An Okay Boomer

Articles From An OK Boomer

Hello, It’s Me

By Steven Stoops, January 31, 2024

With Apologies to Todd Rundgren.

Wow, it has been 158 weeks since my last post here on An OK Boomer. No one asked if I was OK, so I may not be reaching anyone. I may have become discouraged; you can see why. But I realized that I am not doing this for anyone. I would hope that God would be pleased, and perhaps He may be; if I remember to keep my rants and raves to a minimum and write to His glory.

On New Years Eve at church, we held a prayer service. We nailed prayer requests to a cross and each will be prayed for in 2024 by a team of people who could best be described as Prayer Warriors. My prayer was, “Restore unto me the joy of Thy salvation.” At the time I was dealing with camera angles, so the people watching the church live stream could get a sense of the reverence that was filling the room, so I handed my request to an Elder and after asking him to take it to the cross I said, “I figured if it was good enough for David.”

You may ask, “What has happened since your last post?” 

A lot. We were still dealing with COVID in 2021, which meant that we could not hold in person church services, I still could not find many of the supplies we needed at the hospital. It also meant that my wife and I had to take a COVID test so we could visit our daughter in the hospital in June when she had our first grandchild. I had never seen anything so beautiful in my life.

Five weeks later the Dixie Fire (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dixie_Fire see the map above) was getting close to our town and we had to evacuate. We drove two vehicles containing anything that was irreplaceable northeast from town, then west, then south and east again to Chico, CA. Usually a drive of of hours, it took four because the more direct route was through the fire. We finally arrived with three adults, a five-week-old baby, two large dogs and a cat at our son’s and his wife’s two plus bedroom townhouse. We were there for six weeks.

Our son and his wife had lost everything in the Camp Fire in 2018, they had only been seeing each other for a few months at the time, but his home, her family’s home, her aunt’s homes (two aunts and their families) and her grandparents on both sides lost homes. They may have been dealing with some PTSD as they hosted us (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camp_Fire_(2018).

Thankfully, our homes survived, about all that happened to our home was a bear knocked down part of our fence trying to get to the garbage that hadn’t been hauled away. Many other people were not so blessed, most of the nearby town of Greenville was leveled and people we knew lost everything in the fire. One such couple had lost their business in the Camp Fire, then lost their home in the Dixie Fire. Makes you wonder if there truly is a “forever home” on this side of Heaven.

I take great comfort in the Word, and am reminded in the “Faith Chapter” Hebrews eleven that Abraham “was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God.” (ESV) No “forever home” on this earth is a true forever home. God has led me to write a novel, and this blog, if His purpose was merely so I could draw closer to Him and no one but He and I see it, then so be it.

Hebrews 11:8–10

8 By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going.

9 By faith he went to live in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him of the same promise.

10 For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God.

Next week, I will be sharing the covers that I designed using Leonardo.AI for my novel The Conversion Factor. Perhaps, if someone other than the Lord and I see this, you can let me know what you think.

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Ti-i-i-ime Ain’t on My Side

By Steven Stoops, November 16, 2020

With apologies to the Rolling Stones. I finally get a few minutes to write, to type up my most important thoughts, to relate to my readers (all five of them) what I have been doing with my time. Still trying to find some of that time stuff, thank you very much.

I mean, aren’t we supposed to have been past the worst of this COVID thing by now? I last shared on this blog sometime in April. Wow, that’s a long time in between. Is it because I don’t have a lot to say, or because I have writer’s block? Not really, I tend to prattle on and on, ask my kids. I am a Boomer after all, I don’t need new material, I just need new grandchildren.

So, what have I been up to? I’ve been struggling with the stress of not being able to find supplies . . . still. I have to find a place to buy isolation gowns. So why am I typing an article? If I don’t find some creative outlet, the stress is gonna kill me, chalk another one up for COVID.

I’m only half joking. Many of the deaths attributed to COVID actually weren’t COVID deaths. According to Well Being Trust, “Alongside the thousands of deaths from COVID-19, the growing epidemic of “deaths of despair” is increasing due to the pandemic—as many as 75,000 more people will die from drug or alcohol misuse and suicide, according to new research released by Well Being Trust (WBT) and the Robert Graham Center for Policy Studies in Family Medicine and Primary Care.”

