Senior Thinking

In a crisis, do the math

2005-09-01T11:29:00.000-07:00

Ok I am sick of the federal response, or lack there of. This situation will be far worse after Congress and the White House finish their BBQ’s next week. 5,000 will die waiting for help just in the next 5 days.

Here is the base math. From this, one must do some math to determine the need. Just say in a disaster area, one needs an army that supports a ratio of 1 per 10. This is not news. So we need 150k in personnel in the area NOW. Not a week from now. NOW. That they are not there now helps explain the chaos.

Distressed people are probably around 1.5 MILLION. So the 25k national guard, plus 25 k private resources are about 100k short.

Yeah, watch the news to confirm, it is that bad.

This is now Thursday. This was known Monday and virtually nothing EXCEPT MAYBE additional National Guard resource have been moved into place.

The response, the recognition of what needs to be done is so sad, so pathetic, so tragic.

Base Math

Dead in LA , between 20,000 to 50,000. Ignore official reports. LSU has a standing study that says that this type of event kills 20% of non-evacuees. The current estimate is 120,000 evacuees in just New Orleans stayed behind, so 25k dead there. The rest of the Southeastern LA area has another 10k at least.

Dead in Miss and Ala, probably 2k, maybe 10k. The Mobile area is able to recover in 6 to 8 weeks, southern Miss will need until Halloween to get basic power to safe structures. New structures anywhere need 9 months. Homeless is 200k in this area, powerless is 500k for a month

How do I know that. Oakland and San Diego in the last few years lost 2500 homes each in structures due to fire each. The issue is that we need 6 to months to build and then enough contractors to rebuild. Both Oakland and San Diego were stretched beyond capacity to do that much new build, despite change in permit laws, new processes and so on. All that without flooding.

This issue is 20 times that and existing contractors cannot rebuild in less than a year, probably 2. No way contractors can do the rebuild, there are not enough in a year.

REBUILD is 2 YEARS

In the three states, 50 to 70k dead. Come on, this is the worst natural disaster to ever hit the US. Denial of that delays help to those that are in dire need.

This is bigger than Andrew, Camille and Galveston plus San Fran in 1906 COMBINED.

1 million homeless. 1 to 1.5 million jobless. 5 days later, 2 million without power and 1 million will be without power for a month. That ignores New Orleans and surrounding as they all will be moved out until Thanksgiving at the earliest

Do the math

We need an internet model to solve the issue. Texas has done tremendous service to solve the issue but really the best approach is many, many small places to go. Texas has offered so far 50k people of help. We need to make that 1 million. Many who did leave cannot come back now and are out of cash. We need to house a million new homeless. Those areas must exist for 6 to 9 months, until housing can be rebuilt. I live near Oakland and San Diego. I have seen it. This is so much worse.

Long term. I will just list the issues

Tax relief, bankruptcy relief, emergency money, aid and food, emergency law enforcement, new banking laws, new social security laws, long tern supply trains.

We need 2 million meals every day across the area. 5 million pints of water every day are needed. Currently deployed food and water will not feed people to Monday.

It is a math problem. The country needs to feed 1m every day for 60 days. The response is less than a week of supply.

The pictures are horrific. It will only get worse until the ramp up to the math gets solved.
Claiming we ordered and deployed enough to serve 20k of need is a joke. We have 1 million of need today, right now.

It is sad the administration is proud of what they have done. In the next 10 days, while they defend the structure, between 2 and 5 thousand people will die. No shelter, no meds, no contact, no food.

This requires 24-7 response. Poor George needs to suspend his fund raisers for a while. By the way, he only came back Wednesday because he would miss a huge fundraiser dinner Tuesday night in San Diego. So much for serving the needs of his people. Too bad all these people are dying while he dines on plastic chicken for 2008 and 2006 elections.

We need a leader NOW. We need to take everything we are doing and triple it. Hello George, step in and do endless conference calls to resolve the crisis. Or pass the buck to Chertoff, give him the Medal of Freedom later, fire him after and claim blamelessness. That worked for the head of the CIA in your last crisis.

Kind of like Iraq except now real, actual Americans die because of the process you love so much.

Congress should be in session by Friday AM. It seems maybe they will react. But we will use the existing plan, NOT DO THE MATH and thousands of people will die and needlessly suffer.

That may be more saddening than the event itself.

We have:
20k Army, National Guard, law enforcement somewhere in the area
5 million meals somewhere in the area
Ability to evacuate 3,000 people a day
Water to support 50,000 people a day
Housing in the area to support 25 thousand people, not everyone can go to Texas.

We need

100 thousand combined Army, Air Force, Navy, National Guard and local law enforcement. Suspend the normal laws, this is a crisis.

2 million meals a DAY in the area, distributed to established staging areas

Ability to evacuate 15 thousand people a day. We have 100,000 people in LA alone that have no way to get out and we are using school buses. Federalize some airplanes, use the HUGE airlift capacity at Travis in Cal and Wright-Patterson in Ohio. Did we not put those resources in place to be available just in times like now?

Clean water is the huge need right now. We will eventually plug the dikes and canals. We have 200 thousand people that need daily water in the area. Mobilize resources to move that much resource

Housing is huge long term but really the big need to now for shelter. 300 thousand people will run out of money by October 31st to pay hotel bills. That is probably low, like to be close to 1 million. Do you have enough cash and credit to live outside your house for 60 days at a hotel or family member?

The pieces needed are understood. The problem is the math. We need to increase what is required by somewhere a factor or 3 to 20.

The current response is DONATE TO THE RED CROSS. From Commander George the second himself, at least three times.

Are we serious here? He seems to be. What kind of leadership is that?

We knew all this Monday or Tuesday. Defending the original plan only kills and bankrupts people.

It is time to do the math and IMMEDIATELY scale the issue.

Anything less is just tragic as we know better, can do better but refuse to face the scope.

Do more than that, scream at your elected representatives and demand immediate Federal help on the scale needed.

The local response cannot solve the need. Sadly, it seems they can do the math on what they need. It is the Federal Government that has the resources needed and they seem to want to imitate Ostriches at the National Zoo.

So what is the Fourth of July?

2005-07-02T23:33:00.000-07:00

Mr. B is fine, so is everyone else.

My posts have really sucked lately, my head is somewhere else. I am leaving now for a week vacation, to Boy Scout camp, to renew myself, to set the compass properly.

I promise some decent posts from that or at least that is my goal.

But I sit here, on the eve of the fourth of July and I think about how lucky I am. How much I have depended on the sacrifices of my ancestors and people I do not even pretend to know.

Soldiers, martyrs, heroes, patriots, civil rights advocates. People who in small ways and in large ways, chose to make a difference.

Is that not one of the legacies of our country?

So, my next post will be written by you. I will combine all your comments into one large post, to be written in a week upon my return.

Here is what you can comment about.

Whose shoulders do you stand on? Who made a difference in your life? Who is it that you only dream to impress or show what you are made of?

Use only people you actually know. No using Martin Luther King or JFK or Abe Lincoln.

For your grandmother is just as vital as any of those people.

I return on my birthday, July the 9th. Let’s see what we can make of the challenge.

What would Buddha do?

2005-06-27T11:27:00.000-07:00

First off, my practice is consuming more of my time, that is a good thing. So I will only post once a week for now.

To catch you up on Mr. B., well he got a nasty foxtail in his eye last week and scratched his eyeball up nicely. He is on meds that require him to leave his pupil almost wide open in his right eye. But his eye has healed and now we have the consequence of the treatment.

One pupil is wide open, so the other has been forced to compensate, it remains almost shut. His ability to see depth is non existent and he can only see close to him in one eye and only therefore can see far in the other.

This causes him to be dis-orinented. As he swings his head, his vision blurs and it makes him uncomfortable. He sleeps less than he did, is cranky and confused.

The US Supreme Cout ruled on some religious issues today. They ruled quite wisely. In one case, in Tennessee, they ruled that a Ten Commandments display, in a field of other secular objects was improper.

In the Texas case, (how weird is that), they ruled that the Commandments in a field of other religious displays was ok.

Right wing Christians find this unheard of. Some extreme liberals find it confusing. How can we allow In God We Trust on the money, yet allow religion in any way.

The answer is simple. The Constitution allows religion, just not the active practice of one form to influence the government. We are not a Christian nation, but a religious nation of which Christianity is just one form

To all those that disagree, most founding fathers were Deists, go look up their principles.

More to the point, if we believe in diversity, if America is the global melting pot, must all that meld here be Christian?

Lastly, I must speak out on the insurgency. It seems we want Syria to close their borders. That they alone promote the conflict.

Yet, we in the US have essentially open borders and we seem to really suck at managing them.

And even stranger, 55% of insurgents come from Saudi Arabia, not Syria, Syria and what goes through there accounts for less than 20%.

But is there any conversation about closing the Saudi-Iraqi border? Why no.

Because just like Mr. B., we have lost our ability to see in stereo, that we can see both sides of a coin.

That just because most of us are Christian does not mean that we all are or that we all should be. Or that our government should be Christian as well.

Or that our issues in Iraq could be caused by an ally, the one with the longest, might as well most unguarded border. So we send the focus somewhere else, rather than look at the whole picture.

I find it humorous that Mr. B injured his right eye and his left eye must be squeezed almost shut to balance the damage. It means his right eye cannot see what is right in front of him and the vet cautioned me about his inability to judge his environment properly and that he puts himself in danger.

Our whole nation is split in half and each half sees the other side this way. Neither side is correct, to see a whole picture requires both eyes to work. That it is the other side whose eye on the world is stuck wide open and cannot see the danger right in front of them is a dangerous position and surely invites conflict and confusion.

I don’t know what the solution is. My vet said that Mr. B’s eye will only heal in time. I guess that is the same for us.

I hope we just see we have a problem and agree to do more in balance. For what would Buddha do is just a valid a mantra as would Jesus do. Is that not what the strength of diversity all about?

Lucky young Mr. Hawkins

2005-06-21T15:04:00.000-07:00

That young Utah scout was found alive today. He was damn lucky. Most folks HAVE NO IDEA WHAT TO DO IN AN EMERGENCY.

Let me help. I have 20 years in Scouting and teach survival skills, both basic and high country. They apply to being lost on a hike to what happens after a tornado, hurricane or earthquake.

First, check for injuries.

Common ones like broken bones etc are easy but watch to see if you balance is off or anything else unusual. You may have internal injuries and not be aware, sleepiness out of hand or intestinal discomfort need immediate medical attention.

Second find shelter. Exposure is deadly. You may be in shock and not know. Look at the pupils and see if they react. If not, keep very warm.

Third is FRESH water. If not sure, boil it for 5 minutes and let cool. You can go 30 days without food but 10 days or so without water.

Clean lavatory area, make sure it is downhill from you. Fecal contamination can kill in 72 hours. If not, you will feel just awful. Urine is relatively safe but do that also downhill from you.

NOW plan what to do. IF you can, stay put, searchers only search an area once. You can easily get lost and wander back to an area searched and never be found in time.

If you must travel, go downhill. Find a stream if you can, they always flow downhill. Civilization is usually downhill. Plus you will be close to fresh water and the warmest temps in the area. But be very careful on getting wet, that leads to exposure.

That is it. I have watched some of the coverage on the rescue of the young scout today and I just had to fire off an email to MSNBC. Their coverage was off base, inaccurate and easily correctable.

By the way, it is highly unlikely this 11 year old knew what to do. He wasn’t in Boy Scouts it seems, so he would have never been shown the skills I just mentioned.

He was just lucky. And that area is not remote, I’ve been in that area, it is combed with trails and campsites.

From: mega801@comcast.net [Add to Address Book] [View Source]

To: connected@msnbc.com
Subject: Lucky Mr. Hawkins
Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 21:44:43 +0000

I am a 13 scout leader as well as a former scout. Young Mr. Hawkins made several fundemental errors as well as some clarity is required on some of your stated issues like entry requirements and the remoteness of the area..

He was eligible at age 11 to be a Boy Scout. In fact, he could have been one at age 10 and a half, under certain conditions. Why was he not one by the time he was going to a Boy Scout camp in June, I cannot say. The Great Salt Lake Council is better positioned to answer that. But he was old enough to be a Boy Scout, not a Webelos or a Cub Scout.

It is also fair to say that a brand new scout or a Cub Scout would not have anywhere near the survival skills that a First Class Scout would have. Only because they are not officially taught them at that stage in their progress.

He broke the buddy system. He wandered away from known encampments, showing he was not well oriented with the camp area.

He made two other judgments that complicated things. He wandered away and kept going rather than stay put. Many people are never found as they wander in circles, entering areas already searched. Hopefully that was not the case here.

It seems instead that the young man wandered straight up and over a ridge. This is also bad judgment.

Civilization is usually found downhill. Find a stream edge and follow it down to the source. It can become a source of fresh water ( lake water is not nearly as safe to drink usually as stream water) as well as a trail.

Buddy system, know your surroundings, stay on a trail, head downhill, if you find a stream, do not cross it but use it as fresh water. Simple rules.

No disrespect to the young man, he was more lucky than good this time.

By the way, that area of Utah is crawling with trails, 4 wheeling, hiking and camping. While in a forest, it is a well camped forest area, ESPECIALLY in the lake area he was found in. He was only a few miles from a decent highway that connects to Wyoming.

It is apparent to me that he had not been very well trained in Scout skills. I will use this example as a refresher to my own troop.

We all can get lost and started making bad decisions, even if we knew better.

Thank goodness he was found safe.

Mike North Sr.
Troop 801
Hayward Ca

Buy the premise

2005-06-10T10:19:00.000-07:00

My brother’s favorite phrase is:

Buy the premise, buy the punchline.

The more I think about that, the more I think that is true.

I was forced to blog about it when the other day while watching Newt Gingrich on Fox (yeah, I watch Fox, know your enemy).

He was proclaiming how he and Hillary had developed this bill that would improve record keeping therefore saving 100,000 lives a year. It ticked me off.

Premise number 1, medicine saves lives, as do fireman, policeman and so on. No they don’t, occasionally, they extend lives. They defer one form of death until another pops up. As Jim Morrison said, no one gets out of here alive.

I think the conversation needs to be on quality of life, not just how long you live.

Premise number 2, Ethics. We should do this or that. My grandfather taught me this. Mankind cannot do should before can.

We try everything. No matter how bad, no matter the potential consequence. We knew nuclear weapons were bad, we dropped two anyway.

Ethics comes from experience, direct experience. If you haven’t done it, haven’t experienced it, do tell people they shouldn’t, because they will.

Premise number 3, progress can be stopped. I am making this political but it doesn’t have to be. On every issue, there are people that want fast progress, fast progression and those that want slow progression.

Those that want slow progression, if they add value by tempering the issue by stating the issues that arise during the progress, are ok with me. If they turn and say progression is bad or should never happen, well the road of history is littered with bodies of people who did that, even if they are remembered at all.

History is favored by progress. Sorry, but liberalism works. Jesse Helms now looks like a fool. Can you find anyone left who is pro-slavery or against a woman’s’ right to vote? Segregation still ok?

The new progressive issues of the day, abortion, gay rights and marriage, smoking, self-determination, even prisoner rights and sentencing laws will be dealt with. The only issue is how long they take.

The angst some of us feel now on these issues is the same angst our ancestors felt on previous issues. It took courage to adopt progressive ideas and turn them into ideals. Martin Luther King is dead from his personal courage. But it is easier that that. Those that supported progress in the past eventually saw their positions upheld. The same will be required of us. To turn away is to invoke cowardice and support denial.

If you want to temper progress, I will listen. If you want to deny it, stand aside, the tide of humanity will eventually wash you out to sea.

Last premise, evil can be stopped or contained. Life is a duality, we all have good and bad. The nature of civilization is that bad people emerge from time to time. There is no end to the war on terror. It is convenient to call it that, the war on terror but the war on terror therefore goes back, what 1000 years to the invasion of England by Rome, or to the Huns in Europe or maybe to the Vikings descent into France or to Christian invasion of the holy land during the crusades.

Life creates bad guys. This really isn’t a war, it is using the name of war, the concept of war to attack bad guys. And not surprisingly, it isn’t working. Some history and facts may help

War means state against state. Diplomacy sucked and away we go. Vietnam was a kind of a war. Ever since then, any military action we have taken is really to topple regimes we do not like. Kuwait was really a disaster as all we did was force Saddam to retreat. Now, that was our mandate but a war, no.

Going after the Serbs was to topple them, not take over the country. Panama was about doing what?

No, so sadly, we have allowed our moral fiber to become such that we use our limited military options to aggressively topple dictators we hate. We used to be subtle, now we do it in the open, whether we have the permission of the UN or not.

In WWII we were losing more soldiers in a month, sometimes in a week than we lost in this whole Iraqi overthrow. Imagine 2 million US soldiers killed for the sanctity of Iraq.
Bad guys exist but going and declaring it a war is laughable in the long run.

It may actually work but I doubt it in the next 5 years. Forcing self determination has never worked in history. They will have to be left alone to grow it themselves. They will have a civil war on more evident terms that exist today.

And then, we will deal with the next bad guy. We have been doing this since 6,000 BC.

So what premise do you not buy off on?

The man and the Moon

2005-05-28T09:00:00.000-07:00

Thanks to all that wrote. I am fine, just REALLY busy. It should slow down for next week, after that, who knows.

I have always loved the moon. It really got going when my dad bought me a 50x telescope. Now this bad boy had one lens, 2 power settings. No drive motor, no tracking device. The lens really sucked for 50 power, so it was only really good for one thing, looking at the moon.

The first big day err night, was watching a lunar eclipse. It happened in 1967, I think, and it was SO COOL seeing the shadow creep across the face of the moon. Lots of neighbors came over to look through. I was the only one in the neighborhood who had a telescope (hey, this is 1967, people). The moon was orange that night and you could really see it in the telescope.

I was all of 10 but I was the man that night.

In 1968, Apollo 8 went behind the moon on Christmas Eve, came back around and showed that unbelievable scene of the Earth rising. I was out in the backyard that night looking at the moon, hoping MAYBE I could see a glint off their ship. I learned later that it would have taken the telescope at Mt. Wilson, the largest in the world at that time, to see them but I was out there.

I heard the astronauts speaking on TV and came in. They were reading from the book of Genesis. It was just a stunning moment. The Earth was so BLUE, with white puffy clouds and they were describing the start of the universe. I’ll never forget that. We all cried after they signed off and I went back outside to see if I could see them, like they had looked at us. No luck.

About a year later I read that the nursery rhyme about Jack and Jill was about the shape of the dark spaces on the moon. Out comes the telescope and damned if they weren’t right. The shape on the left, Jack, is better defined than Jill, so that is why she carries a pail of water, to account for the shapes.

Damn I thought, most nursery rhymes are myths to explain real things. Joseph Campbell wrote about that and became my hero when I went to college and I found his works. But one November night, I SAW Jack and Jill and just smiled. I discovered the power of wisdom that night.

Later, Carl Sagan came to prominence. He helped us understand how large the universe really is. How many stars there really are. I took some astronomy classes in college to learn more. They were all about math. I would have taught the about everything but the math. If they really love it, let them learn about the speed of the Doppler red shift as a Junior, not as a Freshman. Hubble and his constant could wait.

Hand a Freshman a telescope, a decent one and let them gaze back in time. Do enough of that, seeing Andromeda, the Pleiades and so on and that would hook them. Or study crater shadows on the moon, like I did. If you look at a crater enough times, you detect changes in shadow size. That tells you, with some simple math, how high a crater wall is. You feel proud and then, you picture that crater in your mind and the moon becomes real to you. Damn, a crater wall 3,000 feet high, as high as that mountain near my house, all around me. Living in that crater would be wild.

So I was reading a NASA brief on return to flight for the Shuttle. It said, in a side note that the shuttle program will end in almost exactly five years and then we change and will go back to the moon. That is right, no more shuttle launches after 2010.

Instead, and god help me for saying this, thanks to George Bush, we return to a main feature of our species, exploring space. Shuttles were fun and we learned a few things but they did not challenge us. The moon and the next target will.

With any luck, by 2012, we will be back on the moon. I am sure Richard Branson and his 3 minute flights in zero G will also be available then. Virgin Space flights, what a loser. He is not bold, he cannibalizes the work of great men, Chris Kraft, Gene Kranz and the astronauts, all of them. Branson has no vision, only gall.

After the moon, at some vague point in the future, we will go to Mars. I have been to the telescope that first studied Mars, in Flagstaff AZ, home to the eccentric Percival Lowell. They eventually named a planet, Pluto after this guy. But he was convinced Mars had life. The term he used was Canali. It was Italian and meant canals. And that intelligent beings built them. We now know that he was way off but the canals mean water and probably life at some point. We will go there by 2040 at the latest, too late for me.

So I go back to the moon. There are trillions of moons in our universe. There must be billions of beings looking at their own moon right now. They are so far from us, we will never meet.

They must know we probably exist just like we know, somewhere out there, they exist, in their own fashion. So a leap of faith is involved.

You must go from Jack and Jill to Neil Armstrong to going to Mars to understanding we cannot be alone, just apart.

That all starts at the Moon, our closest neighbor. Of course, we have no idea how to get there, we threw all the plans away. Honest. So we are at start over.

But we will go and we will get there. Maybe by then, I will own a CCD telescope, where I can see them as they get there. So I can live my dream.

To take my Jill up the hill, to fetch a pail of water.

And the view from up here is

2005-05-16T11:55:00.000-07:00

I have a heart condition. It means I can no longer do strenuous hikes. That sucks because I used to like them. The view from the top of a mountain is wonderful. I have been on many, including the tallest in the lower 48, Mt. Whitney.

But those days are gone now. I was sad for awhile but no longer. I didn’t climb them for exercise. Sort of like the Bill Cosby line I love “I don’t understand cross country running, going three miles in the heat just to throw up at the end.”

It is the “peak experience” that I crave. Not the rush of reaching the top. And don’t kid yourself, there is quite the rush there.

It isn’t any longer for me about conquering yourself, driving yourself to the top of something. I’ve done that plenty, I get that one.

The tram in Palm Springs therefore was perfect. High enough to see far, 8,516 ft at the station at the top. And there were some real mountains after that, one over 11,000 ft.

I had no interest in that. No I wanted to first rush up the side of a mountain, not is days but in minutes. That tram climbs just about 6,000 in net elevation in less than 7 minutes. That is not in cable feet, that is net gain in altitude. You go from desert floor to alpine forest in about the time it takes to smoke a cigarette. That is wild.

Then you can either go out to look at forests and two higher peaks or face east and see 75 miles or more on a clear day for about 3/4ths of the way around you.

That is what I wanted. I climbed up and asked for a peak experience. What that means is you get very quiet and just look out, out as far as you can see and ask “what does my future bring, where I am headed?” And you wait and your spirit will answer.

Usually it is a quiet answer, sometimes a few sentences. And you say thank you and you leave. I am certain it is a major reason why people climb mountains, I have asked a few and they all do it, they ask questions at the top and wait for the answer to come.

So as I looked out, it was quite hazy and I could not see as far as was possible. I have looked out from mountains and been able to see 200 miles. Today was at best, maybe 40 miles and then the world disappeared.

And the answer came back.

“What did you expect, the future is not certain, plans are only that. You want certain, jump. Death is certain. Life is certain, rebirth is certain, all else is just a guess.

“What? “ I said quietly.

“Life means making choices. Don’t get hung up on plans. While everyone makes them, only fools believe they guarantee anything.”

“You came up here to learn that no matter what you do, you can only see so far ahead and it is all blur after that”. “You have something to do, so go do it and see where it leads. Go make your own trail and share the trail with others.”

“Huh, is there more?” I asked, almost hoping the answer was no.

“while you grow old, you realize that you can only look at but not really see your future, so live and love in the now, not in the whenever or in the maybe. You can go now.”

I walked silently down off the lookout point. The wifey was waiting patiently. “Learn anything dear?” she asked.

“oh, just that I know less and less all the time but in a weird way, that is a good thing. “

“Is that it?” she politely inquired

“Just that it is time to go, if we make a decision, we gain an experience, so let’s go back down the hill now and get some food” I replied softly.

We wandered into the tram car and it gently pulled out and then down the mountain. I looked up silently and said “Thank you.” A gentle “You’re welcome and drive safely”, then a small chuckle came back.

I nearly hit another car about 20 minutes later, on our way to dinner. Explain that one.

So off I go, in fact, off we all go, thanks for sharing the trail with me.

I need some advice

2005-05-09T08:45:00.000-07:00

The wifey and I are going to Palm Springs this Thursday. We have an empty spot in our agenda for Saturday.

So I am asking you all what you think sounds like the most fun. I'll write about it next week.

We can :

A. Go to a movie. It will be like 97 degrees F there while we stay, a mid day movie may be just the ticket

B. Take the tram to the top of Palm Springs Mountain. It will be 70 not 97 up there, the view is incredible, and we can eat and chill out of the heat

C. Take the Nature Walk first thing in the morning. There is a cool park in the area that shows you true desert life and it would be a great day starter on Saturday

D. Just read a book, take naps and chill. Come on ST, 97 degrees is too hot to do anything on a vacation.

E. Just do what you want but we better get a great post out of it.

Vote for your choice. I'll write about it when we get back.

whoz got skillz, yeah

2005-05-06T09:15:00.000-07:00

First off, thank you to all for all the comments recently. It was FUN to write that story and do it in comment order. I must tell you it was not as hard as you think which got me to thinking.

Earlier this week I was watching the MTV and it really hit me that new generations always change names of things to help establish their identity.

Example, Mildred used to be a common name. No one names their kid Mildred anymore and likely never will in 20 years, the world moved on. Mike and Jennifer were common, then Mandy and Kaitlyn.

It all started I think with Kaitlyn. There became this main stream rush to spell it in 100 different ways. Certain communities also started spelling normal words unusually for identity purposes, adding vowels, making F look like Ph (pity the phool who argues with me here sucka) and so on.

This trend is continuing. My current fav word is skillz (please note now that I like it, a new way to spell it will be found).

The people at Microsoft who invented spell-check must be going crazy. They too are being shuffled back into history. A new generation will make their work obsolete. I guess the best news is that we all are part of this blog thing, which is both cutting edge and works for people over 30. Not that there aren’t bloggers under 30, there are PLENTY. But blogging is not a solely under 30 deal.

Anyway, I have skillz. We all hear that but what are they. Now we are at the heart of the matter. What is it that you do the best, what are your SKILLZ?

When I was in 4th grade, it was math. I was asked to memorize the times table up to 10, I did it to 25. Trust me, that is not 60% more, it is 300% more. Math was my friend all thorough school. Algebra and geometry and even trig were easy but then came calculus.

Oh I was good at it but it wasn’t something that just came to me, I had to work it. And there were others around me for whom it did come easy. So I stopped at math and played golf.

I was never really skilled at golf, not VJ skilled. I couldn't hit the ball far enough to ever be pro but I could make shots, especially in pressure situations. I was a valuable asset to a golf team because the tougher it got, the less I folded. I beat people I shouldn’t have and could get into people head’s. That all ended when I was 24 with a pinched nerve in my back off the first tee. I couldn’t play for three years and came back a more wholesome golfer. I help people now, not try to pummel them.

