My neighbor, my friend

I have a great next door neighbor. His name is Juan.

Juan does not speak the greatest English. I don't speak the greatest Spanish. We became good friends by being good neighbors.

Juan helped me build my patio. Okay, I helped Juan build my patio. When I wanted to tear down the wall to my back yard and put an RV gate in, I watched as Juan did 90% of the work. He even provided the gate! As I struggled to paint the 1/2 wall around my patio, Juan came over with an airless unit and finished the job in a very short period of time. When Gina wanted 3 tons of gravel added to the back yard, Juan was right there with a shovel. The list goes on.

I can't help Juan as much as he helps me. He mostly doesn't need my help. I try, but my efforts are limited, just as my skills are limited.

People who know me, know that I can do a lot. I'm what you call a pretty handy guy. Juan, however, is a craftsman. He does a lot of things well, especially if paint is involved. He must own 4 airless systems.

Juan just bought a welder. A MIG unit. He is teaching himself how to weld. Once he has it figured out, I'm going to make him teach me. :-)

Juan has 3 kids. They are 17, 7, and 5. They are good kids. Respectful, friendly, nice to be around. Not many kids like that around these days.

Why am I sharing all this information about Juan? It's my way of giving him some small portion of the respect he is due. Juan is a good man. I am proud to be his friend.

This Christmas, we choose to give the gift of God's Love

The Community Group I belong to with our church is helping a family out for Christmas this year. As we prayed for guidance and for a family that would benefit from our support, the Lord revealed to us a family in our own group that was in need. In fact, this family had not attended our group lately because they could not get a babysitter.

I will not go into detail of the needs or circumstances of this family. Suffice to say that they love the Lord, could use some help, and we are all being blessed by giving them a hand.

How strange it is that so many Christian brothers and sisters do not speak up when they could use our help! Is it our fault? Do we somehow exude a vibe that says "We will help you, but we will look down our noses at you while we do"? I don't really think so. I think the American Dream that says "hard work can accomplish anything in America" takes root in us at a tender young age, and we somehow feel we have failed if we need help. Somehow, many seem to feel that accepting help from the government is more palatable than accepting help from Christian brothers and sisters. After all, they paid the government taxes for just such a time as this, didn't they?

I don't have any profound answers, which is almost always the case. I do know this; extending a hand of assistance to another who needs it allows the miracle of the season, the "Giving is better than receiving" rule, to manifest itself completely. When you share God's love, God blesses in so many ways that it is impossible to describe.

Thank you, Lord Jesus, for this opportunity. We love You. We praise You, We give You thanks.

Amen.

Camping in the Weekender!

I consider myself a simple kind of guy. I enjoy simple things. Camping, cooking, eating, meeting new people. This last weekend, I was able to enjoy each of these. A real treat. Gina and i went to a gathering of a bunch of trailer enthusiasts at Buckskin State Park near Parker Arizona. There were 40 odd trailers there, ranging from minimalist 4' x 8' teardrops to classic Airstreams from the '50's, and almost everything in between. A significant number of them were home built, and most of the old ones had been significantly remodeled. The weather was a bit cooler than I would have liked, but I wouldn't have missed it for the world.

We arrived at 5:30 Thursday evening. It was a bit windy, so we set up camp (that takes about 10 minutes with the Weekender), made and ate dinner, said "Hi" to the folks that were already there, and retired out of the wind in the trailer. It was about 7:30 by this time, but too cold to sit outside. Oh, and we had all 3 dogs with us. So, with nothing else to do, we watched the 1st hour of a movie. By 8:30, Gina was out of it (she was a little under the weather), so I stopped the movie and we went to sleep. We were not quite toasty in the camper, but with the blankets we had, we did just fine. Had to get up once for a potty run (both us and the dogs), but otherwise had a good, restful night. Didn't get up until after 7:00 Friday morning! Made sausage, eggs, and hash browns for breakfast. Yum.

