Trump's Ear

This blog deals with the attempted assassination of Donald Trump, especially a headline review. Then we look carefully at a prophetic word from March, 2024, that called out Trump's ear. Then we look at the likely base prophetic story for Trump's ear in the text. Then some comments on the Book of Judith. Then we turn to an important update to the TT text. Then we finish a busy week with a more common headline review.

Mike Adams' Review

I suspect most readers here have been glued to the news over events in Butler, PA, on Saturday, July 13, 2024. For those who have been living under a rock, the link here is to Mike Adam's review of events known that day.

Mike gives an acoustic analysis of the bullets, then reviews various witness videos of what happened. Like everyone paying attention, this was either 1) a botched deep-state assassination attempt or else 2) incredibly inept Secret Service who have no business protecting Trump. Lots of good video clips and analysis and advice as to how to expect the story to change over the following weeks.

As Mike Adams explains in the video above, the Deep State has not yet had time to spin what happened. Give them time, and watch how the story changes from what has been reported in the news and on X this week.

When Kennedy was assassinated the public disconnected from main stream media and decided on their own his death was at least a secret service plot. Our generation is doing the same thing again about 60 years later. Alternative media is the modern venue which makes this process fast and allows everyone to participate.

Larry Johnson Interviews a Professional Assassin

Larry Johnson is a well known guest on Judge Nap's Youtube channel. In this video he interviews Chris Whitcomb, a former FBI sniper. This video explains the history and theory for how the secret service goes about protecting people like the US President. The last time they failed, as they did with Trump, was when President Reagan was shot in 1981. They are normally quite effective. The fact that the Secret Service was so incompetent and not following normal procedures is the best early evidence for this being intentional on the part of someone in government.

There are 3 rings of protection that normally work together to protect the president in these venues. The first ring is on stage. That group surrounded Trump the moment shots were fired. That group functioned mostly correctly.

The second ring works inside the venue. They are most well known for running the metal detectors and inspecting the crowd for threats. This ring also functioned correctly.

The third ring worries about long distance snipers. They care about anything within a long distance riffle shot of the stage. For outdoor venues this means they mostly care about nearby rooftops, places with line of sight to the stage, over the heads of the crowd. This is the ring of protection that failed Trump.

The video explains the effectiveness of this 3rd ring is based on planning, and making sure all threat locations are covered, usually with a government sniper on each nearby roof. The particular failure here is that the roof used by the shooter was close enough to the stage that it should have had a government sniper stationed on that roof. This is at least a planning failure.

The rest of the team would have known that roof should have a government sniper, as the entire team knows the planning process and knows where their own team members should be located. This is why the sniper who took out the assassin after first shots were fired would be reluctant to shoot first. The actual assassin looked like the government employee who should have been stationed on that remote roof.

The way the assassin was in the location where a government shooter should have been stationed will be the basis for congressional investigation into what happened. The Secret Service was either deeply incompetent, or else this was an inside job and having a shooter masquerading as a government sniper as the plan.

Not mentioned in the video above, but the logical conclusion here is that 2 things had to happen for this to work. First, the Secret Service planners for protection of Trump at that rally had to leave off the expected government sniper from that roof. Second, the assassin himself then had to know how to reach and use that particular roof so he could shoot Trump. Since both of these are unlikely to happen by chance at the same time, it is highly likely this was an inside job. By late in the week a 3rd option became clear, that the shooter was a patsy. More on that below.

Shooter in Black Rock Ad?

The link here is to an X post by Laura Loomer. She found that Black Rock filmed a commercial at Bethel Park High School. This was the high school where the Trump shooter attended. The ad was released in February of 2023.

Loomer claims the Trump shooter was in that ad. She does provide some proof. This is compelling and condemning if true because Black Rock is one of the Jewish controlled banking companies that combined with their peers mostly owns the world.

For the elite to conduct a political assassination they must find a willing assassin. This is usually done via canvasing through groups like the Masonic Lodge. The lodges already have the infrastructure to enforce the death pledges that are part of their membership processes. Once a candidate is found then the party behind the assassination must groom their chosen assassin so that person has a successful kill.