Some years after that a friend Ron Flynt, at a silly cub scout meeting handed me a piece of paper. It was full of words. It was an Indian story about coming of age. I asked Ron what it was and he said I was now appointed to read the whole text in front of 60 people, half of them under 10. It was his son’s crossover speech to Boy Scouts and I was perfect to read it.

What crap Ron, thanks. I had no public speaking in me and this was damned important to Peter. It pissed me off, how DARE he do that, put me in that spot with oh say 20 minutes to prepare. I’ll fix him. I will memorize it and read it aloud. Who wants a dude to read a full page of text off of a sheet, heads down, a perfect immediate sleeping device for the crowd?

OK big guy, Indian story huh, full page huh. I will wow this crowd. I will tell the story from memory, as though I was the chief.

And I did and even today as I look back, I did it pretty well. The kids fell silent. I used my hands and body and the place was silent. I ended it and looked at Peter (the son) and he did his walk. I got a small amount of clapping but I knew I was freaking hooked.

I stopped a crowd of people cold and changed them, emotionally. I have been doing that for some 14 years now. What you read here is a result of that night. I have no pretensions. I have help from somewhere upstairs when I write or I speak. I know I am not alone, that I am moving more than just my energy when I do it. Such was the case with the story earlier in the week.

I will give another speech to 200 people on Saturday and will post what I wrote for it next week. Doing that is my current best skillz. I hope to use it when I consult. It would be nice to use this gift and make money.

But that isn’t the point.

What are your skillz. What is it you do really well, that brings you peace, that just flows from you. I know for some of you that it is writing, others it is serving and so on.

But what is it that you do, just one thing that seems just so natural and brings you joy when you do it? Because we all got skillz, yeah, we all got a gift at something, don't be shy,what is yours?

A Walk in the Forest

2005-05-02T10:52:00.000-07:00

“Mommy, read us a story”

“Now Coco, it is time to go to bed”

“But Moooommmm, David and I love it when you read us stories, read us the one called A Walk in the Forest Mom, it is funny and scary and weird”

OK dear, go get it off you shelf and get David…my that book is seemingly getting heavier all the time….

“Ah hemm, A Walk in the Forest, written by, well look at all those names, no time to read them all dearie.”

Mom began….

Coco and David knew better, they knew they should not go in the forest alone but they couldn’t help themselves. Especially now. It was not quite sunrise and Dad and Mom would want them to get ready for school very soon.

Coco went down the steps and stopped cold. She heard them first, and grabbed David. Something moved in the trees and the eyes stared out at her from the darkness, drawing her in with their light, while the shadows engulfed her reason, robbing her of the desire to walk on.

The leaves crackled beneath their feet as they walked slowly, near to one another yet not touching, too far apart to be truly together. A twig snapped in the distance, startling them out of their musings, bring them suddenly back to their current situation.

“David, are you sure you want to do this”, said Coco.

“What are you, a chicken?”

What started as a walk in the woods suddenly became a heart racing adventure and she was glad she wasn’t alone out there.

Their dog Krya had come along as well.

They came upon a meadow full of wildflowers, edged with boulders set in increments, suggesting someone or some mystical being was responsible for the tidy upkeep. She couldn’t believe her eyes. It was a real live forest sprite, dressed only in the leaves and flowers of the forest that she cared for. She offered up a sweet drink from a cup made from the biggest most beautiful flower Krya had ever seen.

Krya drank readily and trotted home. David and Coco carried on around a corner and just beyond was a cave, a magical cave.

It was there that the mushrooms grew, deep in the dampness, in the vague patches of sunlight, where only the brave wandered.

Suddenly, there was a popping noise or so they thought.

Together they backed into the damp side of a boulder, backed until their spines pressed into the cool rock and their was no more room to escape what lay before them

And out of nowhere, little white daisies started falling out of the trees. It was as if they were angels coming to rescue them from the horrible fate that would end their lives right then.

“Leave them” said David, “they may be poisonous.”

“Nah uh” replied Coco as she grabbed them. “besides, we can bring them home and explain our walk, that we were out picking flowers.”

Coco smiled at her plan but in seconds it would unravel as there was suddenly a loud noise in front of them.

“What was that popping sound David?” whispered Coco. David smirked and replied “Did my eyes play tricks on me or was that a bear crapping in the woods ?”

Coco pushed off the boulder and at the same time punched her brother in the shoulder, hard. Her face was twisted into a scowl and she mumbled something impolite under her breath. She stomped off then Coco cursed loudly as she twisted her ankle for the 4th time, whatever had originally possessed her to wear her new pink stilletoes, tight blank Capri pants, figure hugging halter top along with her Gucci bag (complete with touch up make up and hairspray), now seemed like a fate worse than death…that was until she saw him and she silently thanked the lord.

It was Aaron, her pretend beau. He had entered the forest from the back of his house a few houses down the street. She thought of him often when she got her dolls out. She had always wondered what a walk in the forest would be like with him instead of her stupid brother David. She could lean on Aaron instead.

She pulled down her shades, desperately trying to get the glare from the sun out of her eyes. She knew that she had to get away from there. Somehow it seemed like the sun was hounding her and she had no place to run, no place to hide.

“Aaron” said Coco in the sweetest voice she could muster, still laced with anger for her brother, “Let’s go to the cave and get some mushrooms, we can bring them back for breakfast.”

This was, of course, convenient as this took Coco away from David at the same time. They walked a few steps and approached the cave entrance when suddenly the popping noise surrounded them and it smelled sickly sweet.

There was bubblegum everywhere, in her hair, on her clothes, stuck to her shoes and even on the books she was carrying, she wondered to herself as she continued to trek through the not so haunted forest where on earth this could possibly come from…

The forest sprite laughed and laughed and said, “Coco, you know you should not go in that cave, so I stopped you. But you can go in if you can answer a riddle.

“Sure”.

Coco spit out the words along with some bubblegum “anything, lay it on me pixie or what ever you are”

Ok said the sprite “But where are the forest of the words going so fast.”

“That doesn’t make any sense!!!!” said an obviously frustrated Coco. “What does it mean?" she pouted.

“you figure it out and you can get your precious mushrooms, otherwise I will blow another huge bubble with my magic bubble gum” said the now risable pixie.

“Mom” said a transfixed Coco” is there such a thing as magic bubblegum and sprites and all that”

“there must be or all these people wouldn’t have put them in your story. Now can we get back to the story dearie?’

“yes mom” said Coco excitedly” please, please, read some more to me”

Her heart began to race as she looked around the corner and began a plan for an escape when out of the corner of her eye she saw the one she was waiting for.

Aaron had found a back entrance into the cave and was motioning her towards him.

She felt it before she saw it, the vibrating flash of light from an explosion

A slew of pink rabbits jumped out of the enormous trees attacking the frightened couple in love.

The rabbits then just as suddenly just hopped away and the forest sprite was rolling on the forest floor, gasping for air from a fit of laughter.

“You and your friend just walk away and remember my riddle if you ever want some mushrooms from my secret cave” said the sprite and with that, she flew away and disappeared in a flash of light. "and avoid the mulberries at all costs" said the sprite.

Coco and Aaaron sat there in stunned silence. It was all they could do to take in the beauty. As the sunrise started to creep into the forest, the morning dew on all the leaves shined like a thousand diamonds in the air.

David, on the other hand, was now thoroughly lost. The sky was becoming ominous again.

He looked around anxiously, remembering that Coco had been there only moments before, but after the bubblegum had exploded, he had run like the deer that should be in the forest, blindly running, thinking that the flowers falling from the sky, the bubblegum explosion, the pink stiletto heels and tight back Capri pants were just far too freaky for a walk in the forest.

The sky opened up and poured for just a short while. David wandered aimlessly. How long, he could not say but there would be heck to pay when he got home. Then, amazingly, off in the distance, he heard voices. It was Coco and Aaron.

“Hey Coco, hey Aaron, you guys ok?”

“yes mister, where did you go, you won’t believe what happened to us” said a rather smug Miss Coco Church. “We saw exploding bubble gun from that silly sprite and pink rabbits fell from the sky and then it poured rain and the rain had just stopped. We decided to go exploring and came upon a forest full of thick mulberries and other exotic looking berries that we were just warned to avoid. We stood at the base of the forest line. Hand in hand, dusk was beginning to fall upon us. We slowly ventured inside. Everything around us was still. We could only hear our own breathing as we walked on the damp forest floor. Over to our left we heard a foul cry for help..it sounded like a wounded animal of some sort..lightening lit up the sky, loud thundering was heard above. The rain came down in droves. We were standing hand in hand, soaked on the forest floor.” said a nearly breathless Coco.

Then they realized something wonderful, scary, potentially awful.

They had no idea where they were or HOW to get home.

David instantly reached for Coco and grabbed her hand, it felt awkward, despite the situation. He looked down and gasped quietly.

They had the exact same birthmark on their hands

The sign of the family..they broke their hands apart and began to study each others every feature..

Coco knew she would be close to David her whole life. But she could say nothing now.

“anyway” continued Coco” so I was telling Aaron, “ She changed her voice to that of the shy Coco, the modest little girl everyone saw at school “Dave told me about the really cool place under the bridge. We walked hand in hand to the edge of the forest. As he tightened his grip into my palm, the thunder and lightening sprang out of nowhere…

ah yes thought David, the same storm that had drenched him so quickly.

Coco then told more of their walk together. “and inside the walls of the forest, we took our first steps into the unknown. It seemed to take forever but we finally passed by the bridge and all the way to the ocean!”

“Sure Coco” snarled her brother” but we live by a lake. Now we all know you love water but the ocean?”

Coco was now as frustrated as she had even been in her life. “David, I don’t know how Aaron and I got to the ocean but we did”. She looked over at Aaron and he nodded his approval. “Then we saw three of our friends out in the ocean” she continued. “we ran down to the beach.

Aaron quickly interrupted ”so she fell down like three times in the sand and I MADE her take those darn shoes off and she went searching for her friends” Now Aaron got smug ”She couldn’t find them, she frantically started yelling their names. Mike, Catherine and Vickie. They didn’t answer. She looked up and saw three people in the ocean. Could it be them?”

“but then they were gone, it must have been seaweed or something” said a decidedly dejected Coco.

They all grew silent and surveyed the scene. As the warm morning sun filtered through the canopy of the forest, they rested on their makeshift bed of leaves and branches, enthralled with the vision of the rising sun and the reflections of the shadows it drew…..

This went on quietly for some 10 minutes or so. Suddenly Coco sprang up. In all the excitement, she realized she HAD to go and GO NOW. She made her excuses and ran into the forest. She was feeling all powerful despite all that had happened to her so far.

So she thought she'd try peeing in the standing up position. She looked around and no one could see her.

But she thought the better of it. She was after all, Miss Coco Church, daughter of one of the more well to do and by some accounts, royal families in the area. She knew different, of course, but she had a standing to uphold. She finished her task and hoped it would keep the deer away. She hated hunters, had seen the movie Doc Hollywood and knew she may save some innocent fauna by her deed.

She walked slowly back to the boys then from the corner of her eye she noticed a movement behind a tree.

She hoped it wasn’t a hunter. She had heard the legend about the young girl who took a walk into the forest and how it had turned deadly for the girl who wandered away from family on a hiking trip to the creek.

No, it was a baby fawn, with spots still on her back, feeding on a fern growing against a tree.

Coco met back up with the boys and said ”I love fall, it is my favorite time of year. The trees are turning colors, the air is crisp and clean and everything in the for is getting ready for it’s long winter’s nap.”

She was feeling very risible, despite her desire to do a most unladylike act just a minute before.

“So is that it Coco?” muttered her now cross brother David ”or is there more to your sssttttooorrry” he said in his most sarcastic tone.

“Oh yes, so Aaron and I were, well, “ she blushed now, a crimson red “ We were happily lost until the high pitched screech shattered the silence in every direction, feeling like it pierced the earth and sky in the process.”

And she stopped, she had exposed herself now, both Aaron and David knew Miss Coco Church, properly raised young lady of the village had feelings, SERIOUS feelings for young Aaron.

And in her head she kept hearing the haunting refrain.” I can feel it coming in the air tonight oh lord”

“Mommy” interrupted Coco, “what does that mean, I can feel it coming in the air tonight Oh lord?”

“oh honey” reassured her mother” it was just some lyrics from a fading rock star” “Young Coco’s parents probably played them a lot when she was in the womb or such, anyway, we are almost done sweetie”

Coco continued ” The sky instantaneously turned from baby blue to purple to black and the sounds of the forest halted as unsettled cold feeling settled in the pit of my stomach as Aaron squeezed my hand tighter than a vice !”

“that was to keep you from running away” said Aaron firmly “ you were headed right back into the ocean, you might have been killed or worse”

Coco knew Aaron was right, she had panicked but who could blame her. Aaron had saved her, well, probably saved her, anyway.

It was time to go home. David said it first, that they needed to get back. Coco nodded silently and walked behind the two boys along the now easily visible forest path. She followed the path for hours and hours along the narrow trail as the light faded into a twilight that was so opaque that she was starting to wonder if she was the last girl on earth.

They arrived just as their mothers were finishing breakfast, they hadn’t been gone nearly as long as they thought.

“Eggs are ready Coco, go get your school clothes on”

“And no one told about what had happened but they knew they had been through a special day. The forest was magical and she could not wait to go back for even more adventures.”

“Mommy”

“Yes, Coco dearie”

“I like that story, when can we hear it again”

“oh soon enough dear but you need your sleep”

Coco quickly fell fast asleep. It really was her favorite story, despite how long it was.

She woke up the next morning and let out a tremendous yawn. She glanced at her nightstand and noticed a half chewed pack of bubble gum as well as a can of Sprite and a picture of her brother David and friend Aaron playing in the woods. Her fluffy pink rabbit lay next to her as it always did, still reeking of seawater from the day before. Her flower vase held white daisies.

She could smell fresh mushrooms being cooked for breakfast. A very old Phil Collins CD played on the stereo. She was a few minutes behind, she didn’t want to be late for her classes. She shook her head to wake herself up.

She knew the line between dreams and reality was thin. But that could wait for when she was older. She knew her imagination could take her as far as she wanted.

“Mom, did you read me a story last night?”

“why dear, don’t you remember?”

The Senior Thinking Challenge

2005-04-28T09:53:00.000-07:00

I love to write, to stir up my brain, my heart and perhaps my soul. I also love to deliver the words but I doubt this blog will see that.

One of the sites I go to is Last Girl on Earth (http://www.denibonet.com/blog/).

Ms Bonet is a musician out of New York and she recently made a video based on requests from her commentors. I was one of them and it was fun.

So, I thought, what if I made a post based on specific requests from people who come by. I decided I would love to try.

So here is the challenge. You type one sentence in quotes in the comments section to this post.

The theme is " A Walk in the Forest".

I will take all the entries that are posted in comments in "quotes "and weave them into a story.

If you post, you will be included.

So type in my comments section something like this:

Senior Thinking, this is so much fun, pure brillience, something to do ( choose as your mood suits you). I like,hate, want to make you squirm ( again let your conscience be your guide) so please include the following phrase in your epic story, silly idea, whatever, it fills the day post

" and the banana slug ran for it's life"

"And the sunset screamed out to be recognized against the creeping fog bank"

"And the tree fell and only he heard but who could he tell"

I am depending on you. I will accept entries until Monday morning my time and post sometime that day.

You may now comment at will.

Also note I have a post below this one, a story I wrote a little while back, before the blog world.

You may visit it as well.

Next week, the elevator challenge. I entered and it was ok. Plus the nature of friendship.

Send me those comments based on this theme " A Walk in the Forest".

You may begin now.

The Apprentice and the Blind Man

2005-04-28T09:49:00.000-07:00

There is a story about an aging man that I would like to tell. An apprentice of his came to visit from out of town, to listen to what the aging man had to say about business matters. They spoke for three hours at the office with the apprentice listening in rapture.

They went to dinner, had a great meal with wine, dessert and much conversation, mostly a one way conversation. The apprentice paid for dinner despite the protests of the aging man, citing what he learned from him as more than equal payment.

The aging man left the restaurant, feeling full of good companionship, food, and wine but especially full of himself. He went to the subway and entered.

As he approached the escalator, a blind man with a cane approached from the side, searching for the path downward. Instinctively the aging man reached out, placed his hand on the blind mans’ shoulder gently and said “this way”. He helped him to the escalator and thought nothing more about it.

At the bottom of the escalator, the blind man was assisted gently off by the aging man and the blind man moved aside. The blind man asked how to board a certain train, the same train to be taken by the aging man. The aging man led him to the correct side of the platform and stopped. They said nothing. The train finally came and the aging man again gently assisted the blind man on. They each sat down someway apart and never spoke. The train eventually came to the end of the line and only the blind man and the aging man were left in the previous packed car.

The blind man got up and the aging man met him at the train door. He helped the blind man out of the train, to the escalator, and out of the station without speaking except for the aging man to say every so often, “this way”.

Just outside the gates, the blind man asked the aging man “Which way to a taxi please.” The aging man said turn right and walk perhaps 50 yards and he would be in the area where taxis drove up. One would surely jump out and help him. The blind man turned, said thank you and walked away. The aging man never saw the blind man again.

I tell you this story for two reasons. One, it shows that the right way to lead, the right way to help people is gently and only when necessary. People only need guidance and only in small doses.

Second, I am the aging man in the story. I shall never forget what I learned from the blind man as long as I live. That late one night I changed forever from a full of himself mentor to an apprentice to someone who learned how to guide.

A series of random thoughts

2005-04-24T08:41:00.000-07:00

Sometimes the themes just pop into your head, some times they don’t. Lately it has been don’t for me, so I’ll let you see some random thoughts that may intrigue you.

You will be asked to comment. Think of it as a water cooler kind of discussion. So here we go.

My Large Intestine likes to read. I am sure, if you take a moment and think about it, you will find out that certain parts of your body really enjoy certain things.

My hands just love golf. I played yesterday, played pretty decent, my lower back says bad idea. My hands feel just wonderful. They are satisfied completely. They were used in many different ways, stretched and twisted and held close, then tightly then just barely. They are smiling this morning. Like the feeling after a night of dancing, where you can still feel the other person as you held them.

My eyes love pool. They love to dissect a table, follow the cue ball around, trying to see what the other player will do. Then do it. I had a 34 last week against a good team. But my eyes saw runs and patterns and adventures that they really enjoyed. They are still happy three days later.

My head likes a good hat. I have over 50. It is quite picky, the hat must fit the task, it must be fresh, there needs to be some style involved. Almost a one body part parade. When the wifey says I have hat hair, my head is quite pleased.

But my large intestine likes to read. Not a lot. And only for a few minutes a day. It reads National Geographic and Golf Digest. It can take 3 weeks to read them both. On a really bad day, it wants the sports page. I think all guys’ large intestine loves the sports page. Gals, leave that section in the bathroom and make your man happy. And if he found a sports page at work, you may trust that your man did not have a completely awful day.

I suspect that you can make a claim on lips and feet and fingers and so on. So what do your body parts like?

I love quiet time. Either late at night or first thing in the morning, especially on a Sunday like now. I know the world will start spinning fast very soon. But right now, it just creeps along. This morning two doves are walking across the top of my back fence, slowly, talking and glancing to each other. The coos can be heard echoing all around me.

They remind me of a mature couple, out just sharing time together. My, that seems so important, to share quiet time either with your self or with someone else. I think it keeps us all sane.

How wonderful, Mr. B just walked in. It seems he is no longer welcome in Chris’ room, Chris needs quiet time too. B’s chomping on kibble is quite crackily and his feet seem to caress the floor as he walks by me. He wants out.

I tap his side as he waits at the sliding door. He knows what this means, he arches himself to make it easier to have me pick him up. He knows I only want a short hug and we exchange purrs. Out he goes, he sees the doves too. B has no partner like the doves do, but he has family now, such as it is. I think he knows he can stop by anytime and that we are home base to him. The definition of family on a quiet morning expands, he seems to be one of us now.

The modern world gives short shift to quiet moments. We seem to be too temporary to me. Quiet moments makes things last and gives one a chance to appreciate the gifts we all have.

I love flowers. All kinds. Oh sure trees are nice. How special is a quiet walk in a grove or forest of trees. Out here, we have redwoods. Not sure exactly why but they radiate a certain energy that no other tree does. A radiance that is more grounded than other trees.

But nothing beats flowers for me. They remind nothing lasts but new things can take their place if you water and nuture them.

How wonderous are gladiolas as the burst upwards day by day. Snapdragons are like colored popcorn kernels on a green stem. My roses extend themselves up for a gentle caress from me or the sun or anyone who wanders by. I have poppies out, they love the sun and warm breezes, swaying to and fro like a chorus.

The carnations are blooming, they are like chicks in a bird’s nest, each asking for attention. We have lots and lots of Iris's. 35 or so bloom each week. Wifey insists we have 6 to 8 in a vase on the table. They stand like elegant ladies at a social event, perfectly coiffed and ready for an expression of beauty and grace.

Other flowers will be out later, each with their own song to sing.

So if you could be a flower, what flower would you be.

Ancestors

2005-04-18T11:53:00.000-07:00

Ok, so I have been pretty busy lately, not crazy busy but my days fill up more and more.

My consulting business is rising on it’s feet, I have a business line and number, laptop will be here next week, room is in the middle of a transformation into an office ( hey Lilly, I can only imagine what your spring cleaning was like) . I am going to networking events and starting to make contacts.

Plus this is my month to participate as a staff member in a Boy Scout Training course. I do it annually. I get to speak about things I value, I cook for the staff, goof off some, light charcoals, and help new parents to Scouting learn how to participate, how it works, why it matters to their kids. I love it. This is my 12th year on staff and it is a fixture on my calendar.

So, in the middle of all that, I got to thinking. I know that is what I am supposed to do. Everyone in Scouts calls me Senior, that is the venue that my name came from, so I smiled on Saturday when it occurred to me that Senior was thinking about a post in the venue that Senior was created.

I thought about how I had got to where I am now. I thought how weird it is that in order for me to become a consultant, the very fabric of my life had to change. My Dad left me some money when he died 18 months ago, and then you combine that with the severance from that lovely firm that will shortly no longer be called AT&T. My kids have left except for one, he moves out August 18th (no, there will be no party at my house that following weekend).

And I will be completely free, just the wife and me, to do what we want.

And I thanked everyone I could think of for allowing me this. My wife for standing by me, my parents who are now both gone, my teachers and workmates and friends in Scouts or golf or pool. I became at peace with how much interconnection there is in a life and how one can be graced by it.

And then, how much my parents must have been helped by their parents.

And I thought about how they helped me directly and the interaction we had, how much it meant to have my grandpa teach me to shoot a gun, even though my dad was the US Army National Champion at the time. Or picking fresh corn for my grandma and I got to cook it. Or when I picked fruits from their back yard and my grandma canned it and mailed it to me at Christmas and that package of Jam, Jellies and so on, lasted me all winter. Or my other grandma that had all her kids and grandkids pictures pasted to her family room wall, by her TV, so she could watch both at the same time. I checked to see my pictures on her wall every time I visited. And we would talk about the latest additions.

There were hundreds of these memories.

And then it hit me. What about their parents. Do I even know them? I know a few names. I know that one was cremated and her ashes were kept next to the water heater at Grandma’s.

But what about them? What were they like? What music did they listen to, did they farm or work at the store.

And it went back further than that. We are only talking about 100 to 120 years or so ago and I am just blank. Worse maybe, I am empty.

Then thought number two hit. It some ways, it is the nature of being in a country like America.

Maybe it is the nature of a melting pot to lose track of the intimate past. We don’t even call ourselves Americans. We are Italian Amercans or African Americans or native/indigenous Americans. Or Wherever Americans.

We have lost connection with our past, our ancestors. I suspect this is true for most of us. Now I know a few details, one of my relatives was mayor of Copenhagen in 1520. Was he tall, short, handsome, ugly as sin, I have no idea, might as well the context and content of his life.

So what will my legacy be and will I even have one or will I just fade away in 3 generations or so, to be lost to the throws of the Universe?

Living in the now is fine and we here do it very well. But perhaps we have sacrificed our past in the process.

I am sure images and so on will live on but what of the stories, the context of life.

Maybe a blog will help in the future. I just wish I knew more.

So I recalled a Boy Scout ditty that goes “Here we sit like birds in the wilderness, birds in the wilderness, birds in the wilderness…”

I really am a bit like a bird in the wilderness. I get to fly away and try something completely new. And how many people contributed to that.

If I only knew more of them, especially my ancestors

Visitng the Archives

2005-04-10T08:34:00.000-07:00

My life got really busy this week and looks to be even busier next week and the week after. It seems my consulting practice is taking shape, all I need is my first client but I am working on that, and away we go.

So I didn’t blog. In fact, I spent a lot of this week thinking about what I have done in the past that made me what I am now and therefore, what I can do for others.

You are always selling yourself to the world in everything you do, it just depends how subtle the situation is really.

In consulting, it is not so subtle, at home or at Scouts or other places, it can be. Which got me to thinking about blogging and blogs I read. What the great entry I read that made me decide to come back to the blogs I read.

So this entry is about connecting back to my early parts of blogdom and sending you there. Below are some entries from some of the blogs I read all the time, out of their archives. These are not every blog I read, and I add some more in a post in the future BUT we can start here.

It is time to go back in time to see how we got to this place. Just hit the back arrow to return to this post as you visit.

First up, Karen at Creatively Amusing. Read some of her other October entries as well, a real riot. This one is instructional, designed to help us avoid her pain.

Then there is Reama. The entry I love is on 11-20 but read a few of them. I can just FEEL her pain on dealing with a salesman, after reading this one, I was hooked.

Next up is Anna at The Particular Ordinary. This post was simple but came straight from the heart. I was hooked after this one. SCroll down a screen or so to find it.

Then there is the directness of Chaotic Serenity. This one is about her car. I think we have all been there. I was hooked at the first line, it sure set the tone of the post perfectly.

My first favorite over at Cocktails and Smokes was the entry called Know what burns my Ass? It was a free ranging post that was like a runaway freight train. Scroll down to it but I cannot help you if you read some of her posts as you do.

Next up is California is a Recipe for a Black Hole. It is jointly authored and this one is from Breasier. It just floored me when I read it.

Last up is well, me. I wanted to refer you to the first post I ever thought I did well.

Here it is. It is called Mad Dog, Mad Dog !!

That is enough for now. In your comments, you can even link us to your own personal favorite post, either yours or someone else’s.

We all want to press forward, to see where life takes us, to somehow find out the ending before it is time. There really is plenty of time, we all can wait for it. We all should take stock of where we have been, to visit our own archives and the archives of others.

I could be pithy and remind us all of the line that he who does not learn the lesson of history is doomed to repeat it.