Friday was a beautiful day, once the sun cleared the mountain ridge (about 9:00). Clear, the wind was gone, and the temperature kissed the 70 degree mark most of the day. I met a friend from a forum I belong to (www.camp-cook.com/forum), and enjoyed the meeting immensely. Friday evening I cooked mushroom and beef stew for dinner, to be served over noodles. We ended up adding a can of green beans to make a complete meal out of it, dumped the noodles into the stew so they would stay warm, and chowed down. Pretty good if I do say so myself.

Saturday was not the best of days, weather wise. Overcast and cold, we had to use the 12volt electric heater all night. We made it, though, with its help. Stayed in the trailer until 8:30 to avoid the cold. I had intended to make biscuits for breakfast, but forgot the ingredients, so we ate left over sausage and has browns stirred into scrambled eggs. Not bad at all! Kind of a skillet breakfast.

Saturday night there was a campfire, with a gentleman singing and playing his guitar for a while. By 8:00 it was too cold, so we went back and watched the rest of the movie.

Sunday morning we got up, broke camp and headed home, chilled a bit towards the bone. We stopped by McDonald's and had a gourmet breakfast of sausage biscuits and hash browns. We were home in time for lunch and had leftover stew. All in all, a pretty tasty meal.

I don't know how to post pictures in this blog, so if you want to see all the neat trailers you will have to follow this link http://s734.photobucket.com/albums/ww347/cliffmeister2000/Buckskin%20State%20Park%20Gathering%202009/

God Bless,

Cliff

A sad day at the Cliffmeister household

Saturday, my Beloved and I were scheduled to walk in the MS Walk here in Phoenix. A friend of ours from California flew out to walk with us. Friday night they were chatting, and because we had to get up at 3:30 am, I went to bed about 9:30.

About 11:30 that night, my Beloved came into the bedroom carrying our 14lb Chihuahua / terrier mix, Joey, and very calmly told me I needed to get up and drive her and the dog to the Emergency Animal Hospital. It seems our 70lb shelter rescue dog, Sadie, had gone ballistic and attacked Joey.

3 hours and $400 later, we were on our way home with our bandaged pooch. I had declined an overnight stay at the hospital for my little dog, and declined many other items suggested by the vet on duty. I left with the dog, an anti-inflammatory, an antibiotic, and some pain killers (1/2 a pill every 8 – 12 hours as needed).

I love that little dog, Joey. Probably more than I ought to. Certainly more than I have ever loved a dog before. I would be heartsick if she died. She has been a household member for almost 7 years now. However, Joey is a dog, and there is a limit to how much money I will spend on a dog. In the current economic condition for the Cliffmeister household, $400 was pushing that limit pretty hard.

Sadie has been a good dog, and has never exhibited aggressive behavior before. I doubt if Joey, who thinks she is the alpha dog, is completely innocent in this confrontation. However, I know that Joey can growl and snap, but does not bite. Sadie, who does not growl or snap, is evidently quite capable of killing. My Beloved, who witnessed the entire event, grabbed Sadie and struggled with her for quite a time before she was able to rescue Joey. Joey suffered multiple lacerations of 4 cm (1.5 inches), many puncture wounds, and heavy bruising. Sadie now appears intent on finishing the task she started, and lunges at Joey when she sees her. Sadie is now on a short rope in the back yard.

This is difficult on so many levels. I prayed for Joey, and I cried that night in my bed when I thought she wasn’t going to make it through the night. Then I felt guilty, or at least ridiculous, for praying for and crying over a dog. Sadie has been with us for 9 months. She has been a good dog, but she cannot stay with us.

We have two other small dogs (Jaimee and Moby), and I don’t want a repeat of Friday night’s activities. Jaimee is obviously afraid of Sadie now, and yet somehow very protective of Joey. Moby is a pup, and apparently unfazed by all this commotion.

Joey is probably not innocent, and yet Sadie will bear 100% of the remaining consequences. I am going to take her to the shelter tomorrow, and explain exactly what happened. I believe Sadie would be an excellent companion for someone without other dogs and I would not recommend placing her with a family that has children. What the shelter decides to do with her at that point is up to the shelter.

