Category: Blog (Page 3 of 6)

Christmas Eve

December 24, 2019 / The Secular Catholic / 0 Comments

Well It’s Christmas eve. It’s almost time.
My mom has the coolest old school nativity.
I believe it’s like clay or terracotta or something like that.
I have a friend that died this year that had an even older one. She died this year. She was in my Franciscan fraternity. She was a great lady and full of love for everyone. We have a meeting once a month and in December it is our Christmas party. She brings the old Nativity and the best spaghetti i have had in a long time. It’s a bit different. It has bacon in it and between the bacon and the sauce it brings a great flavor to it.
This year since she died we didn’t have her, her spaghetti or her nativity. Someone else bought their nativity and it was good just not the same. Once reason we have a nativity is St. Francis is credited with creating it. And some people don’t put out Jesus until Christmas morning and some put him out right away. I have no preference.
We had a great party but something is lost every time we lose someone in the fraternity. Change isn’t bad it’s just not easy when we are truly used to things and people.
Know that God loves you, even though you may not think you are worthy of his love. You are God can make you worthy.
I hope you all have a great Christmas eve and Christmas season.
Merry Christmas!

Winter is coming!

December 18, 2019 / The Secular Catholic / 0 Comments

red trees in winter — Photo by Andre Benz on Unsplash

Hello everyone. Here in Minnesota the weather is changing.
Fall was and we are what I like to call pre winter here and that means winter is on the way. Many years fall doesn’t last long. Only a month or so if we are lucky.

Last year winter lasted from October to May. This year people are saying it’s going to be as bad as last year or worse. This morning it was cold and rainy. I came into work and immediately had a cup of hot cider. It has been cold and rainy most of the week and it’s going to be much the same till the Sunday. I really don’t like the cold weather.

I have an hour 55 mile drive one way to work and it usually takes an hour to an hour and a half. But in the winter it may double or triple or more. I have had a couple 4 hour commutes in the morning. And several on the way home. You may think dude get a job closer to you.
I would but graphic design is competitive and I also like where I work. The people are great. I usually go into winter with three days of vacation to use on days I can’t get out of my driveway or that the trip is just to dangerous. My boss is really good about me not coming in when it’s treacherous.

But the cold is bad and the driving is bad but the fact that I go to work in the dark and go home in the dark is very dreary. Thank God for the weekends. Where i can just stay home and stay warm.

Thanksgiving day is coming

November 19, 2019 / The Secular Catholic / 0 Comments

Hello Everyone.
It’s just about that time of year again. It’s Thanksgiving time.
One of my favorite holidays because I get the whole family together and have a huge meal and hang out together.
For the first time we have someone coming back home from college and that will be fun.

I hope to have some things done around the Monday after Thanksgiving. I would like to have a review or two done. The new call of duty modern warfare. I have played much of the game but I’m not done with the single player yet but I need to finish it.
I also hope to have a review of the first three episodes of the Mandalorian and some other Disney + shows and movies.

Now for what I am thankful. I am thankful for my family, my health and my friends and fraternity and faith. I am also thankful for this blog and anyone that may read it. I don’t have it to be read but to just brain dump and get things out and try new things. In some point in the future I may try to monetize it, but probably not.

My family is close for the most part and I love them all and cherish any time we have. Especially my niece and nephew. We don’t get to hang out as much anymore. My niece is in college and my nephew is going to high school and job. But luckily I get to talk to him on XBOX and play games with him. We get together every once in awhile.

My health is OK. not great but nothing major going on. I have a few friends but we all are on different shifts at work. I have two friends that work third shift and one that works a lot of weekends so we can’t see each other as much as before. My Franciscan fraternity is going well and they are like a second family to me now. We have a meeting once a month and last meeting we helped bag and organize at a food shelf at the brothers of the peace. It’s one of my favorite meetings of the year, to be with brothers and priests of this group is fulfilling and fun. The Blog helping me express myself even if no one reads it. I have plans on creating another website more about gaming and TV and Movies. I may even go on YouTube or Mixer or create a podcast.

I’m just really thankful for everything because things were not this good a handful of years ago. 4 years ago I was working at Walmart and making no money. Now I am a photographer and designer where I work. Things could be better and things we much worse previously.
I have plans on doing more and trying to make more money but things are going OK and I can’t complain. I am thankful for everything I have.