So, what do we do? People in long term care facilities are dying over the depression of not seeing their families. Other people are turning to drugs and alcohol. Honestly, the only reason I am able to continue on some days is that I turn to my Bible. Where else can we get true comfort. Take one of my favorite Psalms, Psalm 34. David wrote it when he was feigning madness so he could avoid being taken by King Abimelech. Read it and see what I mean (emphasis mine):

Psalm 34
A Psalm of David when he feigned madness before Abimelech, who drove him away and he departed.
1 I will bless the LORD at all times; His praise shall continually be in my mouth.
2 My soul will make its boast in the LORD; The humble will hear it and rejoice.
3 O magnify the LORD with me, And let us exalt His name together.
4 I sought the LORD, and He answered me, And delivered me from all my fears.
5 They looked to Him and were radiant, And their faces will never be ashamed.
6 This poor man cried, and the LORD heard him And saved him out of all his troubles.
7 The angel of the LORD encamps around those who fear Him, And rescues them.
8 O taste and see that the LORD is good; How blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him!
9 O fear the LORD, you His saints; For to those who fear Him there is no want.
10 The young lions do lack and suffer hunger; But they who seek the LORD shall not be in want of any good thing.
11 Come, you children, listen to me; I will teach you the fear of the LORD.
12 Who is the man who desires life And loves length of days that he may see good?
13 Keep your tongue from evil And your lips from speaking deceit.
14 Depart from evil and do good; Seek peace and pursue it.
15 The eyes of the LORD are toward the righteous And His ears are open to their cry.
16 The face of the LORD is against evildoers, To cut off the memory of them from the earth.
17 The righteous cry, and the LORD hears And delivers them out of all their troubles.
18 The LORD is near to the brokenhearted And saves those who are crushed in spirit.
19 Many are the afflictions of the righteous, But the LORD delivers him out of them all.
20 He keeps all his bones, Not one of them is broken.
21 Evil shall slay the wicked, And those who hate the righteous will be condemned.
22 The LORD redeems the soul of His servants, And none of those who take refuge in Him will be condemned.

Gets me every time!! No one is trying to take me prisoner, I am not living in a cave (David was at the time) and I have plenty to eat (probably too much of that, if you know what I mean). Yet, God takes care of me. Join me in praying for those people who may be sinking into depression during this COVID crisis. Pray that they find peace!

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Right & Left or Right & Wrong?

By Steven Stoops, April 3, 2020

I have a real dilemma. Tim Challies asks the question,  Has There Ever Been a Better Time To Start a Blog? For most people, that is true, a lot of people have time on their hands. As he put it, “In the strange providence of God, we are in a very abnormal time. While some people may be busier than ever, many are not. I dare say most are not. Even those who have suddenly become reluctant homeschoolers may still have more time than they are accustomed to since they aren’t driving the kids to music lessons, or soccer practice, or youth group (or church, for that).”

I, unfortunately, am not one of those people with time on his hands. I am a hospital Materials Manager. I’m fond of saying that the title is a fancy way of saying that I buy Band-Aids for a living. Right now, it just means that I get to be disappointed on a daily basis as vendors tell me that they are out of the supplies that we so desperately need. There are no N95 masks, nor masks of any other kind, to be had. There is no hand sanitizer, nor quaternary disinfectants to be had. Thankfully, we are able to do things the old fashioned way, the Boomer way if you will, and are able to use bleach solution as a disinfectant.

To be sure, there are new websites popping up around the net that claim to have those things. I get phone calls and e-mails daily telling me that I can purchase those items from their new company. They send along FDA Certificates and make claims that they aren’t “gouging.” So far, their claims don’t match the reality.

One of these “vendors” was trying to charge ten times the going rate and didn’t have any stock. We would have had to prepay their exorbitant prices and then wait for the item to arrive from China, by boat.

The other reason I have very little time for blogging is that I am the tech guy at church. Yeah, yeah, I get it, I’m a Boomer and I am in charge of tech. Remember, I’m An OK Boomer, I get tech, but now I have to be sure that our church services are streamed, and recorded and uploaded or many people won’t be able to have church this week.

Instead of working from home or being on furlough, I am busier than a one-legged man in a kicking contest. I’m told that last line is a Boomer saying.

So, what does all this have to do with the title of this article? I am the guy that has to at least try to find the supplies that simply aren’t available. Guess what, the National Strategic Stockpile doesn’t have what it should either. So, what happens with this? You got it, the left is blaming the right and the right is blaming the left. We’re so concerned with right and left, that we have forgotten all about right and wrong. I think that Jazz Shaw has a nice sum up of this at Hot Air, (Nobody Has Filled The Strategic PPE Stockpile Since Bush 43). He reminded me why it is that I try to get much of my news from sites like Hot Air. Yes, they are a conservative site, but they are willing to praise the left when they get things right and are not afraid to criticize the right when they get something wrong.

