Build A Wall

Posted on 29/01/2025 by Grumpa Joe

I have spent untold hours viewing YouTube videos in the past few weeks. Among my most favorite are those showing the construction of the border wall along the Mexican border.

There is an intrinsic beauty to watching this process. It is like watching a ballet. The sound of machinery blends with an orchestra. One can visualize the dollars being spent on each foot of the barrier being installed. The real question is whether or not it will achieve the goal of protecting the United States from invasion.

Yesterday, I found a video of Mexican Coyotes climbing over the wall using a rope ladder. The key to this method was to hire an ex-ATT pole climber with special shoes who could shimmy up the steel posts to throw a hook over the top with the rope ladder attached. Once the ladder was secure, it was simple for others to climb the steps, Flip over the top plate, and shimmy down into the USA.

It took me just a few more minutes to find videos of others climbing the wall without ropes or ladders. I guess the sensors in the wall will alert the Border Patrol to the location, and they can then drive there to find the person.

No matter how one looks at this barrier system, traffic flow is slower. Compare a single individual sneaking across the border to the recent massive surge of people storming the agents.

I am certain that even the Great Wall of China, as has Hadrian’s Wall in Scotland, has been breached.

Great Wall of China

Hadrian’s Wall is a World Heritage Site in the beautiful Northumberland National Park. Popular with walkers along the Hadrian’s Wall Path and Pennine Way

Walls have been built throughout history to deter people from invading a country. As countries fail, the walls become insignificant, as will the Great Wall of the USA. Someday, travel agencies will offer trips to view this wall, just as agencies lead groups of people on the China Wall.

In the meantime, I will enjoy watching the Dance of the Builders as they progress toward completion

Filed under: Arts, Immigration, Manufacturing | Tagged: , | 1 Comment »

Who Does God Look Like?

Posted on 24/03/2024 by Grumpa Joe

That question has been on my mind during the whole season of Lent. Not that it matters what God looks like because I’ll get to meet him sooner than later. If one believes the movies, he looks like many different actors. In the “Passion of Christ,” He looks like Mel Gibson; in “Chosen,” he looks like Jonathan Roumie. In both cases, the actors convincingly portray Jesus Christ and the viewer comes away believing they watched Christ die on the cross.

Yesterday, I finished watching the third season of Chosen and looked for Season Four. Sadly, it will only be available in movie houses during the next few weeks. I’ll wait for it to be released to streaming services and watch it in the comfort of my home. Chosen began as a crowd-sourced movie. That means it is financed by people who have seen it and want to see more. When I first started to view the episodes, I fell in love with the story. Why not? I am Christian, and the story is about our hero, the founder of Christianity. I bought into financing seasons two and three.

The Producer, writer, and director is Dallas Jenkins, the son of Jerry Jenkins, who authored “Left Behind” in 1995 and, more recently, “The Rapture.” Dallas does a credible job of making the Bible stories come to life with accurate depictions of life in or about the year zero. I recall my wife reading “Left Behind.” She tried her damndest to get me hooked on the series, just as she was. She read each volume non-stop and couldn’t wait for the next volume to appear. As I write this, it occurs to me that I should read the story myself and learn why she was so hooked.

What surprises me is that the son of a successful author should also become a successful author. How many father-son duo authors can you name? I am also enamored by the name Dallas for a son. Even though I would never have called my son Dallas, perhaps I will in another lifetime. I wonder what his nickname was? Dal, or Ass, or Dally?

I give the series “Chosen” five stars. If you are Christian you will love it. If you are not, you will still love it because it is a good story and well-produced.

Filed under: Aging, Arts, Movie Review, Uncategorized | Tagged: , , | Leave a comment »

Bad Match

Posted on 16/11/2023 by Grumpa Joe

The latest project I am working on is being done in Zebra wood. I spent 100 dollars on the wood so far, and now I must buy more to get a better match of wood grains. It’s incredible how one piece of wood can be so out of place in a work of art. It is like painting in red and white stripes; in the center of the board, the red stripes are thinner, and the white stripes are enormous. The stripes are okay by themselves, but when placed into a work composed of uniformly spaced red and white stripes, they become ugly.