So the Trump shooter was most likely not a lone gunman and was groomed by someone. Loomer's evidence thus connects the trump shooter to a party that is already well known to be actively subverting American culture on a wide collection of vectors. Black Rock is behind ESG scores. Black Rock is thought to be the party behind the Disney company imploding over their abandonment of traditional Christian ethics in their movies. Black Rock is also a key part of the Israel Lobby that controls the US congress which is also actively subverting American culture. Trump, of course, is an icon of all those things that Black Rock hates.

The odds of the shooter showing up in a commercial for such an important company, by random chance, are astronomical. Was the shooter being groomed by Black Rock? The commercial is evidence that the answer to this question is yes. Does Black Rock want to see the end of the US culture? Yes. Could they be a party behind this Trump assassination attempt? This is for Congress to investigate. The problem, of course, is the Lobby controls the Congress. Most members of Congress are also lodge members. We will see if this damning evidence goes very far.

Assassination Attempts Across History

The link here is to Martin Armstrong's report on the history of failed attempts to assassinate US Presidents in the past. President Obama had the most known failed attempts against him of any president so far. Assassination attempts are remarkably common.

Armstrong warns that this is likely to happen again against Trump. Alex Jones is making similar warnings. The protocols for political assassinations suggest poison for the second attempt. A bomb is also commonly suggested.

Assassination Prophecy

The link here is to a ~3 minute video clip of Brandon Biggs Cioccolanti. The clip itself was recorded in March, 2024. The clip was on another channel and he reuploaded it to his own channel after it came true. I normally chase down original posts when I can, but this time I am linking to his own channel. I trust the many others who are saying this was originally recorded in March, 2024, are correct.

In the video Brandon explains a vision he had that among other things includes this assassination attempt on Trump. In particular he picks off the detail where the bullet strikes Trump's ear. This is the type of specificity we want to see before we think about the rest of the things he saw at the same time.

The other interesting details include Trump becoming much more a man of faith after this event. Indeed there was a well circulated picture of Trump under the podium when the shooter was active. It looked indeed like he was praying.

Brandon then saw Trump ultimately winning the election. He saw a deep financial crisis after the election and he saw a general revival in the USA. Watch the video for nuance and detail. I know we have Oklahoma people on the blog, pay attention to his references to Oklahoma. If the vision is in order this should already have passed.

Brandon is generally being called a prophet. I suspect the correct inspired term for this gift is "seer." So be careful. Make a distinction between what he reports that he actually saw against how he interprets what he saw.

I have not had time to watch any of his other videos. Ryan did. Let me give more caution. Just because someone has visions, does not mean Joshua endorses someone's theology. This is a common mistake of rookie seers. Some Mormon's have visions too, don't forget. Brandon is as trapped by the text as everyone else.

Timeline?

The next question, did this show up on any known prophetic timeline?

Not that I know of. At least not anything I am currently following.

Because this has had such an impact, I suspect it would show up on a series dealing with US history. I am not tracking all the various possible bands until after manuscript recovery is finished. I do not have enough hours in the day to keep up with everything that should be done around here. Maybe it is time to pray for help? I digress.

This date was about 6 days after the last prophetic date on the timeline that I am following. This 6 days difference is beyond normal tolerance, so this is not a delayed replay of the birth of Moses. The hospital headlines a week ago fit well with the prophetic story and that headline was on time.

On the other hand, this attempt on Trump's life is like the attempt to kill baby Moses. Baby Moses was destined for high government office, as is Trump. If we find strong evidence of a government decision to assassinate Trump about a week earlier, then we may list this as the fulfillment for that story.

Bible Story?

When we do not have a timed match, we can drop back and ask did this match any story in the Bible at all?

The miracle, of course, is that someone tried to shoot Trump in the head but instead only grazed his ear. Everyone being honest over what happened knows this was divine intervention. So the obvious question is to look for a Bible story involving an injured ear with perhaps miraculous intervention.