But a more accurate thought is that we live on the building blocks from the past. We often spend time mocking or denying our former selves, as if we are better now or if what we were in the past is of lesser value.

That just seems silly and probably foolish. We are an extension of that past and without it, we would be nothing. I love to look back, it helps me to validate and to understand.

For if I know where I have been, I have compassion for and some idea of where I might be going.

Il Papa, John Paul II

2005-04-04T11:44:00.000-07:00

I am not Catholic. My wife was raised Catholic but declares herself “recovering”. My Dad was Catholic, my Mom was Christian Scientist. I was raised Lutheran. The joke is that my parents split the difference.

This post is not an homage to Catholicism nor its’ practices. It is an observation about its’ most recent leader.

John Paul the Second was just amazing. He was firmly and thoroughly a conservative Catholic. I cannot support many of his beliefs as far as individual practice of religion and fath.

But he was also a man of the planet, in such a way that he shamed so many world leaders that it boggles the mind.

So he was an enigma. That makes him all the more interesting.

He was raised simply and lost quite a few family members early in his life, that seemed to help him focus. He survived Nazi occupation and the Cold War at what may have been the major Cold War flash point, the country of Poland. He did so nobly rising in his faith.

He became the Archbishop of Krakow and a Cardinal. That is not unusual, there are several Polish Cardinals and have been for centuries but his fame started in 1969. He became a favorite of Pope Paul the 6th. He urged the Pope to adhere to Vatican II reforms in the most conservative way possible. The Pope finally relented.

He was a minor candidate for Pope after the death of Pope Paul but the Vicar of Venice was chosen, to be replaced after a 33 day reign ( we can discuss the alleged poisoning another day).

He was elected after 4 days as a compromise candidate. But he would turn out to be no compromise. He was after all the first non-Italian Pope in 455 years (that would be 1523 AD folks, 100 years or so before Shakespeare and Queen Elisabeth, 243 years before our own Declaration of Independence)

Just his mere election was a dramatic change. Shortly after, he changed Canon law to eliminate church officials from being elected secular officials, that affected a priest here in the US in fact.

And then he set out to become perhaps the most important political being in the last 100 years or more.

You have seen the TV shows. He went to Poland and moved the people to eventually throw out their government. It became the starting point of the eventual fall of the Soviet style of Communism.

He went to a Synagogue as a Pope, the first ever.

He went to a Muslim Mosque as a Pope, the first ever.

He went to Jerusalem and prayed at the Wailing Wall.

He apologized for the Holocaust and the lack of Church involvement and recognition.

He had personal audiences, not masses, personal audiences with 14.7 MILLION people.

He did masses with over 200 MILLION people.

He entertained Yassar Arafat when no one else would.

He told George Bush the Second that the Iraq war was terribly wrong. He told his father that his war was wrong too.

He viewed people across all boundaries, not in what political silo they seemed to fit at the time. In doing so, he make fools of most world leaders and endeared himself personally to more than two billion people, only half of which practiced his faith.

He comes from the longest ruling practice on the planet. No process can claim 2000 years or so of direct handoffs of power. And his position in his faith is undisputed. Name the ultimate leader in the following:

Protestant Faith
Muslim Faith
Buddhist
Democracy
Communistic

The world continues to be marginalized, fractionalized, broken, to be divided up by despots who lack vision. They talk of peace, only to make war or tyranny in the name of peace. And we continue to vote them along or agree to be ruled by them by not standing up to them.

His position gave him the ability to do great things. And yet, he exceeded them. He was truly a man of the entire world. He saw everyone and every group as a child of God, even if he did not agree with how they approached God in their own way.

It will be tremendously difficult to match what he did. He changed his church, he changed his religion and he even helped shape the planet.

I would not want to follow in his shoes. He might have filled them better than any Pope since Peter himself.

It may be a long time until we see his like again.

We have a cat and his name is Lassie

2005-03-31T15:13:00.000-08:00

The first time an outsider said we had an unusual cat as far as temperament was when we took Mr. B to the vet. The vet was quite clear, “you have the most dog-like cat I have ever seen” he said.

"Oh you mean because of his big head and all ?"( please see previous posts for what "all" means)

"No Mr. North, because he reacts and acts like a dog."

“How is that?” says the owner

“You’ll see.”

Fast forward to yesterday. Mr. B has settled into a nice little rhythm here at the homestead. He usually comes in first thing in the morning, either from right out front or from Chris’ room. He yawns, he stretches and he announces that he is hungry. This is usually between 7 and 8am. He eats and gets his water and trips on outside. Have to check out the neighborhood.

Around 11am he wants back in, more food, more water, more meows. Now it is prime nap time. That lasts until about 2:30, wake up, more food, water and meows and out for the afternoon. He returns to grace us with his presence at sunset. More food, water and meows are required. Then he usually finds someone to play with him, or at least hold a civil conversation.

Bedtime is usually about 9PM, sleep until 7am or so and repeat.

But no yesterday was an unusual day. He spent the night visiting friends, checking on enemies and the like and came in right about 7AM. He immediately wanted a nap and went upstairs and planted himself right at the top. He likes it there. He seems to hold court there. He doesn’t repose in such a way that he is guarding it or being a lookout. I think it is central to the comings and goings of the house occupants and he wants to be able to be involved. Now, you may take that to mean, be in the way. Not really.

It is a social thing. My wife and I pass by there several times each day. Chris has to as well. He can see clearly the front door and main hallway and observe the natural ebb and flow of the humans. He just sees things go by best there.

Anyway, so at 11am, he wakes up and begins meowing, from his perch at the top of the stairs. I am downstairs, watching TV and I know him well enough now to wait. Sometimes he likes to vocalize and go back to sleep. It can be a bit of a power thing.

So he comes downstairs and goes to a spot where he can see me and meows again.

Owner says, “do you want food B ?”

“Bbbrrroooeeww”

Same to you, I’ll get it for you.

He follows me, meowing the whole way. This was not a friendly meow, more of a bbbbbrrrreeeeuuuuummmm sound. Hmm, I pour in fresh food, he moves to the kitchen. This normally works, not today.

Owner rinses and adds fresh water. Nope.

Owner goes to door to let cat out. Ah, no sir.

He sits in the kitchen, tail flicking, calm as can be and let’s me have it.

“BBBBRRRRROOOOOEEERRRRRR”

“BBBBEEEEEUUUUOOOOWWWWW”

I walk towards him and he rises, and walks away.

Why you little stinker…

And then his head pops around the corner, a quick “bbrrrrooooww” towards me and he disappears again.

Hmm, bears investigation.

I round the corner and he is at the foot of the stairs, waiting. “Bbbbbrrrreeeeooowww,” says B and up the stairs he goes.

I get to the stairs and he is on the landing, about a third of the way up, waiting. “Bbbrrrrreeeooowwww” and up he goes to the top.

And it hits me and I die laughing, I am being led along, he is taking me to what he wants and he is being quite patient about it.

At the top of the stairs, he twists his head, lets out a quick, “bbrrreeooww” and saunters to Chris’ door and poses and waits. I reach the top of the stairs and the door opens and Chris emerges.

“What is all that meowing about Dad?” says our sleepy yet roused son.

“Oh B wanted me to let him in your room and he had to lead me all over the house to get me to your door.”

“OK, thanks Dad”, cat goes in between Chris feet as the door goes shut, Chris mutters “Damn Cat” and B meows back at me.

It reminded me of when Lassie would lead the stupid humans to Timmy who had fallen down a well or whatever. Except that was staged and this was real.

Seems the vet was right, Mr. B does act like a dog. He doesn’t even mind getting wet for example, except he wants you to towel him off when he comes in from the rain. Really. He follows you around until you figure it out and he does say thank you when you are done.

I am not sure what I have done by making him our cat but it sure is going to be interesting. BBRRRREEEOOOOWWW.

2005-03-29T12:16:00.000-08:00

Lilly's picture contest entry

2005-03-24T16:41:00.000-08:00

Lilly at http://guardedlilly.blogspot.com/ had this challenge this week to write a story about a picture she posted. Scroll down on her site to find the contest.

So the picture Lilly challenged us to write about is below this blog entry and below that is my contest writing entry.

She left the rules very wide open, so you can all guess if this is fiction or not.

That said, here is my entry.

Under the pier

2005-03-24T16:38:00.000-08:00

2005-03-24T16:28:00.000-08:00

It is very quiet again tonight. The sea is calm and I have to strain to hear the lapping of the waves as they stroll in towards me.

Tonight the moon is full and creates a silver shade to the water. It is like the side of a salmon or a mackerel. But there are no salmon or mackerel here. I don’t see fish at all any more. Even the sea gulls don’t come. That makes the silence even louder.

I love to watch the shadows of the pilings twist as the moon moves across the sky. It is like watching 48 moon dials trying to tell me the time. Yes there are 48 pilings. I have counted them hundreds of times. I check each one to see if it rotted or twisted or seems in danger of falling.

Not because I am afraid the pier will collapse. Because, it will mean I am that much closer to the end of my days. But they all still seem sturdy, I have time left yet.

The sand is about the same as when I was a kid. I thought then that I could eventually come here enough that I could notice any erosion, that the fine pebbles would shrink, so the seaweed could come that much closer to the bank behind me as the tide came in. But it hasn’t. I wonder how long it must take for that to happen and how long it has gone on already.

I am sure some scientist could guess or has a theory. Doesn’t matter to me, they can never prove it but I thought I just might be able to watch it, not so.

No ships come any more. I suppose they used to before I was born. They couldn’t have been for fishing, maybe lumber or some other transport. Whatever did happen here either moved on or died out. It seems all I am left with a 48 spoke time machine.

It is more than a clock. It has shown me that time can move slowly or not even at all. The ships have moved on but the beach is the same, like it was before the pier and the ships were even built.

And then, time can go so quickly. The moon will cross the sky in only a few hours and the tide will be in by then and I will have to move to the bank because I can’t get wet, my wife has a dinner planned and the company will probably mind a bit.

Not that I haven’t. I used to make my mom so mad at times by running as fast as I could under the pier into the ocean until I was up to my chest in water. It was tremendously fun. Then a quick retreat and attack the water again and again. Once you do it three times or so, you cannot get any wetter or for me happier

I stopped doing that long ago, long before she passed on and left this place to me. My brother can have the cabin up in the mountains. My soul is out in that water someplace.

It is why I come here, to look for it, to draw some power from it.

Well, time to go back to the house to finish off making the mushrooms. Maybe later I can convince the wife to come out on the pier and have a moondance.

Maybe the pier is a time machine, a dance floor and a magnet, because I am drawn here. My wife understands, she enjoys the quiet when we come up, especially when I go for a walk.

I suppose there are finer places to go to but none seem as soothing and spiritual as this place, under the pier.

I am sure land animals emerged from the sea, probably at a place just like this. I want to finish my days here. I have already told everyone to sprinkle my ashes out there. It is where I belong.

Oh well, enough of all that, I have mushrooms to make and old friends to get a hug from. All that other stuff can wait for yet another day.

Cats and Dogs

2005-03-21T10:48:00.000-08:00

So the Love Is theme sparked quite a lot of comment. That was grand indeed. Thanks to all that came by. Please extend the conversation as you see fit and several folks already have.

My wife's Godmother passed away over the weekend. I’ll be off line later today until Thursday morning, doing the funeral thing out of town.

But this post came to me starting last week and I need to get it out. Cats and Dogs, some descriptions follow, please add in your own in the comments section.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Cats really don’t know what to do with their paws when the sleep. They try immeasurable ways to put them somewhere but they end up looking silly or so cute, it makes you laugh. Cats practice sleeping all day long and never seem to be completely satisfied.

Most dogs have a few basic positions when they sleep. While sleep is important, dreams are far more important. I wish I had as vivid a dream state as my dogs did.

My cat rubs me every morning when he wants food. Then he gives the curio cabinet an even better rub. Every day he does this. I feel so cheap, so used but I pour the food anyway. So who serves who?

Dogs usually just want the food and are so happy is out or is coming. No pickiness here. Kind of like that phase where you could do cheeseburgers and Kraft Mac and Cheese 6 days a week and be happy. Dogs have larger mission in life than food. Not that they don’t enjoy it but keep the menu simple.

My cat would send wine back at Tavern on the Green

Dogs could easily drink Ripple or beer. And they could even care less about the issue of tastes great vs. less filling, they just want the suds man.

Cats would join a sorority, if it was the right one.

Dogs are frat beasts. Just need a couple of Greek letters and some dudes to hang out with.

Cats prefer self locomotion if at all possible. Transportation is for chumps. Unless it was a proper limo. And then, only if you opened the door for them. And then, only if the finest food was freshly available inside. Maybe then, cats would use transportation. Maybe.

Dogs love cars, well known, no dispute. Campers, hell yes, hey it is a super road trip. Saw a dog on a public bus once. He was happy as all get out. The window was down and his head was out. Dogs will go anywhere as long as the window is down. Fact.

Cats would never use a TV remote. Not sure most cats know TV exists. Guaranteed they do not care. There are much more important things to do like flicking one’s tail or pretending to think you actually matter to them.

Dogs would own cable and a satellite dish and surf all day long, more is better, most is best. I actually showed a dog how to use the next channel button. She loved it. The Doc said she cannot make out the image. Yeah, right.

Cats would only shop at the finest stores, buy the best things, if they were inclined to shop at all. Have you really ever seen an interested cat at a pet store. Go there now, you will see three dogs out of their mind with joy. Dogs don’t mall, cats mall, unless they can get to Rodeo Drive, now we are talking.

Dogs just want clothes. The Gap, whatever. Jeans are cool. Just so the window is down when we go.

Cats can sleep anywhere. They don’t need you, they need nothing. They are the Sgt. Shultz of Sleeping. Very Zen.

Dogs need to sleep as close to the people as possible. On floor in bedroom is good. On bed is even better. Push one human out of bed to get proper position, priceless. And do not tell me you have not let your dog in your bed. I shall not hear of it.

Cats prefer to start their own business. I am never sure what it is, it seems, it is none of my own business. But many cats are successful businessanimals. Just look at them, would they move like that if they were considering bankruptcy?

Dogs live in cubeland. They get their voice mail right away, they answer all email in a jiffy and hear all the office gossip. I loved it when my dog came home and I got all the juice. The cats in the boardroom never spoke, of course. No need, they’ll change their minds again tomorrow.

Cats would only drive Formula One, imagine David Niven with whiskers.

Dogs do Nascar, even the truck series, especially if the window is down.

Despite all that, cats actually care. They are just here to keep us on our toes and make sure life’s serving of kibble is always fresh.

Dogs just want us to know that we matter. Not just to them, but to everyone.

Love is........

2005-03-18T10:24:00.000-08:00

Love is so many things. Love of a partner or a relative, a friend, a pet, whatever.

It is nearly impossible to define. All any of us can do is identify it when we see it, like posting a pixel on a TV screen. Then, if you see enough, you see a picture

So I want to build a picture of love. I will add in 10 and then you all can comment and add in your own and we will see if a picture develops from our words.

Love is saying you are sorry and the other person accepts completely. You know then that they see your faults and see that you mean it, that you recognize that you are flawed but you are truly sorry. So you each accept that and move on to the next subject.

Love is letting the other person use the remote. Sure you can surf better but maybe, just maybe, you surf differently. So you let go and watch how they want to watch. And over time, you accept that and maybe even enjoy.

Love is saying good bye when they leave your sight. They may just being going for a drive or to the store but as they leave, you realize that you will miss them, and that your gut twitches a bit.

Love is taking someone to the ER and just waiting. The longer they are back there, the more you want them well but also that you want them back. So you go and you miss and you wait and you hope. For if you hope, you know that you love them.

Love is a gentle pet across the ribs. Maybe you get a bark back, maybe you get a purr, a nuzzle. But you always get a look, a glance, a nod. And they follow you for a few steps. Sometimes, it only means I am hungry. But most times, it means that they care about you. So you stop and they tilt their head and for just a moment, the world did stop.

Love is a silly picnic, surrounded by strangers. But you only focus on the other person. You may be surrounded by strange noises and smells and the weather is not quite perfect that day. But you go anyway and you laugh at silly things and you wonder why you had not done this in so long.

Love is chasing someone around a tree. They may be small or large, related to you or not. You chase them anyway until your lungs are ready to burst. The cause is not clear, it could be you ran too fast or laughed too much or both. Probably both. So you sit and gasp and smile and you know ………

Love is going to the cemetery and visiting someone who is gone. You cry a bit and you laugh a bit. Then you say thank you, thank you for all they did for you and meant to you. You wish them well, wherever they are and you are grateful they were a part of what and who you are now.

Love is sending or giving someone flowers for no reason. Just because. Sure you can give them flowers on special days or when they are sick or they just had a bad day. But flowers for just no reason at all, maybe that means love.

Love is a peck as they pass by you. For no reason, except you could reach them with your lips. It may piss them off or distract them, no matter. They may look back and wonder why you did that. And you smile and go about your business. It was just a hello and a reminder that you care all the time.

So what is love to you, comments are always welcome

more pix and an update

2005-03-16T11:30:00.000-08:00

I will make a more normal post on Friday. Mr B was attacked again 36 hours ago and is acting weird. He was fine at first but is limping more today. We are watching him closely to see if he should go in.

So I have loaded some more flower pix and a Mr B pic to keep you all busy.

Plus I need to work on updating my consulting site. So Senior needs to get off his butt and get some throughput moving.

Best to all.

Is nap time now?

2005-03-16T11:26:00.000-08:00

open wide

2005-03-16T11:23:00.000-08:00

so my wife likes purple

2005-03-16T11:21:00.000-08:00

Out front

2005-03-16T11:20:00.000-08:00

Another life lesson, courtesy of Mr. B

2005-03-13T10:10:00.000-08:00

I’m not sure where Mr. B is now, he is somewhere, maybe outside, maybe in Chris’ room. Not sure.

He should be inside, that is what the vet suggests we do. You know the vet, they are like your Dad. They tell you how to raise things, give minor praise on occasion, tell you your errors and move on. Except they charge you up the wahoo. My Dad never did that.

I have spent the last three weeks listening to vets, trying to get Mr. B back on his paws again. We succeeded thoroughly. We found him in a bloody heap, he had been attacked and it appeared thoroughly beaten. But he surprised us.

The emergency vet said had we not brought him in, he would have died in 24 hours from his wounds. His eyes were bloody, he had tons of major deep scratches around his head (I have spared you the angles where they appear). He could barely walk and could not really speak.

Well, some nifty repair work and after 36 hours of rest, Mr. B righted himself. We took him to our normal vet and got the treatment plan and we had a decision to make, do we treat him or put him to sleep. We would end up with $1,200 in expense for a cat that was not ours really. But he would be spayed, would get food here and everyone believed would become ours for a few years until he passes.

The wifey and I decided we needed to save him, I was not sure why but you will learn why I think so now by the end of this post.

So the vet sewed him up, tested him ( everything was normal, amazing, except for well, you know about those if you read my posts) and neutered him ( or spayed, whatever, no more Mr. Happy use for Mr. B), gave him lots of shots and sent him home with orders from Dad, err the vet.

No going out side, this medicine then, that medicine at that time, food twice a day, ABSOLUTELY NO GOING OUTSIDE, IS THAT CLEAR? Teach him about a litter box.

Well, we had to change our place into Fort Knox. Secret codes, quick entrances as B wants out. He lived outside for likely 10 years. Each day with us was harder than the next. He hates the litter box but made an interesting compromise with us.

He only goes on bathmats in the bathrooms. Honest. I swear to you. I know more about bathmat washing than anyone alive. He even bunches them up for you, so it is easier to clean. After we figured it out, we laughed so hard we cried. This cat has style.

So last Wednesday was his liberation day, all we had to do was get him to the vet at 11:20. It was a warm day and we decided to open the sliding glass doors and get keep the sliding screen doors in place. The place needed some ventillation. I went and sat down to watch some mindless TV before grabbing him to go. And then I heard him at the door. He had locked all ten front claws into the screen and was pulling it open. I raised up and called his name. His actions became more frantic and the door moved once and then once again. He stuck his nose in the slot, pushed it and was outside. I was only 4 feet behind him.

He went across the lawn in a flash, up the fence, looked me in the face and peed a streak of urine on my fence top and over he went, gone.

I was shocked and upset. He was risking his life for freedom. He would have had it in 90 minutes but I was an idiot. Let me explain.

I used to live in cubeland. I spend 22 years in various ones at ATT and a few more before that at other places. It was a life that was handed down. My dad did 38 years at AT&T, my wife also did 22 years and lives in a new cubeland. Her Dad did 35 years or so at ATT. We are a family that was comfortable in cubeland.

But cubeland was not kind to us. I was sent away. There I discovered blogland and new friends. Thank you all. I had a great opportunity at Accenture but the merger between SBC and ATT messed that up. I have a new opportunity on the horizon. It looks promising. My buddy Paul may save me after all. More on that another day.

But I am at a crossroads. I can either choose to go back to cubeland or choose to venture out on my own path. I know this. My psychic connection said “Michael, just choose and the paths follow from there”. My wife hit on this phrase amongst everything else and made me ponder it.

So I have chosen, thanks to Mr. B.

When Mr. B went over the fence, I was upset for, oh say, 10 seconds and I laughed. He marked his space, he made sure I saw it and he went on to live his dream life.

I knew right then he would be back by 5:30 for his dinner. I called the vet (hi Dad, lost my kid, maybe we can come over tomorrow instead ) and rescheduled.

B showed up on time for dinner and stayed inside all night. We did the vet deal the next day, he is free to travel during the day and he can just exist as he pleases.

And a few hours later, it hit me.

He is Mr. B.

But he is also Mr. Be.

He just lives his life and does what he thinks is best. Screw the imprinting, the rules, the way things should be. He should be dead. My vet has never seen a cat live this long like he lives.

But Mr. B continues to just be. It is the best way for him to exist. Now, do I feel guilty for him. I and we changed his lifestyle. No. He would have been dead in 6 months and he deserves a regal end stage of life. He certainly earned it.

So I will embark on what I think I should be, an independent consultant. I have earned it, I deserve the chance to try. I have a new website already in process but wait a week or two, it is just started. Not sure what the best way is but we will see.

I plan to just be me also, to just be. I have enough cash aside to try it for a year. I deserve that. I can always return to cubeland.

Oh, here is Mr. B now, Chris let him out of his room. I get a bonk and he now eats his food. Ohhh, he wants out, not without a hug, dude.

Out he goes, up and over the fence and a glance towards me, a sniff of the pine tree and he is gone.

I plan to do other things I like more also, like take pictures of things and post them.

But I have decided, I choose to be what I think I can be.

But don’t call me Mr. B, that position is already taken.

Lists upon lists

2005-03-08T11:19:00.000-08:00

So I like both of these list issues. It was fun. This came from a variety of folks

Have You Ever:
(X ) snuck out of the house
( ) gotten lost in your city
(X) saw a shooting star
(X) been to any other countries besides the United States
(X) had a serious surgery
(X) gone out in public in your pajamas
(X) kissed a stranger
(X) hugged a stranger
( ) been in a fist fight
( ) been arrested
(X) done drugs
(X) had alcohol
(X) laughed and had milk/coke come out of your nose ( dude, it hurt and that was funny too)
( ) pushed all the buttons on an elevator
(X) made out in an elevator
( ) slept in an elevator, (did take a quick nap once)
(X) swore at your parents
(X) kicked a guy where it hurts, (by accident)
(X) been in love
(X) been close to love
(X) been to a casino, (Vegas used to be my sales territory, yeah, baby, yeah.)
() been skydiving
(X) broken a bone, (the ulna plus some finger bones)
(X) been high
(X) skinny-dipped
(X) skipped school(can you say Senior Year of High School, I thought you could)
( ) flashed someone, (no because I prefer to make people laugh in other ways, thanks)
(X) saw a therapist
(X) done the splits (but that was a long time ago. I used to actually work on it)
(X) played spin the bottle, (man I brought the bottle)
(X) gotten stitches ( over 400 so far)
(X) had an IV
(X) drank a whole gallon of milk in one hour, (how about in 10 minutes)
(X) bitten someone (ah she said she liked it)
( ) been to Niagara Falls
(X) gotten the chicken pox (or so my Mom says)
(X) kissed a member of the opposite sex
(X) kissed a member of the same sex (heh, we all played some baseball, did we not, oh wait that was fanny slapping, never mind)
(X) crashed into a friend's car (the worst, I hit my wife’s car coming out of the driveway and banged it up pretty good)
( ) been to Japan
(X) ridden in a taxi
(X) been dumped
(X) shoplifted ( when I was 12, it was so embarrassing, over candy)
(X) been fired
( ) had a crush on someone of the same sex
(X) had feelings for someone who didn't have them back ( Damn Majorie Amato)
( ) stole something from your job (seriously, never)
( ) gone on a blind date
(X) lied to a friend ( although it has been 20 years but I had some growing up issues)
(X) had a crush on a teacher (only because she had a tremendous, tremendous rack, well and she had , oh you don’t actually care)
( ) celebrated Mardi-Gras in New Orleans ( who knows, maybe some day)
( ) been to Europe
(X) slept with a co-worker ( hell, married her, she is the wifey)
(X) been married
(X) gotten divorced
(X) had children
( ) saw someone die ( no but I heard my Dad die in the next room)
( ) been to Africa
(X) Driven over 400 miles in one day
( ) Been to Canada
(X) Been to Mexico
(X) Been on a plane
(X) Seen the Rocky Horror Picture Show ( Toast !)
( ) Thrown up in a bar ( I always made it to the car)
(X) Purposely set a part of yourself on fire ( well I burned off some arm hair on purpose once, close enough)
(X) Eaten Sushi
( ) Been snowboarding
( ) Met someone in person from the internet
( ) Been moshing at a rock show
( ) Cut yourself on purpose
( ) Been to a moto cross show
( ) lost a child
(X) gone to college
(X) graduated from college
( ) done hard drugs
(X) taken painkillers
(X) love someone or miss someone right now

And then also going around is 10 things you have done that most people have not.

1. I have stood on the highest mountain in the US outside of Alaska, at 14,494.624 feet above sea level. Or it was then, it is Mt Whitney. My name is in the book up there.

2. I have shot even par in a competitive tournament format golf event, came in second. The guy that beat me, never made a dime playing golf really. That is how good pro golfers are.

3. I beat the US Amateur Champ in an 18 hole golf match. He had a bad day, I had a good one. Hint, he is related to the late Bing Crosby. Really. He never made a dime either at golf.

4. I have had over 400 stitches in my life through a variety of surgeries. Most of them are on my feet. But many other places, head, chin, appendix, hands.

5. I currently posses 56 hats, just because I like hats but I rarely wear them every day, usually once or twice a week.

6. I have alopecia acacia, which means sections of my hair fall out when I am really stressed. Usually about the size of a quarter. It grows back but it tells me to just let life happen.