I am not pleased at all with the situation and how it is going to turn out. In hindsight, I guess I should have stuck with either all little dogs or all big dogs.

Regarding the Emergency Animal Hospital, I am grateful they were there and open and had a vet waiting for us. I did not like the bill, or the implication that I was somehow negligent in not giving them carte blanche to repair my little Joey.

I am taking little Joey to my regular vet for a bandage change and general look over this afternoon. He is a good, honest, fair vet. I know he will be respectful, tell a joke or two, and be generally sympathetic to the situation. He has treated all 4 of my dogs.

I’m sure Cesar Milan would know exactly what to do. I don’t, and I’m not home during the day. I only know this way of preventing a little canine murder.

God Bless,

Cliff

Today, September 11, 2009, marks eight years since the terrorist attacks on New York, the Pentagon, and the hearts of the American people. I was trapped in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida for a while at that time. With lots of time on my hands, I wrote what follows below. It is important to know that I was NOT a Christian at the time, although I thought I was. 9/11 means a lot of different things to a lot of different people. To me, it was perhaps the first of many events God used to get my attention. What I find most interesting is how the major object of my concern was me, rather than the heroes and victims of the attacks. I hope I have grown a little since then.

God bless you,

Cliff

Dear Friends and Loved Ones,

As I sit in my hotel room in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, stranded here with a co-worker by the terrorist attack on New York and Washington, and intermittently stranded by rains from a tropical depression in the Atlantic, I am moved to write about my feelings, observations, and personal situation. Please, feel free to delete this if you are over-burdened already: many are. This exercise is for me - I offer it as a token to my friends as I offer my prayers to my God.

On Monday, September 10, 2001, I hurried off to Ontario International Airport and boarded a 7:00am flight to Fort Lauderdale, for a meeting on the 11th. I brought two books that I am reading with me; Soul Harvest, by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins (Book four of the Left Behind series, a Christian book about possible events in the Last Days), and Fates Worse Than Death (an Autobiographical Collage), by Kurt Vonnegut, a renowned atheist and satirist. I chose to read Vonnegut this time on the plane.

As I read this collection, I was captivated by a speech that is documented in the book, that Kurt Vonnegut gave at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City. In this speech, Mr. Vonnegut is basically trying to persuade people that there is no excuse to be constantly prepared for war, to stockpile nuclear weapons, etc. Today, this view will not be as popular as it might have been on Monday, but I found it profound. If you care to, read it with an open mind. If you cannot, or choose not to, delete it. It's probably not that important.

"... But suppose we foolishly got rid of our nuclear weapons, our Kool-Aid (reference to Jim Jones), and an enemy came over here and crucified us. Crucifixion was the most painful thing the ancient Romans ever found to do to anyone. They knew as much about pain as we do about genocide. They sometimes crucified hundreds of people at one time. That is what they did to all the survivors of the army of Spartacus, which was composed mostly of escaped slaves. They crucified them all. There were several miles of crosses.

"If we were up on crosses, with nails through our feet and hands, wouldn't we wish that we still had hydrogen bombs, so that life could be ended everywhere? Absolutely.

"We know of one person who was crucified in olden times, who was supposedly as capable as we or the Russians are of ending life everywhere. But He chose to endure the agony instead. All he said was 'Forgive them, Father - they know not what they do.'" ...

I you are interested, this speech begins on page 139 of Mr. Vonnegut's book.

Why did I send you this quote? Don't I want to light up the midnight sky of whoever is responsible for this cowardly act of terrorism? You bet I do. And I am deeply ashamed of that desire. I know better.

If you worship God, if you believe Jesus is your Savior, pray for the terrorists as hard as you pray for the dead, the wounded, and the families of the victims. Pray for our leadership, that they make sound decisions and don't accidentally start World War III.

I'm off my soapbox now, and back to my personal feelings.