The obvious Bible story is during the arrest of Joshua. At that point someone is said to have cut off the ear of the servant of the high priest. Depending on the account Joshua heals the ear. See Luke 22:50-51 for an example, though the story shows up in different forms in the other Gospels, only 1 form is likely to be inspired, if any.

Does this match Trump? Yes. He is a servant of the high priest. How do I know? Trump supports Israel, and has supported genocide in Gaza. His family is married into the Jewish community of New York. Trump could not be running at all without some support from that community. Trump is a servant of the high priest.

Would his return to office be a type of healing? Yes.

Does this paint Trump in a very good light? No.

Does this paint Trump's supporters in a very good light? No. But to be fair Trump supporters have no better choices.

This is just like the story of the twin towers. The destruction of the Twin Towers matched Samson killing 3000 Philistines on the roof by pushing over 2 columns. This was a timed match, but even without the timeline it was a great match to the Bible story. 2 columns were pushed over. 3000 people were killed.

But, nobody in church circles dared speak about this obvious prophetic match to events on 911. The reason is because it painted New Yorkers, or all Americans, as Philistines, enemies of the prophet Samson.

The same will happen with Trump's ear. Nobody will speak about the obvious match to the injured ear of the servant of the high priest. Nobody will speak about how Trump is on the wrong side of the arrest of Joshua. Maybe he does still come to faith in the future. We will see.

Brandon's Vision Timeline

Sometimes visions come in series against the text. This is going on with Brandon's prophetic video linked above. Let me show you. It adds more back story to what we are watching in the news.

Brandon's vision starts with torches in Oklahoma. It was of course torch carrying soldiers who come to arrest Joshua.

Then Brandon's vision moves to the story of Trump being shot in the ear. There were no bullets in Biblical times, only swords. But Trump's ear was essentially cut by the bullet like a sword. As I write this his ear is still bandaged, but he is said to have lost a small chunk of his ear.

But this is also a story of Jude, the betrayer, showing up with a bunch of men from the high priests. The scuffle involving Jude is when the servant's ear is injured. Jude, of course stands in for the Israel Lobby, so Black Rock or some other similar party running the Roman government.

Brandon accurately saw this as Trump. But the matched Bible story is indicating that it was officials of the high priests, so Pharaoh, who are causing the event to be recorded at all. And we know from the Bible story that those men use show trials, but ultimately want death. The ear injury itself supports the idea this really was a government, but more specifically Jewish, attempt at assassination. This was not a lone shooter.

Trump is probably not the target of their wrath, but Joshua, so in our day that would be Joshua's followers. Christians, including American Christians as well as European and Russian Christians are who are being tried by the Jewish leaders. Focusing just on Trump seems to miss the bigger vision of the sides of this war.

Brandon sees other things, including darkness. In the Gospels the arrest is followed by the night trial with the Jewish priests. This is enough to match Brandon's vision. But the passion week chronology then turns to a day trial with Herod and the crowds. Then there is a night and a full day in jail, and then the crucifixion on yet another morning. At the crucifixion itself is another period of darkness, in that case 3 hours.

So the rest of Bandon's vision seems to be structured around the arrest and trial of Joshua, perhaps stretching out to the crucifixion. Those texts appear to be the interpretive key for that vision.

As I have sketched out here, there are enough matches in Brandon's vision, and with events surrounding Trump, to think we are in some sort of tertiary echo of the Passion week chronology.

These headlines do not need to always involve Trump himself. Brandon's vision weaves other stories with the country and Trump as part of it. The convention, the election, and an economic collapse are national events, not just personal with Trump.

This might well have a precise timeline. A more detailed level of study is well beyond my ability to focus on right now.

Apocrypha: Judith

As regular readers here know, I have been reading through the Apocrypha. Last week I should have reported on Judith. I did read a good chunk of Judith and had planned a report for last week's blog.

But, Judith was so bad, I had to put it down. This week I decided not to finish it and I want to explain why for the record here in the blog. Let me outline Judith as far as I got.