7. I’ve made 24 Eagles in golf in my life, the first when I was 14. None for over a year though, damn. But never a hole in one, seen one, that is a story for another day Mr. Jenson. OK I’ll tell it. The star halfback on the football team played decent golf. We played together alot. On a course not far from here, in a match, we had to hit it 120 yards. The tee is 40 feet above the green. Jeff tries to hit it as high as he can but mis-hits it, it never leaves the ground, rolls down the hill and walks up and drops in. Well, this was 1975 and the ball cover was spilt wide open with what we called a “smilie”.

A big, big nasty one. Since he was underage, no way he was obligated to buy a round in the bar but when everyone wanted to see the ball, he pulled out another one. Loser.

8. I have a birthmark on my left leg. Oh sure, everyone does but does it look exactly like the island of Sardinia? I think not. And this has nothing to do with a Monty Python skit even though I played tons of hide and go seek myself.

9. I led a team that invented Organ Transplant Software. We were the first to automate the tissue cross match process, saving 16 hours each per transplant. It is still in use today and is trademarked. I get no extra cash for it, Lucent does. But the satisfaction, priceless.

10. I have rappelled over 200 feet down. We would have done more but rope that long is ridiculously expensive. I’d take you right now. We just need some good half inch nylon, about 20 locking beaners and a good wall. It rocks.

some flowers out in the garden cause you asked

2005-03-08T08:29:00.000-08:00

Mr. B allows this post, although he is sleepy

2005-03-07T18:00:00.000-08:00

Photos !!!!

2005-03-07T17:43:00.000-08:00

OK I am still learning what I can do with Photobucket

So like pardon the sizes on the next series of pictures

First is Mr, B sleeping in his new bed, a bit blurry, not his fault, blame the operator (me).

Some smaller pictures later this week of him

Next a mixture of new flowers from the front yard

Third is a section of pure purple out back

and last is a the first real tulip, also purple

My wife REALLY likes purple flowers so we have quite a few of those.

More later this week as I master Photoshop

What's it all mean Alfie?

2005-03-07T10:01:00.000-08:00

Ok on the Friday quiz

It was all about you thinking about how engaged you are in the world, how far out of your comfort zone you have been willing to go.

Each question had a valid source, so here we go.

1. Please indicate the total number of pets you have ever cared for. This does not include farm animals. This can include the temp pets like Mr. B for me. You had to feed them and provide shelter, not just like them, for example, exclude Morris the cat.

The ASPCA says Pets are a healthy outlet and the quantity helps demonstrate loving skills and willingness to look beyond your sphere. More than 6 pets at once is an indicator of life avoidance however. This excludes farm-type animals.

So if you have 25 cats, you may have an issue.

2. How many significant others have you had IN TERMS OF YEARS TOGETHER. Six boyfriends for one year each would be worth the same as one boyfriend for six years. Rounding is your problem.

Match.com says that life is a mixture of blending you life and seeking partners.

3. What was the age at which you actually enjoyed sex rather than had it? No names are required BUT we love that kind of juice in the comments section. Take your answer and subtract 16 from it. So if it happened at age 21, your answer would be 5.

This came straight from the Kinsey report. It was part of the reason it was SO scandalous. OH my. But perhaps we focus too much on getting it rather than enjoying it?

4. How many vehicles have you owned or made payments on. If you want, state your favorite. They can be two wheel or 4 wheel. The quiz does not care.

Transportation is a sign of engaging the universe in a western society, or so says AAA. Car and Driver likes those that change vehicles often but I went a middle road here.

5. What is the total age of all your children, if you have any. All forms count as long as they live with you or have. Take your answer and multiply it by 2.

Parenting magazine says that raising children is the greatest challenge a human can face. Ok, may would argue that but you all got points for that.

6. What is the total amount of miles you have driven in cars, divided by 100,000. So if you think you have driven 300,000 miles in cars, your answer would be three.

Willingness to explore is a huge component of life says the Sierra Club. Now the use of a car is not their favorite but even they admit, beyond a certain mileage, the car gets one away to the wilderness. They bigger the number here, the more you explore.

As long as you used what YOU drove and not family trips, that would have been lame.

7. How many National Parks, Monuments and Forests have you visited or driven through in your life. If you like, you may tell us you’re favorite.

This was an exercise in where you go, do you just work and sleep or do more.

8. Approximate how many times you have had alcohol just to the point where you decided life was grand indeed. Not falling down drunk. Just to that sweet spot and you stopped and thanked yourself you did. Today does not count. Be Honest here.

This actually came from Cigar Aficionado Magazine. Evidently they are tied together?

9. Enter how many times you have watched your favorite movie. Venues do not matter. Anything over 20 is to be ignored. Please count only one viewing per day. Movies are not as important as kids. Then again, you need to decide on a favorite movie now. We need a number and the movie here please or you are disqualified.

Ampas believes that repetitive watching of movies is a good thing ( they do the Oscars for example). Now we may insert the word royalties here but being able to suspend reality is probably a good thing.

10. How many UNIQUE blogs do you visit ON A REGULAR BASIS a week? Not how many are on your sidebar. How many are in your rotation.

This one was purely me, not sure what it means, I do think it is Way too early in the nature of blogs to know. It was solely for you to ask your self the questions

The overall number you came up with is a function of how extended you are

There is no right number or wrong one. It shows your diversity but that can be a function of your age, a score of 80 for someone under 30 is quite high while it would be quite low for someone over 60.

In any case, hope you enjoyed it.

Friday's mixed bag plus a Quiz !!!!

2005-03-04T10:15:00.000-08:00

I have created my own list quiz which generates a numerical score that tells you whatever you think it tells you. More on that at the end of this post.

Plus the somewhat regular Friday ramblings. OK, enough already, let’s go

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Ever notice that some people actually have a pattern in blogland, that they post like every MWF like clockwork, even at the same time on them EVEN THOUGH they may post at different times each day and you just KNOW to surf by them at 10am on Friday

Now others post all the time, when it fancies them. Others do once a week, some as few as once a month

But there are patterns out there. I like the random posters right now. As I surf for them randomly also, so when they post, I may see it fresh off the keyboard, anyone else notice this?

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And then we have this amazing thing, you are looking around and you see your site on a sidebar and never have heard a word from the site, never a comment.

That is actually wonderful as they care enough about what you have to say to send their circle towards you. But you are stunned, you seem to matter to others even though they are invisible and you feel humbled by it, or at least, I do.

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So I try to update my sidebar like once a month. It is the best I can do, I think regular visits and comments matter more. I am becoming less of a comment needy person. I think because I know I am part of a circle of folks that keeps expanding.

Kind of like a crazy Venn Diagram in many dimensions. We all have our circles. Many of us overlap and then there are the people on the fringes. Except over time, we all seem to migrate towards a center. A reverse rock hits the pond effect. Or the rock hits the pond and bounces back

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ANYWAY, we should think about getting together somehow, say in a year or so in New Orleans around Mardi Gras. Now, I am dead serious. Some of us have already talked about it and it seems to resonate. So I ask, because I think so for myself and the wifey

R U Interested ??????????

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Lastly, ever notice how blogexplosion and other similar things drive up you visit counts but rarely drive the circle larger?

I think it is worth it as I have met some fine folks that way but my circle expands mainly through references. It is about who you know and meet, I guess, that is refreshing

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I had a purple tulip just EXPLODE up yesterday. It is ready to open. It is raining this morning so I refuse to take a picture but pictures are coming to this site. I cannot find my cable to connect the USB to the digital camera. I may have to discover the scan properties of my printer back to the PC, that will take time. Or screw it ST, just buy a damn cable.

But they are coming, I absolutely promise.

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Mr. B is doing just fine. We had a rough night, he wanted out at 4 am and would not stop asking to go out until 5:30. We just have to ignore him. But his sutures are getting loose and he is more active. OK, I should take his picture also. Fine. I will. And I will post them. In 10 days or less. Damn Cat lovers ;-). Hope you are all happy. He really wants out but not until next Wednesday, after suture removal, then hasta la vista for a few hours. And then I pray he stops hating me and comes back. I am Mr. Hold Him Real Tightly So Others Can Give Him His Meds, so when he sees me, he is not happy. But I care, so it will all work out.

Not sure who will love it more. He still refuses the litter box but now only uses the bathmats in the bathrooms. Someone has some style I guess.

So close, so close and yet so far……

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OK today’s Senior developed quiz. Each question requires, at least in part, a numerical answer. The total score needs to be added up and in a separate post on Monday, you will be informed what the total value means.

This is just a quiz, no lives will be changed by your answers, at least in all likelihood.

1. Please indicate the total number of pets you have ever cared for. This does not include farm animals. This can include the temp pets like Mr. B for me. You had to feed them and provide shelter, not just like them, for example, exclude Morris the cat.

2. How many significant others have you had IN TERMS OF YEARS TOGETHER. Six boyfriends for one year each would be worth the same as one boyfriend for six years. Rounding is your problem.

3. What was the age at which you actually enjoyed sex rather than had it. No names are required BUT we love that kind of juice in the comments section. Take your answer and subtract 16 from it. So if it happened at age 21, your answer would be 5.

4. How many vehicles have you owned or made payments on. If you want, state your favorite. They can be two wheel or 4 wheel. The quiz does not care.

5. What is the total age of all your children, if you have any. All forms count as long as they live with you or have. Divide that answer by 3.

6. What is the total amount of miles you have driven in cars, divided by 100,000. So if you think you have driven 300,000 miles in cars, your answer would be three

7. How many National Parks, Monuments and Forests have you visited or driven through in your life. If you like, you may tell us your favorite.

8. Approximate how many times you have had alcohol just to the point where you decided life was grand indeed. Not falling down drunk. Just to that sweet spot and you stopped and thanked yourself you did. Today does not count. Be Honest here. Not happy moments but wonderful moments, ignore any moments above 10.

9. Enter how many times you have watched your favorite movie. Venues do not matter. Anything over 10 is to be ignored. Please count only one viewing per day. Movies are not as important as kids. Then again, you need to decide on a favorite movie now. We need a number and the movie here please or you are disqualified.

10. How many UNIQUE blogs do you visit ON A REGULAR BASIS a week. Not how many are on your sidebar. How many are in your rotation.

What the scores mean and my answers next Monday, enjoy your weekend. My total was 101.

Why the Statue and other Ramblings

2005-03-02T09:38:00.000-08:00

So I decided I needed to spruce up the site a bit. I needed an icon, a muse to make it show what I wanted to say.

So I told myself that and just waited. I trust my intuition. It saves me all the time. I took a test once and scored the highest you can score on intuition strength. Of course I suspected that before I even started (ha!) .

It took a few days but the image of the Thinker popped in my head and would not leave.

I suspect my helpers upstairs were part of it. Oh, you don’t think that I take all the credit for some of this stuff. No way, I have helpers who guide me if I ask. Not sure what to call them, angels of some kind, I think my mom is becoming one, I feel her energy around more now than since she was alive.

Anyway, more asides than Shakespeare, I remembered finally the first time I ever saw a casting of that statue. It was at the big Museum in Kansas City. I was about 8. It was in the entry foyer and I just stopped cold.

My Mom smiled and then suppressed it. She wanted so desperately for her two sons to love art and museums and all that. But she kept quiet. I walked around the statue three times. My brother wanted to move on but I just put up my hand.

“Mom, this is very good, this is quite good”. “Honey, that’s what they say but it only matters what you say, what do you think.” Oh that was powerful, I was being given permission to form my own opinion, what a gift that was.

5 more minutes and I do not speak. I am told my brother moved on, whatever. “So this is what they call a great statue eh Mom. Well, it is. This is masterful. Notice his feet Mom, see how the muscles IN HIS FEET are tightened up. He is considering something with all his body, in fact, all his might and brain, do they know what he is thinking about?”

“No hun, they say he is just thinking” “Well, he is doing some serious discover how the universe works kind of thinking Mom. This is wonderful, are there more?” “yes hun, right this way, there are more statues outside and paintings and other things all around this place.”

I never told her thank you that day, I was too transfixed. I saw Cezanne that day for the first time and a Rembrandt (overrated on skill but never on changes he set in motion in art). I thanked her many times later. We used to go to museums together and I always took more time than she did but she was patient with me. My wife bears that burden now.

Museums are visceral to me. I feel the art in my gut. I was able to see King Tut’s mask. I only looked at it for 90 minutes, I was dragged away. I could have done much longer.

I have been to the Getty Museum in LA just once, I spent 6 hours in there and I was exhausted by it, so much to see.

Seven did a wonderful job on the layout, it is just as how I pictured it. Well done dude. And thank you to all that commented about the new design.

So this is dedicated to allowing one’s mind to wander, to consider the nature of things fully, with one’s entire being and to my Mom, who took a chance and opened a world that cannot be taken back.

And now for something completely different

My wife finally clicked in on the Camilla/Charles deal yesterday. After some explanation, she expressed her disgust with all of it, how silly it was.

“They should just go to Vegas”

I laughed so hard my eyes nearly popped out of my head. How many times have you heard that but this is the next King of England, yet, she was probably right. I am crying like baby.

“Vegas, are you sure”

“hell yes, now they have to make changes for everybody, the Queen won’t even go, just go to Vegas”

I think she was being a jokester but the image of them in Vegas is too precious.

So we have a game opportunity, type some scenes in the comments section around what would Camilla and Charles in Vegas look like.

At the buffets, at the strip joints, about being denied high roller status, whatever. Just go wild here people. About what ever portion you want but let your mind wonder. I’ll start.

Charles sits down to play blackjack at a $10 table

“So who are you?”

“I am Charles, Prince of Wales”

“Oh right, and I am the Duke of Diamonds, are you going to hit that 14 or not”

“I am not sure, what might you suggest”

“well, Prince, if that is your real name, this is Vegas after all , you can be whoever you want, see the dealer, he has a face card up, face cards are either Jacks, Queens or Kings, do you know anything about those?”

“I am afraid more than you know”

“So you should stay Charlie and let the royalty do your dirty work for you, do you understand”

"I am afraid more than you know”

“Oh yeah and can you have your friends move back from the table, they are crowding me here. Maybe you want a drink Charlie, try a Crown Royal over, they will rock your world, hey waitress, a Crown Royal over for my friend here and don’t be stingy.”

And lastly, some other fun as well. There is a test you can take to determine what kind of dog you would make. There are only 10 questions. It takes all of 3 minutes, please report back. The site is sponsored by a movie in Europe, but it did kind of nail me I think.

I was a Napoleonic Mastiff. You may enter your breed in the comments section as well as details you found that resonated.

Scary thing is my face does look like that breed, which means I may have some work to do. Here is the site, enjoy.

http://www.gone2thedogs.com

Click on Game on the top left.

and the winner is

2005-02-28T08:02:00.000-08:00

100 Moments and Chaotic Serenity1

We just could not choose between them and decided on a dual winner.

Here are their links, go visit both.

http://100moments.blogspot.com/

http://chaoticserenity1.blogspot.com/

Honorable mentions also go out to Mojo Shivers and Wisdom of a Moonchild.

http://mojoshivers.blogspot.com/

http://misfitmoondchild.blogspot.com/

We did get about 20 entries, and all of them were wonderful

If you want us to publish your link or your entry, send Senior Thinking an email and in a post this week, he will show the entry you sent in.

Thanks everyone for entering and go to these sites and show your appreciation.

Contest winner time

2005-02-27T10:10:00.000-08:00

We will announce our contest winner at 8am PST Monday

It will be surprising and fun

Come on back then

Random Thoughts, Bon Mots and no cheap shots, February 25th, 2005

2005-02-25T16:34:00.000-08:00

Remember the writing contest is open until Sunday 9am PST. Scroll down to other entries for details. Winner becomes Blog Buddy for a day on three different sites. There is no length requirement on your entry.

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So I have to tell you the Mr. B. goes to the Vet story. The vet is good but not cheap. He explains everything he sees, broken tooth, tore up eyelid and he should be spayed.

I discuss it with the wifey and we say the tooth has been ok for 4 years, he’ll live but the eyelid could be a problem soon, so have at it and spay him.

We’ll Mr. B. is 8 years old at least, maybe 10. So the doc believes it will make him less aggressive but not completely, he is too deep in the behavior but it is hard to know, he just doesn’t see 8 year un-neutered males, they either get neutered or they run away. That B is this calm, has survived and has his huevos intact is remarkable.

Then he grabs his head and says, man this head is huge (B stand for Big Head Kitty as well as for bonkers. As he walks up to you, if you hold your hand about 2 inches above the top of his head, he will jump up and bonk it for you. It is how he says hello, crazy stuff)

I say yeah he looks big with all that long fur. The vet says, no his actual head is huge, so he weighs him, 16 pounds, 10 ounces and is very good condition, no real fat. (oh he just walked up and gave me a bonk, how cute)

So he gets out a caliper and measures, his head is almost 5 inches across. Yup, that is the biggest head he has ever seen. So he checks him again and declares, no this cat is just plain big all around, he is taller and broader than normal, a lot.

You have yourself a real athlete there Mike. More like George Foreman I mutter, his best fighting days are behind him.

He invites a nurse in and has her look him over, starting at the head. The nurse says the same thing, underneath the fur, this guy is muscle and is huge. The doctor turns away and the nurse (I kid you not) quietly raises his leg and checks out “the nuggets” and makes a face like wow, amazing. She pats him twice and goes and gets nurse two. Same routine, “oh look, huge head and what a large chest and strong legs and then, whamo, she lifts the leg to show the view of the goods. Nurse two makes same face, goes and gets nurse 3.

You guessed it, same routine, big head, oh my, you are so LARGE Mr B, lift the leg, a smirk and they all exit.

The whole rest of the day, every time he came out to be looked at, well, the comments started.

Oh Mr. North, his tests all came back in the normal range, that is amazing (in the back I here a nurse say “ that’s not all that is amazing), so lucky for you he is normal (the third nurse says just loud enough for me to hear “ well, we should say his Blood Work is normal…”)

Does anyone else find this rather odd? Not that B minded, he was rather smug about it.

But still, size issues in pets, hmmmm

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It is real nice here today and my bulbs are starting to bloom. I probably have 60-70 up now, only a couple hundred to go, colors everywhere, all different kinds, it is wonderful. The roses are budding, so we expect crop one in a month or less, need to go feed them this weekend with the Bayer stuff ( my gawd does it work well, Blue bottle, buy some).

So Spring is coming, honest I can see it.

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By the way, it hit me yesterday. I made a big deal about Groundhog Day and how Phil really sucks, he is wrong 59% of the time and all that.

It is a silly tradition. See Spring is always on the same day. There is no need to predict it. Spring doesn’t come “early”. It’s been on the same day for centuries. Humans are silly, please debate amongst yourselves.

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Daytime TV isn’t so bad, it is no worse than nighttime TV.

Oh wait, because nighttime TV sucks too. Must be why I blog so much.

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Speaking of which, I am having Seven redesign my Blog. NO hints, you just have to come back and see. OK, one hint, think statuary. It will be up next week sometime. I need to give the master time to finish his work

Oh yeah, and I will be haloscan, too many buddies are being hassles, it may spill over to me. Plus some nice features...and then...

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I talked to a fellow blogger on the phone today, for the first time. The person had a real voice, made sense when they spoke, listened to me.

So now I am scared, some of this stuff is real and these people have real lives and faces and food preferences. But I heard a voice today, it was refreshing, a connection made, enhanced, enlarged. Who knows we may actually meet some day.

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So go out and connect with someone this weekend. Expand what you know about them, bridge a gap, mend a fence. It will be the best thing that happens to you this weekend.

Unless you win our contest and you still have time to enter (Was that too shameless, I was on such a roll.)

Street Football

2005-02-24T10:49:00.000-08:00

Ok we need more entries in the contest, you have until Sunday

That said, here is mine. It cannot win, it is entered just for you to read.

Mr. B is fine, all went well. Again, thanks for all your concern !

And now, Street Football
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So kids used to make up their own games as they grew up, here was my favorite. Street Football. The field was the length of two front yards, two houses. Yours’ and the neighbors’ house but with an important point.

The Field was ALWAYS between the telephone poles. We learned later that it mean the field was 40 yards long, exactly. It was how our town is drawn up. Each goal line was directly across from each telephone pole. And the width was the street. Catch the ball in any part of the street, it was a legal catch. Catch it up on the sidewalk, you are out. Both feet needed to be in bounds, toe drags very legal. So you played in a six inch deep channel, 27 feet wide by 40 yards long.

First downs were made by getting past the fire hydrant at mid field. Yes, each and every street has fire hydrant half way between where the telephone poles are. So the field is 20 yards to the hydrant and 20 more yards to the goal line. Kickoffs from the 40 yard line (so old school we were).

We even kicked field goals as wires crossed the street off the telephone poles. We all agreed which wire was high enough to count and each street had this unique characteristic. Each street was divided into three parts as you looked down them. There was a center and then two sides, each sloping towards the sidewalk. The boundary line of where it sloped off was clearly visible. That line on each side of the center portion became the “goal post”. If you went for a field goal and it went outside those boundary markers, you were wide.

Needless to say, you learned to kick straight.

We played usually to 35 points and you kicked the PATs. Hey, this was football.

I played day after day with my brother, Tim Walker and Tom Woodbury. Some days we played in front of our house, some days at their “field’. For like 5 years.

We all eventually went to High School and the football snobs always look down on us. They were so hot, the uniforms, the school rallies, the cheerleaders hanging all over them.

So one day we invited Kurt, the star receiver and Steve, the star quarterback over to play.

We were Juniors. Kurt hurt himself and never went beyond High School, Steve did pretty ok, played in the USFL, started a few games. I played baseball with him also. He was the catcher. We called him “weenie arm” when I played second base. He nearly got me killed a couple of time.

So they finally came over to play our silly little game, our version of football. They were at least kind enough to leave the high school jerseys at home.

We explained the rules which they both seemed to understand immediately. We suspect, since they were neighbors, that they had played some version of this for years.

And away we went. Well, we smoked them. We played 3 games. They never scored more than 14 points in any game. They couldn’t guard us, they played too far off us. We played seven alligator and that was forever to begin the rush. They were fast but we were quick.

They tried everything. I made some really tremendous snags next to the sidewalk (you know it is good when you only leaves toe marks on the cement border. That is the last six inches before the sidewalk. There is always some dirt in there, so can see if you got both toes down. Then you have to hop quick so you do not trip on the sidewalk)

They were stunned. Hell, they were starters on Varsity. They expected to kick our ass.

They left and we waited until they were around the corner and we laughed for 30 minutes.

My life at High School changed the next day. These fine gentlemen would finally nod at me. I was no longer a dweeb and they knew it. Now they never did get the guts to play with us again. And if they were in a crowd, they went back to their old ways. Cowards.

But if either was alone, they would nod over and we could talk. I guess they had to protect that rep.

I learned that day that I could hold my own. That what mattered was what happened when you showed up to play, not what the paper said and not who the cheerleaders all fell for.

I learned that day I could hold my own physically with anybody if I set my mind to it and played my game. That confidence is around me to this day. It is why I play street hockey with my son. Come on Chris, let’s see if you are better than Steve was back in the day.

Because I was born with clubbed feet. I was told at age 6 I would walk but never run. I could never wear tennis shoes longer than an hour a day until I was 14, I had to wear the corrective shoes everywhere else. And everyone saw them.

And one day, my younger brother and I spanked two guys off the Varsity team, badly, 35-6, 35-13, 35-0.

Never pay attention to pretense, never pay attention to hype, get in the game, get dirty, play your game and hold your head high, always.

Contest update for February 23rd !

2005-02-23T08:03:00.000-08:00

So we have 4 entries so far. We were expecting many more by now. Scroll down to see the expectations. Some have been a bit long, they do not need to be. But they can be.

Mine, a non-winnable entry should go up today, in the early evening.

So where is yours? Do we need to post names of who is not playing so far ;-)? I think the answer is a lot of you.

My cat did return, he goes in for his snipping today (the vet term, not mine, mine would be far more descriptive. Maybe it’s a guy thing but “he needs his nuggets snipped” does not even begin to explain the changes and issues.). But we have to do it to save him. He is no longer top cat and is looking like an old prize fighter.

So we are retiring him to a softer life. He gets no money for these encounters, just pride. We want him to have some left in his waning years

We really appreciate the concern shown by everyone, it was touching. Mr. B has been told some of the story (I cannot face it to tell him everything he will undergo) and he says

Bbbbrrrroooowwwwwww, which we think means, thanks, that was cool but you guys are a bit weird.

So where is your entry? We have judges, just like American Idol and no one behaves like Simon does, so send us your entry.

Contest update !

2005-02-22T11:20:00.000-08:00

I was going to post my example entry later today but life interjected.

For 3 days now I have been taking care of a cat that visits us every day, Mr. B.

He was mauled very badly on Sunday, emergency vet trips and all that, he is feeling better but he needed to stay inside.

I was 20 minutes from having to the vet and I opened a door and he escaped. Now he hates cat boxes and medicine but we were getting somewhere.

Then, I blew it.

I feel like crap or worse.

He will be back we think and we certainly hope so.

But my mind is not on my contest example.

So send yours in anyways. I’ll be out and about looking for my new friend.

A new contest !!!

2005-02-20T08:56:00.000-08:00

The details are this, Anna from http://particularordinary.blogmental.com/, Lilly from http://guardedlilly.blogspot.com/ and I are all running the same entry contest.

You get to be a three way blog buddy if you win.

Which is way cooler than being a three way bulb.

So here is the subject matter.

Describe something from your growing up that changed you. Something that made a permanent shift in you. Something that you look back on and say now, “I am different because….”

Beyond that, it is up to you.

The contest runs Monday through Sunday 9am PST. Probably best you submit to my site, as opposed to Anna or Lilly but you may post to your site and we can go get them if you leave a comment. Or leave me a comment or you can email me yours at

Mega801@comcast.net.

Best of luck and let’s have some fun…….I’ll have a post myself later this week just for the heck of it… Anna will make her own post later today and I expect Lilly will as well at some point.

No excuses, you have 5 full days to re-arrange your life around this.

You may begin.

10 ways to make love to your woman

2005-02-18T11:44:00.000-08:00

Now that I have your attention…

Here is a list for today. I would normally do a longer post but the wifey is home ill today and I am going back and forth, making sure she has what she needs.

These aren’t sex techniques; they are ways you show your love. There is no order to them nor is one more important than the other.

1. A body rub with oil, she picks the oil. It can be scented. A good rub takes about an hour. It should include the toes and feet, the hands, the neck, and all the joints. Slow and topical to start, slower and deeper as you go on, rub each area until the oil disappears and move along. Use enough oil.

2. Run your fingers through her hair. Slowly comb it and gently add pressure to the skin and scalp. The hair on the head runs a certain way, so it will take time to find the way the hair and scalp want it. Do it with your eyes closed is the best way, so you can feel it. Use your fingertips as they are very sensitive.

3. An irregular routine of gifts. I use flowers mostly. Every so often, 2 or three times a month. I never bring flowers on a birthday, Mothers Day or Valentines Day. Usually not but then every so often I will. Don’t do it every Wednesday or when you leave town. Just do it every so often.