The Mandalorian

November 15, 2019 / The Secular Catholic / 0 Comments

Hello Friends.
I have watched two episodes of eight of the Mandalorian.
I am a Star wars fan. The Mandalorian scratches my old school Star wars itch. We go back to a more dirty lived in place and a time five years after the Return of the Jedi.

The empire is falling apart and lawlessness is back and bounty hunters are used again. The Mandalorian doesn’t say much but when he talks there’s a reason. He picks up a bounty while fighting of some scum at a bar. He brings him back to his ship and the guy tries to find a way to escape but it doesn’t work. He puts him on ice. The two episodes are really crafted well. I am a fan of John Favreau and Dave Filoni. I really liked the Clone wars that Dave Filoni made. And everyone likes Iron Man. If it was me Dave Filoni would be in charge of Star wars. He knows what the fans want and gives it to us.

I am hoping that the quality doesn’t change but I don’t think it will. It really seems like a western and all the characters are great and really brings the world alive. They have started on season two already so we have that to look forward. Here’s hoping the other Star wars shows are as good.

Disney Plus launch

November 12, 2019 / The Secular Catholic / 0 Comments

Hello Everyone.
Disney Plus launched today, or at least tried to launch.
There have been many problems on many platforms.
They also clearly didn’t have enough servers to get everyone going this morning. I downloaded and logged in to the service early like 4:00 am on my apple tv.
I had a few problems with the service. It seemed slow and not everything was showing. there were some movies I would see then they would be gone or moved. But luckily I it was easy to find the Mandalorian. It was the first thing i saw on the header of the screen.
I watched it twice and it is a really good TV show. I can’t wait for Friday for the next episode.

I have been reading and noticing things wrong with Disney plus.
When I went to my PC to look at things things didn’t work. Like when I clicked on the Mandalorian and it just sat there thinking and doing nothing. The other one was when I looked at a long list of shows it went from A to G and there was no arrow or anything to go to the next page or it didn’t scroll anymore. I am hoping most of the bugs and such are worked out by the weekend so I can watch a ton of shows.

Pilgrimage to the Shrine of our Lady of Guadalupe.

October 17, 2019 / The Secular Catholic / 0 Comments

Hello Everyone.
I am so lucky that the Bishop leads a group of men to the Shrine of our Lady Guadalupe in Wisconsin.
This is my second time going. It is a great event. We meet together and get a bus there and then once we get there we eat a nice box lunch and the Bishop brings us up to the church which is about a half a mile from the entrance. During that time he leads us in a rosary and once there we tour the area and eventually he says a mass. This is a wonderful area, there is much to see and do. After mass I hope to go to confession, I hope to take many pictures.
It will be an all day thing. and I can’t wait. It is just a over all great day.

Ghost Recon Breakpoint Beta

October 2, 2019 / The Secular Catholic / 0 Comments

Hi All. I played the Ghost Recon Break point beta this weekend.
I was a fan of the previous Ghost Recon and I must have been one of the few. The actual game is due out October 4th. And since the beta is so close to the release date we should get a good idea how this game will launch. I am sure there will be a day one patch. Most games have them now. And I hope it’s huge. This game has a bunch of bugs. I was playing on the Xbox one, There were movement and animation glitches and other time where enemies would just pop in. The worst was when it crashed my Xbox. Now I expect if the game is to crash that it crashes and I can start it back up. This shut off my Xbox and when I restarted my Xbox it went to the green screen when it’s a bad crash. The story doesn’t seem to be as good but the last one wasn’t the best either. But this one is you chopper into an island and some swarm of drones takes out all the choppers and they crash. Luckily some people make it and you are one of them. Shocking right. Your job is to find the rest of the survivors and then help the people of the island get off the island. The actual island is a high tech oasis that was suppose to be peace full then the CEO of the Company that owns the island used it to also make a ton of military things.

Here is the saddest part of the story kids. The micro transactions in this game are terrible. It’s come of the rails. It’s not just cosmetic things. It’s guns, xp and even skill points. You need skill points to be more powerful and buy skills. There are cosmetic things but i don’t like them either. It is something you should be given for playing the game.
I really hope they get rid of most of the micro transactions and patch this game up. The game come out on the October 4th. I hope to buy it and review it and then tell you more about the dreaded micro transactions. I hope the game gets better for launch, This looks like another half baked Ubisoft game that needed another 6+ months and they didn’t learn the lesson of other companies about micro transactions. Here’s hoping it improves.