Judith starts and times the story in the 12th year of the reign of King Nebuchadnezzar. This is simple enough. I know the timeline and know where this lands.

I know from the timeline, and from books like Jeremiah and Daniel, that Nebuchadnezzar reigned over Jerusalem for the last 19 years of the time of the heirs of David's lineage in Jerusalem. So Judith should be starting about 7 years before the final fall of Jerusalem.

The first several chapters of Judith involve the situation in Nebuchadnezzar's kingdom, with his vassal states along the Mediterranean coast, down into Egypt and to more distant parts of Africa. This is matching what we already know from Jeremiah, which was a vassal state of Nebuchadnezzar for 19 years.

Judith then explains how Nebuchadnezzar called for soldiers from those vassal kingdoms to help him fight a war within Mesopotamia. All of those vassal countries refused to send soldiers, apparently expecting Nebuchadnezzar to loose that war. Nebuchadnezzar then vows revenge once his immediate war is over, which he then proceeds to win.

So Judith then shifts to Nebuchadnezzar seeking revenge from his vassal states that did not send troops. This includes Israel, and down into Egypt. He sends a specific general to do this, not himself, at least not through what I read. The story is graphic about what he did to various places including Tyre as that massive army moved out to the coast and then south down along the coast.

Then Judith shifts to the setup for the attack on Jerusalem. So far so good. This should be the attack where nearly everyone, like Daniel, is hauled away. Of course there were a few exceptions like Jeremiah who stayed behind.

This is not what Judith describes. It suddenly time shifts about 90 years future, to the time after Ezra, and then picks up there, as though this was all still 1 story. It also includes all or most of the tribes, even though they were hauled away by the Assyrians decades before.

This is where I had to put the book down and think about injury to my brain for continuing to read. After a week, I decided I needed to stop. I did not want to be reading obvious fiction that messes with an already hard to understand historical story.

Nebuchadnezzar did not live to over age 100 in order to be the same king involved in both Jeremiah's day and after Ezra's day. These are very different eras along the timeline. Perhaps there were 2 kings by the same name?

It looks to me like 2 different historical accounts have been spliced together, or else, it is 1 long fictional account. Unclear which of these might be going on.

We will still run this book through the audit process. I do not expect to find inspired parts. If that changes I will pick it up and read it again. But I simply had to stop with that read for now, I do not need to think about an alternative reality.

The story of the construction of the Kabbalah, the books behind modern Judaism and Masonry, say that the writers picked up all fictional writing that they could find and then rewrote them to involve Rabbis, either as the heros or as victims, in order to create that set of written works. Judith feels like an earlier attempt at the same process.

TT Updates

A week ago Ryan posted an update to the TT that involves an important insight about editing done to the NT. I want to share that here for anyone closely following our work.

The Bible, as we all know, has contradictory text dealing with the time after the resurrection. There are many possible detailed problems. But, the primary contradiction that shows up in many stories involves the geographic location where events took place starting at and then after resurrection morning.

In 1 version of the story the disciples are told to wait in the city until they receive power from on high (Luke 24:49). In the other version of the story they are told to return to Galilee where they are to meet with Joshua (Matthew 28:7,10; Mark 16:7).

This is a well known contraction and Ryan has struggled with this for a long time. Some level of tampering must be going on in these stories. The problem is how to cut through this tough riddle.

We have generally come to see the house at Capernaum as the main location for Joshua's ministry. He seems to have moved there by his early 20s and likely knows at least some of the disciples before his formal ministry begins. All of the shoreline fishing stories are basically out from this house.

So why would Joshua shift the center of his work to Jerusalem at Resurrection morning? Did he even shift to that venue after resurrection morning? How are we to know what took place in these various venues?

Ryan has struggled with this challenge for years.

In a flash of insight Ryan decided to look at all of these stories as having NO LOCATION AT ALL. So all references to Jerusalem he considered as possible additions. From this frame he then tried to use other clues to decide where each post-resurrection story might have taken place.