4. Be there for her when she is ill. Today, it was just such a day. It may mean pain pills, or having the damn bucket ready if she is that kind of ill and washing it out. And don’t say anything about it, just do it. She feels bad enough, save any guilt or noise for sunny days.

5. Let her have the remote every so often. And watch what she wants to watch. Life isn’t about me, me, me. It is about we, we, we. The most important we you have is with her, let her surf too, no matter how badly she does it in your humble opinion.

6. Go to see her movies every so often. Some of them really are good. Discuss which ones she would like, offer an opinion, don’t just roll over, add some discourse, then go and eat your popcorn. Bring a tissue if it is a tear jerker and notice if it gets to her.

7. Spend some time each day really listening to her. Just listening, not adding in, not “solving the issue”, just listen. Look her in the eyes for periods of time (I know this may be tough but practice). This one is hard and I am working on it.

8. Hold her hand in public every so often, even if it is for brief moments. Even if you have three kids and been married for ages, she is still your girlfriend. You don’t have to do it for a mile, even 30-40 feet is fun.

9. Let her drive the car every so often. She can lead pretty well. She probably can get around just fine on her own, so be a passenger. You can still give directional advice, it is what we are good at but let go of the control.

10. Kiss her unexpectedly, like when you are headed into the laundry room to get something or when she is stirring something on the counter. Nothing fancy, just a nice peck. Now you in all likelihood won’t get these back in the quantity you give them. Tell her you love her and the use of some pet name is appreciated. Once a day is nice but be random and use judgment. 10 times a day is annoying, twice a day is a surprise.

That should do it for now. Men, care to add some, please do. You ladies can also say what you would like. Love is a journey not a manual but we all need some pointers from time to time. Have a great weekend.

I have stormy eyes

2005-02-16T11:47:00.000-08:00

So last night was the Bunco party. I know I said that it was last Thursday but I was an idiot. I was corrected and we held the event anyway.

So what the hell is Bunco you say.

It involves 12 women around 3 card tables. It involves 3 dice at each table, it involves rotating numbers to roll for as a three of a kind, it involves some magic roles and lots and lots of screaming.

That is actually the most important part of Bunco, yelling like a mad person. You may begin practicing now.

I would say yell like a mad woman but, well, my services were needed and I accepted an invitation to play, so I’ll be gender neutral as best I can. Or so I thought.

I switched sides for a night and it was lovely. Really.

The event started early in the day. I made those lovely crab stuffed mushroom things, wifey made a shrimp filled pastry dealie. Our Virgo co-host made something I never got to as well as drive us a bit crazy. But she was on a mission as this was the first event of the year and it had to go well. And she was right.

I complained ever so gently to the spousal unit that I was not her Biotch and was told to just hang on and it would all get better when the dice started rolling. It did. I just needed to chill.

Being a chick is not all roses you know.

So you sit at a table and the person across from you is your partner. You start to try to roll the number 1. If you do, you continue to roll. You get a point for every one you roll. If you roll three ones, you scream out BUNCO (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) You get 21 points for a Bunco AND YOU GET TO WEAR THE BUNCO HEAD ADORNMENT, which absolutely matters. Once Table One has a team that scores 21 points, you blow a horn, and see which team won at each table and rotate and change partners if you lose. Now you roll for two’s. You play and rotate until you roll for each number twice (12 rounds) and then award prizes.

Lost yet, hey we threw alcohol into the mixture! And everyone figured it out by round two.

So, I was Wendy. Wendy could not come. I was never told why and I must assume it was her issue, not me. I am not sure whether she approved of me being her or not. I may never know. But I got a card officially stating I was Wendy and I had to keep track of my Wendy Buncos and Wendy wins.

Because I got to keep the prizes if I won, tough luck Wen, there is a new girl in town and he means business tonight.

If that makes any sense at all.

I rolled the second Bunco of the night and immediately rolled the third. I grabbed the Bunco Head Adornment and made the proper noises and utterings including but not limited to screaming. A prize must surely come of this.

And then the real magic of the night started. Dee, my partner for that round, smiled at me. She had lost every round until then. We were off to the head table, we were Champions, if only for 5 minutes. When we hit the head table, I said, come on Girlfriend, we need to do that again.

Well, we lost but she smiled and said thank you. Hmm, this could be ok.

And from then on, whoever I partnered with, I welcomed them, called them GF and smiled.

Soon, everyone was calling me Wendy and laughing. I blushed and rolled again.

And there was screaming and I got a third Bunco and we all moved around, sipped decent wine, hats, high fives and crazy laughter ensued.

And then it was over and we were all a bit sad. And then a chant came up and I kid you not, about all the women started singing this………

Who's tripping down the streets of the city
Smiling at everybody she sees
Who's reaching out to capture a moment
Everyone knows it's Wendy

And Wendy has stormy eyes

And we all laughed. I was asked if I could be an emergency sub in the future. Sure, this was fun. I won a prize for the most Buncos but the Bunco Head Adornment went back in the Bunco Box for the next event. Six others won something too but not Dee, bummer.

Call me Windy, call me Wendy. I have stormy eyes and 11 witnesses I all call girlfriend now. Even my wife is one of them. I hope she doesn’t mind.

Who's reaching out to capture a moment
Everyone knows it's Windy

(start the whistle part……)

And our winner is....

2005-02-16T09:11:00.000-08:00

Inky.

Her entry was very creative. I loved the comment about the bubble bath ( like who would do that now, CPS would get called immediately) . Or riding your bike to the pool. Or building a snow fort and playing until your hands went numb, man I remember that.

But the killer entry was playing Let's Make a Deal. I just about died.

So a prize ( yum, yum) will be winging it's way to SD in a day or two, postage paid.

By the way the most common entry was either Red Rover or Doctor, just a coincedence?

Thanks to all that played, Seven, Sophmom, Victoria, Anna, mojo shivers, Risiblegirl, Stephie, Allison, Karen, Lilly, Vegemiterules and of course our winner Inky.

Here is the winning entry but read them all on the comment section of the post that announced the contest

1) take all of our cheap hard plastic skateboards up to the USD/S college campus in Springfield, SD (which is now South Dakota's second largest state prison)and play cops-n-robbers on our skateboards on all the twisty sidewalks.

2) ride green banana-seat bikes with a big horn on the front handle bars to the swimming pool.

3) watch THE BRADY BUNCH in prime time while eating fondue with the family.

4) actually play outside building snow forts in Springfield, South Dakota blizzards and stay outside till you were frozen solid and no longer could feel your feet or fingers. (I have photos to prove this)

5) create SHRINKY DINKS in your mom's kitchen and cook them on a cookie sheet with your mom's permission at 350 degrees. then string them up and wear as actual jewelry.

6) go to Girl Scouts Day Camp and spend the last night of the week outdoors regardless if it was raining. We had to build our own fires and make bread over soup cans over the open flames.

7) play make-believe "Let's Make A Deal" and have someone play Monte Hall and actually play dress up as contestants in goofy and wild outfits.

8) take bubble baths with all of your siblings regardless of their sex or age... back in the early 1970s no one thought about incest or whether or not it was "wrong" to bathe with your siblings.

9) go to drive-in movies with your parents in a lime green station wagon and smuggle in your own popcorn and cherry kool-aid. or going to movies that cost 50 cents.

10) go to roller skating rinks and jive down to YMCA and MACHO MAN by the Village People.

10 things update

2005-02-15T13:15:00.000-08:00

OK the contest ends at 9am Wednesday Pacific Standard Time, so there is still time to enter.

No limit on entries, so those that might have breezed through the directions will be able to re-enter. I am so weak.

You need to have a mailing address to enter. There will be a prize mailed out. I am holding it right now. Let me give a hint. Yum, yum.

There will also be a creative writing contest next week with Anna over at http://particularordinary.blogmental.com/ Details end of this week.

We do need one more judge so if you would like to partner with us on it, send me a comment.

There is 19 hours and change to go on this contest, plenty of time to be creative.

Just 10 things list

2005-02-12T16:37:00.000-08:00

So I have been around some blogs and it melded into a new idea

So here goes

Names 10 things that you did when you were a kid that kids do not do now.

I don’t judge you for the reason. It could be technology makes what it was silly now. Or time constraints make it silly. Or security issues make it dangerous.

Whatever.

Name 10 things you did when you were a kid that kids do not do now.

Now, many of you visit my blog, fewer comment. I play the list process with many of you.

This will be fun.

I expect Chloe, Karen, Inky, Anna, Flirt, Victoria, Mojo, Seven, Tex, A*llison#3ga, vegemiterules, lee from 100moments, Sophmom, Reama, CrzyDJM, Rien, Mostly Risible to all play. Plus their friends and some I must have passed by with no malice intended.

I’ll start.

1. Street football, two hand touch above the waist.
2. Hide and go seek.
3. Spin the bottle
4. Doctor
5. War
6. GI Joe war games
7. Have Chocolate milk at the neighbor’s house
8. putting playing cards in your spokes and riding as fast as you can
9. Throwing newspapers on your own route
10. Basketball in your driveway. Not on your street with those fancy hoops, one attached to your roof. The one that hung over the gutter and made the crazy noises.

I am SURE we can come up with 100 more.

The clock starts now. Contest ends Wednesday Morning, 9AM PST. There is a prize to be mailed.

Enter by making a comment to this entry.

Go.

Random Thoughts, Bon Mots and no cheap shots, February 11th, 2005

2005-02-11T12:42:00.000-08:00

I seem to be doing one of these a week, so why stop now.

I did a nice entry into a contest from “ http://particularordinary.blogmental.com/ “ which challenges readers to describe where they sit.

I like my entry, check it out, it is below this one.

In the mean time, this blog entry is like politics and sausage, you probably shouldn’t watch while it is being made.

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There is a documentary about Charlie Manson on right now. I love the story. It is not tragic, tragic means something where the outcome is known in advance, denial is in play and it happens anyway.

No, this was plain, straight forward craziness. The DA guy, Bugliosi did a great job.

But Charlie still fascinates. We are a strange species indeed

Mark Twain said that we are they only species that blushes and some one else said we are the only species that kills for emotional reasons alone.

Manson brings out both. Creepy

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News outlets want to reveal all there is already about Michael Jackson before the jury gets seated. The judge wants to avoid appeals (ha!, expect them) by waiting.

I say, come on people, wait. The judge says we get all the details the DAY the trial opens. That is better than OJ. You can have the ratings then. All rights in our country are not absolute.

Even sharks circle their prey before they strike, this is reflection of one of the sadder portions of what a human existence is like.

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Baseball is almost here. The world has pivoted. The sport of destruction and violence and withering formations has given way to the sport of expectations, and green grass and balmy days.

Or soon will, Hockey will cancel their season, make no mistake. They are all idiots. The owners deserve some cost certainty, the players some room to expand.

Each position is now so absolute, neither can back down.

My son wore his “Hockey Night in Canada” t shirt yesterday, it was after all, Thursday.

I got emotional, each side only cares about themselves, it was so sad to see it on him and was his own silent form of protest.

To quote the cartoon strip Pogo “We have met the enemy and it is us”

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I went in my spa this week and the chemicals were way off. No rashes mind you but it is time to get that thing in shape. Chloe is right, Spring is on the way. The spa is warm right now and visitors are welcome.

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I went back to my channeling person and they say I am at a crossroads, independent consulting is better in the long run but a secure corporate job makes more sense this year.

I was afraid of the independent thing until this morning. Still not sure I can do it.

But freedom is a powerful lure, damn those red state guys.

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OK politics, the Dems want their message to be about making huge social change, oh my what idiots.

The message is this, the Red State people have for years been against social equality, equal rights and moving with the tide of social progress. One cannot move the wave, one must ride the wave. The Red State folks have hindered the wave, voted against all the major social improvements for society for more than 100 years. Not 20, not 40, not 60, since Reconstruction.

They will not change. They are obstructionist. Just like how we laugh at them for their positions in the past, we will laugh at them in the future.

Who has protected you future best. Who thought up and passed Social Security in the first place.

I can defend that. Graned, they have Lincoln but he was as big a Blue State guy as anyone who exists to date.

And then, they have Strom Thurmond, George Wallace until he defected because the Red state team was too liberal, Trent Lott, Mitch McConnell, Orin Hatch, Pat Buchanan, Richard Nixon and a host of other absolute wackos

Ask your self, do you think that progression is the natural course of events? If so, which side has taken you there?

Howard Dean doesn’t get this and that is scary.

In football, it is called out-kicking your coverage and I hope the Blue State team learns that basic lesson.

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It is a Friday, a Valentine’s Day weekend.

Find someone you love and do something senseless for them.

The event is about love, not just couples. Love is much more expanded than that. Not Nick and Jessica, or Britney and whoever.

But you and those around you that you love.

Love means caring. You gave out Valentine cards when you were young to many people not just some special one.

Hallmark got this one wrong, go show them what Love really is all about.

I await your reports.

The corner

2005-02-10T16:28:00.000-08:00

This is an entry for a challenge from Anna at http://particularordinary.blogmental.com/

But if you enjoy as well, then so much the better.

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I sit in a corner of my house now. The wife is off earning the money, I still ponder and search for my fate.

My son is off to College, striving for a future he as yet only dreams of.

The cat, Mr. B has exited the domicile for the afternoon. It is glorious outside and he knows the value of getting one’s vitamins through direct sunlight, snuggled in his bed of cedar mulch under the front room window. He’ll be back, we will all speak, he will eat and leave again.

He is both the most transient and the most stable of us. How poetic is that?

I am surrounded by pictures and windows, what do they mean. In front of me is a Monet print of a harbor scene. There are boats all moored up with stirring, shallow water and a grey, ever changing sky. It is like my life now. I am between sailings, challenged ever gently by dreams of future voyages. The sky looks a bit too changeable to chance a quick sail. But that won’t last.

I’ll sail again, somewhere, for someone, even if that is just me. But, for the moment, time to stay in port, repair nets, mend sails. Right action requires contemplation; such is where I am now.

The PC is here, my new reward for losing my old job. It serves the family well and is a quiet sentinel to future success. It is grey and sturdy and blinks every so often like a beacon. But such is what sentinels do, they wait, they warn only when required and they serve.

My 21 inch flat screen is like a portal.

With it, I can see into the future, or look at the past or examine the present. The clarity is amazing. It is more than a bowl of water, it is a clear pond turned sideways, illuminated by the reflections of my requests of it. Like the PC, it is a servant but also, a soothsayer.

Papers are located nearby. They are temporary. I noticed each one had been here less than 48 hours. That in the last week, the papers strewn about have changed completely three times. They are merely insects of knowledge, providing flashes of insights, soon replaced by the next lighting bolt out of my HP printer.

To my left is a fireplace, bookended by two cabinets. One is 19th century secretary, a prize from my wife’s family. While not of the highest value, it shows us the value of family, of sustaining previous success and utility.

The other is a modern knockoff. It is simple in design yet it carries the family photo albums, a treasure that can never be lost, as well as a panoply of books and manuals. Each is here because it is used. Display items are kept in other hidaways. Function leads form in this room.

The desk the equipment sits on is a Danish design, gained from a discarding from a brother-in-law. It will never make the Antiques Roadshow but it serves a purpose. Now my great, great uncle's musket sits astride all this, it did make the show. It was deemed common. But from it, we learned of a section of my family tree that remained hidden until then. I guess one man’s trash really is another man’s treasure.

My chair is very pedestrian. Oak in structure, it replicates a mid 19th century design. No special feet are seen, no extraordinary adornment. But, it has a sweeping look to it, nautical influences we were told. I am sure we paid extra for that.

The room itself has a laminate floor. It reminds me of a ship’s deck. It goes well into the rest of the house, sweeping around corners and edges. It eventually meets carpet, almost like a ship tied up to a pier, we made sure the rope was tied fast.

Last is a clock, it too shaped like a portal. It merely gives us a report as we ask of it. No jewels or fancy scrollwork, just some metal, a wooden circular edging and two ever moving hands. Time stands for no one, simple or profound.

That is where I am. There are windows about, none worth noting. Skylights exist around the corner, letting in the lights of the heavens indirectly, but then, it is always that way.

I sit here, ready for duty. This is my report. I will check in again when requested. For now, I wait for the fog to tumble in, the night bells to toll and calmness to descend once again with the darkness.

wave upon wave

2005-02-10T14:18:00.000-08:00

So I watched this tremendous show on MTV this week. It is called Diary. Normally, it is about a close up look at a rock star. Normally, boring, surf’s up some where else

Not this week. It was about 4 reporters who were going to back to their home country to report on the tsunami disaster. The video was all shot between the 18th and 21st of January, so 4 video teams were out at one time. They went to Sri Lanka, India, Sumatra and Thailand.

They spent most of hour talking to people who survived the disaster. How did they survive, how are they coping, what are their plans?

Well, this show just whacked me over the head. The footage was so REAL, so non-network. Not sterile, real people, real faces and hope and desperation and the gamut of emotions were there. Cricket games and hospitals and morgues and tourist areas and fisherman without boats. Let me just summarize where each team saw.

Sri Lanka, man this was tough to watch. There are THOUSANDS of kids with no parents or known family members. There are THOUSANDS of parents who lost all their children. The country is in process to build hundreds of orphanages. But like in the other countries, it is hard to do. See the flood wiped out paper records and very little in this part of the world is on computers. If the child does not know his or her name or parents or town, they are utterly alone. A face with no name.

Yet, Sri Lanka seemed to be the best adapted. Schools have opened back up, temp facilities were generally in place, food was not an issue.

India, so gut wrenching. They went to a fishing village and the people just stood where their houses were. The men just wanted boats, 99% of the boats are gone or smashed or not repairable. If they can fish, they can get money and they can rebuild from the bottom up.

But the Indian government is barely on scene. The monsoon will be here around June 1st. They need boats now, to make money to get housing materials to build a house before the rains make the place miserable until after our Labor Day. The clock ticks and they all know it.

Thailand. Well happy day, Phuket is largely rebuilt. Tourists are welcome but none are there. But behind the great hotels, almost nothing is done. The residents must do it all themselves. The government wants to use tourist revenue to fund rebuilding but who wants to go there? Only volunteer rebuilders and there were happily many. People who just wanted to make a difference, inspiring.

Sumatra. Banda Aceh is as bad as you can imagine. The ground is rendered useless in hundreds upon hundreds of square miles. It will be years before anything can grow there, might as well be built there. The water came through here 50 feet high or more, went inland 4 miles before flowing back out.

Look out your window 4 miles and imagine everything in sight, not ruined, not damaged, just plain GONE, roads in spots are just a guess. Most of the people fled inland and stayed there. They are too afraid to go back. They know the work will take years but they think the water will come again. They praise their version of God every day just to be alive. Indonesia is a poor country, this area will take 5 years to get back to any form of normal. I think I am just hopeful there.

So my point is this, do something, even a small thing to help. Donate some money, send cards to the Red Cross/Crescent for survivors to read. My wife’s doctor went back to Sri Lanka this week to donate her help. She said she maybe gone quite a long time.

Tsunamis come in not a single wave but many waves. It can last 3 minutes or 30 minutes if you are close to a large event.

This kind of event, the scale of it, is extremely rare. It won’t happen again in 300 years or more. In fact, based on studies, this size earthquake has not hit that area since the last Ice Age 10,000 years ago. So the event will not repeat in this area.

But the rebuilding will take time. The process will go through phases. Just like the waves, we will need to wade in many times in the future, not just now.

So what can you do? If not now, maybe when can you? Ok, you are squeezed right now, how about at tax return time you send $25 to a known group.

I love the phrase Think Globally, Act Locally. It normally makes sense. Except maybe now. I think we all need to act Globally on this.

I have sent money in that my wife’s company matches. I will do more than just plead in the future. I just do not know what yet. Maybe a blogathon where I donate money based on responses, I like that actually.

The waves of hope we can send can make a difference. So, who’s in?

The Purse Party

2005-02-07T18:35:00.000-08:00

So, the wifey says a few weeks ago, Carol and I want to host a purse party at our house.

Sure (guys, know better for me next time ;-) ). Isn’t that where you gals all spend $90 for purses that look just like those $900 purses?

Yes husband. There may be quite a few women here, it seems pretty popular (oh I should have noted that the word was already out, but no sirreebob, I was happy in my own little world, most guys are, a cocoon where only sports, the TV with a remote and work enter and leave at will)

When, hon ?

Oh say, ah, February the 4th at 6PM, is that all right ( bing, bing, danger Will Robinson, danger, whooooop, whoooop, whhhoooooop, the date and time are already known !!!! Tell Dr. Smith immediately).

Sure hon, sounds like fun

Silence, she learned to not talk after the close.

Days pass, the matter rises again.

Hon you know the Purse Party is Thursday right?

Yes dear and Bunco is the week after that and you are hosting and I am supposed to make those fabulous crab stuff mushrooms that were so good the last time. (ok maybe I went to far on repeating back to her what she said to me when she announced the Bunco party but I was showing I was listening. That is a part of compassion and good communications skills, right? Please ignore the sound of crickets in the background)

The day comes.

Hon, how many women are you expecting.

Oh about 45.

Ok, I understand the people with the purses get here at 5pm, I am to let them in, help them carry up the stuff, set up the tables and then make the first pitcher of Margaritas and then you will take it from there.

That’s right, Husband.

Child’s play, this is easy. Of course, Captain Cook thought the same thing off the coast of the Big Island.

5pm and the ladies running the event are on the money and we start to set up. My wife is home early but there are rumblings in the force. There is not enough Margarita Mix, well there is but sometimes we just need to find something to do. Besides, it is 5:10, what could happen. I leave my phone at home and head off to the store. They try to call to add limes to the list but I am blissful, unconnected, in a self made cocoon of happy denial.

I return and 7 people are already here. It is 5:20. I have made friends with the two ladies running the show. I never realized I may need them for cover later but you plan ahead and always look for contingencies. Besides everyone says twice people are expected as actually show up.

Oh, the people are around the blender, I must wade in and make the first batch. It doesn’t matter what it tastes like. There is cut rate shopping to be done and the alcohol is just a distraction. A necessary distraction.

Because more cars are arriving and there is car pooling going on. In retrospect, it almost made sense to hire a parking service but these ladies were pros, they could probably smell those purse bargains as they approached.

And in they came. Like waves of shopping conquistadors, looking for gold bargains that they knew lay just ahead. I know what the Aztecs must have felt. They knew they were licked before the battle ever started.

And still they came.

Trish, how did you arrive at 45 people?

Oh I spoke to 3 times that many, and I knew some would bail, so 45.

Oh, you already discounted it. No submarine in sight, no place to dive to the bottom and wait out the depth charges. Cary Grant, Glenn Ford, John Wayne could not save me. I was on my own.

Oh yes. Well, I heard that discounting had already been factored and so did the party throwers, we all looked at each other, yes Betty Davis eyes, rut roh Mike.

Back to the blender. The mob is getting restless, not angry, not upset, just let us at those purses.

The party ladies moved as fast as they could. The dam would hold only for a few minutes. Purses were not gently laid out now, it was a cascade of YSL, D&B, BFD and lord knows who else. Knock off jewelry was also being placed hither and yon.

Something needed to be done or this thing would blow (insert your favorite movie quote here).

Trish, can we start early?

Ah, perhaps we should. (perhaps I should head for high ground, perhaps the war in Iraq is going less than optimal, but just perhaps)

I rush to the ladies and they agree, perhaps for their own survival to let it begin, some 15 minutes early.

I’ll never forget the combination of sound and energy that transpired when it was announced that the party was on. I understand from my relatives that the rebel yell in the Civil War just scared the hell out of you due to the intensity. I swear to you now, I felt the crowd swoosh by me.

And it began. There were so many conversations going on, my head rang. There were 25 women, professionals, shoppers, bargain lovers, all talking at once. I cannot do the math on how much was being said but it is a factorial equation (25 times 24 times 23 times 22 and so on)

It was like being able to see the internet in action. Everyone was connected to everyone. Uniformity, information exchange, and secure transactions were just seconds away.

And I was on the outside. It was too much. I did what any great soldier would do in the situation. I retreated, to my patio, after grabbing a proper cocktail. And I realized I may never get out. I may have to spend the night out there and I was cut off from my camping supplies, my tents, and sleeping bags and emergency rations. I was alone.

And still they came.

I waited for my chance. I had to go to a Boy Scout meeting at 7:30, surely the tide would lesson. At 7:15 I saw an opening, popped in a Listerine strip and waded in. I used the ladies for cover and it still took 10 minutes to get through. I spoke to countless women, about what, I have no idea. They had buried my TV remote under $10,000 of original retail purses, now priced for 10% of that and I realized I may have lost a prized possession. The pieces could be picked up later.

I arrived 15 minutes late and my Boy Scout meeting was over. I was briefed and learned many great things about my upcoming Boy Scout Training class. It looked just wonderful. So I returned to the domicile.

The crowd had thinned to only a few. Parking was available. I waded in and exhaustion greeted me. The ladies, my wife and Carol were spent. The items were rebagged and delivered to the cars. My house looked like a home again.

We did a huge amount of business. Nearly a record. We could contact Tupperware Corporation if we had any complaints ( TUPPERWARE ? Oh my those people can throw a party, so even they have moved into the new millennium). 22 separate people paid for things and many people just went in together to move it along.

I saw the future. These kinds of events will happen much more often and they should.

It is perfectly fine that women can band together in the name of economy and camaraderie. Men have dominated that realm for far too long.

We just aren’t used to it. These changes take time.

I know now to watch for the signs. There is Bunco this Thursday, I hope I am ready.

Your Sunday Sunrise

2005-02-06T08:28:00.000-08:00

I have been having fun with normal sleep lately. Night before last, I stayed up until 4am and was up at 7 and felt great. Last night, I went to sleep about 10 and woke up at 4am and decided I needed a sunrise since I couldn’t sleep anyway.

Sunsets are way over-rated, sunrises aren’t just yet.

5AM

Dark as ink outside. I peeked out the window, it is probably about 40 degrees out there, all is quiet inside and out. No Mr. B in sight, despite his ability to all Tabby, all the time. All other house members sleeping. But the PC is on, I guess the Internet never sleeps.

5:45

Still dark, no hint of light. It doesn’t seem ominous, it seems peaceful instead. I am surfing around, reading my blog for comments (hey three yesterday, wow) and just waiting, waiting for hints of light and activity, for today will be a big day. I’ll ask Mr. Sun in a few about that.

6:05.

I get up to stretch and see that the first sign of light, of life has arrived. My skylights in my Living Room have allowed a faint light in. It is more of a glow, really. The rest of the ceiling is still dark, the light does not reach the floor. I make a note to have them trained, they are there to allow light in, not temp me with possibilities.

6:25

I see faint, very faint flickers of light in the East, the Western sky still has stars out. It is such a cool scene, the light slowly wanes from East to West, transforming to pure darkness straight overhead. This never happens with a sunset, the sky then just fades to black in a more uniform fashion. No, this is a spectrum of illumination without color, no tainting it with interpretation just yet.

