Introductions

[temporal1]

Welcome, clutch (and others joining) -
This topic isn’t as well used as i’d like.

Registration, P.70: https://forum.mennonet.com/viewtopic.php?t=2&start=690

Re: Welcome to MennoNet
Post by clutch » Mon Aug 03, 2026 1:35 am
I was around a long long time ago under the same name back in the mennodiscuss days. Stumbled across old emails and realized i had completely lost track of this place between life and computer crashes. Hope someone might remember me.

You’re remembered
i look forward to reading from you. i expect you’ve been busy! i hope you’ve been well.

Busy isn't the word for it and being well is able to debated. The fact i'm this side of the ground and for the most part still in one piece other than what surgeries have removed i'm not doing as bad as i could be. I would give the short go of it but honestly we know me, it would turn into the long go. My guitar teacher says i just need to write a book about my life, i'm only gonna be 34 in September i write one now i would have to add multiple volumes. I'm not really even sure where to begin but probably should do it in another thread. Don't want to clutter this one up. It is nice that people remember me. Now to look around the site and figure out the best place to post an update on where i have been for roughly 10 years.

i’m sure you’ll find a good place - this one’s ok, not much traffic here.
This is bound to be interesting.

i’m glad to know most of you remains in one piece.

[clutch]

i’m sure you’ll find a good place - this one’s ok, not much traffic here.
This is bound to be interesting.

i’m glad to know most of you remains in one piece.

So apparently i thought i replied and i didn't. I'm guessing i may have been half awake or dreamt it, who knows. Anyway i'll have to try making a post here again at length but basically the short of it.

1.2017 moved to New Hampshire

2.2018 Things went south. Friends boyfriend up there moved in and was on drugs. He threatened to kill me. I said do it. She quickly realized that when i had that look in my eye and was nose to nose with him that he had reached a territory he hadn't ever seen nor had she and she knew to make him back off. So i went to bed ready for anything and sent my parents a text and this was a Sunday. Anywho by Wednesday at midnight all my stuff was in storage in New Hampshire and i was touching down in Columbus, Ohio.

3. Dad got diagnosed with cancer in 2019. My great uncle died from cancer. Covid kicked off. My right hip got worse, put it off because of dad. Spent 19 months helping mom take care of dad.

4. Dad passed in July of 2020. I had my 3rd hip surgery that fall. Insurance money came in from dad. Got a car and proceeded to put it in a ditch on snow and ice in December. Done a good amount of damage but didn't total it. I was coming home from physical therapy for the hip.

5. Mom and i bought a house in January of 2021. Fairly uneventful other than i got covid and didn't even know i had it until 3 weeks later when i finally thought "hmmm yeah this is worse than my usual aches and pains." So yep 21 went fairly smooth.

6. 2022 was smooth except hip surgery number 4. Then right near the six month mark mom wrecked the car, got a 12mm brain bleed, and some how walked away from it. I thankfully was just banged up. Then a week later our sewer line at the house rotted out. Good old cast iron pipe. Got a great job i loved selling car audio, though that's like giving a kid a job in a candy store. Cut that former friend in New Hampshire off and haven't spoke to her since. Only hear little bits from mutual friends through the grapevine mostly telling me how her life ain't going great and it was the best thing i could have done getting away from that negativity.

7. 2023 things were going good but started getting bad because of doctors and pain management doctors. Ended up going real bad that spring when they injected my back and burnt nerves even though i was extremely reluctant i was basically forced into a corner. Then i tried Ozempic and one dose i thought i was going to kick the bucket. Then came the garden tractor and chain incident. Might i advise never ever put a tie down chain over your shoulders and climb on anything that moves. This was fueled by me being angry and well i learned a valuable and painful lesson. Chain slid down. Hit the ground and the drive wheel of the tractor and almost strangled me and got my leg wrapped up. Somehow nothing broke or seriously injured but i calmly look at my mom and say "well that could have been bad. I could have died. Think we should go to the er?" Then i proceed to go in and take pain meds and message a friend who is a nurse and another friend who was a combat medic before i finally decide yeah lets go. Might have had to do with threats of great bodily harm from those two if i didn't.

