Kotkas Coined Term I

"Lactose Intolerable" - Used to describe lactating Mothers who can't seem to stop talking about it ...ever. This includes posting about it on Facebook, posting pictures.

Hit and Run

For a time I worked part time nights as a Computer Operator. This was in a ticket office in down town Tempe Arizona. I would come in for a few hours each night to back up the system. Many nights I would not leave to go to our home in Mesa until 1 or 2 in the morning.

At that time I was driving a Chevy Long bed Pickup Truck. It was old and a bit clunky, but it was built like a brick-house. It had a solid heavy duty bumper on the back that jutted out like battering ram. Tailgaters would need to be pretty brave to risk challenging me from the rear.

Driving home one cold rainy winter night on Apace Blvd., the truck conked out and stalled....right in the middle of the road.

No power, and raining, I wanted to get the pickup out of the road. So, I put the truck in neutral and got behind the truck and started pushing. Slowly rolling the truck forward, with the steering wheel slightly angled toward the curb, I had my thighs churning. Apache was deserted that late at night, quiet and drizzling. There was no other cars or pedestrians around in any direction.

 A still small voice came over me, whispering for me to get out of the road quick. I have always been one that believes in listening to promptings, and admittedly I was in a precarious spot. So I released from the Chevy and moved quickly to the sidewalk. Within seconds a sedan came speeding toward the exact spot where I had been standing. It banged lightly into the back of the bumper, ricocheted back a car length, and then took off again. I'm not sure how much his front-end was damaged, I could not see it. And then, the sedan stopped in the middle lane about 200 yards down the road. I think the driver may have been looking back, maybe to see if I was ok. I had barely moved out of the way in time. I was ok, and that truck with that solid bumper was fine. Though he had not hit my truck too hard, if I had been standing between his car and the bumper I probably would have been halved.

After idling for a few minutes, the car drove on. I was pretty shaken up. I don't know if he would have actually stopped and helped me if I had been hit. It is just as likely that I would have been a it and run victim.

Still small voice? My Mom might probably say that I and episode of ESP or that some ghostly kin had been there to warn me. Some people would maybe say an angel was watching over me. I admit, I don't know for sure what warned me, but I join the ranks of my own church who say it was the Holy Spirit prompting me in the 'still small voice'.

1 KINGS 19

And he said, Go forth, and stand upon the mount before the Lord. And, behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the mountains, and brake in pieces the rocks before the Lord; but the Lord was not in the wind: and after the wind an earthquake; but the Lord was not in the earthquake:

 12 And after the earthquake a fire; but the Lord was not in the fire: and after the fire a ^astill small ^bvoice.

What do you think?  I'd love to read your comments. Read about some other 'miracles' I have experienced here, and here.

A Saint I Ain't

I have a standard reply when people casually, jokingly, refer to me as 'St. Nick'. A Saint I Ain't.  People are always adding the word 'Saint' to my name. I thought my reply is appropriate, it is the literal truth and it rhymes. Or it used to be the truth. Does having a Saint relic inside your body make you closer to being canonized?

What does the Catholic Church (Church Of My Youth) Require For Canonization?

• Heroic Virtue...hmm. Not me.
• Posthumous Miracle. Not yet. I'm not quite toast yet. That is a miracle.
• Martyrdom... Well, people tell me to quit being a martyr. But no.
• Second Posthumous Miracle. Nope.

So, I guess I am not likely to become a Saint as a Catholic. The Church I attend now is The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. So, does that get me the official 'Saint' title, that and the relic?

The relic I am thinking of is my St. Jude Model 31MJ-501 Heart Valve.

So, who is this St. Jude, and why has he invaded my Saintly Body?

St. Jude, one of the original 12 Apostles,  the patron saint of desperate situations and hospitals. Possibly even a brother of J.C., according to some accounts.

Hmm. That is one serious looking Saint dude. And there he is in the picture, holding his hand over his ticker. They even have an official Catholic prayer to Jude... 

"May the Sacred Heart of * be adored, glorified, loved and preserved now and forever. Sacred Heart of * have mercy on us, Saint Jude worker of Miracles, pray for us, Saint Jude helper and keeper of the hopeless, pray for us, Thank you Saint Jude."

Hmm. (I edited out the Saviors name so I don't get too sacrilegious on this post) But there they go, bringing up heart again. Hopeless, that's me. Desperate, oh yeah, that's me. Is all this a coincidence? A Miracle?

Well, I have miracles. I posted previously about one miracle. But, this whole heart thing might be another one. I had this heart murmur thing all my life....but it was not until I hit 50 that they diagnosed the problem, that it was life threatening. And in surgery to fix the heart problem, the natural valve failed and they had to replace it with this St. Jude contraption. The things the modern medical fields can do in the name of healing now...all the procedures and gadgets and scopes and medicine and implants...miracles all, without any doubt.