Now, I must waste time and money to seek more matching wood. When I picked up that board in the wood store, I told myself it wouldn’t work, but I was desperate to begin the piece and went with it anyway. Then again, when I laid the pattern on the board to start the cut, a gremlin kept shouting in my ear that it was wrong, but I proceeded anyway. Now, I must live with my regrets. This is another instance where I must forget the adversity of the mistake and choose to learn from it instead.

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Libre Released

Posted on 12/08/2023 by Grumpa Joe

This week I had the distinct honor to set my American Bald Eagle free to the world. After laboring for seven months cutting shaping, fitting, sanding, finishing, and framing I finally completed an intarsia project that I call Libre. In Spanish that means free. Since the Bald Eagle is the national bird of the United States of America, and freedom is the name of the game I found Libre a fitting title for this piece.

The work is based on a calendar photograph in the Heritage Foundation yearly calendar for 2023. It struck me when I saw it and immediately stopped, and set aside the eagle I was then working on in favor of this one. Libre is more animated than the work I abandoned which was a soaring bird at level flight. Libre is an action bird. One can vision him as in the act of landing, trying to gain altitude, or getting ready to pounce on prey.

As I cut the pieces and began to see the bird come to fruition, I was disappointed by the colors of the wood I selected. I felt they were not as accurate as I would like them to be. It wasn’t until I began to apply the finish that the true colors of the wood and the direction of the wood grains popped into view. Another disappointment came when I lifted the weights off the final feathers that I glued on. One of them was out of place by a millimeter. I lost sleep over that defect while mentally developing fixes to cure the problem. I decided to wait, and to hang the piece “as is” before attempting to disassemble the work to make a correction. Thank God I did that because the defect is barely perceptible from a few feet and only another intarsia artist would find it from up close. Since I’m the only intarsia artist I know I think I am safe to leave Libre alone to remain “free”.

Filed under: Arts, Biography, Birds, Government | Tagged: , , | 4 Comments »

Parallel Lives

Posted on 10/08/2023 by Grumpa Joe

The challenge today is to describe my life in a parallel universe. I can do better than that. How about three parallel lives?

Number One is a life here on earth, but idyllic. The main character is a fifty something perfect body specimen who lives with several women, and partakes of bodily pleasure often. Enough said about number one.

Number Two is about a man who loses his wife, and is living through deep grief. In this grief he gets an idea to find his wife in heaven. He truly believes that heaven is real and exists somewhere in the universe. In the meantime, the widower meets a stranger while transporting his newfound dream truck home to Illinois from upper Michigan. His mission is to rebuild the new-old truck into a modern street rod. The stranger learns of his dream to convert the truck, and also to find his wife. The two of them become fast friends and agree to allow a third man to build this truck into a vehicle that can help lead them to find find heaven.

This story jumps into the universe outside the realm of planet earth, and as one might guess the lonely man gets involved in many outer space skirmishes as he tries in vain to find his dead wife’s soul in heaven.

Number Three is an alternate-history tale which takes place in the 1776-1976 time period. America loses the revolution and remains under the rule of the English king, and the U.S.A. as we know it today has never existed. England loses World War Two to Germany. Life is very different in Europe and in North America. The story tells the tale of a single family from Illinois who refuse to give up on the dream of Washington from 1776. The father of this family finds a copy of the Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution, and decides to rekindle the flames of revolution but this time against Germany. The story is complicated, intriguing, and suspenseful. The ending leaves the reader thirsting for more, and the writer contemplating a series.

Too many ideas, too little time.

Filed under: Arts, Conservative, Fiction | Tagged: | Leave a comment »

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