This is already essentially what Ryan was doing, but he was now effectively back applying the Law of Babel to this part of the NT in an important and new way.

If the disciples, who wrote these accounts later, never mentioned their location at all... Then an editor could easily add the place name Jerusalem when otherwise no location was given in the inspired text.

This means recovery of inspired text is not a problem of exchanging the place name Jerusalem back to a different location. Instead recovery now only needs to show sentences are whole without the word Jerusalem at all.

By this logic, in the BRB, nearly all references to Jerusalem should simply be under a Filter Ananias tag, meaning Jerusalem was never an inspired word in most of these passages. The word Jerusalem need not be replacing some other place name that must be guessed.

This is a major shift in how to look at the problem, and it makes the crime and recovery much simpler to figure out.

What Happens?

The TT is now rendering likely inspired passages late in the Gospels and in early in Acts using this insight. There are a few important exceptions, where Jerusalem likely is inspired. For example, the false prophets from Jerusalem who come to Antioch and trigger the Acts 15 council. That reference to Jerusalem is an important plot point and causes Jerusalem to be the villain.

Note on Acts 15. In this view, there is no longer any Jerusalem council, or Capernaum council. It is now just the Acts 15 council. Readers must know that it happened at Capernaum because that is where everything happened.

With the Acts 15 reference to Jerusalem as the best example of an exception, we need to see nearly every other story in and around Jerusalem happening in a default and unnamed location.

The word at resurrection morning was to return to Galilee. Nothing more was going to happen in Jerusalem. Joshua was completely done there. So all of the events from there to early in Acts are happening in and around Capernaum.

Road to Emmaus

The link here is to Luke 24:28, inside the story of the road to Emmaus. The story takes place at dusk, and they stop for a meal. Joshua reveals himself, and they then do what? Return to Jerusalem in the dark?

Thinking of returning to Jerusalem as the edit clears this sort of timeline trouble and explains what Joshua was doing. He was rounding up his flock and getting them all to a meeting back at their home base in Capernaum. Only at home base could the trauma of the crucifixion heal.

The 2 that Joshua meets on the road to Emmaus may have then gone to see the other disciples that night. But, where would they be? They would also be traveling, and also likely lodging in Emmaus on their way back to Galilee. If they are all traveling by foot and all left at about the same time, they would be in the same village that Sunday night.

In any case, this an example of how to reason about stories in this part of the overall NT narrative.

Rethinking the Gospels

This insight also makes it possible to figure how the transition headed into Acts. Remember, Acts begins with the ascension. There is prefix material in Luke and Acts that make these look like 2 volumes to 1 work. These prefixes were likely added in order to break up the context for the ascension. A Jewish editor would likely want Joshua ascending near Jerusalem and not from some place in Galilee.

In this view, the ascension likely happens after Joshua calls the fishermen to the shore and had a meal with them. He is commissioning them just before he leaves. If he left from some other mountain, then likely some mountain already used for teaching in that area of Galilee. Maybe the same mountain where he looked up to the skies before breaking bread and feeding 5000.

Then there is the Acts based start of the church. The 3000 added to their number are being added in and around Capernaum. The crowds probably already knew of Joshua because of his house there. Maybe he had fed them. Now the crowds are learning about the man who had lived among them quietly for years.

Editors likely broke the ascension up and moved part to the front of Acts when they pulled the rest of the front of Acts to Jerusalem.

Ryan has a cut of what this means in the TT. You can explore that cut in the TT see for yourself how this might eventually piece together.

Jewish Interference

What becomes much more evident in this cut of the story is how the Jews are interfering with and wanted control over a movement that began well out of their immediate reach.

Jews must have traveled across country in order to arrest the disciples who were mostly operating in Galilee. They did not have control of a movement that was not part of their sphere of control in Jerusalem. They had controlled crowds in Jerusalem who wanted Joshua dead at the trial. They did not have similar influence in Galilee. Those Jewish religious leaders were far away and not an immediate problem for the disciples.

