On a missionary trip to Romania, our group experienced what winter is like there. It was difficult—a lot of snow...
My family loves to take short vacations to the beach every once in a while. One of the things we like to do there is to buy a puzzle and put it together. We have a process we always follow—first we turn all the pieces right-side-up,...
Someone gave me a sourdough starter about ten years ago. When you want a loaf of sourdough bread, you add several ingredients to the starter to make dough for baking. And you always save and maintain...
Recently I was reading the book Fearfully and Wonderfully Made, by Phillip Yancey and Paul Brand. It has some interesting things to say about touch. Apparently, the word touch has such a plethora of meanings that in many dictionaries,...
After arriving home from a recent journey, I tried to recover from my jetlag by reading a book. It was written by Stephen Ambrose about the building of the Transcontinental Railroad, and it had a very interesting title: Nothing Like It in the World. I thought, That is quite a declaration! I...
For the last several years, I have been a gutter man by trade. I have had the opportunity to work on thousands of homes, and have seen some terrible workmanship along the way. On a few houses, the builders tried to make an imitation foundation—they just set up some...
Usually before I go hunting, my floor is covered with camping gear for days in advance. I do not want to forget anything, so I like to write everything down that I will need. On my list, I put things like ammunition,...
A friend and I were recently discussing how words have changed over time. She works in a senior memory care facility and she told me the employees there are encouraged to use words the patients will remember from their own generation. Their goal is effective communication, not necessarily proper language usage.
We got to talking about...
Have you ever heard a story that just seemed unbelievable? A while ago I read about a project undertaken by the British during World War II. They desperately needed aircraft carriers and were casting about for ideas as to how to make them effectively, quickly,...