Yes, I retracted it because I’m having a day and I’m sort of off balance and was afraid that I might not be picking up on whether my comments are appropriate or clear enough. But here it is back:

Thanks again for responding on my blog. I do enjoy the conversing. FWIW I do not think that you or I or my engineer friend have attained any sort of self-actualization in a complete manner. (I don’t know if you looked at my last comment from yesterday).But on the other hand I don’t think that any of us is completely immoral, uncreative, unspontaneous, incapable of solving problems, prejudiced, or unable to accept facts. Quite the contrary, I see us striving to realize some of our potential as humans in these areas.

I like the music. It fits the mood I am in.

Sorry to hear you had an off day yesterday. Better luck today. Change the subject….put up shelves in the garage for my books. They need to be off the floor…I used garage type shelving with 7 ten inch wide and one 12 inch wide wood pieces. Also used thin cheap pieces of metal to put the shelves themselves on. Went to home depot and spent about $100 as opposed to spending double with built ins. Cynthia’s dad painted the shelves for me while I was at work. That was a nice gesture. I will most likely attach the shelves to the wall on one side to ensure they are earthquake significant….you know we like to shake shake shake out here. Also, got a board ready to put up to act like a quark board, basically made out of a piece of drywall and some cloth. I am getting closer and closer to getting my office type space ready so I can concentrate a bit more on the dissertation without having to go to the local panera or starbucks. I reinstalled Google chrome and it is working faster than I remember so I will probably stick with it. Downloaded about a dozen ebooks (classics like philosophy, business stuff, from this website: http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/20-best-websites-to-download-free-e-books/) and with the help of the sister (liz) was able to locate a program to extract the ebooks so I can actually read them (in my spare time of course). Catherine’s arm is healing. Not sure if you heard, but she broke it. We had a bad experience with the medical care again but I won’t go into details here. Let me know if you want the run down and I will email it to you.
Just a few notes to let your mind wonder about….something other than your daily trials and tribulations….
David

Sorry to hear you had an off day yesterday. Better luck today. Change the subject….put up shelves in the garage for my books. They need to be off the floor…I used garage type shelving with 7 ten inch wide and one 12 inch wide wood pieces. Also used thin cheap pieces of metal to put the shelves themselves on. Went to home depot and spent about $100 as opposed to spending double with built ins. Cynthia’s dad painted the shelves for me while I was at work. That was a nice gesture. I will most likely attach the shelves to the wall on one side to ensure they are earthquake significant….you know we like to shake shake shake out here. Also, got a board ready to put up to act like a quark board, basically made out of a piece of drywall and some cloth. I am getting closer and closer to getting my office type space ready so I can concentrate a bit more on the dissertation without having to go to the local panera or starbucks. I reinstalled Google chrome and it is working faster than I remember so I will probably stick with it. Downloaded about a dozen ebooks (classics like philosophy, business stuff, from this website: http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/20-best-websites-to-download-free-e-books/) and with the help of the sister (liz) was able to locate a program to extract the ebooks so I can actually read them (in my spare time of course). Catherine’s arm is healing. Not sure if you heard, but she broke it. We had a bad experience with the medical care again but I won’t go into details here. Let me know if you want to run down and I will email it to you.
Just a few notes to let your mind wonder about….something other than your daily trials and tribulations….
David

David says he can’t comment on your website? weird.

Sorry to hear you had an off day yesterday. Better luck today. Change the subject….put up shelves in the garage for my books. They need to be off the floor…I used garage type shelving with 7 ten inch wide and one 12 inch wide wood pieces. Also used thin cheap pieces of metal to put the shelves themselves on. Went to home depot and spent about $100 as opposed to spending double with built ins. Cynthia’s dad painted the shelves for me while I was at work. That was a nice gesture. I will most likely attach the shelves to the wall on one side to ensure they are earthquake significant….you know we like to shake shake shake out here. Also, got a board ready to put up to act like a quark board, basically made out of a piece of drywall and some cloth. I am getting closer and closer to getting my office type space ready so I can concentrate a bit more on the dissertation without having to go to the local panera or starbucks. I reinstalled Google chrome and it is working faster than I remember so I will probably stick with it. Downloaded about a dozen ebooks (classics like philosophy, business stuff, from this website: http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/20-best-websites-to-download-free-e-books/) and with the help of the sister (liz) was able to locate a program to extract the ebooks so I can actually read them (in my spare time of course). Catherine’s arm is healing. Not sure if you heard, but she broke it. We had a bad experience with the medical care again but I won’t go into details here. Let me know if you want to run down and I will email it to you.
Just a few notes to let your mind wonder about….something other than your daily trials and tribulations….
David

David keeps getting an error: “Duplicate comment detected; it looks as though you’ve already said that” when trying to post.

I did not know that Catherine’s arm was broken. I am definitely interested an email when you get a chance (please copy to Eileen as well if you don’t mind). Not sure why your comment got classified as spam. I hand delete so I would have caught it anyway. Not sure I have this fixed. But rest assured if you make a comment and I find it in my spam (like I did today), I will put it up ASAP. Your bookshelves sound cool. Want to come build me some? Heh. Just kidding. Thanks for the chatty comment. My day is going a better today.

I don’t get it. It showed up in my spam, so I approved it that way. It might be (hopefully) because I deleted one of my responses to David’s comments and later restored them under that post…. ?????

