Showing results by author "James Nugent" in All Categories

It took the full six weeks for us to move. I took 33 Ford Focus carloads and four full pickup trucks to move all our stuff to our new apartment. I also sent seven pickup trucks to the junk man and numerous carloads of stuff to neighbors and friends. This is the story of a very physically, emotionally, and spiritually challenging time. It took an additional six weeks before we were actually comfortably established in our new luxury apartment. Overall, I would not change a thing.

No survival kit can guarantee one's survival. However, if one were to gather these very portable items and carry them whenever they leave the sidewalk, their odds of surviving an emergency would be greatly increased.

In the beginning I used to let my Protestant friends off the hook. They would bash Catholicism while I would say nothing. Then one day after a friend made a particularly bigoted comment I realized that my friend really didn't know any better and he was being thoughtless and hurtful.

In 2012, I read that Amazon.com had ways to self-publish e-books, paperbacks and audiobooks. They would make them available in more than 100 countries via the Internet and produce them when they were ordered. They would mail the paperbacks to the customers at no charge to me! Then, the company would direct deposit the royalties to my bank account. Best of all they paid a 35% to 70% royalty!

This is not a book about how to use shot guns and other weapons when intruders evade your living space. There are plenty of books addressing the practical and legal aspects of that kind of defense. This is a book about more passive ways to be safe in your home. This book talks about strategies for keeping the bad guys out and what you might do if they get in.

I have spent decades trying to get closer to God. Since I was 20 years old; I have been aware of our loving God longing to be with us and heal us of our hurts. I have found this intimacy with God through many techniques. God can be found in meditation, contemplation, Holy Sacraments many other kinds prayer techniques.

Writer's block has caused some people to actually quit their careers as writers. It is something that must be overcome sooner or later, or you will become a washed-up writer and a failure. Looking back on my personal struggles, I have some helpful observations and tricks to beating the phenomena. This is my story.

Kayaking at night has its rewards and hazards. I have noticed that when you master a sport, you eventually want to challenge yourself. Sooner or later you end up doing it at night. Low visibility takes a sport and turns it into an extremely isolating, yet empowering, experience. My life and joy for living are in only my hands. I must make peace with God, silence my personal fears, then embrace life to its fullest. This is the pleasure I have found in kayaking at night.

I climbed into my orange plastic Kayak and zoomed off to the green shallows of Young Cove. Just what is it that makes paddling this waterway such pleasure? Sometimes I think it is the kayak music. That is the musical sound of the hull traveling through the water on a quiet day. It is constantly changing and it is always calming to me.

I built a raft out of plastic pop bottles and plywood, and then sailed away for a Saturday. I had sailed many kinds of vessels in the waters of southern Puget Sound, but never a homemade raft. The raft cost me $60. The adventure was priceless. Join me as I try this grand experiment.

I was paddling hard with the wind and waves coming across my port bow. The storm had calmed down a bit and I was making a mile long mad dash from The Evergreen State College Beach to Young Cove. To the right inside Young Cove was my lagoon and my Madrona tree to which I tie up my various small water craft.

In January 2014 I stumbled upon an announcement that the South Sound Estuary Association was looking for volunteer beach naturalist. For $50 I would receive training in beach ecosystems and marine biology. In return I was expected to provide 15 hours of volunteer service to the general public on the local beaches.

August 2014: I set my trusty 14-foot kayak in my lagoon. It was a rising tide heading south, and I had several hours before it reversed and dumped some 13 or more feet of water out of the inlet. Eld Inlet is approximately six nautical miles long. The southern two miles can be navigated only at high tide. It turns into a mud flat and a shellfish farm at low tide. At high tide it is a pristine water way of immense beauty.

I spent 22 years of my life in part-time private practice as a counselor. The entire time, I was amazed at how really smart people would make really poor choices over and over. One definition of crazy is when we do the same thing repeatedly and persist in the hope that something new will be the outcome.

The book is called Social Jujitsu and Powerful Principles for Managing Social Conflict by James Nugent. It teaches the three key strategies of evading, deflecting, and redirecting social aggressors. This book moves on to teach about drawing the aggressor in getting them to react to you, putting the aggressor in a double bind, and helping them self-destruct.

This audiobook will examine a few of the beliefs in the Roman Catholic Church. I have no idea if I will be Catholic when I am done. Yet a faith untested is worthless.

From my earliest days, my father taught me to survive in multiple scenarios. He taught me to survive in three environments. They were: an aircraft crash in the mountains, a ship wreck, and being lost in the forest. In each scenario he taught me that a person needed to have seven types of tools in order to survive. Over the decades I have added an eighth type of tool. While the category of "communications" is not critical for life support, it can facilitate escape from a difficult situation.

An Extraordinary Eucharistic Visitor is a lay minister who serves a unique ministry in the Roman Catholic Church. We are lay ministers whom are trained and commissioned to take the real presence of Jesus our savior to the homebound and the sick. In accordance with the guidelines and laws of the Roman Catholic Church; The Extraordinary Eucharistic Visitor takes custody of the Holy Sacrament.

During the winter of 2004 I had a medical surprise - I found out that I was very sick. I was 43 years old and it looked like I might not make it to live past my father's age at his early death - only 49 years old. Here is my story.

This is an attempt to bust myths. There is a myth that we have no control of our personal happiness. The myth is that we are subject to the forces around us much like a stick in the tidal currents. We cannot control other people and things; and so we falsely believe that our personal happiness is just a matter of good fortune. So we falsely believe that some people are fortunate and have reasonably happy live and others are just destined to be miserable.