In this view the Jews are seen as very distant from and interfering with the original powerful moves of Joshua after the ascension early in Acts. It is much more clear in this understanding that this early church had an enemy in the Jewish religion, not a friend.

In short, this insight is painting a picture of the differences between the Jews and the early disciples in ways that are not at all the same as we read about in regular Bibles.

Prophetic Implications

If this insight is correct, the prophetic replay that informs world history shifts dramatically away from Jerusalem in our day too. Joshua only cared about that city for 1 week. That week was running 30 years to the day. So the last 210 years or so in our modern era. So the time of high world impact of the modern Jewish Lobby is limited to a similar interval.

Once Joshua raised, everything changed. This includes a dramatic and immediate shift away from Jerusalem. Actual followers of Joshua no longer needed to care about what was going on in Jerusalem, nor did they care much about the Jews themselves.

Up in Galilee the historic religion was the Samaritans, not Jews. From this community were drawn the early high numbers of converts to Joshua. These converts, measured in thousands, were not drawn from the regions of Jerusalem. This is a major conceptual shift in our understanding of history.

A reasonable modern prophetic parallel would be to expect converts to Joshua will be drawn from Christians, not Jews.

Confirmation?

I am continuing to make major advances on the audit side of this work. This has been a time of long tedious days of major discovery and of writing and testing tedious code. I hope to be able to confirm Ryan's hunch on this point here soon. More on this side of the work in a future blog.

Headline Review

Because so much of the alternative media shifted focus onto investigating the Trump assassination attempt, there was not that much other interesting news. By late in the week it was clear the public was rapidly working together to understand what had happened with Trump. X fosters this conversation in ways that are remarkable.

Late Week Roundup, Mike Adams

This interview of Mike Adams was recorded Thursday, July 18, 2024. This was 5 days after the interview at the top of the blog. He was a guest on Info Wars. He does a good job of summarizing what became known about the Trump assassination attempt as the week unfolded.

First point is that Crooks may have been a planned patsy for a larger deep state assassination plan. Perhaps there was another shooter at roughly the same range. Many others are coming to the same conclusion.

Second point is follow the money. Long time readers here know that insiders make money on their planned disasters by trading options in the days ahead of disasters. 911, and the Asian Tsunami, are 2 well known examples where the planners traded so they could make money off their very own disaster.

Mike goes through the trading position of an affiliate of Black Rock that placed a stunningly large options trade on Friday, July 12, 2024. The trade was against Trump's publicly traded Truth Social. If Trump had been shot and killed, then that trade would have made millions. By the middle of this week that company claimed the record of the trade was a clerical mistake and though an actual trade, it was not as large as reported to the SEC. Yet Adam's pulls up the trading screens were these were still massive and active at the time of recording 6 days later. This is more serious evidence this was an inside job.

This interview runs across many other topics. Mike outclasses the host. Mike believes there will be more attempts on Trump's life, but likely using some other weapon. Mike stresses the speed with which many things done by Biden can be quickly reversed. Mike also stresses the problems of a likely currency collapse in Trump's future presidential term. Sanctions against Russia permanently damaged the USD. Currency collapse means that no matter what else happens, this will be the last presidential term with the USA as we know it now.

Let me comment on the point of currency collapse. These are common in many places across history, they happen pretty regularly. Provided they are allowed to just happen, then they take about 18 months to reset the national economy. When over, the workers in the country of the collapse are suddenly wage competitive on the world labor markets. The same should happen in the USA. Imported products will be less able to undercut American products. Workers who make stuff will benefit significantly. Getting across those 18 months can be hell.

Remember, the timing for Noah's flood and future nuclear war is weeks into the term of the president who is inaugurated in early 2029. I can strongly confirm this is the last normal presidential term.

Musk Endorses, funds, Trump

The link here is to an article on one of Mike Adam's websites. Adam's online media platforms are perhaps the best in the alternative media space. This article reviews how quickly Musk endorsed Trump after the assassination attempt. Musk is donating $45M/Mo, until the election, for a get-out-the-vote effort in support of Trump. Good to see Musk getting involved.

