[Today’s run: 3.2 miles Watson Road]
Our dryer heater element kit from Amazon.com showed up today. I’ve installed the kit and I’ve gotten almost caught up with the laundry.
The order history says that I last ordered this kit in September 5, 2022. It lasted almost a year. And I seem to remember I had done it earlier in 2022.
This is the Samsung dryer we bought when we moved into the house in 2009. At that time we also bought a stove, a refrigerator, a laundry washer and a dishwasher. The laundry washer has been replaced twice since then. We just replaced the dishwasher a few weeks ago. The dryer, stove, and fridge are the same ones.
From that sampling it seems that the units that deal with wash water have the hardest life.
For now things are working. I’m getting pretty good at replacing that heater element.
Today we worked on making a gate to the duck fence. I built the gate and got it installed. But I haven’t figured out the latching yet. So I propped something against it. The Duck Barn also is secure, so if some critter gets in the gate the ducks should still be safe.
The ducks got more adventurous today and came out of the Duck Barn and enjoyed the grass. They spent most of the day in the shade under the Duck Barn. We got up over 97F today and the ducks survived it ok. Friday they stayed all day in the Barn, but it was much cooler and a bit stormy.
They don’t yet know how to use the ramp to get back in, so we chased them down and lifted them in by hand.
We have a cleaning crew come every other week to help clean the house. That has really been helpful. For one thing it ensures that it gets done. And it helps motivate us to do a better job because we don’t want to be so completely disgusting when they arrive.
So we got the ducks transported out of the jacuzi bathtub on Thursday evening and I cleaned up most of the wood chips and splatter before they arrived on Friday. I told them they didn’t have to mess with the tub… but after they left I saw that they had finished it up and it looks pretty good.
I had picked up a book at the estate sale a week or so ago, The God Who Is There by Francis Schaeffer (1968). I had not read it before. I found it very interesting. It moves along quickly and has some difficult terminology, but not a terrible amount. The book talks about some of the philosophical movements of the 20th century and how these things contradict reality, that the people who espouse them don’t actually live out the logical consequences of their statements, or see those consequences as desirable.
Which in some ways I can see applying to everyone with a stated belief.
I think Schaeffer would say that a Christian worldview at least pushes people toward a life considered virtuous even if it is not completely embraced whereas other philosophies lead toward people taking on virtue in contradiction to their beliefs, the more they embrace their philosophy the less virtue is a priority.
I’m not smart enough to critique his work, but it seems to me it requires a very smart person to live a minutely examined life in any kind of semi-consistent way. Most people can’t do it and probably don’t want to do it. One of the comforts of Christianity is that, though it stands up to examination and questioning, it doesn’t require passing some kind of hurdle either mental or physical. Everything is literally already done and a person’s task is to believe it. If you want to walk on broken glass or go get theology degrees, that is maybe a calling or a penance or something but it doesn’t accomplish anything toward salvation and possibly could lead to or grow out of the wrong assumption that some great work is necessary to achieve salvation on one’s own.
In the book of Romans it says that, once a person has salvation, which includes being adopted as a child of God, that new station should have effect on they way they live. The works part is supposed to grow out of the faith part. James says faith without works is dead… which means if you don’t start living it in some visible way, then you don’t believe it.
Personally, when I read stuff like this I frequently feel that tension between what I say and what I do. The output indicates the input, to some degree. So there is a mental discomfort because I’m not always producing what I should be producing, going by the things which I say I believe. I can get that same sensation in church on Sundays.
Over time it has kind of morphed into a surprise and comfort that the important parts are not my responsibility, kind of like when you are used to walking on terra firma and then go on a roller coaster or in a small plane and realize that the really important things (like gravity and mechanical systems and aeronautics) aren’t your responsibility. There’s a lot going on and if you need to do something you’ll be prompted, but most of the time you should keep your hands clear of the moving parts and enjoy the ride.
That last paragraph may be mostly self justification. It’s hard to tell.
4 replies on “Dryer resolved”
I’d look at a different brand of home appliance, personally, the next time something goes kaput in a big way. I had to fix the door latch on our clothes washer – YouTube (for instruction) was invaluable as was Amazon (for parts). But that’s it and the appliances are maybe 15 years old (inherited with the home). Bosch. Meanwhile you may want to check out YouTube for an appliance repair person with high ratings/subscriber count and see what they think about models?
I have neighbors who hire a cleaning crew – and also tidy up before the crew arrives. (This reminds me of rinsing dishes before loading the dishwasher.) I figure if you have time to lean you have time to clean and I am retired and like to listen to music so may as well be wiping things down when doing that. (I wash our cars, too. But not often.) There are only two of us and the dogs. It’s pretty easy to keep up with a bucket of Pine-Sol and a sponge.
I do not think the Old Testament part of Christianity is virtuous, overall. Just the opposite. Once time, God drowned kids and pregnant women and their unborn babies on purpose. This for the entire planet. That’s overkill (pun intended). And when they died they all presumably went to hell and are there now in eternal torment. God said he wouldn’t do it again but so what? And in another incident God destroyed a couple of towns and those he let get out had their dad’s babies because they couldn’t find anyone else to make a family. Which begs the question why raise two daughters in a town with no such prospects in the first place – would it have been grandpa dad no matter what? And also of course the one about God telling someone to slaughter their child in cold blood then later gave him an out. The poor guy believed he should kill his kid because God told him too. That’s messed up. Even so, modern day Christians use the Old Testament to support their views and actions.
That’s not really what the book was about. Would you like me to send it to you?
One of the things I find interesting in the Christopher HItchens type of God-is-bad atheism is that it is so limited in scope and imagination. People die every day and this eternal being takes ownership of all of these people existing and dying. Obviously the idea that the people exist at all, set on the inexorable path toward death, and then as you point out the threat of judgment against a standard that can’t be met and some sort of negative penalty for missing the mark, whether that be cessation or even the worst imagination of Hell… If you ever get this Guy trapped in a corner you need to really hash it out, let Him have it with your outrage. I’m surprised you haven’t done it yet.
I’ve done my share of shouting that’s for sure.
But you probably won’t, because, like I was saying, most people talk a good game but really don’t live up to their own talk. I put myself in that category too.
That’s part of what the book is about. People will insist that life has no meaning but then join a club of “Life Has No Meaning” people or form a political party and vote only for LifeHasNoMeaning candidates. Or raise a family and teach their kids that life has no meaning.
Repeat the same pattern for the pantheists or the naturalists or pagans, or whatever philosophy.
It’s an interesting book. Not sure I agree with it all, but it sparked some thinking.
I meant simply that in the Christian Old Testament God was pretty awful by today’s Western standards and killed innocent people that today, in the modern world, Christians are mostly against (e.g., abortion). You can’t say being against abortion is the Old Testament God’s behavior. He was all for it – he used it in a wholesale manner to shake the Etch-A-Sketch. (That is, if you believe the Old Testament.)
No. I can’t disagree more strongly. Let me say it this way: the actuaries have a term “act of God” for what we now call natural disasters. The old term meant what it says. So what is the difference between abortion and miscarriage (an “act of God”)? it is the authority of the person making the decision.