When You Know The Outcome

Five years ago ...


FEBRUARY 2, 2012                         Thuvria


Terellian plague? Is there a cure for Terellian plague in the 26th century?
At least I've not burned -- I pray not -- any bridges with Martha! She even said in a text message today that she may buy a dress this weekend when we are in Bismarck for her birthday. THIS SENTENCE REDACTED
Jimmy John's, a new sandwich shop that opened her in Minot, gets me in there every few weeks. Today along with my sub I got the biggest pickle I think I've ever eaten -- my thumb and index finger could barely close around it in an "o". My weight's up a little, but I pray all else gets down and stays down. And Sarah's ten minutes of reading a day is going good!


Four years ago ...


FEBRUARY 2, 2013


The Time-Traveler Henry Adams


Chris and Amy


Goodnight to MY K, 1, and 2


How close we are ...


You see? Not all my journal entries start with a Scripture reference. This comes from a time several years ago when I was experimenting -- I mean, I was still writing my regular journal entries but I also kept a free-writing journal (see its picture above) where I'd copy down favorite passages of mine as well as write on my own. There's quite a few poems in here, some photos I've cut and pasted, and there are parts it's handy to refer to, stuff that I've written down over a year and a half (it's dated 12 JANUARY 2012 - 31 JULY 2013) so I don't HAVE to remember it! You have to say this the way Sean Connery does in Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade for it to have maximum impact!


And there's the occasional pop culture reference in there to keep me grounded.


Thuvria is a planet from a back feature in Marvel Comics' iteration of Rom Spaceknight from the early to mid-1980s that two hundred years before the main story began -- about the time of Earth's American Revolutionary War -- was technologically and socially in the Middle Ages. Who knows what Thuvria is like now, if it even exists. And the opening line about Terellian plague comes from the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "A Matter of Time" where a visitor from the future appears on the USS Enterprise-D in the 24th century. These are among the multiplicity of snippets I keep in my head.


Who said these moments were any less exciting when you know the outcome, hm?







This past weekend I went through my collection of journals in our upstairs closet where we store board games, comic books, Martha's wedding dress (but not my tuxedo, it was a rental), and my journals when I'm not going through them. Among many other things. And I found -- well, I didn't find those parts since they were lost at first glance -- eight gaps within my journals, four of which I can readily, or at least likely, explain. Just over three months in 1994 and five and a half months of 1995 could have easily been lost in the "Purge of '99" when I had thirty minutes to move out of a place where I was living at the time.


A little over a month of 1998 was stolen out of my car along with the briefcase it was in.


And I'd just stopped writing for a little over two months at the end of 1999 (that's right, I was in the hospital just before Thanksgiving that year). Now in the 21st century, I'm missing four that I'm quite sure are up there -- there are just so many different blank books and folders that I've got filled with paper that moving about is not always easy, and I don't always make the time to do it either, what with eating and sleeping and spending the time with my household that I can and I really need to do a better job of. Sarah got over the bug she had yesterday, and the kids started off school well, and we've got all the information we need to get our 2016 federal taxes done.


Though I'm still getting used to doing state as well,


David