desire it. Sometimes, people are tricked into the idea that Socialism can create Liberty, but this is not so.  Socialism only spreads responsibility among the group and allows others to attempt to regulate an individual's actions. Liberty insists on full individual responsibility and full consequences for individual choices. Liberty sounds good but few actually desire it fully - most people are allured by the fiction that one can do as they please and a family, community, or ...

My wife and I vote the same way these days.  We have decided to work together as a couple in political matters. The same philosophy holds for families as well - only as we work together can the family have any power.  It is a bit tricky with me being a classical liberal of the Jefferson flavor and Lisa being a Reagan conservative, but I typically give in and vote her way because I love her more than I love my personal politics.  Besides, my candidates always lose anyway. The womens' rights movements was not really an attack on the notions of toxic masculinity or domineering patriarchy, it ended up being an attack on the family as a cohesive unit.  The best families of the past would come together and cast the one vote of the father after deciding what the husband and wife thought on the question.  Far more likely, the wife would tell her husband how to vote, threaten to deny him her bed if he didn't comply, and the man would say he voted as she demanded, no ma...

There has been a lot of downsizing going on in my world.  We are selling our Portales home after moving a portion of our stuff to our house in Tucumcari and dumping the rest.  Although physically tired (I really never want to move again, but I have a reputation for doing it anyway), I have been working diligently to move my stories and writing to a new server and got nutty about creating a lot more content.  You can see the beginnings of the results at https://xenos.quix.us.  I call it the QuayLand Interchange Xenagogy, because it is fun to play with words that contain Qu, I, and X in them (you know, the domain name is quix.us).  You will just want to click on the link and see what is happening over there rather than leaving comments that I will never read here.  My "signature" writing can now be found at  https://quix.us:70 and I have even revealed some lost tomes of mine that have recently been uncovered, such as 1998's Godsend and The Sto...

[This essay is included as an addendum to a Mesalands Community College employment application.] In any endeavor, one must put forth some effort to stand out from the crowd. There is always limited resources and limited time and both must be used to best effect to accomplish one’s goals. It is vital to gain experience and, ultimately, mastery of both resources and time in relation to yourself and others so that you may be in control of your life and influence others, rather than be controlled by others or simply by circumstances. My first job was at a movie theater.  There were any number of fifteen-year-olds that could have vied for the position I won, but I put forth extra effort and took advantage of the social connections of my family. I started out as a doorman, basically cleaning the theater between movie showings.  The guy who ran the film projectors hated working the “midnight movies” on weekends and I offered to learn his job and be his backup and soon became a u...

As a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints , I affirm my personal belief that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God and this was how I learned it . Joseph Smith was very poignant about what latter-day saints like me should do: 11 And also it is an imperative duty that we owe to all the rising generation, and to all the pure in heart— 12 For there are many yet on the earth among all sects, parties, and denominations, who are blinded by the subtle craftiness of men, whereby they lie in wait to deceive, and who are only kept from the truth because they know not where to find it— 13 Therefore, that we should waste and wear out our lives in bringing to light all the hidden things of darkness, wherein we know them; and they are truly manifest from heaven— 14 These should then be attended to with great earnestness. Doctrine and Covenants 123 :11-14 This is how I read these verses: point out where to find the truth ; bring to light things of darkness as God poi...