Say What?

In the spring of 1992, in the middle of having my home built, I began to wonder what I would do with the transom windows I was having installed in several places in the home. Should I just leave them bare? What do other people do with them? That's when I had the idea to fit them with stained glass but I wasn't keen on the idea of paying someone to do the work. A co-worker, Shannon Madery, suggested I check out a stained glass shop in Eagan called Creations in Glass to see what they offered for instruction. I took their beginner's class in the art of stained glass, having no idea if I'd have either the aptitude or the desire to take it beyond the 6 session course. I would be one of their last students before they went out of business. I finished my first project , and like a proud little schoolboy bringing his artwork home, I gave it to my mother. She kindly displayed it in her home for the rest of her life, as she did with my 2nd project as well. I had no way of know...

I was going through the inner workings of my blog this morning and came across this unpublished piece I'd written a couple years ago. It details a conversation I'd had with a former co-worker. It didn't end well, in fact, we haven't spoken since. He left me with this: "I'm afraid Kevin that you have hardened your heart against the Lord so bad that there may be no turning back. You need to repent my friend. I mean that sincerely. I'm afraid the only God you serve is the one you created in your mind. I'll continue to rely on the Bible, the Word of God." Here's the previously unpublished entry. I was going to blog today but I've been involved in a Facebook Messenger discussion and it's sucked up a good deal of the time I was going to use. I got to thinking that maybe my most recent reply to my friend can suffice for an entry because it touches on so many things that are playing out in our world today with the marrying of Christianity...

I've been steadily adding to my stained glass inventory in my Etsy store . I've had a few sales along the way but it's been slow, which I expected. Still, I'm enjoying more than ever this hobby of mine and if I make a few sales along the way, all the better. The photo to the left is a collection of my available pieces. I'm beginning to build a network of other glass artists as well as those who appreciate glass art on an Instagram account where my focus is on my glasswork rather than a mix of that and life in general; I have another account for that. It's interesting to see what others around the globe are doing with their art. I've made quite a few connections with Russian and Chinese artists, which I find interesting. I'm encouraged by the comments I'm receiving there. It's a nice community of people. I've spent the past couple days going through my blog and reconstituting dozens of broken links to videos that were deleted when I lost...

Emotions are running high here in the Wild West where another mass shooting at a school last week took the lives of 17 students, and where everybody is being encouraged to carry a weapon because who needs their Jesus anymore when we've got that cold, blue steel in our pocket to protect us? Our country has lost its mind! Perhaps it truly is time to reconsider this 2nd Amendment thing of ours. I know that's a very unpopular thing to say but it's becoming more and more evident that we're not responsible enough as a society to continue with this failed freedom in its present form. But the cult of conservatism and the cult of the NRA and the cult of Trump won't allow for discussion on the matter. It's guns for everyone, even some suffering from mental illness , with little to no safeguards! Because of the Dickey Amendment (Republican legislation), the Centers for Disease Control isn't even allowed to study the problem of gun violence to help us gain a better...

I feel like I'm letting my blog down or that I'm not being true to myself because there's so much that's happening in my/our world today and I'm largely silent about much of it. Sure, I've written a fair amount, but not an amount that's anywhere near proportionate or deserving of the corruption we're witnessing unfold within Trump's* administration. What's happening within our government is of serious concern to me. I would hate to have a grandchild sitting across from me decades from now wondering if I stood up to any of the madness that's happening in our politics today. Clicking on the years 2017-2018 in my blog's right margin to reveal my thoughts would lead one to think my main focus was about riding or stained glass or golfing, with only some passing concern for what Trump's* administration is doing to our country, and that's not enough. I want to be sure there's no mistake as to which side of history I was on when we lo...

My mother's older brother, my uncle Don, aka Tauno, passed away last week. He was 98 years old . He retired from the postal service in 1974 and enjoyed his retirement years in Oklahoma City as a luthier specializing in violins. He turned his garage into his workshop and had it so neatly organized. A button suspended on a string from the rafters told him exactly how far forward he could park his car when the button touched the windshield. There was very little wasted space. He made his first violin at 11. A neighbor had a violin and he took measurements of it by using an arm and a hand to make note of the basic dimensions, then he did what appeared to come naturally to him: he made a violin of his own . He was the go-to guy for the Oklahoma City Philharmonic orchestra for any repairs musicians may have needed. He was also sought out by people throughout the country for his stringed instruments and for his expertise in repairing damaged instruments. Don would occasionally enter ...

I've been avoiding politics here for a while because there's already so much talk of it out there but every now and then I feel the need to go on the record with my thoughts about what's happening in our world. A dozen years ago I was a firm believer in trickle-down economics. It just made good sense. Give corporations a tax break and they'll surely turn around and reinvest those extra dollars in their people. I never factored greed into the equation. But now that we've got a 30-year history of failed trickle-down schemes, it stuns me that any reasonable person could possibly think it deserves another shot. But that's what Republicans have done by signing into law a huge tax cut for corporations that will no doubt leave their upper ranks flush with cash. Oh sure, they gave us peasants a sugar-high of a tax cut as well but it's written with vanishing ink and will disappear after a few years. Meanwhile, our national debt will continue to grow unchecked as th...