Papa Pat Tiny Devotionals

Greetings, Internet Friends and Family! It's that most wonderful time of the year, when we are cooped up with people bringing us gifts, food, and whatever virus they have encountered in the last week or so. 14-year-old Kenneth woke up on Christmas morning with a fever of 102.1, and Papa had it by the next day. A cold is a virus, and unless you took action before you knew you needed to, there's nothing to do for it but treat the symptoms and wait it out, and try not to infect other people. My gift-from-God, happily-ever-after trophy wife Vanessa, the elegant, foxy, praying black grandmother of Woodstock, GA, has returned to the work place to see if she can spread a little disease there. That's mostly because she has this unbending streak of job loyalty, which won't allow her to take time off. Not me, though. I did ALMOST go out yesterday to get some things I need, but then ran out of time and energy, and just started another pot of jasmine rice, and took a nap. Best thin...

A link for those who aren't running an ad blocker:     And for those who ARE running an ad blocker, I have a link for YOU, too! And here is your graphic. Everyone likes graphics! Not claiming any relationship to the text, though. Two questions I must address first: 1. Why MORMON Steampunk? 2. Why am I, a non-Mormon, and a member of a high commitment, non-traditional Christian church, reviewing this work? My response to the two questions. 1. Why MORMON Steampunk? I have only quotes by the editor, but whether those answer the question, I am not sure. James Wymore, in his introduction, offers these as something that may constitute an answer to 'Why is there an anthology of Mormon steampunk?': A. Steampunk has always been good to him B. He is a faithful Mormon C. He was asked to do it.  Those work as answers to me, but if you have more questions, direct them elsewhere. I only review, I do not justify.  A very cursory run through my memory reveals no corresponding volume which...

A person who posts from time to time on a social networking site I'm a member of alerted me to this article on Gizmodo , and this item in the New York Times. Let me give a tiny summing up, and why it matters: 1. Facebook, Amazon, and other agencies shared user data without permission. 2. They continued to do so after they said they had never done it, and they wouldn't do it again. 3. The resulting data mining led to some invasions of privacy, including 4. Amazon deleting a book review a user submitted, saying she had a relationship with the author. 5. There WAS no relationship between the two; they were both members of some Facebook group(s). In addition, both had attended a conference. How do you prove a negative? Absence of proof is not proof of absence, and it is VERY difficult to prove that Reviewer A is not friends with Writer B. Rather it is very difficult to prove that Writer B is not receiving inequitable advantage from Reviewer A. A few years ago, Amazon had some signi...

What follows is a link to the book on Amazon, BUT, if you are running an ad-blocker (as I am) you won't see anything.     For those who can't see it (like me), it's a nice thumbnail of the cover, with a purchase link. Ad blockers don't like pictures with purchase links, so, if you run your system in the same way I do, you get zip. I don't like it when I get zip, and I imaging most people don't. There is a way to pause your adblocker, but I also don't like having to do that, and I REALLY don't like trying to provide instructions. But I do not wish for you to be deprived of a link and a picture, just because you run an ad blocker. Therefore, I will provide for you THIS LINK TO THE BOOK , and a picture of me cuddling my newest granddaughter, Miss Evelyn. Papa and Miss Evelyn Hart, 11/19/18 Preliminary note to the review: I grabbed this book the INSTANT it was released! No, not really. It was released on September 5, and I got it September 7. But I did read...

If you DON'T have an ad blocker running, you will see a graphic link to the book next:     Don't  feel left out, in case you DO have an ad blocker running (as I do)! Here is a link to the book for you, after a picture of a chicken:    CHIKENS R GUD FOR U!!! (Because you ad-free people didn't get a graphic) A variation on 'In the country of the blind, the one-eyed man is king,' is that brand of lovely escapist literature (and movies) about being in possession of advanced technology among primitives. There are LOTS of ways to make this happen, from time warps via messing around with superstrings, as in the 1632 universe, or Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen,  to landing on a primitive planet, as in a million movies and Twilight Zone episodes, to all of the post-apocalyptic stories, regardless of the nature of the apocalypse.   Now, while I PERSONALLY would favor being provided with lots of weapons, ammo, and magic healing devices if I were to be dumped in a pre-indust...

"Dog Bite It!" That was something my grandmother used to say when she was mildly vexed. It came up mostly in circumstances where I had skinned my knee, bumped my head, etc, "Je-HOS-a-phat!" I have a very dim memory of hearing that as well, on occasions calling for an expression of dismay. Maybe it wasn't her saying it. Maybe  it was coming from the radio. Don't recall it that clearly. "Muscle Shoals!" That came from my grandfather, on occasions when 'neither "Dog Bite It" nor "Je-HOS-a-phat!" would work. I don't remember the particulars behind this utterance, but when I asked my grandmother about it, she said that there had been a big dam in Muscle Shoals. So, when circumstances arose that he wished to express his displeasure about, instead of saying, you know,  he determined to limit himself to 'Muscle Shoals." "Tabby!"  This is an expletive that I shared with my dear friend and co-counselor, Mrs. Cat...

Today is Veteran's Day. OldNFO has a beautiful moving tribute here. I wish to honor my grandfather, William Jordan Paulette. He was born on August 3, 1899, and ran away from home to join the Army. I looked for, but cannot find, the only picture I have of him in uniform. His job was to take care of the mules, and the picture is of a squad of young men and a single grizzled sergeant standing at horse stable. Small generic French mutt is included in the photograph. He landed in France on this day, 100 years ago, the day the Armistice was signed. He told me that when Bill Paulette landed, that was one too many Bills in France, so Kaiser Bill left. He told me about catching the Spanish Influenza, and going to the hospital. I would have been a child, or at most a teenager, at the time of the conversation, so I had no idea how awful that epidemic was, and so I didn't know the significance of that; but he said he would wake up in the morning, to find that the two boys on either side o...