We need more of this. If you are willing to give the benefit of the doubt to a politician because they have the right letter following their name (R or D and I don’t mean research or development) try imagining that they have the other letter behind their name. Would you be just as upset over some idiotic statement if they were of your favorite party? If not, then stop!

The next thing that is bothering me at the moment is that our rural area is a Summer resort area. There are hundreds of homes around our lake that are only occupied in the Summer. The owners of those homes have begun to come up from the cities. On the one hand I believe that they own those homes and should have the right to use them. The problem I am having is that we don’t have the supplies should thousands of people bring the outbreak here. We can serve our community as it is, but if the population swells to normal Summertime numbers, we may not.

My guess is that rural areas like ours are probably three to four weeks behind on the curve that the metropolitan areas are about to crest. Which means one thing, the weather is going to improve and the people who own these Summer homes will show up here because as far as they are concerned, the crisis is over. Except, it wouldn’t be over here, it would just be getting started, because we are behind the curve.

If they were to come up, then self-quarantine before going out into the public then I would say, “Welcome to the lake.” Unfortunately, they have not been following social distancing guidelines. They have been going straight to our only grocery store and buying up what little we have. What part of “essential travel only” do they not get? Essential travel is not driving for hours, and going to the grocery store so you will have the supplies to ride out this crisis in your Summer home. It means to stay put.

I’m beginning to sound like someone with a D behind his name because I want to start a petition that would get a measure on the ballot to levy a larger property tax on secondary homes in our area to benefit the hospitals in our county.

Just what we need, more money to buy supplies that don’t exist.

Plus, my hands are cracked and dry from all the hand-washing and I need a haircut!

OK, I’ve ranted and raved enough. This is Holy Week. Our Palm Sunday stream was beautiful, the Worship team sounded great and Pastor’s message was spot on. Though, I must admit, the mix on the song that I sang wasn’t very good, that tech guy (me) really dropped the ball on that one. I need to remember to be thankful for what Jesus did for us. Now I’m feeling like I need to delete the rant above. Too bad I don’t really have the time to re-write it 😊.

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We Don’t Know What We Don’t Know

By Steven Stoops, March 27, 2020

I made a new video. You would think I could say more about that, after all, as An OK Boomer that is one of the new “techy” things that I am trying to do with my life.  The problem is that I put together the video and afterward I realized that there was something missing. I missed the part that I didn’t know.

I’ve been thinking about the fact that there are two schools of thought about COVID-19 and I should have realized that should have been included in the video. If you’d like to take a look, it’s on the next page of this blog. I thought that it put some of the what is going on into perspective, maybe it did, maybe it didn’t.

So, back to those two schools of thought. They are both being put forward by two prestigious colleges in the UK; Imperial College in London and Oxford. I mentioned the Imperial College study last week, it was the impetus behind the about-face that England’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson took in his strategy for fighting COVID-19.

To sum up the two studies, you might want to watch the first 2 minutes and 25 seconds this video of Dr. Deborah Birk, the White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator (https://bit.ly/2w0wlRs).  The thing is, the two reports currently agree that there will probably be about 20,000 deaths in the UK to the coronavirus. Imperial College originally predicted 500,000 in the UK and 2 million in the US.

The study from Oxford has a different take, it says that most people have already had the virus but since they were asymptomatic that they never really knew they had it. Their model stresses that the amount of deaths is closer to the range of .02% of those who have been infected and that we are headed to a point of “herd immunity” where half of the population would have already had the disease.

The problem is that there are still people dying, there are still people hoarding supplies.

I am one of those people who works for an exempt employer. As exempt as they come. I am a hospital materials manager. We have to understand that regardless which of the models is correct, Oxford or Imperial College, as a hospital, we still have to plan for worst case scenario. Unfortunately, with human nature being what it is, that gets more difficult as there is no toilet paper for our hospital to purchase.

Stop! You don’t know that it is going to be bad, it may not. Hoarding supplies isn’t going to help and if it is bad, don’t you think that the hospitals need supplies?

Whether, in the end, the death rate is 4% and 2 million people die in the US alone, or the death rate is .02% there are still people losing loved ones. Pray that those who have contracted this virus will be healed, that they would come to know Jesus through their trial and that they would understand that light can shine, even in the darkest night. We don’t know what we don’t know . . . but God does.

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CONFUZZLED-19

By Steven Stoops, March 20, 2020

I’m really confused. I know, I’m a Boomer, we’re all supposed to be confused, but, I’m An OK Boomer, I shouldn’t be so bewildered. It started when I saw the meme to the left.