My heart surgeon credits my wife for insisting I go to my home care Dr. to get the murmur checked out. He also credits my home care Dr. for referring me to the Cardiologist. So the miracles start to pile up, right wife, right physician, right cardiologist and right surgeon, all saying all the right things. An angel out there watching over me? Angels all around me.

Late at night and the house is quiet. The ladies living here all asleep and I can here St. Jude Medical device 31MJ-501 ticking away like a Swiss clock. This  means that I'm still alive, still shuffling to the beat on this mortal coil. Survive for another day.

Thankful to Angels, to St. Jude, and to my Father in Heaven.

Cheers, nca

Change Up, Just A Little Outside

Wow...too many serious posts in a row. Needed something silly to lighten the load.

From a childhood in a low income large family, I have always found it appropriate to look at all alternatives to solve a problem. That is probably not so unusual. Sometimes, the alternatives my brain comes up somehow come out even more outside of the box then is necessary  And if I go with the thought before really thinking it out...I can put myself in some strange situations.

Case in Point:

Spring in the Valley of the Sun can be totally awesome. Nice weather early. And Spring Training. Yes, 15 major league teams make their preseason home in the Valley, meaning there is a whole lot of baseball going on. And let's face it...I love baseball.

So one spring, when the older girls were not yet teens, the three of us made a trip out to Scottsdale to see the Giants play. We had thought we would sit up on the rolling grass fields in the outfield. Maybe shag a fly ball  eat lunch, enjoy the weather and the game. So we packed a lunch and headed out to old Scottsdale.

When we were entering the stadium, the gatekeeper told us we were not allowed to bring lunches in. WHAT??? We had brought lunches and blankets for just one reason....

Alternative Brain Cells in Gear, click click click. Split second decision, speedier then a fastball...I had an idea.

I sent the girls in on their own, around to a side of the gate where no one could see us, and I tossed the lunches over the fence. Problem solved...NCA style.

A couple years later, at a Church Young Women's meeting where members of the Stake Presidency had invited us to the Stake President's house for a Fireside....some of the girls had prepared special presentations for honoring their parents, particularly the values taught by their parents. When my oldest daughter had her turn...she first talked about my wife...how what a good Mother she was, how she had taught her good Motherhood skills, cooking skills etc. Then she brought me up. She said I had taught her how to think outside of the box. And she told the story I just related about getting our lunches past security at the Spring Training Game.

This was in front of the Stake President and the Young Women's Presidency, and my wife.

Yep.

Cheers, NCA.

Speak, Friend, and Enter

Wow, looking at stats just now and there were 26 viewers from Deutschland! How lucky for me. Grüß Gott!  Tausend Dank. I have never been to your country, though it is certainly on my list. I don't know your language, but I have family that speaks it fluently. My American heritage includes several citizens of Deutschland, including my surname Adler, which means Eagle.

So welcome all. As written over the entrance of Moria in Elvish- Speak, Friend, and Enter. (OK, yes, I am a Tolkien nerd :) )

I am curious about what made so many of you drop by my blog this week...as opposed to other weeks. Please feel free to drop comments at the bottom of a page that interests or aggravates you. I'd love to hear from you.

But interestingly, that is not why I am addressing you today. I'm going to do something I have not yet tried here before. I'm going to reach out to the blogsmos and ask if anyone knows three characters from my past that I have lost touch with and would love to connect with. If these three people ring a bell with anyone, please pass the word on that Nick Adler would love to connect again.

The first two are German citizens, brothers. They were visiting the United States back around 1979, 1980...in the Northern Arizona area. Their father worked for Lufthansa which allowed them flight privileges that sent them on adventures to see the world. That, along with liberal enough parents that let them travel to distant countries unchaperoned. On the trip where I met them, the were 'campers' involved with the YMCA Adventure Camp to hike Havasupi Canyon. I was one of the counselors on that trip, and the three of us struck up a good friendship. My memory, 35 years later were that their names were Sven and Kurt...but I could be way off there (thinking of the Sound of Music or something...hahaha). If was a great trip, and anyone interested in finding out more about flight benefits working for airlines or camping with the YMCA, leave me a note and I can speak fondly on both. I'd like to think I have had a few adventures of my own, like Sven and Kurt (known to me as Dolphin), and flight benefits and the YMCA both helped me in that regard.

The other friend from the past from that area of the world was a girl named Unni. It may have been Unni Wurzberger or some such spelling. I met her a few years later, up at Sky-Y Family Camp. My memory says that Unni (or Uni?) was from Austria. She was an exchange student staying with a family here in the states (perhaps California or Arizona) and they had come up to Sky-Y Family Camp. I worked for 5 or 6 years at this Camp...and again friends...if you want to do something different and meeting new people at a Family Camp environment suits you...I would encourage you to try this. I met many people  this way, and we all had a great deal of fun there. Anyway, this particular summer I met Unni and in a short time we became friends.