Screw it I sent u an email

Ur blog is crazy. Looks like now my post is up. Tell Sarah hi from me. David

Nice pictures

[…] A while back, Diemer came on my web site and left a confusing snide little comment on a post because I didn’t rave about her music.  She didn’t seem to have read the post carefully in which I actually complemented her work (”interesting” “clever”) but pointed out that many  church musicians sort of look down on her. (link to old post so you can read for yourself if you so desire) […]

This is not new to me, but it does remind of the problem with people in academics. Some are better than others. I too, remember with fondness, some of my professors in college. I also, remember which ones to avoid due to their incompetence. That exists still today and it is very irritating to me to see the same kinds of attitudes today. Tenure by the way was instituted to protect teachers due to school board elections which would put teachers on the block at every election. It is far beyond that now. I am not familiar with Kellman, but it does remind me of the book Civility which is currently being used in initial student orientation classes.
I reflect on academic performance by students every day. I sit on a committee for Grand Rapids Public Schools (Academy of Design and Construction) which is trying to reengage students in the applied arts (architecture) area. I was appointed as the GRCC representative. I receive no pay for doing this. I also, represent a portion of faculty on the Academic Governing Council. Also, I receive no pay for doing this. I think that we must represent honor to our students.
Veritas, Veneratio, Virtus, truth, honor, and courage are items that I try to live by. I also, provide to my students a communication link to solving every day problems. i.e. financial issues, family trouble. Of course I am not talking about a computer link. I am talking about being there to help them do the process. Even, making the calls and setting up the appointments. I would even attend with them their first appointment to help them get started. (half the issue is just getting started). I do believe that I am responsible for my students. But it is really more than that, it is being responsible to their posterity. Seven generations as my Mother would say. Sorry, seem to be rambling.

However, I am made of people who taught me respect, honor,

I figured this post would be right up your alley. Thanks for commenting. I know you are an honorable man and I do respect you even though I’m pretty sure we disagree on a few things. This doesn’t even trouble me because I do find people I disagree with interesting. This is why I easily follow as many US “conservatives” on Twitter as “liberals.”

The idea of being “worthy of respect” also makes me think of how I experience being “invisible.” This happened today. I dropped off a bunch of bowls and utensils at the local thrift shop. Before doing so I always try to contact the people in the shop. I go through a back entrance marked for drop off. The door has an automatic bell that it rings.

Today I walked in and nobody responded. I walked further into the back of the shop. On the far right were a group of elderly people who work at the shop quietly eating around a table. I couldn’t catch anyone’s eye. I turned on the left was a man talking on the phone. He also ignored me.

I decided that was enough of an effort and went back and Eileen and I carefully put our stuff with the other stuff in the back room waiting to be sorted and put out for sale.

As we were leaving another woman was coming up with some clothes. I told her that I couldn’t get anyone’s attention and that I just dropped my stuff off. She did not respond. She did not look at either Eileen or me but simply past us and walked through the door.

I have to admit I was amused.

Earlier at the farmer’s market a small child pointed me out to his parents.

I told Eileen that I felt like a ghost or fairy only visible to small children and animals.

🙂

I too understand that feeling. Of course my remembrances are of a time long ago. I do think children do not have the same inhibitions as adults. I am not sure that I understand it fully, but I think it is because you appear different to them. They only know you from appearance which is a shallow method of knowing people really. I have students with all kinds of looks (especially the piercing of body parts and extreme tattoos) which are sort of hard to understand why they do it, but then I remember too that they are searching for their identity in a very indifferent world. I made decisions about the conformance of my looks, but it was really after I gained responsibility in my employment and started having children. Conformance in society is first perceived by looks, after that shallow process, we begin to understand that we are all
a the same planet and really not very different from each other. We all want generally want the same things, it seems to me. As JFK said in a speech, “we all live on this same small planet, we all breathe the same air, we want the best for our children and we are all mortal” or something close to that.
You have demonstrated these principles of honor, respect, courage, and truth in your life and you have children who honor you for that. This is the greatest honor really. Your legacy is your children.
You know what you need, you need a tattoo and a nose ring. This surely will make you more visible that should really make people pay attention.

When you are reading some of Franklin’s works, don’t forget to include his little book “fart proudly”. After reading your post from yesterday, I thought I would briefly comment if your anti-David posting blog lets me. If not I won’t. Your discourse on honor made me think about how we look at knowledge, or rather what we internalize and externalize (which seems to fit in with that post as well). A hierarchical understanding of knowledge could include our understanding of inquiry whereby at one level there is axiology/epistemic, at another level theoretical, and yet another level empirical. I believe honor interacts at the level within axiology right alongside ethics, values, and esthetics. Of course this is predicated by the idea that our intuitive perspectives being what they may be, are always interfering with inquiry regardless of the situation or interaction. However I also believe that many of the ideas around such things as honor and ethics flow throughout people’s understanding of how they see the world. We are each so unique as evidenced by such things as DNA or internal motivations that I find it hard to pin things down to a simplistic argument. Whatever man. Thanks for the flowers.
David

You’re welcome for the flowers. I had never heard of axiology per se, but after a little reading, it seems to be a topic a bit smaller in scope than epistemology (which I have heard of). Axiology from the greek – axia, value, worth. Epistemology also from the Greek – episteme, knowledge, science. The latter seems to better encompass theory and facts (empiricism) in a more full way.

And I have to admit that for me “intuition” is an important contributor to my understanding of knowledge which leans a bit more toward wisdom than facts. I know you are a science type guy so I understand that this might seem confused to you. If I saw “intuition” as an interfering factor, I would probably not identify it as intuition but rather a mistaken assumption or reaction. For me, intuition is something I see as a bit of a gestalt type leap to clarity much like an insight.

I do understand that my take on this stuff is not particularly pertinent or helpful if you are working on any of this stuff for your dissertation or school work. Please ignore if this is the case.

BTW what exactly is the topic of your dissertation?

I recently bought at a used book sale “The First American: The Life And Times Of Benjamin Franklin” by H. W. Brands-looks good-peace

“The First American: The Life And Times Of Benjamin Franklin” by H. W. Brands-looks good-peace