On the one hand, I knew that there are plenty of Machiavellian people on the left and there probably are those who want things to get worse. For instance, there was a claim that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi wanted to include language in a COVID-19 relief bill for to make it possible for federal funds to be used for abortions. Of course, most of the media says that isn’t true, but Senator Ben Sasse (R., Neb) was sure upset about it (https://bit.ly/3a3MGDD).

The problem is, there are Machiavellian people on both sides of the aisle. I realized that, as a Christian, I needed to be concerned about truth.

Which brings me back to the meme. I looked up the numbers on H1N1 and found that the numbers in the meme are accurate, they are spread over a ten-month period, but they are accurate.  The COVID-19 numbers were accurate at the time, but, of course, have expanded since that time.

My research brought me to my current state of confusion. There are many conflicting reports and stories out there. One researcher says one thing, a different researcher says another. So, I looked harder at the numbers. They don’t lie.

If you divide 60.8 million by 12,469 you get .0205%, in other words, 2 people in every 10,000 died of H1N1. Divide the Coronavirus numbers (1,329 by 38) and you get 2.86%, which translates to 286 deaths per 10,000 people who contract COVID-19. Since those numbers, the percentage of deaths in the US (as of March 15) has come down to 1.95%, which is good news, but it made me realize that this is serious. If the media is trying to be sensational, then shame on them. If they are concerned over the numbers, then more power to them.

After all, if 60.8 million people in the US contract COVID-19 and the percentage in the meme holds, then more than 1.7 Million people would die. Consider this, according to the World Health Organization the world wide percentage of deaths is 3.4%, multiply by 60.8 Million and more than two million people could die in the US alone.

But I tend to be a little CDO (yeah, yeah, I know, most people use the initials OCD, but that isn’t in alphabetical order). I dug deeper, I read about a report by Imperial College in London. Here is a summary of the report https://bit.ly/396Ghq6 the numbers align with my percentages and lit such a fire under England’s Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, that he changed direction in how the UK was going to handle their response to COVID-19.

Then there is this one by Stanford Epidemiologist John P.A. Ioannidis (https://bit.ly/33AxKdD). I think that the gist is we don’t know what we don’t know. There just isn’t enough information.

So, what do we do, do we err on the side of caution or take the chance that mitigation would allow people to get the disease and that healthcare professionals here in the US would be able to cut the percentages?

Well, are you confused yet, too?

Here are more things to consider; there may or may not be a drug that can help, there may or may not be an economy left when the dust finally settles. There may be millions of dead, there may not.  The only thing I know for certain is that there is a God, and we can really use Him right now, join me and pray daily for those who may become infected. Pray for healing, but pray for their salvation, that is the ultimate healing!

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Finding Context in a Soundbite World

By Steven Stoops, March

Well, that’s it, we’re all gonna die. Tom Hanks and his wife, Rita Wilson, have the Coronavirus. The NBA has suspended their season and flights from Europe are now cancelled.

If we were to merely look at the surface, perhaps it is time to panic. After all, I can’t find toilet paper so perhaps the world is truly coming to an end.

Or, maybe it is time to dig deeper. In an article about context, Tim Challies writes Never Read a Bible Verse (and Never Listen To a Sermon Clip) (https://www.challies.com/articles/never-read-a-bible-verse-and-never-listen-to-a-sermon-clip/). In it he references another article by Greg Koukl (https://www.str.org/articles/never-read-a-bible-verse) the title of Koukl’s piece, Never Read a Bible Verse, may seem provocative to some. It may seem like a good idea to others.

The point of both is the tendency to take things out of context. At least I think it was, I didn’t read all of either article, after all, who has that kind of time???

All right, I’ll admit it, I’m a nerd and read both in their entirety and I must also admit that they caused me to stop for a moment and examine myself. Am I taking my beliefs from a single verse, a single sermon excerpt, a single tweet on Twitter or part of an article I read somewhere on the internet?

See what I mean? We take soundbites and run with them. Twitter is the ultimate soundbite. When was the last time you saw that someone tweeted something you thought was stupid? If you follow twitter at all your answer was probably sometime in the last 24 hours.

Take the graphic above about COVID-19. I glanced over it at first and thought that I had the gist of it. But I was showing it to someone and they noticed something I hadn’t. I saw, “Chances are you will get it.” The person I showed it to saw, “…most will suffer only mild symptoms.”

So, what is the moral?  Fear not! God is in control.  Take a look at my latest video on the next page to see if context really matters. https://anokboomer.wordpress.com/page/3/

As the graphic above says, there are things that we can do, and it is something that our mothers taught us as children. WASH YOUR HANDS! Seems so small, but it can really help flatten the curve.