6:40

The last bastion of darkness above me is fading. I can see a planet glowing to the South, need to check on which one it is. The light has started creeping into my house, reflected off my West wall. My PC is on the East side of the house (where there are no windows) and that room is in darkness. It is almost a negative of the real world or a camera obscura. It reminds me of what a caveperson must have lived through, to see the light of day creep in. Their PC area would have been as far from the entrance, from the light, as possible. It was a safe haven, a hideaway, if only for a few minutes longer.

7:08.

This is the official sunrise time. I live in a hollow and mine comes later. But the light is all around me now. The living room is forced to awaken, my stairway windows to the upstairs are allowing light in, almost by force. It has just reached my son’s room but my room, where Trishy and I rest, is still in darkness. She rests there still, in her own level of peace.

Oh, my lazy ole sun, you still have work to do. Life is more than hanging around in the sky all day. The sky is a mixture of white and faint yellows and some peach. It would make a good dessert or a breakfast dish. I personally would add some milk but that’s just me.

7:29.

I turn the TV on to catch that piece they do every Sunday morning on CBS as their early morning news show ends. You know, where they go somewhere remote and just turn on the camera and audio and let it flow in. It seems a perfect punctuation to the sunrise.

But I missed it, or they did not have it, damn. So I open the front door instead, screw it I say, I’ll make my own. The door swings open and I hear for the first time, the song and sounds of birds. All around me. Not above me. No, they are, wait, yes, still in the trees, rousting themselves from a nice slumber. The songs, their singing, is a form of stretching for them. Their wings must need it in order to perform, to lift themselves above the waning gloom.

But the sky is empty still, they too must be waking their families, their community. The sky is alight, the night has moved on to my West by many miles, maybe some fish can see it, out in the ocean.

7:50.

I can take it no longer, where is the sun? I burst out my front door. There he is, behind the trees on the left, cresting over the water tower. He is filtered still. The morning fog is still lifting and where it goes, I could care less. My newspaper awaits at the end of the driveway, perhaps some tea is in order.

Mr. B is out there as well, I missed him the first time. He could care less about the Super Bowl, he is nestled on a fresh bed of cedar straw under one of my windows. I ask him gently, both in English and in Cat, if he wants in. He does not. I ask again (the lessons from Chris do seem to be paying off) and he cannot respond, he is too asleep just yet and damn the birds anyway.

8:10.

Ok Mr. Sun is here now, my house is in full glory. The tea water is ready. The paper is ready for inspection. The two other occupants of said domicile choose to ignore all this, so the paper can wait.

Besides we have to cheer today, for someone.

I think I’ll take either the winner or whoever my wife has in the pool.

Mr. B could care less still. I’ll tell him you said hello.

Random Thoughts, Bon Mots and no cheap shots, February 6th, 2005

2005-02-05T09:01:00.000-08:00

Hey my third post this week, you want genius, well, I check the comments section. It is obvious that I can touch on a nerve on certain kinds of posts. Unfortunately, I can only create a post like that a once a week. The good news is that I have such a post in me once a week and have for 12 years. So I will spend some time in February explaining how these posts’ happened, while I continue to make new posts. But real mediocrity takes time, I appreciate your patience.

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The tsunami thing updated. Now we are pulling our USS Lincoln away while we decide how to contribute, so much for making a show to impress Islam with our sincerity.

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But then, we want to formally threaten Iran. How sad, actual need is superseded by potential need. Like we can invade Iran right now, anyway. I’ll have more to say later. No resemblance to the Social security mess is intended.

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I had 45 women over to my house Thursday night. It was some party. You heard me, 45. I had as many as 25 distinct women in my domicile at one time and I was a witness to it. I was THE ONLY MALE THERE.

So far, I have received nothing but compliments. I am so glad. The ages ranged from 19 to 64. Pick a color, pick a look, pick a genre, it was in my living room.

All I can do is shake my head in amazement and promise a post on Monday.

I am so dizzy. Sorry, Steverino, I win this week.

Nothing naughty, just I am amazed at the volume of female energy I can witness.

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Which brings up an interesting phenomena about the stars. So many people want to have me explain what the stars mean, I am considering a new site. I think I can do it here and not be obnoxious. If I get there, tell me so I can branch off.

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My channel person says chill out, good news is coming, probably in less than 45 days.

Oh yeah, Chloe said that 5 days ago, my bad.

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The Iraqi election thing is now all about spin.

How sad, we had such a good thing going, what a glorious 48 hours.

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OH, the red state guys now want to pull 15k of our troops out soon. So Senator Ted wasn’t an idiot after all (I still think he is, fix the damn problem) But the Red State guys condemned him last week and this week, they raise his request 20%. Politics is a human ass judging contest.

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After I did the ladies’ night in at my domicile, I had to go to Boy Scouts. I was 15 minutes late. They already had my agenda done for me. This year, we decided to actively recruit the religious side of the process.

It appears this may be the best turnout in 5 years.

Lesson, do not ignore the Red States nor those that have Red State outlooks, they show up.

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Weird how life is, I was parking my car to go to lunch yesterday and some moron had to get through but with me waiting and a car backing out of my intended space, there was no where for Mister Cranky to go. He even tried to go into the space to get around us, amazing and it made me angry. I was walking to my destination and a lady pulls around the corner to find herself a space. I stop cold, no way I am walking in front of her. She stops gently, waves me in front of her and smiles. I raise my hand to say thank you and cross, I look up and mouth the words “thank you” to her, she smiles and waves and mouths back “you’re welcome”.

Anger gone, poof, vanished.

Be generous and kind this weekend in some small way, it will change an attitude of a perfect stranger.

The Modern Groundhog

2005-02-03T10:48:00.000-08:00

Candlemas, Groundhog Day and this year, a trifecta, the State of the Union, so what’s it all mean Alfie.

Groundhog Day is a modern Holiday. Now towns all over the US have their own Groundhog. There is General Beauregard Lee, Staten Island Chuck (I am not kidding) and Punxsutawney Phil, the nation’s most beloved Ground Hog (you know he is famous, he passed through spell check the first time). It is a modern version of Candlemas, also known as Imbolc, so let’s look at that Holiday first.

The pagans had 8 holidays a year, one for each Solstice, one for each Equinox and the 4 mid points in between. The most two well know ones are May Day and Candlemas which we in the West call Ground Hog Day.

So what do we do on this day. Well, it varies only slightly by culture. One lights candles. One says some prayers of opening and one goes outside and looks for signs of Spring. One is cautioned to look for flowers blooming, trees coming out of dormancy, animal awakening from hibernation (like a ground hog) and so on

Which brings us to Phil, a national hero. Now we celebrate his ability to look for signs of Spring and he predicts when real Spring will be. He uses his shadow as his guide. That is all he uses. And he is surrounded by men in top hats. Here are the stats. If Phil sees a shadow at 7AM EST, there will be 6 more weeks of winter, if not, Spring will come early. Phil sees his shadow 87% of the time and is right about his prediction 41% of the time.

Which means, if the great civic leaders of that town reversed their methodology, Phil would be right 59% of the time. So I choose to ignore Phil and look for deeper meanings. Sorry Phil, go back to sleep, you’ve been had by idiots.

Then there is the classic movie, Groundhog Day, starring Bill Murray. I went to a website looking at the meanings of the day. It turns out there are 35 major religions that have this day in their liturgy. And a scholar of each one was asked to comment on what it meant and 30 of them chose to use the movie Groundhog Day to make their point. They argued for WEEKS about who should be allowed to use the movie to make their point.

So either they are lazy or the movie is that good. I choose that the movie is that good. Bill Murray is a different actor after this movie. Andie McDowall is never more touching.

If you have seen it, you know what happens. Bill spends days upon days understanding the meaning of love and that he MUST transform. He gets no guarantees and we enjoy all the ways he tests the limits of behavior.

But he does get it eventually. He does get what love is all about, it’s emergence, it possibility for growth and satisfaction of every need.

And he is allowed to escape his hell. I really think this is one of the ten best movies ever made, probably in the top 5.

And then George W steps up to the podium and starts on his plans. He wants Iran to behave. He wants Social Security to be fixed 30 years before it even becomes a crisis. Hello, my friend, Congress usually waits until 5 years AFTER the crisis to act, why are you on this?

He wants democracy everywhere. Ok but we need to proceed carefully and not resort to force to get what we want. There aren’t that many Guardsmen left to go do your bidding sir. George, we are looking for signs of Spring, not a sudden thaw. Sudden thaws produce floods which mankind is not good at controlling. Ask the good residents of Youngstown and many others.

So, in the speech, I looked for signs of spiritual evolution. Because that is the lesson of Imbolc, of Candlemas, of Groundhog Day. Can we see the signs of Spring, which means can we signs the signs of expanded love.

George wants us to look at new places to expand our vision on others, not to understand but to overtake.

He should have watched Bill Murray in Groundhog Day. Bill got past that about Day 15 and had 30 days left to get the lesson.

Yesterday was not the best Groundhog Day I have known but then, the day has existed for a millennium. Certainly, our present leadership will be move along before we reach the next decade.

So in order I choose,

Bill, then Phil, then George W.

But then each of the first two will be influential long after George W is out of office.

How wonderful is that.

Older Women

2005-02-01T16:17:00.000-08:00

I enjoyed the benefit, the luxury of being around some wonderful older women throughout my life plus one I want to grow old with.

When I was seventeen
It was a very good year
It was a very good year for small town girls
And soft summer nights
We’d hide from the lights
On the village green
When I was seventeen

The first great woman I really connected with was my Dad’s Mom, Grandma North. Her first name was Julia but no one called her that. My mom and her didn’t always get along but my Grandma never let on it may have been an issue.

Instead, she just giggled. She was born in Council Bluffs, Iowa, moved to Nebraska when she was young, married a man who I never met, had 4 sons. The father left shortly after the last one, Jack was born. She went to nursing school and started to raise her sons. You know some of them if you read my blog. She eventually became Chief Nurse at the University of Utah Hospital in Salt Lake. She had a tough side, she had to. I asked her once what was the toughest thing she had to do. She said watch young kids die, kids 3 to 7 years old. And she cried for a minute or so. But she loved pediatrics, you couldn’t keep her out of there I was told.

She took pictures like a mad woman. On her family room wall at her house, she taped pictures of her sons but mostly her grandkids, all 20 something of them. Every time we would visit, I would look to see if she had posted more pictures of me. Of course she had and she knew right where they were.

My fondest memory is when I had my first son and she came over to visit. It was a balmy summer night. Things were not all well with my family but she had to see him. She held him and rocked him and sang to him for several hours, assuming she could slow down her giggles of joy. I’ll never forget that day, ever. It was also the last time I ever saw her. She died 18 months later and I had to stay away and work.

I never saw the picture of my son, her third great grandchild on her family room wall but it was there. I know it was, she would have made sure of it.

When I was twenty-one
It was a very good year
It was a very good year for city girls
Who lived up the stair
With all that perfumed hair
And it came undone
When I was twenty-one

I got to know my other Grandma as well, Grandma Keithley or Grandma K. We visited her frequently, at least once a year, whether she was in Utah or after she moved to LA later in life.

She didn’t giggle, she laughed out loud and as she grew older, she learned to swear like a sailor. It was a riot watching her transform, loosen, enjoy.

The most special time was Thanksgiving, we always were there for that. She was a fiend about it, cooking all day, actually, she started on Tuesday. I remember when I was old enough to help and how special that was. I got to peel the potatoes. For the mashed potatoes. To this Day, I want to peel those potatoes at our house. It is my job.

Not just any mashed potatoes mind you. No, these were G.K. Mashed Potatoes. My mother never quite mastered them but we had them years after my Grandma’s passing. My brother and I still talk about them, ask for them vainly. They cannot be recreated.

I did get to go to that funeral. Her energy was there when the ceremony started, we all felt her arrive. It was soothing and glorious. It is still hard to watch Lawrence Welk and only recently have I stopped watching the Miss America Pageant, where I would continue the tradition of making fun of everyone in it.

I miss her, her flaming red hair (although my daughter got the color, huzzah), her booming laugh and her philosophy. She had lots of wrinkles when she was aged. I asked her why and she said “Son, these are wrinkles of joy, you only get these if you enjoy, if you love your life. So celebrate your age and remember each wrinkle means your life is fulfilling” And she laughed and then she gave me a noogie.

When I was thirty-five
It was a very good year
It was a very good year for blue-blooded girls
Of independent means
We’d ride in limousines
Their chauffeurs would drive
When I was thirty-five

My Mom and I became very close as I reached 30. Until, well, she was my Mom, not a dear friend. We were still playing our roles. It didn’t suddenly change, it slowly changed. I was in the process of divorcing my first wife and she welcomed me with open arms.

I had lots of issues to deal with but she just listened and only added small amounts of advice if it was obvious. She was someone to lean on and I am forever grateful.

Only then did I realize, she had done that her whole life for me. I felt like an idiot. How subtle she was but she never, ever rubbed my face in it. She just carried on.

She was psychic, freaky psychic. One day, we were in Wendover, Nevada. We were all in line for breakfast. My Dad had to use the bathroom, so we just stood there. My Mom peered over and said, Michael, go guard that slot machine, the second one in until your father gets here. Yes Mom. A little old lady, maybe 75 years old walks up. Son, can you move over. No Ma’am I say, I am holding this until my Dad gets here. Hell, I was 9 or 10. Dad walks up, drops in 3 dimes, $25.00 jackpot hits on the first pull, free breakfast and gas money to get us to Salt Lake.

She just smiled. She did stuff like that all the time.

But my best memory is one day when my wife Trish and I were over to visit. My wife stood next to my Mom and my Mom said “Son, I love this woman, she fits under my arm and I hope I can spend the rest of my days around her. And she hung her arm over Trish’s shoulders and damnation, Trish did fit exactly right. We all laughed and cried a bit and I knew I had found the right woman. My Mom said so.

We always laughed about that until she died. She had just spent a month in Germany with my Dad on the second of their dream vacations. She felt bad when she got home so my Dad and Daughter went to the store. I called her as they left and she refused to see a doctor. She was raised Christian Scientist and only went if she was really sick. We talked for 30 minutes, about our lives and her trip and my kids and when would she see the damn doctor. She said she would go the next day but she just wanted a nap. I knew better but let her go. So I hung up.

She died a few minutes later in her sleep and my Dad and daughter could not revive her when they got back from the store.

Still, I grew so much from her. I will always feel somewhat cheated but then again, I was so blessed.

But now the days grow short
I’m in the autumn of the year
And now I think of my life as vintage wine
from fine old kegs
from the brim to the dregs

And it poured sweet and clear
It was a very good year

It was a mess of good years

Last is my Wife Trish. She is the wifey, the wonder wife, the spousal unit, the woman of my dreams. She is my rock, the woman who set me straight, who keeps me on balance.

I do things for her. I lighten her, I make her laugh and I keep her moving and on balance.

We look alike but are somewhat opposite. In so many ways. My job life sucks now, hers' is finally getting on track, so that means I have time at home and she does not. I am becoming a recluse, she is the Social chair.

It all works, it all adds, it all makes sense. She was with me to help my raise the kids from the first marriage, she became a Mom.

Not that she is called Mom much. Chris named her, she is The Lady. I guess I get to be Tramp, I can live with that.

We often don’t need to speak, we just know. Now we get there by opposite means but we are OK with that most days.

And she plays. Whether it is with the kids at a McDonalds playground in Buttonwillow, a beach in Carmel, at Cindy’s in Long Beach or when the Boys blow in from Out of Town.

She loves cards, especially Cribbage. She is learning Poker. And she loves me.

I think the best thing is life if finding someone who wants to grow grey with you. I’ll grow grey anyway. In fact, I am well on the way, but who wants to share that, to hold hands on a nameless park bench or walk the sands some 40 years after you first went there. To tip a glass and smile with a vast ocean of experiences behind you.

Trish will be home soon, I so I need to go to the mirror to check that grey hair I have. Not to hide it or to decide to color it. I would never do that. NO, to see if there is more, I think I saw some this morning and I have to be ready to share that with her yet again.

And it poured sweet and clear
It was a very good year

It was a mess of good years

Random Thoughts, Bon Mots and no cheap shots, January 28th, 2005

2005-01-28T13:03:00.000-08:00

Hey my fourth post this week, you want genius, come back next week. I’m working on a piece about Older Women (you don’t know my now passed away Mom but you will) and places I still want to visit.

The tsunami thing updated. We plan to pull out by end of February, we plan to give 1 billion dollars. Then in Iraq, we plan to spend 80 Billion dollars this year, and we have no timetable except that of their government (yeah, right), such as it is, asks us to pull out slowly, then we will.

Priorities, priorities…..

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Anyone notice that the first person put up to be changed out in the Cabinet was the replacement for the only lone wolf voice in the previous cabinet? And while ridiculous comments were made by the left wing Senators, she flew through anyway?

So two points, ah, George sends them for confirmation, she was their first on purpose. Maybe to move Colin along (notice his son now wants out also off the FCC, hmmm, coincidence) and Condi was a slam dunk ( I knew of her when she was at Stanford and was a stooge then). The Dems put up a fake front, shi*, she is qualified except for maybe being a stooge. And it looked silly at best for all these Dems to vote against a Black Woman for a high cabinet post, or did it? Which day did we wait for, the day when she could try or the day we could, in good conscience, shoot her down?

No, George saved his lesser choices for later, hoping to get some might mo, some mojo going on the hill. It won’t work it seems, the John Ashcroft replacement will be a real festival. Which makes me ask, if this guy is as bad as Ashcroft, how did Ashcroft get there, oh the Dems rolled over, oh yeah.

Still the new guy will have to be withdrawn.

How many of these people have a mother’s maiden name of Fein (ok, a prize to the first one who gets the reference)

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I really love Jon Stewart. He had the former Governor of NJ on last night, Christine Todd Whitman. She has a new book, it is my party Too. And a website, http://www.mypartytoo.com/

Now, I am liberal but will seek allies where I can find them. The next winner is the one who grabs the middle ( hey imagine all those republicans trying to show who is the most right wing, this will be great TV in 30 months or so, I cannot wait, self-destruction at it’s best.)

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Chloe had a great post on waiting for Sun and going to the beach and finding herself, check it out.
http://chloespassion.blogspot.com/

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Which brings up an interesting phenomena about sunrises and sunsets. The sun is already starting to set later in the day and will accelerate shortly, starting to gain as much as a minute a day. Sunrises are only now starting to retreat in time and it will be Valentine’s Day before we see a real difference. That is when we see the planet take a step in hope, when love springs forth.

It is about the change in sunrise. The earliness of the sunrise peaks in mid July and then we all take vacation.

Hmmmmmmm

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I need a job soon, I actually watch the View for a spell each day. Not that it is a bad show, just it means I am just biding time. I’ll get my act in gear next week.

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OK a really strange read from me. The Election in Iraq, from an astrological perspective, looks good. It will create momentum over time. Not great timing for George himself or the US but for Iraq, it forces their hand. The terrorism issues look small relative to the potential. Expect the REAL outcome to take a few weeks to sort out but there will be momentum from this. I wish they had waited about 10 days but it will be OK.

But wait for it, the real meaning will take awhile to sort of. Like this is news over there.

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I have a radical idea, sorry Senator Ted. It is not time to pull people out, it is time to wait for the election and then send in 40,000 new troops, 20,000 to increase the rebuilding effort and 20,000 just to rebuild the police and Armed Services (think of it, we can even sell them weapons after this, a self made market) Because those are the two things that get us out of there the fastest. That of course means, we may have to admit our plan needed tweaking (ah never going to happen) and that our goal is not to milk this damn thing for all our friends in the defense industry (oh yeah, wait for that news conference). In business, we send resources to maximize speed to market. It should apply here. But, alas, it won’t. Of course, that gives us all blog material for a few more years. Just not for the right reasons.

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The State of the Onion speech is coming next week. It should be a beauty. I think they scheduled it for Groundhog’s Day, how wonderful is that (Paging Mr. Murray, Mr. Bill Murray to the white courtesy telephone, please).

Just remember to peel back the layers

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I shot 19 again last night in Pool, two weeks in a row now. But I played great to get there. (Average score in an 8 ball league is 38 or so)

Weird how life is, you can play great and get a crappy score and play lousy and get big rewards.

I guess it is so we can exercise those muscles that move the head side to side in amazement more, instead of just up and down.
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I don’t care where you live, BBQ something this weekend.

Beautiful Places

2005-01-26T14:38:00.000-08:00

This was inspired by a post at another site, over in England.

http://particularordinary.blogmental.com/

I love that about blogging. Someone thousands of miles away can directly inspire you.

The 580 freeway dropping into the San Ramon Valley at night. My wife loves it in daytime in the spring. She claims for a 45 days a year, you see the purest green color anywhere on the planet, from the grass on the hills. Not a tropical green, or a forest green, no a green that is almost neon in power but not shade. She loves it. I love the descent down the hill, the valley spread out below you. There are various patches of light and dark. The prison complex and Lawrence Livermore Lab are as bright as any light patch on Earth. But there are housing tracks and dark patches of open space and farms, all mixed together. Every time I see it, I say I’m home now.

Garnet Lake, Sierra Nevada Mountains. The lake is really small, maybe a hundred yards long and shallow, less than 10 feet deep in the summer. But the area is solid granite in varying shades of grey, worn smooth and undulating by ancient glaciers and millions of years of snowfall and snowmelt. It is timeless. Plus, in the water, covering about 40% or so of the bottom is garnet formations on top of the granite. Really. Deeply red garnet.

When we were there, the sun was low and the red from the garnet reflected and emerged from the lake and colored the air. My entire group really never said a word for ten minutes as we stopped to rest. We just stopped and took it in. Our leader finally raised a hand and we loaded up our backpacks and walked off. We had to camp further up. As we walked off the red air and reflections disappeared. We all knew we had just witnessed something magical. We rarely spoke of it after as well. But we all knew, how could you not. I’ve never been back and probably could never repeat it but I saw it just once.

Between Upper and Lower Yosemite Falls, California. There is a flat space between the upper and lower falls, maybe 100 yards long. It is a large ledge maybe 40 yards wide. From the bottom of the valley floor, you know it is up there as the lower falls start forward of where the upper falls end but that is all you know.

Well, there is a lake up there and places to spread out ever so gently and see. From the side of the lake, you are about 1,000 feet up the side of the canyon, above all the day to day noise. Kind of like climbing that rope thing in High School and getting above the gym. Everyone is around you. You can see for 50 miles. You see the valley and the ants disguised as humans below you, you see the valley walls rise about for another 2,000 feet, straight up.

Like maybe you are in a huge granite bowl, stuck part way up the side. Half Dome is directly across from you and if you had a ping pong paddle, you sure as hell would try to play against it, even if the damn thing is 3 miles across from you. The sky edge at the horizon is a lighter blue than you are used to. Oh yeah, because that is 8,000 feet above sea level. One rarely sees the horizon edge start that high.

You can speak to your friends down below. The granite ledge acts like a microphone and you yell at them and realize only speaking loudly is required. You turn and laugh with your comrades as they know how cool this is. And they hear you below. Still, the sky and the waterfalls (we only saw about 15 that day, there are more during high run off) and the Merced River and El Cap and all that beauty just stun you. Then you go down and move on.

Buffrey Flat, Camp Royaneh, near Cazadero, California. I love Boy Scout camp and Camp Royaneh is it from me. It is the second oldest camp west of Illinois and 5th oldest in the US. OK, so what. Well, it is just 6 miles from the Pacific Ocean yet nestled on a valley hillside in a gentle Redwood forest. There is some old growth stuff there as well as some newer trees. Which is the problem with protected places, there are no new trees. So some day, those places will start to die. Not here, redwoods of every age. Like camp, with people of every age as well.

The flat is in the center of camp in so many ways. All the important stuff, flags, food, admin crap happens just below. Most of the daily instruction happens around on the edge of the flat, sleeping happens above, around and below the flat. There is the camp road nearby as well as the amphitheater, for all the campfire fun. You cannot see the Horse Corral from there but on Gladiator Night, you sure can hear it.

But several times a season, I sit in the stump area and just stop. Stop as dead as I can. I see the trees and sky. I listen to the hustle and bustle of camp. The kids in class or at the pool or buying ice cream from the Trading Post or the cooks getting food ready hours before the people know they need it. I wave at Steve, over in Handyman and promise I will bring more kids to see a master. I listen to the wind pass through the branches and guess when the fog will roll in tonight. And I breathe, deeply and then laugh. Life can be so good.

Club Cascadas, Cabo San Lucas Mexico. This jewel is near the tip of the Mexican peninsula. Our place that we had was at the north end of the Bay. We could see across the cove to Lover’s Beach, the harbor and the main part of town. Each night, we watched the boats come and go and every so often we got on some of them. I found some dolphin bone there. We decided one night to walk the beachfront down and have dinner. It took awhile as we meandered and reflected. The food was glorious. The moment, unforgettable

I proposed to her here. Thank God she said yes to me. I am such a lucky man, to this day.

Fort DeRussy, Honolulu, Hawaii. I have now been to the Hale Koa hotel twice. I will never be back to stay as only my Dad could get us in there. The location is next to the Hilton Hawaiian Village complex on Waikiki Beach, probably no better place on the beach.

The boys went with us on the last trip. When I returned, my boss decided I was an asshole and set about to fire me. Fortunately, that never happened. But it marked the beginning of the end for me at my last job. So the f*** what. I spent it with my wonderful, beautiful wife, my two favorite old men and my Dad, who was spending his last trip to Hawaii with us.

Why does that matter. It was his 51st trip. He had seen it all, done it all, been on 10 islands (ah the general public only gets on 7, do the math). He knew he was dying. He knew this was his last trip and he spent it with us.

We played golf at Kaneohe, my, what a wonderful place, did the tour around the island for the last time and took the sunset cruise, first class. I saw the Southern Cross for the first time. And I saw my Dad’s last best days. You all know how much I miss him. But we went and we laughed and sang, glorious.

Last, the deck in the backyard. Oh sure the view is nothing special but the space is expansive (over 1500 sq ft) and how many good times have happened out here. Our family finally bonded out here. We gardened out here, transforming a space into our space, with mud under our fingernails. We entertain out here, we party out here. It is our family room.

We BBQ, we wait for the bulbs to bloom (hell, we even got the boys to help us plant some bulbs this year), we watch the roses grow and squirrels run along the fence line and up and down the tree. We play cards out here, read the paper and debate what seems important at the time. The sun sets out here and we decide our future. Our dog grew up here and spent her last days out here as well. No week goes by where one of us doesn’t scream out her name, to chase what ever demons seem to ail us, thank you Belle.

There is true peace out here, a space to have guests and show them the walkway to the spa on occasion.

It is safe, a quiet space where we can all just be. Isn’t that what beauty should do.

I’d like to hear about your beautiful spaces, so I can see them in my mind’s eye and feel your joy as well.

The master

2005-01-25T09:52:00.000-08:00

I grew up with Johnny Carson,. I wasn’t his neighbor but watching his show was more profound than watching normal television.