At 9:00am on September 11th, 2001, (as you will, I will never forget exactly where I was and what I was doing when I heard the news), I was in our Fort Lauderdale office preparing for a meeting with a potential customer. Someone announced that the World Trade Center in New York had been hit by a plane. I assumed it was an accident. Almost immediately, I heard a second plane had hit the other tower. I remember thinking it must have been a mid-air collision. I still thought it was accidental. I stuck my head in the conference room where several people were gathered around a 4 inch TV. It slowly dawned on me that this was an intentional act of terrorism. I was so wrapped up in preparing for the appointment (at least this is the excuse I chose to believe), that I didn't react at first. After all, I was in Florida, and this was New York, and didn't affect me.

I avoided the TV, and concentrated on my duties for the day. As information and rumors piled up - the Pentagon was hit (fact), a car bomb exploded at the State Department (false rumor), an aircraft down outside of Pittsburgh (fact), a fifth aircraft missing (false rumor) - the magnitude of the days events started to sink in. Then, at 1:00pm, while I was on the phone to a co-worker discussing future business opportunities, my cellphone rang.

"Dad?," it was my daughter, Jessica. "Hi, Baby," I said. Then Jessica started crying. She knows I travel, and had no idea where I was. I often travel to the Washington area - we have an office in Fairfax, Virginia that sells to the government. I had to quickly terminate the other call. I could not talk at that moment.

Last night, in my hotel room, I called the airline to find out what my travel status was going to be. I am tentatively scheduled to get a flight out of Ft. Lauderdale tonight at 5:30pm. Even if they open the airport, the airline said that the airplane I am supposed to be on had to land somewhere besides here, so flights are going to take a few days to normalize.

I had a Bloody Mary for breakfast today. I've never done that before, and I don't even like Bloody Marys. I guess it was a small act of defiance.

I am now rambling, and I am certain that you are bored. I apologize. As I said, this was for me. I don't exactly feel better now, but somehow I feel slightly less burdened. That is better, for me, for now.

God bless you. I hope and pray that all of your loved ones are safe.

Cliff

Is it 1984 yet?

In high school, I was required to read Brave New World, Nineteen Eighty Four, Fahrenheit 451, and other tales of social experimentation gone awry. This was not a difficult task, as I was an avid reader, and I loved dystopian fiction. Of those, the imagery of Big Brother looking over our shoulder at every move was the most disturbing to me. Anecdotally, I remember seeing a Peanuts comic panel where Charlie Brown realizes that he will be 21 in 1984 (making Charlie 9 years my junior).

Written in 1949, Orwell described a totalitarian society made possible by technology. George missed the date, and a few other details, but he was uncannily foresighted in many ways. Listening to a group of distinguished Talking Heads on the radio on my way home from church today, former mayor of New York City Rudy Giuliani noted that we need to tell our children that their every move is subject to world wide peer review.
“Everyone with a cell phone is a photographer, everyone who blogs is a reporter! With YouTube, anyone with a video camera is a live news reporter.”

I believe he may be correct. Add to that the dashboard camera in almost all police cars, and the video surveillance systems employed in most government buildings and larger office buildings, and if you are in Urban USA and you don’t think you are on camera, it’s probably because you just haven’t spotted the camera yet.

How do we react to this information? How should we react? Some try to disengage from society, fearing the knowledge that they only have privacy in their own homes. Some espouse the new social order completely, almost with an attitude of “If you can’t beat them, join them!”

As a Christian, I’m inclined to believe that it shouldn’t matter. I am to live my life with the knowledge that my God is all knowing, all seeing. Nothing I do, nothing I even think, is hidden from Him. Why should I care what shows up on a video, or a photograph, or even a blog?

Unfortunately, the photographers, videographers and bloggers of the world are NOT all knowing, NOT all seeing. There have been many opportunities to misinterpret the situations and events surrounding a photograph or even a video. Bloggers (self included) have an agenda. Telling the truth might not further their agenda. The truth, for that matter, is not something that lends itself to mortal understanding.

John 14:6 states; ‘Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.’