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Words Have Consequences

By Steven Stoops March 6, 2020

I was looking over the blog of literary agent Steve Laube this morning.  He posts a Fun Friday each week.  The subject today was that one single word can ruin a book title.  You can see it here https://bit.ly/2TIF5TV. 

It got me thinking that even one little letter can make a difference.  If you’re a political animal, think about a comment by a politician that may have set you off in the past.  Would it have made a difference if the letter behind that politician’s name was a D instead of an R (or vice versa).

Being An OK Boomer I’d like to think that I my outrage over a stupid statement would be the same regardless of which letter is behind the politician’s name.  As a follower of Christ, it is important that I look to the Bible for my world view, so an R threatening Supreme Court justices by name should make me just as angry.

This country is tearing itself apart over outrageous outrage, perhaps it is time to step back and look at the things politicians say and consider whether it would make a difference if that letter was the other one.  If changing the name and letter would cause you to shrug, then it is time to tone it down.

So, let’s tone it down and spend a little time directing fun at the only people group that we can point fun at in this hyper sensitive age . . . White Male Baby Boomers.

Words make a difference, so I wrote this when I weighed in at 330# (to non-baby boomers, that’s pound sign, not a hash tag).

If Neil Sedaka re-wrote his song for our generation:

Getting Up is Hard to Do

I’ve fallen down, doo be doo down down,

Help I’ve fallen down doo be doo down down

Yes, I’ve fallen down doo be doo down down

and getting up is hard to do

I used to laugh, when my Dad got old

I can’t believe that I was so bold

Now I’m over 60 too

And getting up is hard to do

Remember when, we were up all night

Now were in bed while the day’s still light

Now my kids they are laughin’ too

‘Cause getting up is hard to do

They say that getting up is hard to do

Now I know, I know that it’s true

My knees creak, and the aches never end

And when I bend down

It’s hard to straighten back up again

I just slipped, I could’a broke my hip

I hurt my knees and my pants I ripped

I can’t believe that I hurt this way

I’ll soon be spreading on Ben Gay

When I bend down to tie my shoe

Now I look for somethin’ else to do

Don’t say that I have to bend

‘Cause when I bend down

It’s hard to straighten back up again

I beg of you, could you pick that up

The most I lift is my coffee cup

Come on now, don’t you laugh too

‘Cause this’ll someday happen to you

I’ve fallen down, doo be doo down down,

Help I’ve fallen

down doo be doo down down

Yes, I’ve fallen

down doo be doo down down

and getting up is hard to do

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The Old & the New

By Steven Stoops February 28, 2020

I was thinking about things that technology has pushed aside. This video from 2011 gives a good start, but I was interested to note that some of the items have made a return.  Take a look:

To begin, vinyl was replaced by CDs, CDs by MP3s and now vinyl is making a comeback, don’t believe me?  Our son was married on January 5, 2020 and they had four LPs on their registry. I appreciate that vinyl has a fuller sound, but I kinda doubt that MP3s will be replaced by them. It’s a little difficult to play a record album in your car, though it didn’t stop people from trying, back in the day.

Another thing from the video that seems to be making a comeback. Polaroid cameras seem to be coming back as well. They even have Bluetooth (https://us.polaroidoriginals.com/pages/new-cameras)!

Other things have returned from the dead as well. Not too long ago, only we Boomers wore watches. Millennials and GenZ opted for a bare wrist, choosing to pull their phones out of their pockets if they wanted to know the time. It’s interesting to me, but perhaps it was a steam punk thing that made them choose a pocket watch over a wristwatch. Then came the ubiquitous Apple Watch, now generations other than Boomers wear a watch on their wrist, it’s not the first time in history that wrist watches replaced pocket watches!

It made me think of Jesus’ words in Matthew 9:14-17 (NASB):

14 Then the disciples of John came to Him, asking, “Why do we and the Pharisees fast, but Your disciples do not fast?”

15 And Jesus said to them, “The attendants of the bridegroom cannot mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them, can they? But the days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast.

16 “But no one puts a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment; for the patch pulls away from the garment, and a worse tear results.

17 “Nor do people put new wine into old wineskins; otherwise the wineskins burst, and the wine pours out and the wineskins are ruined; but they put new wine into fresh wineskins, and both are preserved.”

He points out that the new has come, we as Christians do not live by our works, rather we live by His works, he has completed our salvation. This is one new that replaces the old and there is no need to return to the previous ways, therein lies the path to destruction.