Right, don't go worrying about my integrity, this was just friends people! I'm not talking about stirring up some old romance...but friendships. There was a time when a 20 year old camp counselor could make friends with a couple boys and  a girl from Eastern Europe and there was no funny-bunny business about it. A kinder, simpler America perhaps? More on that in another post.

One thing I have found is that I was very casual about friendships at that time, and most of my life. All three of these 'friends' wrote me after our adventures together but I lapsed on the correspondence.

So, if anyone knows anything about these three friends of mine that I lost contact with...please encourage them to this URL. I'd love to catch up on these old friendships.

Cheers NCA.

Pens Were Once Made Of Feathers

 There is an old quote that calls television the 'Vast Wasteland'.

 

"When television is good, nothing — not the theater, not the magazines or newspapers — nothing is better. But when television is bad, nothing is worse. I invite each of you to sit down in front of your television set when your station goes on the air and stay there for a day without a book, without a magazine, without a newspaper, without a profit and loss sheet or a rating book to distract you. Keep your eyes glued to that set until the station signs off. I can assure you that what you will observe is a vast wasteland." Newton Norman Minow.

 

This is probably more true today then back when Mr. Minow said it back in 1961. (I wonder if he came up with the brilliant thought during a 3 hour tour?). I think my cable provider comes with about 12 stations I actually watch and 200 that will never see even a brief flick of static on my SONY. I wonder if there are stations that are never watched by anyone, or is there someone out there actually watching the gem channel right now?

 

But if television is a wasteland, what of the Internet? 'Vast' is nowhere near descriptive enough for what the Internet provides. For the Gilligan's Island Theme Song search I just did, there were 149,000 hits on google!   Mind-boggling. Mind-Googling.

I pulled these statistics off a search on Yahoo. Certainly not scientific, but I think probably the accuracy is less important than the sheer possibility of it all:

• Total number of YouTube videos -- over 120,000,000
• Number of videos uploaded per day -- about 200,000
• Time required to see all the videos -- over 600 years
• Number of videos watched daily -- over 200,000,000
• Amount of content uploaded every minute -- 13 hours

The Internet is beyond comprehension to me. This post will soon be swallowed up into the mammoth infinity like one tiny krill digested by a blue whale swimming in any one of all the oceans in all the possible worlds (imaginative and real).

Social Networks were the rage. In my circle they may still be, but I am aged and behind the times, my daughter tells me of newer Internet rages way beyond my ability to comprehend. But Social Networks are the subject here, since it effects me and troubles me and gives me cause to ponder.

I have joined and left and joined and left and rejoined Facebook. At this point I removed 90% of my 'Friends' and left mostly family and some friends that I worried that I might offend. I encouraged the others to go to this blog instead, since I can be more 'me' here and less a part of the machine. If you were of the group I deleted as Friends, let me apologize. I welcome all Friends yet pander none in my own vanity. At this point, there is just a very few left, when once there were near 70 or 80. I see some people, some Friends on Facebook with hundreds, even thousands of Friends. Gathered like badges of honor, like a contest of who can log the most Friends. I could never dare to be even competitive in that honor.

Of those left, those few I dared not delete...my heart is troubled. Recently, a feud among some family on Facebook has caused some mean and angry postings. Among some other Friends, there are occasionally jaw dropping personal revelations that I'd prefer to not hear, not read. At times embarrassing, or personal, or angry, cast into this extendedgigantic galaxy of bits and bytes. And of what duration? Is something, once posted on FaceBook permanent, backed up on servers, indelible and irreversible like carvings in stone? Are these the Chauvet Cave paintings our ancestors will someday read?

And can I even point my finger at my family and Friend, cast a first stone with what I myself have posted here and on Facebook and elsewhere on the Internet?

Facebook, Social Media in general, allows us to carve our instant and fleeting thoughts as a gospel of our soul. This momentary gospel suddenly achieves a shelflife and an instant audience, becomes a permanent record. Words can hurt, and the written word stings worse then those that are spoken. Thoughts have a short shelf life, spoken thoughts last longer, written thoughts on Social Media can be everlasting, perhaps more lasting than any of us truly intend.

I don't believe in censorship. Free Thought and Free Speech are part of my American Heritage, and I will stand up for those rights proudly. But does every thought need a voice? Is every thought worthy of a post? Does every post require a decision of 'Like' or 'Unlike'?  Just because the 'pen is mightier then the sword' it does not mean we need to wield our pens like swords...I remember when pens were quills made of feather  as were the wings of a dove.

Cheers, nca