8. 2023-2026- Nothing to eventful other than fought doctors to fix my shoulder and finally got them to do it in May of 26. This stems from the great tractor incident of 23. Had a slap tear, bone spur, and bicep tendon relocated.

So to keep the procedure count here that's 4 hip surgeries, 1 back injection, 2 rounds of nerves burnt in the back, one shoulder surgery, a shoulder injection, and too many hip injections and what have you to count.
So that in a very large nutshell is the last 10 years give or take and how i'm mostly in one piece. Plus or minus some miscellanious tissue, tendon, labrum and bone they have removed. So that all written now i gotta think to myself my guitar teacher is right, maybe i should write a book. Then again i'm gonna be 34 in 37 days. I write a book i would have to keep updating and adding to it.

[temporal1]

i’m sure you’ll find a good place - this one’s ok, not much traffic here.
This is bound to be interesting.

i’m glad to know most of you remains in one piece.

So apparently i thought i replied and i didn't. I'm guessing i may have been half awake or dreamt it, who knows. Anyway i'll have to try making a post here again at length but basically the short of it.

1.2017 moved to New Hampshire

2.2018 Things went south. Friends boyfriend up there moved in and was on drugs. He threatened to kill me. I said do it. She quickly realized that when i had that look in my eye and was nose to nose with him that he had reached a territory he hadn't ever seen nor had she and she knew to make him back off. So i went to bed ready for anything and sent my parents a text and this was a Sunday. Anywho by Wednesday at midnight all my stuff was in storage in New Hampshire and i was touching down in Columbus, Ohio.

3. Dad got diagnosed with cancer in 2019. My great uncle died from cancer. Covid kicked off. My right hip got worse, put it off because of dad. Spent 19 months helping mom take care of dad.

4. Dad passed in July of 2020. I had my 3rd hip surgery that fall. Insurance money came in from dad. Got a car and proceeded to put it in a ditch on snow and ice in December. Done a good amount of damage but didn't total it. I was coming home from physical therapy for the hip.

5. Mom and i bought a house in January of 2021. Fairly uneventful other than i got covid and didn't even know i had it until 3 weeks later when i finally thought "hmmm yeah this is worse than my usual aches and pains." So yep 21 went fairly smooth.

6. 2022 was smooth except hip surgery number 4. Then right near the six month mark mom wrecked the car, got a 12mm brain bleed, and some how walked away from it. I thankfully was just banged up. Then a week later our sewer line at the house rotted out. Good old cast iron pipe. Got a great job i loved selling car audio, though that's like giving a kid a job in a candy store. Cut that former friend in New Hampshire off and haven't spoke to her since. Only hear little bits from mutual friends through the grapevine mostly telling me how her life ain't going great and it was the best thing i could have done getting away from that negativity.

7. 2023 things were going good but started getting bad because of doctors and pain management doctors. Ended up going real bad that spring when they injected my back and burnt nerves even though i was extremely reluctant i was basically forced into a corner. Then i tried Ozempic and one dose i thought i was going to kick the bucket. Then came the garden tractor and chain incident. Might i advise never ever put a tie down chain over your shoulders and climb on anything that moves. This was fueled by me being angry and well i learned a valuable and painful lesson. Chain slid down. Hit the ground and the drive wheel of the tractor and almost strangled me and got my leg wrapped up. Somehow nothing broke or seriously injured but i calmly look at my mom and say "well that could have been bad. I could have died. Think we should go to the er?" Then i proceed to go in and take pain meds and message a friend who is a nurse and another friend who was a combat medic before i finally decide yeah lets go. Might have had to do with threats of great bodily harm from those two if i didn't.

8. 2023-2026- Nothing to eventful other than fought doctors to fix my shoulder and finally got them to do it in May of 26. This stems from the great tractor incident of 23. Had a slap tear, bone spur, and bicep tendon relocated.