Overwatch fun

August 20, 2019 / The Secular Catholic / 0 Comments

Hello All.
One of my favorite games is overwatch.
Right when the the game came out a few years ago, it was my favorite game and I played it far to much.The game is in my wheelhouse. Made my Blizzard.One of my favorite developers. I have played every Blizzard game back in the old days. It is a shooter kind of. It has Classes like World of Warcraft. Tank, healer and dps. Me I usually play healer then tank. I’m not fast enough or young enough to play dps well enough for competition or league play. I love to heal because even if I don’t do much damage I can help my team, it’s the same with tank. If I can help my team get a objective or keep someone from it I will. The fun part of overwatch for me is it is objective based. It’s just not about getting highest kill count. That becomes more important the older I get.

The first characters I mained (used mostly) was for Tank it was Reinhardt and for healer Lucio. Reignhardt is a great tank. He has a large shield to protect himself and the team. Where Lucio is a great healer. He can heal or make people faster. I usually heal except for in the race to the objective. He has a small heal radius always and every once in awhile he can do a big burst of healing.
My new favorite tank and healer is Sigma for tank and Moiria and Baptiste for healing. The game if a lot of fun. There are new characters and maps coming out and a semi regular schedule. If possible check it out and see what you think. It’s more fun than you think.

I hate Mondays

August 12, 2019 / The Secular Catholic / 0 Comments

The older I get the more I hate Mondays. Monday is the busiest day of the week at work. We fill orders from Friday night to Monday. I don’t have much time to do the work I like. My favorite thing to do at work is graphic design and taking pictures and fixing them on Photoshop.

Getting up on Monday is more difficult than every other day. It’s especially bad in the winter, when it’s cold and dark.
The thing that really sucks is it doesn’t seem I have enough time on the weekend to get things done. I played double session of Pathfinder on Saturday, and then seemed to nap or chill watching tv the rest of the night.
Sunday morning I went to mass in the morning and then to eat. Got home at about 12:30 and just wanted to chill more. I should have done much more but really didn’t want to. I took another nap and watched TV. Since I took a nap I didn’t get to bed till around 11:30 pm so when the alarm woke me up at 5:00 am, I was not ready to be up.
I got up watched YouTube for a half an hour and then went up and took care of the dogs. One of my favorite parts of the day is seeing the dogs first thing in the morning. They are happy to see me and the feeling is mutual. After that I left for work and an hour commute.
Well at least it’s only Monday once a week, and tomorrow I have a picnic and a half day of work. Yeah!!

Disney Fan

August 10, 2019 / The Secular Catholic / 0 Comments

disney world fireworks — Photo by Sandro Gonzalez on Unsplash

Hello All.I am a self professed Disney fanatic. I love Disney. I mostly love the old Disney movies when Walt made them. But my favorite thing to do is go to Disney World. A place where an old fart like me can be a kid again. As soon as I get into Disney’s Magical Express bus stress floats away and I become happy and child like.

Right now I don’t have the money to go to Disney World but I am hoping to go around 2022-2023. But since I can’t go I am looking at Websites to see what’s going on. My favorite website is WDWInfo they have a video podcast on YouTube named THE DIS. All the content they put out is good, but their ace in the sleeve is The Dis boards. It is a place where a bunch of Disney fans to and talk about everything Disney.

My favorite park in Disney World is probably Epcot. It has good rides and the best food in any park around. Epcot is split into two sections.
The first is Future World. Where it is suppose to be a view of the future. But that view is a couple decades old and things are changing a lot lately. Then we have World Showcase where it has large pavilions of different countries. The Pavilions are really nice, many really look like the country. Like when you go to mexico you go into a Mexican pyramid. Inside the pyramid is a large shopping area, sit down restaurant and a ride. There are people from all of the countries working at the pavilions. I love it because I love to go on the rides then have lunch at a restaurant in one of the pavilions and go on more rides or just chill out and stroll through the park.

The other thing I love about Disney are the Movies and TV shows.
My favorite movies are Peter Pan, Pinocchio, Dumbo and Snow White.
The TV shows are great too, I like the old ones like Mickey Mouse Club, Herbie and more. Nothing made me more happy when Disney bought Pixar because I love Pixar movies and I was hopping the Pixar culture would leak into the Disney Culture. It did a little but not enough.

I am not a fan of all the new live action remakes. I believe Disney should be making new movies and TV shows. Luckily they bought Marvel so they could put some new movies and new ideas out. Then they bought Starwars and it started good but a little to much and the last Starwars movies wasn’t very Starwars.

I have hope things will turn around though.Things will get better hopefully but at least I have all my oldies to watch to make me happy.