We Christians spend our lives trying to understand Jesus, which, by Biblical definition, would be to understand Truth. We try, and we gain a little ground, but we never come close. Jesus and God are one, and God is very mysterious. (see 1 Timothy 3:16) If God were able to be understood, He wouldn’t be much of a god, would He?

Ultimately, I want to live for Jesus, above reproach (1 Timothy 3:2), and count on Jesus to protect me. But, even if He doesn’t (see Daniel 3:17-18), I will live for Him.

A Lesson Learned

Let me set the stage for today’s blog. It is, after all, about me.

I left work at 5:00, something I rarely do. As I start my day at 6:30, I try to get out by 4:30. Some days, it is more like 5:30. This day, it happened to be 5:00. I drove down the little capillary that connects my office capillary to the larger artery of 19th Avenue. Two blocks. The backup at the signal was all of ½ a block long. I sat through two lights, and each light allowed 3 or 4 cars through. It was going to take at least 4 more lights to get through. AGH!

I decided to turn right instead of left at the light ahead. This allowed me to drive right up to the light, as everyone else was turning left to drive to the freeway. I could turn right, and catch an intersecting freeway and at least be moving!

At the light, I assessed the oncoming traffic. Speed limit, 45 mph. 3 lanes of oncoming traffic. Motorcycle in left lane, motorcycle in right lane. Center lane clear. Plenty of room to turn right into the center lane before the cyclists caught up to me. Go for it!

I turned right into the center lane. The motorcycle in the right lane, seeing me turn and not realizing I was headed for the center lane, moved to the center lane himself. Still no danger of causing an accident, but now the cyclist had to either ease up on the throttle or change lanes again. Although I didn’t see him do it, he apparently changed lanes again into the left lane. The other cyclist, the one already in the left lane, slowed down to accommodate him.

As the cyclist passed me, he revved his ample motor to make sure I knew he was displeased with me, then he cut in front of me dangerously close and roared off down the street.

Okay, the stage is set. What I really want to talk about is my thoughts, reactions, and decisions during and after this episode.

Frustration. 50 or so of my fellow laborers (slight exajuration) all left work at the 5:00 bell. I was at the back of the pack.
Pride. I was too full of myself to think I should have to wait in the back of this pack of humanity for my turn to get through the signal.
More pride. I was brilliant! I thought of a way around the masses to serve my own purposes.
Embarrassment. I was embarrassed that I had not thought the motorcyclist would misinterpret my actions.
Anger. Who does this guy think he is, trying to put me in my place by pointing out the fact that I had inconvenienced him.

As I drove down the street rolling these thoughts over and over in my mind, trying to decide if I had been wrong or not, the obvious became clear. Without my action of turning right in what could easily be considered an unwise manner, I began a chain of events that, 3 or 4 years ago might have escalated to a very unpleasant end. 3 or 4 years ago, I might have decided to show that arrogant cyclist that he was messing with the wrong guy.

Don’t misunderstand me; I’m not a big, tough, macho man. But I was driving a truck! No motorcycle would be my match! I would have been very angry! I would have been very wrong. I could have done something very stupid.

I began to realize that my actions began this series of events. I felt convicted of my own foolishness. I realized I needed to be more caring for others on the road, and not so much be all about me.

By this time I reached the freeway onramp. The line was ½ a block long, and the signal was only letting 3 or 4 cars through at a time.

The hardest part of writing a blog is getting started. I mean, who's to say anybody really cares what I have to say? Once started, the blog does need so say something somewhat meaningful and relevant; at least if anyone at all is to read it. Finally, there needs to be something in the material that make the reader want to come back and see what else I might say.

Then again, there is great freedom in the thought that no one will read it at all. That's the freedom of a diary. The writer and the reader are always the same person, and the reader is infinitely interested in what the writer has to say. Especially later, when the emotionally charged moment is a memory and the only thing that remains is the history. Then the reader can look back and see how accurate the excitement or fear of the moment was.

I'm going to try and write this as if I were the only reader. I want that freedom. I think you want that candor. Let's see if I can pull it off.

Today I want to write about the experience of losing my job. It was terrible / horrible / wonderful all at the same time. Let me explain...