So to keep the procedure count here that's 4 hip surgeries, 1 back injection, 2 rounds of nerves burnt in the back, one shoulder surgery, a shoulder injection, and too many hip injections and what have you to count.
So that in a very large nutshell is the last 10 years give or take and how i'm mostly in one piece. Plus or minus some miscellanious tissue, tendon, labrum and bone they have removed. So that all written now i gotta think to myself my guitar teacher is right, maybe i should write a book. Then again i'm gonna be 34 in 37 days. I write a book i would have to keep updating and adding to it.

clutch:
.. I write a book [God willing] i would have to keep updating and adding to it.

i’m glad to know most of you remains in one (painful) piece.
So sorry to hear about your father. How is your mother? Are you living with her?

Do you know why you had such a bad reaction to Ozempic? i haven’t heard of that before.
Too many pain killers? Too much anesthesia?

[JohnH]

Wanted to say a "hello" to some of the new members who've joined the forum the last few days.

[clutch]

i’m sure you’ll find a good place - this one’s ok, not much traffic here.
This is bound to be interesting.

i’m glad to know most of you remains in one piece.

So apparently i thought i replied and i didn't. I'm guessing i may have been half awake or dreamt it, who knows. Anyway i'll have to try making a post here again at length but basically the short of it.

1.2017 moved to New Hampshire

2.2018 Things went south. Friends boyfriend up there moved in and was on drugs. He threatened to kill me. I said do it. She quickly realized that when i had that look in my eye and was nose to nose with him that he had reached a territory he hadn't ever seen nor had she and she knew to make him back off. So i went to bed ready for anything and sent my parents a text and this was a Sunday. Anywho by Wednesday at midnight all my stuff was in storage in New Hampshire and i was touching down in Columbus, Ohio.

3. Dad got diagnosed with cancer in 2019. My great uncle died from cancer. Covid kicked off. My right hip got worse, put it off because of dad. Spent 19 months helping mom take care of dad.

4. Dad passed in July of 2020. I had my 3rd hip surgery that fall. Insurance money came in from dad. Got a car and proceeded to put it in a ditch on snow and ice in December. Done a good amount of damage but didn't total it. I was coming home from physical therapy for the hip.

5. Mom and i bought a house in January of 2021. Fairly uneventful other than i got covid and didn't even know i had it until 3 weeks later when i finally thought "hmmm yeah this is worse than my usual aches and pains." So yep 21 went fairly smooth.

6. 2022 was smooth except hip surgery number 4. Then right near the six month mark mom wrecked the car, got a 12mm brain bleed, and some how walked away from it. I thankfully was just banged up. Then a week later our sewer line at the house rotted out. Good old cast iron pipe. Got a great job i loved selling car audio, though that's like giving a kid a job in a candy store. Cut that former friend in New Hampshire off and haven't spoke to her since. Only hear little bits from mutual friends through the grapevine mostly telling me how her life ain't going great and it was the best thing i could have done getting away from that negativity.

7. 2023 things were going good but started getting bad because of doctors and pain management doctors. Ended up going real bad that spring when they injected my back and burnt nerves even though i was extremely reluctant i was basically forced into a corner. Then i tried Ozempic and one dose i thought i was going to kick the bucket. Then came the garden tractor and chain incident. Might i advise never ever put a tie down chain over your shoulders and climb on anything that moves. This was fueled by me being angry and well i learned a valuable and painful lesson. Chain slid down. Hit the ground and the drive wheel of the tractor and almost strangled me and got my leg wrapped up. Somehow nothing broke or seriously injured but i calmly look at my mom and say "well that could have been bad. I could have died. Think we should go to the er?" Then i proceed to go in and take pain meds and message a friend who is a nurse and another friend who was a combat medic before i finally decide yeah lets go. Might have had to do with threats of great bodily harm from those two if i didn't.