Only last night did I really, really get it.

First off, if you are under age 30, this blog may not ring as true for you as it will for someone over 40. We had more time with Carson and he was magic. Not as in being a magician, because he was that.

No, because of what could happen. The answer there is damn near anything and that is why you watched.

His skit work is legendary, Art Fern, Carnac, that dumb farmer guy he did, the Copper Clapper skit with Jack Webb, the Pepto Bismol skit.

And the monologues were just so right on. Not every night and if he bombed, well he didn’t hide it. I saw the show where he did about 7 jokes, all bad and Ed takes his written script, lights it on fire and puts it in the trashcan. Johnny picks it up, on fire and Doc just starts playing Taps. Johnny slowly puts it down and it goes out as Doc finishes. I laughed out loud for 10 minutes.

But most nights, he hit it and you slept better after Johnny gently but thoroughly took the air out of some windbag that had been on TV that day.

That was Johnny just being in the moment. At that, he was the master. Of course he was great with the animals. And kids and older people, so kind, so gentle. One night Burt Mustin, a really elderly actor came on. I am a nonagenarian they tell me, says Burt, which at my age means everything is a no-no. So Burt tells this great joke that the punch line is , ya gotta keep your worms warm. Well, it destroys the place, Carson timed it later and the laughter went on for 8 minutes, the longest ever on the show. Burt just sat there and listened and looked at Johnny and Johnny just looked right back. For 8 minutes, nothing but facial expression. It was priceless and you couldn’t write it up, it just had to happen.

Johnny let things happen. That is why you watched. Something might happen and if it did, you knew Johnny would work it just perfect.

Like when Ed Ames threw the tomahawk at the cowboy. Ed tried right away to go get that tomahawk, Johnny gently but firmly grabbed Ed’s arm and turned him around to face the audience and then he just waited before the jokes slowly came out.

But no pretense at what he did which makes it all the more amazing. Dave Letterman said last week that Johnny was still sending him jokes. Now Johnny must have given Dave permission to say that as Johnny would normally never want that known. And someone asked Dave which one’s came from Johnny. Dave said, the ones the audience laughed at.

Everybody after Carson are pretenders except maybe, just maybe Jon Stewart. Jon does it so different from Carson but his style is so pure.

Carson was as close to a Zen master as there was on TV.

What was your favorite Carson memory?

Finally some lyrics dedicated to Johnny from Simon and Garfunkel:

Time it was,
and what a time it was, it was
A time of innocence,
a time of confidences

Long ago, it must be,
I have a photograph
Preserve your memories,
they're all that's left you

Older Men

2005-01-24T13:54:00.000-08:00

Ever since I was little, like 5 or 6, I have been fascinated with older men. Men in the late sixties and beyond.

They always seem to me to be heroes. They had some qualities that I thought were fabulous.

They had huge, meaty hands. This happens to men as they get old. But the sight of a really large hand on a screwdriver or a hammer has never left me. He had a tool in his hand and he could manage it. Or take those meaty hands and be delicate with them. Stroke your woman’s hair. Hair you had known for 40 years or more and you still cared for it.

Then pat her ass when she wasn’t looking for it and get a yelp from a grandmother, how glorious is that. Then the small smirk and off to new adventures.

The depth of the voice. Voices deepen over time and the soothing sound of an older man’s voice is intoxicating. There is less panic in it. When an older man says it will be ok, you believe it. Whose voice do you believe, Ronald Reagan or George W Bush. Bush sounds so whiney next to Reagan. The age created a sense of sincerity that was probably true.

There are very few emergencies with older men. There is a calmness that pervades the situation. They offer sage advice, without conditions. They know what they have gained and what they have not gained. There is nothing in it for them, just some counsel. Young men talk of quid pro quo, of paybacks and interest rates. Older men speak of continuance, of furthering, of extension. They realize there are no perfect solutions. That there is good and bad in most things. That there is rarely a crisis, only a situation that will play itself out more slowly and unpredictably than others.

There is a peacefulness in their naps and sleeping that cannot be matched. Their chests rise and fall more slowly, they are not haunted by demons, just the concept of rest and well-being.

I have been blessed to have some terrific old men around me, my Grandfather on my Mom’s side, he was a beaut. One day, after driving 16 hours to see him, my Dad got just a little cocky. I was 7. We all walked in and my Dad said something like “Jack how the hell are you, you old fart”. It was his attempt at humor and being genuine.

Grandpa picked him up by the belt buckle and the shirt collar and pressed straight up. Against the ceiling. So there my dad was, 250 pounds hanging like a wet noodle, my Grandma yelling “John, John, put him down”. Like he had picked up the cat when he shouldn’t have. Trust me, it makes an impression when you look up at your Dad and he is attached to your Grandpa’s mighty mitts.

My uncles are like that now for me. They just left and I now understand they inject me with energy I really need. I am not ready to be them, I cannot be. I have a career to start, money to make, goals to accomplish that seem so important right now. But they aren’t and the uncles know it. And they let me learn it for myself, it is always the best way.

For the last few years, my dad did it as well. There is a song by Bread called Everything I Own. The lead singer wrote it when his father died. His father was about 50 as I recall.

It ends like this:

Is there someone you know,
your loving them so,
but taking them all for granted?
You may lose them one day.
Someone takes them away
and they don't hear the words you long to say.

I would give anything I own,
I'd give up my life, my heart, my home.
I would give everything I own,
just to have you back again;
just to touch you once again.

The older man I learned the most from was my Dad. I learned the genesis of this song just after it came out. Everytime I heard it, it made me cry. It did for 30 years. Because I knew one day I would feel the pain the writer did when his dad died and that I too will die and my kids would also feel that pain.

So as my Dad faded, I told how much I loved him over and over again. I got that chance and I used it. We all did. He died knowing how much love came back to him by what he did as he lived.

And a stranger thing happened. He never said it. But he taught me that he had to go. That it was not worth it to spend all I had to see him once again. We really did touch each other enough. We will be close no matter what happens with future lives or just heaven or whatever you believe is the next state of beingness.

I must now begin to be like those older men I grew up around and some of which I still get to hang around. The time is not now but the mission is laid out. It will take me 20 years to get there. But I have to do it.

I have been shown the grace. I guess it is one of the nobler aspects of being a human.

To end up like that, like my heroes, I would give up everything I own.

Random Thoughts, Jan 21st, 2005

2005-01-21T10:30:00.000-08:00

OK time for another Random Thoughts entry. The rules are: I am either out of fresh big ideas, I feel guilty about blogging enough to write but have not had the time to write a real blog entry, I have many ideas floating and I need to get them out or I will be cursed by demons, or I already am cursed by demons, or these are just fun to write.

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The tsunami thing updated. They have now decided that salt water mixed with rain makes a wonderful breeding ground for mosquitoes, which means disease.

So there is a massive spray campaign underway now. Loyal or occasional readers ( like there is a difference) will note this site ( oh the use of third “person”, hmm not a good sign) said that in the first three days after it hit this would be an issue and get in there with trucks and clean it up.

Oops, too late, now as the monsoon hits, they will be spraying for a year and causing eventual groundwater pollution, nicely done
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So DO NOT BUILD A TSUNAMI WARNING SYSTEM IN THE INDIAN OCEAN. Or at least do it LAST. But they won’t, they’ll do the Indian Ocean first and eventually get it all done. And they will likely be lucky as these big tsunamis happen only once or twice a century, so we likely have the time.

But do try the East Coast of the US, improve the West Coast one, try Japan (hey they had a decent earthquake this week and sent a warning out, what a great idea.)

See, it can be done.
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I admit it, I just love Jon Stewart. He and his team are just so damn funny and right on. They make fun of everyone, all you have to be is an idiot and away we go.

The thought I loved last night was he counted how many times Prez George used Freedom vs Liberty in the Big Speech (the Re-Oathanation I think they called it)

The final score was Freedom 27, Liberty 15. They had just some lame theories on this, so I taking input.

My theory is that Liberty has a lousy defense right now while Freedom is using every offensive weapon they have. Your comments always welcome using the comment button.
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Mr. B (the neighborhood cat) came by again last night. He was waiting for me at the front door when I got home from pool at around 10PM. I ignored him and so he wandered around to the back door and started meowing. So I ignored him again. He treats me with occasional disdain, why should he not get the same treatment? Well, he fixed my wagon, Chris let him in later and right at 6:30, he starts wailing to go out. I am always the one to get up and I swear he winked at me as he exited the premise.

To quote the great Bugs Bunny “You know, of course, this means war”
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Does anyone else like Poker. I am trying to get others involved and maybe my friends think it is too low class or something. I have played it since I was nine and REALLY love both 5 card draw ( gimme a break, it is a great game, Omaha, schmomaha) and 7 card Texas hold ‘em. A relative of mine is trying to get to the big show in Vegas through the online thing. He may just do it. Weird thing too, all the best players are women, anybody got an idea on why that is.

At least my family likes to play although I am not sure what that means either.
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I’ve purchased or received more music CDs in the last 6 weeks than I acquired in the last 3 years. And I like it. I can play them here at the house but never did. Now we do. I had my changer in the car (6 disk) full for the first time ever.

Ok Psych majors, what does it mean?
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Hate sounding like a whiner but crap it rained for like 3 weeks every day and now it is just damn cold outside. It never gets above 50 degrees (hear me out) and gets to about freezing every night. The difference is that we are at 90 % humidity every day. Some days, it stays right at 100% and we live in this dreary fog zone. It appears to be busting today. May not seem so bad but I did stints in Utah and Kansas, I’ve seen some nice cold. Wet cold is like wet heat, it just sucks. There, I’m done, you may flog at will.
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It really is January 21st, 2005. Thank God, I hate Sun in Capricorn, being a Cancer. The world starts spinning my way soon. Not a big fan of when the Sun is in Gemini either, need to work on that but Capricorn is just not good for me.
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To again quote Jon Stewart, hey folks I got nothing else. I’ll go try some Herbie Hancock in the CD thing and some Mark Knopfler. Got to make some horse douvers for a party out tonight, suggestions? I am thinking at least make the Teriyaki Meatballs thing and maybe the stuffed mushroom caps with crab and cheese.

Have a great weekend

Oh yeah, best new blog I found this week

http://cupiespew.blogspot.com

Tools and other gifts

2005-01-20T17:31:00.000-08:00

I love tools. Just the act of using them. There are so many. Curling irons, steam irons, screwdrivers, saws, combs, computers, cars, pens, paper clips, DVDs, CDs, musical instruments, boats, planes, trains, really almost anything in your space is a tool for you.

I’ll name my favorites and why:

Car. Seems obvious but a car is very special to me. I was born with clubbed feet. I can walk ok and not run well but I can locomote with them decently, better than some. But my car can take me anywhere, with equal ease of anyone else. It is the great leveler for me. I can get up and go anywhere, anytime. That freedom means a lot to me.

Comb/brush. I get transformed once I comb my hair. In fact, I use a brush, still plenty of hair. It is a simple act but it defines oneself every morning. It finishes the look. Without it, no look at all, just haggard.

TV. Seems obvious but I can get access to video from anywhere on the planet, in most cases, in real time. That power changes the face of how we relate. Denial of it, or modification of it, divides people.

PC. OK, I can type some letters and meet people globally. Wow. For me, it used to be the phone, that device never makes my top ten list again.

Garden Hose. I can bring water to any area of my yard, plant something and keep it alive, bringing beauty to my space.

Spoon. I can eat almost anything with a spoon. Knives are only occasionally needed but a good spoon can make a fork useless. My wife made sure we have good spoons. Thank you honey.

Deck of cards. I can entertain my self for hours with one. I use one almost every day. My wife might even more engaged with them than I am.

Golf clubs. The first sport I could play where my feet were not a factor in how well I did. Golf does one thing for me. Every time I play, I have to move the ball myself around a 3.5 mile and change distance course. Each time I do, it is like no other time I have done it. My mind must invent what to do and convince my body to carry it out uniquely. If I do it well, it is so graceful.

Camera. I’m weird, I still prefer analog cameras. Guess it is what I am used to.

Tissue. When you gotta blow your nose, nothing else will do.

Can you name your top ten tools, things you use everyday that would make you less happy if they left your space.

I’ll even settle for 3.

Race and The Racing Form

2005-01-19T09:34:00.000-08:00

OK the answer to the question on the last blog entry is “Take Me Home (cause I don’t remember)”. The song lyric referenced is from “Inside Out” In “Take Me Home”, Phil Collins is shown singing all over the world and I think his point is that everywhere is home, we are all humans, he may be more global than most but we are all humans. Or your home is part of a much bigger home. So beautifully shot, the point can get lost.

The boys left yesterday, I cried as they drove away, softly. I know they were choked up too. They are SUCH A FUCKING HANDFUL when they are here. But it is so worth it. Our best outing (oh we went golfing and trips to buy lotto tickets and out to eat and played golf twice with family members and so on), no our best outing by FAR was to the race track, to the ponies (play the trumpet out loud boy like my wife does, ta da dat tad da dat ta dah dat ta dah dahh, you may finish with your own personal flourish and yes this clips easily into an HTML code).

We went to the turf club, had the big lunch, bought the program and the secret to all great pretend bettors, The Racing Form. Yes, the program has odds, yes there are tip sheets available, the newspapers all post their own version of odds and picks but then there is The Racing Form. We opened all and had a panoply, a cornucopia of betting information. More fractions than 4th grade math are in front of us.

I watched the last half of the Ken Burns documentary on Jack Johnson last night, the great prize fighter and how he used his race to his advantage and how it brought him down. I was disgusted. Not for Johnson, although he was somewhat shafted. No because race is so overrated. It just hit me hard. What is race anyway? Is it skin color? No but most people use it that way. Is it where one’s ancestors were born? If so how does one divide that up.

Jerry took to the form like a baby duck to water. Meaning he wanted to swim and get wet but had no idea how to do it and mainly at first, just got wet. Beyer numbers, splits, track conditions, write-ups were overwhelming. The wife just took my word for it, she has her own system and it works for her. In fact, she did better than I did. Jack leaned in on occasion but spent a lot of time saying, “so what are we all doing”. Of course, he hit some very decent pots, so his system works for him.

The exploits of Mr. Johnson made me look at what race is. What is a black person, or Latino, or Pacific Islander. The boys told me when the got back that the people that populated Fiji originally came from Africa. Does that make Vijay Singh a Pacific Islander, a Fijiian, or is he an African? Is he then, more Black as far as race than Tiger Woods, who is half Thai, generally speaking. I am White. I can trace my roots back to at least 1520 in Denmark on some parts of my mom’s side. Some German, some English, some Native American (ok how native are they? I am part Shoshone Indian but they came from Asia, am I part Asian?). But what is white? I know the book answer but what is the real answer?

So Jerry starts asking all kinds of questions. What really means this Beyer number. He and I bond like Indian Blood Brothers. Hell, he even goes and buys his own Racing Form, even though one sits across from him. And he starts to get it. We study each race, we recall whether that day had rain, so Beyers would be lower or if the horse pulled up, so their number is too low that day. We read the splits, we are racing horse machines. The wife of course is doing quite well based on her system of averaging the experts and some intuition. My Dad used the system I use. My Mom went strictly on Names, colors and jockeys, hey it worked for her. Jack has a similar system plus I think he bets based on how confident everyone else is around the table. He likes the long shot as well and it worked that day twice for him. We even all got special T shirts as there was BIG RACE that day.

So how far back does it go. How far ago do you go to decide your race? Am I really Asian because I am part Native American? There are no rules. You have to look around your family and just decide. Very unofficial, unscientific and unwieldy. Now, geneology and DNA studies will eventually figure it all out. But Race is painted with a roller, not the fine paint brush it deserves. I think we have to look at what tribe of people you came from. Yes that makes it more complicated but otherwise we all paint each other based mostly on skin color and not the legacy your heritage brings you.

We left somewhat exhausted but won enough to cover all expenses and have some money left over. Jerry now gets the form, Jack still loves the long shot and the wifey still plays it her own way. We left happy and more bonded than ever.

Maybe there is the hope. It shouldn’t be about your past or if it is, we need better rules about how far back we need to go to decide. Plus the way we classify people is just a lazy way to establish or justify classes of people. As the planet continues to integrate, the system of race will fall apart. I hope it gets to a new space.

Which is the one from the Phil Collins video. Where we all just worry about where home is. Where my uncles can come and visit and just be family, from our tribe. We are all just earthlings. Where one day, the boys can be Maori for a week until the plane lands in Fiji and then they are Fijian for a day and then they are part of our family again.

Of course, that is just a goal. The boys taught me more than the facts of history, they showed me a lesson I can use in the future, more relevant than any Racing Form. They’ll be back in July, class starts around the 21st, you are, of course, invited to attend.

In the meantime, sing along with Phil….

Take that look of worry
I'm an ordinary man
They don't tell me nothing
So I find out what I can
There's a fire that's been burning
Right outside my door
I can't see but I feel it
And it helps to keep me warm
So I, I don't mind
No I, I don't mind

Seems so long I've been waiting
Still don't know what for
There's no point escaping
I don't worry anymore
I can't come out to find you
I don't like to go outside
They can't turn off my feelings
Like they're turning off a light
But I, I don't mind
No I, I don't mind
Oh I, I don't mind
No I, I don't mind

So take, take me home
Cos I don't remember
Take, take me home
Cos I don't remember
Take, take me home
Cos I don't remember
Take, take me home, oh lord
Cos I've been a prisoner all my life
And I can say to you

Take that look of worry, mine's an ordinary life
Working when it's daylight
And sleeping when it's nightI
've got no far horizons
I don't wish upon a star
They don't think that I listen
Oh but I know who they are
And I, I don't mind
No I, I don't mind
Oh I, I don't mind
No I, I don't mind

So take, take me home
Cos I don't remember
Take, take me home
Cos I don't remember
Take, take me home
Cos I don't remember
Take, take me home, oh lord
Well I've been a prisoner all my life
And I can say to you

But I don't remember
Take, take me home...

hold on, hold on

2005-01-14T09:01:00.000-08:00

Some of you have been coming by. I promise I will post before Monday. I have probably two posts coming. One called tools and one update on the tsunami thing.

The boys are in town and are taking a wonderful portion of my time. That is a good thing. I love them tremendously.

Come back no later than 8am Monday.

and as a quiz, name the song on the Phil Collins CD that follows

" Hold On, Hold On"

Hint, the video includes scenes of Australia ( see the connection to the Boys)

Random Thoughts, Jan 10th, 2005

2005-01-10T09:39:00.000-08:00

My brain has been a bit disfunctional the last few days. Other body parts seemed to want to follow along. So rather that make a feeble attempt at one of those poetic blogs ( they are my favorite, kind of like the Sunday Herb Caen Columns at the SF Chronicle.)

Of course, some others tell me different, so I am just the writer and you are the reader, at least for here.

I’ll keep my end of the bargain. If you want to do your part, scroll down.
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The tsunami thing still bothers me. Because a lot of seemingly knowledgeable people are proving how stupid they are. I saw an article on CNN.com that said something to the effect that earthquakes are changing the maps of the world ever so slowly, this one more than most.

Oh really, who made you the Science guy at CNN.com. Not only are you a genius for telling us that, but your management is brilliant for letting you clue us in on that factoid.
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There is a former anchor on the local news ( I won’t tell you his name except he aNOYES me, locals may get the reference). He was on during the big SF earthquake out here and his copy people could not hand him stuff fast enough and he had to wing it. He was lost, clueless. He now does much less important stuff. But watch your news channels during unexpected, unscripted events and see who does the best.

I think you want your news from them. They probably read the normal drivel before air and actually make suggestions. I would mention a national anchor but it wouldn’t fair to Dan Rather if I did.
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How come working a thermostat has to be so hard. I spent like 90 bucks on one a few years ago and it was the best they made. I have to switch between cool and heat.

Now I can have 42 daily temp cycles on each. But I have to tell it, shit man it is hot today, I know it is only February, but it is hot, please cool the house.

I want one with a brain that I tell it I want it 69 degrees inside and IT figures it out.

While I am at it, my sprinklers should not run while it is raining, that seems easy too.

Please no comments on this one. Some day I’ll drag myself to the Home Depot and have Homer T dimwit point me somewhere. Of course, that is how I got to where I am now.
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I’ve decided Life in NOT a Cabaret my friends.

It seems to be more of an Opera with me in the audience. There is lots of screaming and bad dancing and loud singing. And Drama, way too much ridiculous drama. TV News is no longer news, it is Opera without the cool costumes. Working nowadays seems to be way too dramatic.

About the only thing I think is just as cool or cooler is Cartoons. Pixar gives Warner Brothers a real run for the money. Can you imagine Bugs facing off against Donkey from Shrek. I would make that a pay per view event.
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The Boys are back in Town, Part Deux. The Uncles arrive tomorrow from the big trip. That means we need a new plan on food and menus. No idea what shape they will be in when they get here, they are coming in from Fiji, I suspect some serious time zone issues will befall them. Of course the weather people say that our rain torrent will stop tomorrow just about 2 hours before they touch down.

I don’t know whether to tell them how lucky they were or just thank them for coming back.
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I need a job. This week, I will really start working hard to get a job. Not sure I actually know how to do that, it has been 22 years. But I need to shave every day, get up on time, get dressed and get going. I was a fun time but time to get serious. I’ll still blog and read blogs, just less TV, less sleeping in.
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Plus I need a new adventure, I will be learning SO MUCH no matter what I do now. Time to get cracking on that. I know that sounds easy but I am confident I can get a job in a month or so, maybe 45 days. It may take a 2-3 days to really get into it but here we go.
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Did I mention the tsunami thing bothers me. OK.
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We need better technology on CDs. They scratch too much. I know they spin at 10 million RPM on the little plastic tray they sit in but they seem to scratch more easily now than say 4 years ago

I understand you can buy a spray that fills them in, that seems silly. Must be a better way. I will accept comments on this one.
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I heard a new phrase. I love it and will use it. I am an avid Indoorsman.

Ok I really am not. I go camping and play golf. But I also play pool which is an indoor sport unless you are Drew Carey. So maybe I am an Indoor/Ourdoorsman.

My Dad was a true Indoorsman. He had 3 VCRs, the Direct TV, the Tivo. He even had a remote for his ceiling fan. He did play some golf. But his passion was working those remotes.
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It seems the phrase Honey Do list is outdated. The rules are simple, female makes list of things to do, gives to male partner, grumbling ensues. Male may have own list but female could care less unless they agree, this is quite rare I believe.

Time passes, female calls male on why list is not done, explanations are given, some accepted, list may be revised at this point but usually through the process of addition of new items. Repeat until dead.

I really think it is a genetic thing . Women do not get many Honey Do lists. Men do not circle back like raptors on whether the list is done.

Maybe we call them Hubby Do lists. Entries are welcome. But Honey Do infers equality and this process is just a bit one sided. Not that I am bitter.
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Thanks I feel better, hope you do also.

The price of freedom

2005-01-06T15:07:00.000-08:00

Boy, those are immortal words. We all know the quote Kennedy made.

But really what is the price of freedom. And therefore what is freedom itself.

I’ll speak for me. I have a wonderful wife, the best God can make, and she treats me as well as I deserve. My youngest son has a wonderful girlfriend. My eldest is finding his own way, my only daughter is married but is in charge of her own life.

Freedom is a pursuit. There are no chains on it. Just because I have a wife does not make me less free, or more free.

Freedom allows the ability to go find new truths. To express them and to seek them.

I read lots of blogs now, maybe 30 a day. Karen, Seven, Foxy, Steverino, Jagyd, Inky, J, Jane, Sophmom ( despite her lack of posting), Chloe, Monkey and many others. Some of these people have put me on their sidebar as a place to visit. These are all good ones.

I read others as well and many appear to be crap. They are self-serving or designed to promote an agenda or a career. So sad.

The price of freedom is personal. It means one must be true to one’s self. That what one says and does reflects true values of one’s nature.

If one is true to those things, openings happen.

No country is really free, freedom is a compilation of individual freedoms. I rail against the words of others but Freedom is a bottoms up issue.

Where will yours come from? From where you least expect it. For me, from my home. I have no job, so not there anymore. But then, I have connections from my previous job that I know makes me more fulfilled.

So maybe I should state from my past. I have paid for freedom. I did not serve in the military, my dad did though. I had two uncles that did and some cousins.

My freedom comes from writing as well as from living. I have this weakness. I actually care. I send that message out to folks and it comes back. In a comment section on my blog, at a scout meeting, at pool, when my son tries to wrestle my ass into the ground with this ridiculously fake grimace on his face. Of course, I have to scream “No Joy” (see Top Gun) and concede. But my concession is a win. He knows it, too. Talk about happiness.

It is true, one needs to give to get back.

Consequences is just part of a town name in New Mexico.

So, go ahead, ignore the result. The more you do, the better it gets.

Is that what you hear other places, of course not. But if you believed that, you won’t be looking here now would you?

Give

Send

Believe

It returns to you.

Stop looking for answers.

Start sending them.

70% of compassion requires a compass

2005-01-04T11:55:00.000-08:00

My oldest son has had a wayward life. He has sought his own path and made some choices that were less than ideal. Oh so one would say. Until you spoke to his brother.

My wife’s friend Cindy is occasionally difficult as well, at least for me. She and I are currently not as close as we should be. We are staring at each other. Someone needs to make the first move. It will be me. That starts with this blog.

The tsunami thing is just horrible. I need to do something. I need to do more than have Trish tell GE to kick in $50 because we did. Compassion is not effective without action. Compassion is empathy in action. So what do we do? What do I do?

I had a great chat with Chris last week. We spoke a lot about my other son Mike. My wife wanted details, she wanted a read out and she wanted a plan. I was instructed to keep quiet and listen. But I had to engage him to get more detail. The more I got, the more impressed I became.

Cindy can be very dominant. She did piss me off big time. So much so, we barely speak now. But she is doing a wonderful thing and down deep, she is a wonderful person. I need to find a way to get through the mess in place. She is donating one of her kidneys to her sister. Her sister is a tough nut as well. Cindy makes me ask many questions, like would I donate my kidney to my brother? Do I have that much compassion?

Things are moving in Asia. Helicopters are ferrying suppliers, clean water facilities are being brought in. The EU wants to set up a task force that has all this stuff ready to go to move it in and shorten the cycle from a week to 48 hours as far as survival systems being in place. One would think FEMA or the Red Cross/Red Crescent had this. They actually do not and have not announced plans they intend to do this. Bizarre.

So Chris just talks away. He tells me where Mike is and how Chris thinks Mike is working through his issues and that Mike needs to solve them thoroughly, not quickly. It is obvious Chris talks to Mike a bit, monitors the situation and lends whatever assistance he can. But he wants his brother to solve his issues as well.

Cindy lost more than 50 pounds to have this surgery. It took a year I think. She took scads of tests. She talked to her sister many times to make sure this is what she wanted. The surgery is in like a week now. The time is getting close. Cindy will not blink. If anything, when she makes up her mind, it cannot be changed. Her sister is lucky to have her.