I had my own business for 6 1/2 years. We were mildly successful - enough to attract the attention of a larger public company called Inter-Tel. I sold to Inter-Tel in January 1994, and enjoyed myself in various positions until the company was purchased by Mitel in August 2007. Mitel, a private company, went very deeply in debt to buy Inter-Tel. The plan was to take two sub- $500M companies, streamline them, and go public again, making more than a few millionaires in the process. The only problem; the economy collapsed before Mitel could go public. No one would try to go public in this economy.

Mitel started with laying off overlapping positions. When they had trimmed the overlap, they began cutting where it hurt. They began laying off the people who made the most money. Finally, on November 6th, 2008, the President of Mitel US walked into my office. I looked at him and said, "Is it my turn to go home?"

This was not totally unexpected. I had quit taking vacation as soon as the acquisition happened, and had 8 weeks saved up. With just shy of 15 years with Inter-Tel, I also got 14 weeks severance pay. I had 22 weeks to find a job.

I had been praying for God to give me strength to survive the situation mentally. I don't think I ever considered missing any meals, but emotionally I was struggling. I had only looked for work twice before in my adult life. I was unprepared. I put my resume on Career Builder, and applied to many locations. Most never even responded. Except insurance companies. i must have gotten 2 dozen responses to my resume from insurance companies. I wasn't interested.

My former boss, Ray, was laid off the same day I was, about 30 minutes earlier. The owner of Fulton Communications in Atlanta, also an Inter-Tel alumni, had reached out to him to see if he was interested in starting a branch of Fulton in Phoenix. Ray asked if I was interested. In all honesty, I quit looking for work at that moment. Ray, however, was not yet ready to commit. That would come later.

In the meantime, I was slimming down our budget. I cut out cable TV and got the cheapest satellite available. I cut Internet down to the slowest non-dial up available. I even dropped caller ID from the phone. We were not in terrible shape financially, as we had been paying down credit cards for the last year. We had just the house, my truck, and one credit card. That credit card was no small bill, however. I had paid off a timeshare with a 0% interest transfer offer, and the monthly was huge. I signed up for Dave Ramsey's "Financial Peace University" through my church. I needed to learn how to create and follow a budget.

I cannot recommend Dave Ramsey's program enough. We now had a budget and knew we would make it. If only that job came through.

With God's help, we are now doing as well or maybe even better than before, even though I am making about 60% of what I used to. So, what have I learned?

I cannot count on mankind, jobs, luck, or anything else to give me and my family security. I can only count on God.

My wife loves me, and she trusts God more than I do. She trusts me more than I do too.

Money is not the issue. How I relate to money, how I use money... That's what is important.

Oh, Fulton Phoenix began operations on March 17, 2009. It is really hard getting people to buy in this economy, but I am betting we can win enough business to make our office worthwhile.

God Bless,

Cliff

Alpha

Good day, Dear Reader,

Today I begin this rant with nothing particular to say, but grateful for a place to say it. Without further ado, let me introduce myself.

My name is Cliff, and I go by the handle cliffmeister2000 most places on the web. It all started with eBay, about eight years ago... I am so used to it, I would probably answer to it in a crowded airport.

I am Husband to 1, Father to 4, Grandpa to 5. I am a follower of Jesus Christ. I am an advocate of the Church as found in Acts. I like to make little pieces of wood out of big pieces of wood. I would like to learn to weld. I make significantly less money than I did in previous years, and am very thankful to have a job. I sell telephone systems to businesses for a living.

The purpose of this blog will be to allow me to write my thoughts. I will probably vary the topics between those things I hold dear; my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, family, friends, woodworking, camping, and maybe the occasional post about the economy, social issues, or a good joke.

Please feel free to comment, agree, disagree, complain, or encourage. As long as your responses are not vulgar or abusive, I will post them. Please remember, however, this blog is intended to be selfishly devoted to my interests. Sort of a journal available to the world to see.

Thanks for stopping by. May God richly bless you!

Cliff