8. 2023-2026- Nothing to eventful other than fought doctors to fix my shoulder and finally got them to do it in May of 26. This stems from the great tractor incident of 23. Had a slap tear, bone spur, and bicep tendon relocated.

So to keep the procedure count here that's 4 hip surgeries, 1 back injection, 2 rounds of nerves burnt in the back, one shoulder surgery, a shoulder injection, and too many hip injections and what have you to count.
So that in a very large nutshell is the last 10 years give or take and how i'm mostly in one piece. Plus or minus some miscellanious tissue, tendon, labrum and bone they have removed. So that all written now i gotta think to myself my guitar teacher is right, maybe i should write a book. Then again i'm gonna be 34 in 37 days. I write a book i would have to keep updating and adding to it.

clutch:
.. I write a book [God willing] i would have to keep updating and adding to it.

i’m glad to know most of you remains in one (painful) piece.
So sorry to hear about your father. How is your mother? Are you living with her?

Do you know why you had such a bad reaction to Ozempic? i haven’t heard of that before.
Too many pain killers? Too much anesthesia?

Thank you in regards to dad. Still is baffling considering he was always told when he would get his physical for work every year other than a liver enzyme being high from i think his one job being around a lot of formaldehyde and being overweight doctor would tell him "you're disgustingly healthy for a man of you're weight and height whose only physical activity is hockey 9 months out of the year and walking your dogs 30 times a night when you get home from work." I personally have my theories it was tied to workplace exposures and whatnot but i can't prove anything and when i brought it up he basically gave me the "shut up and don't question things" look. So i don't know.

As for mom and i we are living together and some days i question if this was a great idea but overall it has been. I think we have kept each other going and fairly sane and stable through the last 6 years. That said looking back if i could do it different and had all the money and options in the world to me i would have went with my perfect plan. We buy a few acres. She gets her little cabin. I got my little shop with a lift for working on cars and we both have our own space. Needless to say it didnt' happen but overall i'm happy where things are for the most part. Maybe one day i'll get a lift with a garage. As far as the Ozempic reaction and whatnot we don't really know. My doctor had never seen one that bad. It was bad enough i went to the ER and even that doctor was like i have never seen it do this. He said he had seen people maybe nauseous or getting sick. Dehydrated. Nothing like what i had so we just marked that down in the chart as an allergy and never take it again.

[temporal1]

clutch:
Thank you in regards to dad. Still is baffling considering he was always told when he would get his physical for work every year other than a liver enzyme being high from i think his one job being around a lot of formaldehyde and being overweight doctor would tell him "you're disgustingly healthy for a man of you're weight and height whose only physical activity is hockey 9 months out of the year and walking your dogs 30 times a night when you get home from work." I personally have my theories it was tied to workplace exposures and whatnot but i can't prove anything and when i brought it up he basically gave me the "shut up and don't question things" look. So i don't know.

^^My family suffers from so many sad losses. The distance between those of us left is difficult.
Your dad sounds like quite a dog walker!

clurch:
As for mom and i we are living together and some days i question if this was a great idea but overall it has been. I think we have kept each other going and fairly sane and stable through the last 6 years. That said looking back if i could do it different and had all the money and options in the world to me i would have went with my perfect plan. We buy a few acres. She gets her little cabin. I got my little shop with a lift for working on cars and we both have our own space. Needless to say it didnt' happen but overall i'm happy where things are for the most part. Maybe one day i'll get a lift with a garage. As far as the Ozempic reaction and whatnot we don't really know. My doctor had never seen one that bad. It was bad enough i went to the ER and even that doctor was like i have never seen it do this. He said he had seen people maybe nauseous or getting sick. Dehydrated. Nothing like what i had so we just marked that down in the chart as an allergy and never take it again.

^^i hope for the best for you and your mother, whatever the arrangement.
one thing i’ve experienced, the future is unknown.

are you able to work, for instance, in a shop with a lift?
my husband was a hard worker but always conscious that he “wouldn’t always be 20” so tried to prepare for the time when he wouldn’t be able to be so physical. he urged young men to think about that. we all want to be fit+strong forever!