Falcon 9 Rocket Failure

I am of course a fan of Elon Musk. He is driving the tech needed to reach Mars. Space X is his company that is doing this work. They are perhaps best known for Star Link internet service, which should become profitable enough to fund manned Space X trips to Mars. So the path to Mars and the funding to Mars is caught up in Space X.

The link here is to a Youtube video explaining a failure of a Falcon 9 upper stage rocket. The rocket was carrying Star Link satellites to orbit. Nobody was hurt. But the fleet of Falcon 9 rockets is grounded until the cause can be determined and fixed. Because this fleet of rockets flies every few days, this is already a very rare accident event. Fixing the problem will make that fleet of rockets even better and more reliable. But, it will take some time to figure out and fix the problem.

Space X and X Move to Texas

The link here is to an article explaining that Elon Musk is moving the corporate headquarters for 2 of his companies from California to Texas. This is because of recent California legislation making it unsafe to raise children in that state.

It is time for families with children living in California to leave. In effect, to give California back to Mexico, which may be the governor's real plan. I still expect the Chinese military to arrive in California soon enough, which is another reason to plan a departure, even for people without children.

I suspect Musk was already wanting to do this, but was waiting for a good public excuse. He found a good one. Good for him. Space X is moving to Starbase, outside of Brownsville, while X is moving to Austin.

Space X currently manufactures the Falcon 9 rockets in Hawthorne California which is south of LAX. That program will wind down once the new Star Ship program in Texas is fully operational, so the shift of the center of their work is already moving to Texas. Good to see the corporate offices moving now. This had to be done for Space X to stand a chance of surviving the war.

4014 Hits Tree

Some readers here know I am sort of a train buff. I sold my locomotive to pay for a year of time for Ryan and I on this Paleo project. In any case the Union Pacific Big Boy, the largest operating steam locomotive in the world, is on a publicity trip to California from home base in Cheyenne, Wyoming. A trip east from Cheyenne is planned for later this year. This past week, in the mountains of California, that locomotive hit a tree.

From the pictures it looks like a dead tree, across the tracks, so dumb luck. In fights between locomotives and trees, trees almost always loose. The accident caused minor damage to the locomotive by striking the cylinder cocks. This means the tree was already down and across the tracks when it was struck.

In the video you can see it was on a curve with limited sight distance from the locomotive cab. The signal system would not have noticed this sort of trouble siting on the track. The video linked above explains the accident. It also shows where those cylinder cocks are located and it explains how they work.

If you don't know about live steam locomotive models, the cylinder cocks are the most common parts to be damaged when a model live steam locomotive derails into was is still full scale ballast.

This accident to 4014 did not cause significant damage. But, when those specific parts are damaged the locomotive cannot be operated until they are fixed. Fixing them on the 4014 is not hard, but the work needed time and attention from the crew. I suspect they carried spares in their spare parts car back in the train.

I am grateful to the UP company for sponsoring these very special trips. I am also grateful to the UP crew who runs this locomotive. Days like this are trouble, but days like this are also part of the journey.

That 4014 locomotive is itself a working demonstration of very advanced technology that was created without the use of computers. The skill of the builders of that moving machine causes it to have a unique beauty all of its own.

The manuscript of inspired text is built on a similarly advanced design system from long before the computer age. It too takes on a beautiful form because of the engineering work behind the design. I find both similarly amazing.

The disciples did not need to deal with the unique design problems of pressure vessels and tractive effort, but they were dealing with a similarly complex system of design elements. The disciples were to Joshua like the builders of the 4014 locomotive were to that locomotive's chief design engineer.

The 4014 can run well, decades after it was built, because of the high quality original design, and because the care of the crew who restored and refurbished it back to its original design. That crew still attends to it on trips like this one to California.

Joshua's highly engineered original alphabet and manuscript design is why manuscript refurbishment and letter perfect recovery are still possible, even today.

More, maybe less, later,

Phil