[mmhg]

Hello,

It is nice to meet all of you. I was trying to figure out where I should post first, and in the process of doing so I found myself reading some posts here and there. Everyone seems so nice here.

I did not grow up religious, and I would not consider myself religious at the moment. But over time, I have started to recognize and appreciate religious wisdom more and more. For example, I never took prayer seriously when I was a teenager, but over time I began to notice that prayer actually works!

I am currently in university, double majoring in philosophy and computer science. I have this kind of ironic two-pronged dream or vision of working a high-tech career but living a traditional (homestead) lifestyle at the same time. The irony itself of my vision put me into somewhat of an identity crisis for a while, so I started looking for a book that might help me figure out how to reconcile the high-tech aspect of my vision with the traditional aspect.

To that end, I found and started reading a book called Mennonite Entrepreneurs by Calvin Redekop, and it helped me feel better about my vision. It actually directly discusses things like how Mennonites reconcile their faith and traditional values with entrepreneurship or modern economic life, and does so in a reassuring way.

I am so happy to be here!!

[Wesleyb]

I have this kind of ironic two-pronged dream or vision of working a high-tech career but living a traditional (homestead) lifestyle at the same time.

I’ll look forward to hearing your thoughts and experiences on this. I have spent a good bit of my life feeling pulled in both of those directions as well.

[JohnH]

I am currently in university, double majoring in philosophy and computer science. I have this kind of ironic two-pronged dream or vision of working a high-tech career but living a traditional (homestead) lifestyle at the same time. The irony itself of my vision put me into somewhat of an identity crisis for a while, so I started looking for a book that might help me figure out how to reconcile the high-tech aspect of my vision with the traditional aspect.

Glad to have you here, and I"ll be interested to hear your thoughts; although as someone who works in a "high tech career" and also lives a somewhat "traditional" "homestead" lifestyle, I think the two are irreconcilable.

[mmhg]

I’ll look forward to hearing your thoughts and experiences on this. I have spent a good bit of my life feeling pulled in both of those directions as well.

Glad to have you here, and I"ll be interested to hear your thoughts; although as someone who works in a "high tech career" and also lives a somewhat "traditional" "homestead" lifestyle, I think the two are irreconcilable.

Mennonite Entrepreneurs explores the tension between the act of accumulating personal wealth and the duty to the collective good, yet I think whatever tension exists between the two would be a tension that is stronger between a homestead lifestyle and a high-tech career.

As a firm believer in capitalism, I naturally do not worry about whatever potential tension there is between the act of accumulating personal wealth and the duty to the collective good. I believe that a competitive spirit is the most powerful driving force behind a successful career, startup, or competition. For example, when people speed run video games (they try to complete the game in the shortest amount of time possible), people just keep on getting faster and faster run times. This is partly because they learn by watching videos of past runs, and partly because they are competing with someone else and they keep defeating each other's run times day after day. More to the point, I believe that careers and startups tend to create value for greater society.

How does one extend these insights to the tension between a homestead lifestyle and a high-tech career? In my mind, the answer to this question is that high-tech stuff like computer science or inventions are birthed from the competitive spirit, in the same way that speed runners keep pushing each other to get better and better. But what I wanted to say is that a homestead lifestyle is probably the most valuable lifestyle you can live, because that's where all of matters of everyday life come together (work, family, struggle, etc.) and I think high-tech engineering should be about creating value within that kind of life. It shouldn't be about changing the way we live, but about making the way we live something easier, more sustainable, or similar. It should not prescribe a different kind of life that it wants you to choose. Otherwise, it would be kind of mixing two or more conflicting values in one piece of technology, and this dilutes the quality of the value it provides. As Clement Lefebvre (the creator of Linux Mint) said, good software is good because it is non-ideological. I myself use Linux Mint for general-purpose and for software development; I love it. Anyway, he welcomes everybody to use it, regardless of their beliefs or ideology. This should mean that traditionalists too are welcomed!