So the relief issue will get squared away in a week or so. One needs only to know where to send it. One sends it where the people are still alive, not where they are dead, at least for now. That shifts over time. I think this time, the momentum will be such that we will rebuild completely where we can in less than 2 years and most places in 6 months. This disaster galvanized people globally. It will not be the last but years from now, we may view it as a turning point.

Chris really cares for his brother. I won’t characterize for you. He just does. He acts softly. He respects his brother for his challenges and the path he has taken. He has to balance his actions very carefully and he does. But he is in the game. He is not an observer, he is a participant.

Cindy is in a different space. She has to commit in a different way. But there is no hesitation. Her commitment will change her physically, mentally, emotionally, permanently. I did a project around organ transplant software. I saw the flames but I never had to jump in and save someone.

The tsunami thing will change some governments. They will need to become more responsive to the people. I hope ours does too. We should already have a strike force that can be ramped up for any emergency. We have too many disasters in the US for that not to be in place.

Instead, we depend on a hodgepodge of public and private agencies to start over fresh on each emergency. It is like solving a puzzle without a box lid. Oh, just send cash to someone and it will all work out. Here, we even have two former Presidents this time ( does it take just 50 thousand dead to get one former President on the job) and send money to any of these groups and we will figure it out as we go, again. Like we did in Florida. We had 4 hurricanes in 2 months and EACH TIME, we dealt with it like it was the first time. Who helped more, who was more organized, FEMA or Home Depot. That we have to ask says our government lets us down.

Chris will continue to monitor his brother, to be a support person and provide respect. I couldn’t be prouder of him. He is in the game and doing so in a noble way.

Cindy is in even deeper. But if she plans to play, she has to be. And she is. I admire her commitment, not sure I have it myself.

So how do we stop the nonsense on aid relief. We need our government to have a hit team that can coordinate relief every time no matter where it is. They need supplies on hand to ship in 6 hours or less. They ask us to have “earthquake kits” that would tide us over for 3 days but FEMA does not have one on hand. They have to go make one each and every time. That seems ludicrous. We need the navy to ferry in supplies. One would think that we had that already and it was ready to go.

No, we send in the Governor of the state that represents that pinnacle of our lack of expertise as one of our spokesmodels. The other guy, Mr. Powell, is perfect except he will no longer have any authority as Secretary of State in a month and will leave government altogether. Why not send someone in who either has a mandate at the Federal level or a lifespan of public service of more than 30 days. Because we really aren’t serious about the subject. Edward R. Murrow once said the slightly obscure we see right away, the painfully obvious takes us awhile.

Countries around the world must laugh at us. We ship money at the problem, not expertise, planning or resources already prepared ahead of time. Even the Boys Scouts know this, hell, it's their motto.

Compassion is more than recognizing that a problem exists and reacting. It requires analysis and a plan that is carried out, before it is actually needed. It requires a moral pledge.

I think my commitment is to speak out and rally around getting us to do what the EU is doing, a ready team to act in emergencies. If it works for Rumsfeld, one would think it works for other kinds of disasters. He wants to make our armed services more like Special Ops and less like a normal configuration, which is the right idea everyone, he gets full marks from me on that one. Of course, he fights now a war in Iraq where Special Ops is useless but I digress.

Thank you Chris. Thank you Cindy.

George, we have work to do, send Jeb home and let’s solve the problem long term. You want a legacy, here is a golden opportunity to do something other than line the wallets of your friends with cash. Why not have Chaney head a task force on this subject, he did so well on energy policy, gas prices have gone up 40 cents a gallon. At least, he’ll be around, we just may never be told exactly where.

Too bad Cindy and Chris couldn’t be enlisted to solve the problem. I trust their judgment based on their actions instead of their words or their wallets. That is where compassion lies.

Random Thoughts, Jan 3rd, 2005

2005-01-03T10:50:00.000-08:00

When you decide to write a blog, you get ideas that bombard your head. You cannot help it. Some become wonderful entries. At least, some people have told me so in the comments section or by other ways.

Some entries, are well, just entries, they clear the mind, and we all move on. Some things are not worthy of a full blog. There is not enough depth or passion from the writer or time but they hang around and require the brain to be cleansed.

My brain needs such a cleansing.

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The tsunami thing bothers me. Not the stories. No, the responses from the governments. No one talks about how they blew it initially. Now they want to make an Indian Ocean Tsunami warning system. Sure but you had the tools at the time. Could you save Aceh province, no and if this happens again, you won’t then either. But we could have saved massive death in India, Thailand and Sri Lanka. We have 3 to five hours, we had the data, we had the background, we blinked. Blinking cost the lives of 60 thousand souls.
So DO NOT BUILD A TSUNAMI WARNING SYSTEM IN THE INDIAN OCEAN.

Morons, come on, no earthquake powerful enough to do that again will not hit for 500 years AT LEAST in that area. How about we protect the Philippines, Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong, Shanghai, LA, Lisbon and a few others. Tokyo is seemingly overdue for another major quake. It will happen before 2100 AD. A tsunami will come from it. Understand that these size tsunamis happen 2 to three times a century on the globe, at best. An Indian Ocean solution now is stupid. A reflection from cowards and “accountant” types in government. THE LAST PLACE WE NEED SUCH A SOLUTION IS WHERE IT JUST HAPPENED.

It will happen again in 30 to 50 years, just not where it just did. Connect the planet on earthquakes, build the warning system but do not start the system in the Indian Ocean.
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Ok everyone is making New Years Lists. So I will make one, places I want to visit because I lived there in a previous life

5. China, 22 lives, 4 thousand years ago. I was poor. Oh well
4. Japan. 27 lives, my wife was a samurai a few times. It is just so damned expensive.
3. Hawaii. Ok, this one is weird even to me. My daughter knew King Kam the first on the Big Island, for real. I did not. I lived on Oahu. I know it sucks for so many people but I FEEL the energy there. I recharge there. My wife did not. She wants to try Maui and Kauai. Cool. As long as I get a few days in Oahu, I’m good.
2. Northern Europe. Ok a cheating entry. My wife needs to do Norway and Sweden. England is a place for me and France/Germany where I did 2 of my past three lifetimes. We can do a real tour. There are artifacts we must see there, that is all you get to know.
1. Egypt. OK EVERYONE wants to do this. But I must go. I was, in just one of my lives there, a temple carver. My carvings still exist. I need to see them. Many of my friends have issues there too. We are circling the wagons to arrange a trip in about 18 months. We will not return the same.
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I admit it, I need a job. I have spent this off time screwing off some. But the worm has turned. I cannot do this for much longer. I will turn up the heat on a new job this week and start the interview process now. I have had a job since I was nine, my first “vacation day” was when I was 18. I have never taken more than 14 days off in a row until now. But I need the pattern, so bear with me.
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PLACES I WILL NEVER VISIT, EVEN THOUGH I LIVED THERE, PROBABLY

5. Hungary. I spawned two of my current three kids there, was dumped and was starved out by my first wife. I’ll pass.
4. Peru. I did some time there but the air is too thin, the connection too weak.
3. Columbia, some really early lifetimes and such a safe place now.
2. South Dakota. Wifey and I died there, we have met 4 people who lived with us or around us. I have connected with one blogger ( she is a Cancer as well) from there now we probably knew each other then. I am connected enough with that energy
1. Nepal. Been there in a life, seems boring now.
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I have not smoked for 6 months. For real, I can never smoke again. It will kill me. That was sobering but I got it. Have I wanted them, sure as hell I did. I have wanted them but haven’t had one. Speaking of sobering, I need to drink less. That seems to be starting. It will take all of this year, but I need to. I’ll get there, just not this week.
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I promise to blog three times a week. I only promise to make one really good. I promise to rarely blog like this. I am working on one now, on compassion. The really good ones have to float around awhile and get help from above. I am not a great writer, I get help. My only skill is I get out of my own way. I need to do more of that.
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It really is January 3rd, 2005.
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The people of the world are really kicking in to help the tsunami victums. It always amazes governments when this happens. It should not. Governments really are of the people, by the people, for the people.

If they really are like that, they will always lag the real world. That is actually comforting. Donate something, make the stooges respond.
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I love the Andy Griffith Show. Opey is huge now, Auny Bea the sweetest. I just never figured out when Barney really needed a bullet. Thelma Lou, oh please, Helen was it. Sorry, Ginger and Mary Ann.
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That’s it for now. The boys return next week, the interview process starts this week, the Scout thing will kick in again soon, the downstairs heater seems to be broken, I need to drive the boys car again soon, all my Xmas crap is put away, my anti-birthday is next week.

Oh yeah. I spent some time in the last two weeks REALLY looking at blogs. The diversity is wonderful. Karen, Seven, Jagyd, the lilvixen, inky, monkey have helped me to open up.

Thank you

Happy New Year

2005-01-01T09:45:00.000-08:00

I just absolutely hate New Years Eve. The countdown thing is ridiculous. The networks have even tried to stop pretending Times Square is 2 blocks down from the first Golden Gate bridge exit. But they still show NY, 3 hours earlier going nuts to get us to go nuts.

But New Years Eve is Amateur Night. Most celebrations are so pathetic.

Last night a neighbor on my court decided Fireworks were in order, some legal on 4th of July here, some not. They started off with the VERY illegal bottle rockets. One hit my car. Oh, I went a bit ballistic. I stomped up the street and got in their face. Their oldest son, so smug it made me livid, tried to hand me a sparkler. As bottle rockets careened from their backyard towards my street, he laughed in my face.

He tried to tell me to go home old man, too much champagne and all that. I threatened the police and all that. But I backed away when the bottle rockets stopped (oh those, they must be coming from somebody else’s house, we won’t do those as he hands me a sparkler and no one for three blocks has fireworks)

I went up stairs, my wife tried to talk me off the ledge and about 30 minutes later, they started again.

I went outside, saw them throwing some “safe and sane” stuff into the air and onto the street.

I stormed up to them and made a scene. They kindly pushed down their driveway. One they got me to the street, they tried to push me some more. Oh no, public thoroughfare, big mistake. But I caved in. They are, in fact, amateurs in the real world.

Oh don’t ruin your party, oh don’t ruin my car.

New Years Eve, I hate it.

New Years Day is always completely different. It starts on my coast with the Rose Parade. Now, if you have never actually seen it and smelled it, no comments. I have seen the Macy’s Balloons and they are stupid. Come on the “parade” ends at the NY Macy’s store (oh how nice Howard, let’s start shopping now, right here). Old RH designed it to make people remember Macy’s during the Xmas season. You want to pin the tail on commercialism during Xmas, Macy’s is my first choice.

No, the Rose Parade is cooler than they say. My wife has tried to tell me since I met her how cool it is. My mom was in it, on a float, in a cool gown, doing the “wave”. They teach you. Not to be cool but because 3 hours of waving screws up your hand.

No I learned because one year we went to LA and saw the floats, and smelled them. It is incredible, unbelievable. The detail is just not to be believed.

Even the small floats (my wife lived in South Pasadena, a real city, and her city competed against other cities, like Hawthorne and Covina for their own level of prizes. She says her city never won but my god, even those floats are so gorgeous.)

When my mom rode the float, her float designer was the second best in the nation. They started in February with drawings, and they spent the whole year designing. They took pictures of my Mom in August just to make some renderings look authentic. This is common.

My mom’s float won nothing but what a parade just to get the thing in the parade.

Trishy, the wifey, the spousal unit, used to be one of those decorator types that placed and glued all the petals on the floats. She tells me the best part is when the flower trucks arrived and opened up and the smells of MILLIONS of flowers poured out into the warehouse.

Really, honest, I laughed too, come on, millions, no really millions, oh bejesus trishey, millions, no husband, millions and millions and the smell filled the space and it was like drinking the best wine, you know how those buttheads say this one has chocolate and that one has almond, no it really had 10 thousand mum stems and 250 thousand rose stems and fresh flax seed and fresh orange blooms and…..

I always played along until I smelled it myself, one day, in the open.

She was right.

Dammit.

Smelling all that 2 days before must be incredible.

Oh sure, the float designs are REALLY cool, and there are horses and marching bands. Every parade has that. No, you can determine what is on each float with your nose as you stroll beside them. True, freaky. Wonderful.

I guess New Years Day means Hope and Beauty to me now. Oh sure, the world will kill the smell in a month or two. But the memory lasts.

I used to hate New Years, and like last night, New Years Eve, it just reinforced what I hate about it, amateurs acting like buttheads.

But the Parade is on now, the real one, the only one. I need to go.

Go out and smell things today. Surround yourself with beauty, so much so, you embarrass your friends.

The new year, the world in fact, is filled with beauty, and filled with grace. My mom showed that, my wife showed me that. My neighbors did not.

I have been shown the world had 5 full senses. They showed me beauty could turn a corner on Colorado Blvd and smack you right in the face. Beauty and Grace were not just names for children but actual events in the real world.

I guess this day should be for them. They tamed me on this day. I am forever grateful.

Oops, please hold, I am watching the winner of the Sweepstakes trophy. It is wonderful. The smell is, only to be imagined. I wish I was there, you should too.

Inhale, imagine all your senses overwhelmed with beauty and grace. Just once.

Aahhhhhhh. Much better.

Thank you Marie, thank you Trish.

Happy New Year

Traces

2004-12-30T10:30:00.000-08:00

It is a rainy day today, has been for 4 days now.

That usually gets me to thinking about the past and the future. Not that the present is gloomy. Not every day is a disaster, not every day is ahead warp 9, engage.

I think about what was where I am now, many years ago. There was a small spring about a mile from my house, next to the Petco (how ironic, a natural fire hydrant next to the dog food store). Early settlers found it, used it and decided to build a town around it. There are still relics of that town, the cemetery, the general store and lots of pictures.

I have actually taken time (thank you Virginia Bennett, may you rest in peace) to trace out where stuff was. Green’s store was over here, the big farmhouse of x person was over there. Hmm, that makes sense, on a small knoll, good view, level ground, can watch his herd.

Now of course, houses get dropped on the terrain like the world’s largest monopoly game, with the occasional hotel sprinkled in (there is no Park Place or Boardwalk where I live, mostly properties from St. James Place to North Carolina Ave. We probably live on Illinois Ave).

There is no real plan, nothing that makes logistical sense, just house after house and streets that curve to the left or right because the planners or architects had too much or too little coffee. Our forefathers and foremothers had way more sense than we give them credit for. They were true explorers, we were merely gap fillers.

I think about where I grew up. It is not remotely close to the same now. I used to drag cardboard boxes to the fields every April. The city had build streets but that was all. The rains of winter had created a new landscape every year. New terrain, new battles to be fought. So we would build forts out of cardboard and fight titanic battles. Sometimes there would be as many as 20 of us, crossing these new, empty thoroughfares with impunity, oblivious to the progress in our midst. I was conquering worlds. Now there is a Safeway, a Honda dealer (where I bought my first new car. They had placed it in the showroom, a Civic. They placed it right where I had my back fort, the last line of defense. Does anyone believe in omens anymore?), the Target store, the Toys R Us and so on.

But I still see those forts and battlefields. They are still there and Kurt, Dave, Tom, Kevin, Mark, Derrick, Rob, Jim, and Tim must surely see them also.

I still see the school buses going down the street in the mist, while I walked because it was good for me. Maybe it was.

I can name the complete history of most buildings in town ( oh yes, that is Big and Tall now but was originally a steak house, the Burger Pit, Dennis James was their spokesperson, nice guy, then a pizza place, then a office space for some reason, then a clothing store..).

My kids and wife have left traces too. I still see where my wife and I first lived together, where our kids went to school. When we lived at the condo and Chris cracked his skull open. I cannot drive that highway without thinking about that ambulance ride. When the driver said ‘”Sir we are going to do code 2, meaning lights but not maximum speed, safer for your son”. And I looked at Chris and said, I always knew you would have bright lights in your future.

And our new place. I still see Belle patrolling the fences for errant squirrels. I occasionally open the new slider and yell out “Belly, squirrel” and imagine her darting into the yard in the heat of battle. Occasionally someone hears me and they ask me why. I have no good answers except I love the traces of the past. She had her own forts I guess.

Every so often we all go to a common place, like Mt Diablo or Las Trampas. I see raccoons and Boy Scout trips and offspring climbing rocks. Trish maybe sees a spot where she bonded with the kids and created pictures and memories that will never fade with age. Chris sees black and white photo wonderlands and some of his best work.

That is maybe the best part about traces, the places where I built my forts, a few years later, were the empty fields my wife knew meant she was close to getting to her family’s house on her drive home from college, and a few years after that is where we go to save 3 cents a gallon on gas.

It is a tapestry deployed over the years by time, space and experience.

So I look out today and see a rising mist, a day where Paul and I could have played golf, probably should have. We are aging cowards, losing the cardboard courage of our youth.

I plan to go to some places today and think about two things.

First, to seek again the traces of the past, mine and others. Those memories must be held, so others can see them and reflect, even if I am the only storyteller. I do not believe that. I think we all do this, each in our own way. It is a human trait, perhaps one of the noblest things we do.

I also plan to scan the space for the future. For what matters tomorrow is a result of what we believe in today. Nothing is wasted. There really is nothing we can call a vacumn, There is no true emptiness, we will always find particles later that we missed, just too small to notice at the time.

No, the future is a wave of momentum, not a discreet event. One cannot always tell where the wave is headed exactly. No one projects with certainty and that is what keeps us alive and vibrant. We all laugh at stock prognosticators, economists, politicians and weathermen. They all tell us of the future with degrees of certainty. But life is like a game of poker, nothing is certain, we place our bets, turn them over and see what we got.

We used to play cards in those forts, waiting for the attacks. We played draw poker then, that was the man’s game. I think I will go look at new Hondas, buy some cigs, save three cents on gas and scan the horizon for clues.

None will be there, of course, such is the nature of things.

But in the meantime, I'll take three cards, oh you have a good hand, well I call, Tom, what do you have.

Read ‘em and weep my friend.

Tsunami, what went wrong, what do we do from here.

2004-12-29T18:02:00.000-08:00

So I surf the net about 10:30 pm Sunday night. Comcast tells me that a major earthquake hits off the Sumatra coast 5 hours earlier or so. It is Richter magnitude 8.5 per the coordinated guesses of experts (LBL, Cal Tech, USGS, NEIC) and was some 60 miles off shore.

The FIRST WORDS OUT OF MY MOUTH ARE :

HOLY SHIT, WE HAVE A MAJOR TSUNAMI ISSUE HERE, I HOPE SOMEBODY SENT THE WORD OUT.

The word never had gone out. Of course at that moment, Somalia and Kenya had 7 HOURS until it hit them but they were never told either. Sri Lanka had just been hit, India was getting smacked.

See I have taken some earthquake classes. Enough where, had I taken a Science major, my minor would have been Geology, all in Earthquake Geology. But all of it was undergrad. There are much more informed people in Tsunamis and Earthquakes out there. But anyone in the field KNOWS, earthquake off shore, over magnitude 7, you have a tsunami issue. Over magnitude 8, you have a big issue, at Richter 8.5, you have a certain issue.

Now, did we know where. No. It is only somewhat like throwing a stone in a pond. Tsunamis head in discreet directions. Notice nothing went to Australia, which was much closer than Africa. I read some USGS comments that said they had to wait 6 hours to watch the aftershock trail to determine the tsunami direction. I was stunned. Tsunamis can move as fast as 650 MPH, no one has that much time.

It was at best a cowards answer. I still shake my head at that. They should have sent word out immediately on their site and to respective departments of the Interior saying there MAY BE AN ISSUE.

Yes, too often USGS has cried wolf and been wrong. These things are tricky but they said nothing. Just a word, just a warning, hey Sri Lanka, maybe something hits you between 10pm and 11:30 pm PST, watch out. The timing is predictable, just not the size of the wave.

Certainly thousands could have been saved. Not in Sumatra, they had a wave hit them 20 minutes after the quake. Me, had I felt the damn quake, I would have moved away but here is problem 2.

This was a thrust fault, not strike-slip. Meaning the movement has a vertical component. The media correlates length of sway with strength. Ooops. In the US, that makes some sense as most big faults are strike-slip and the logic holds. Thrust faults move quickly and violently (see the 1971 Sylmar quake) and are done.

So any motions, except right nearby would have been done in 20 seconds or so. Most of Thailand probably never felt it.

But that is the deception. Underwater thrust faults cause the worst tsunamis. Each whole number of Richter magnitude causes a ten fold increase in ground movement but a 30 fold increase in energy release. It is a logarithmic scale.

So the delta between Richter 8 and 9 is 10 times movement but 30 times energy. An initial 8.5 reading (available within 30 minutes from MANY sources as well as location) ON A THRUST FAULT (they knew it was thrust) UNDERWATER meant tsunami. Period.

That energy had to go somewhere.

That is the first big question, why did no one say anything when the data was all there. I knew it immediately. Trajedy number 1.

Number 2, mass burials, not required right away. Some places are taking bodies are finger printing them and taking a picture. There is some disagreement here. The bodies can stay out as long as a week. They will stink but not cause Cholera. Slow down.

Number 3, standing water,that will cause cholera. That needs to get cleaned up right away. Also, eventually, mosquitoes which can bring malaria and other fun things.

Number 4, Sewage treatment, need right away. Temp facilities can be flown in, that should be done.

5. Fresh water, we have plenty of that, that was learned from Kobe earthquake. Well done, one out of five ain’t bad.

OK shelter in a few days, food within a week, electricity within 2 weeks and you are back to being alive. Getting schools open is a good thing to aim for.

The good news is that most of the areas hit will only be damaged with a few hundreds yards of shore, Sumatra got it bad, small areas of Thailand as well.

We also won’t see anything like this, in that area in our lifetime, probably for at least 500 years or more.

But there will be other tsunamis from 9.0 Earthquakes, probably at least two in this century. Just no one can tell you where until it happens, Tokyo, Singapore, Peru?

And there is the real problem, these things, this big, are too infrequent to plan well for.

The best plan really is get the word out the minute we recognize we have a great quake and prepare the entire area. You can not stop them or shape them, just react to them.

If only we had done that much.

hab youseth a berry wittle kwismuss

2004-12-24T10:07:00.000-08:00

Well, the boys are gone, so back to old habits. I shopped like a madman yesterday, bought everything on all my lists that I was lacking, wrapped all but one and had it under the tree before the wifey got home, major shit.

Of course I had been telling everyone who cared to listen it would happen that way, mercury retrograde and all now behind. Still, I got grumpy about it with wifey, sorry hun. My ego needs to work that out still.

But Christmas is upon us and this year it is weird. 2 kids are out and they get nothing. One is left and he gets too much probably. It just feels a bit vacant this year.

I know, I know, in 10 years, grandkids will be here and it will be so different but I decided to think about what Christmas means to me this year and why I am grateful to be here but a funny story or two may help.

First, Mr. B. the sorta, kinda, lives here cat came in again yesterday. He usually shows his whiskers at the door by 2 pm. Then later at night. He was confused when he came in Wednesday night. I petted him. He loved it. He wandered around and got his bonks from the assembled and laid down. After a few, he got up and made a strange cry out noise. My wife asked him about it and he ignored her. I called him over and calmed him with a noise of my own. I realized I had just spoken cat. He wanted to be touched, be close to someone and that was the nature of his call.

It harkened me back to each raising of each infant. As a parent, you have no idea why they cry at first, probably neither do they but you LEARN their noises and sounds. After a few years, it becomes words. But at first, it is most dismaying to decipher. But you trudge onward. I had deciphered a cat wail and acting rightly. B wanted affection is all, to be surrounded by a loved one. Chris is still way ahead on this cat speech but I am closing.

So yesterday, I pop the “mouth guards in which oh just so happen to happen to be able to house peroxide bleaching agents inside” and go to shop, phase 2. I need gas, thanks Mit, and I stop at the Shell station. I need to leave in the trays, err mouthguards, in for 30 minutes.

I start the ritual and stare blandly into space when a voice cries out. “Does anyone know how to get to UPS from here” I ignore. “The company 800 number said take this exit but I am lost.”

Now there are 7 people besides me there, no one speaks. The man is older, maybe 55, graying temples, very well off. He was in no immediately pain of life, he just wanted his damn presents from UPS.

I decide, fuc*, this is Xmas, I have to act EXCEPT I have the trays in and as readers know, they warp speech, so forgive me if the translations are not accurate as far as spelling. (his speech will be in quotes)

Yeth sur, you vant UPTH? I quickly realize this sucks and turn my back to him, hoping he considered me at worst, disadvantaged.

“Yeah, I am looking for Canyon Drive and UPS said take this exit.”

Oth no, youth need to phind the Hom Depots.

“where is that?”

Oh I need to gesture now, back still turned. We are adventurers, Vikings, each sailing ships, Portuguese sailors looking for the Cape of Good Hope sailing ugly looking vessels disguised in Brown colors . Call me Vasco De Santa with a peroxide foam moustache.

Oh UPTH is OVER PHER ( pointing vaguely northwest, out to sea, lift your anchor and venture onward).

“ So I take San Ramon Valley Blvd, then what?”

Fine, fair question as**ole, ask precise directions, grill the slurring cartographer who was willing to engage you.

Goth to Kwo Canyun, maybe sikth wights, turn weft and yook for Canyun Drife

Elmer Fudd would never have been prouder but crap people I need to brighten my teeth here.

“thanks, San Ramon to Crow Canyon, turn left, Canyon Drive is on the right. "

He is so proud that he has conquered direction over diction.

Yeth and wook phor the bawown tucks, can’t mith it.

He was happy. He got directions from the local yahoo. I did the right thing.
I finished my shopping and had another epiphany.

Christmas is about being unselfish. It is about connecting in new ways to people. Those connections may fade and new ones arise.

It is not about keeping score, and who gets how much. It is about completely letting your guard down and bonding. I did that better with a cat than a fellow human. So I have room to grow.

But the lesson can be applied and I will start on that today.

Honeth.

Merwy Kwismuss

I am a wanderer

2004-12-23T09:58:00.000-08:00

I became interested in Astronomy many years ago. Like when I was seven. I got my first telescope when I was 11, a 50X, pretty cool stuff. I studied the moon a lot, it moved slowly and was huge in the sky.

Stars were a lot harder, they moved and I had no equipment to auto track them, that crap is so common today, even I have it on my partially broken telescope.

But the big stars, Betelguese, Rigel, Sirius and the well known stars like Polaris were spectacular. It was so cool to invite friends over and line it up and let them see. It gave me a sense of power as I was uncool otherwise. But I had a glimpse into deep space, however shallow I was behaving.

The Sun was just out there every day. I had no filters, so I just squinted a lot. Planets were possible yet hard. Mars was the best but my telescope made it a fuzzy red thing, no thrills there.

It had one other effect on me. I began to ask really, really simple questions. Like how big is big? Is the universe 20 Billion light years across, it seems so, but the scientists said it was expanding. Expanding into what? What if there was a bigger thing we could not see outside our universe.

Or, what if there was more than one universe, what if there was many. If so, how many? How many could there be. I still suspect that the answer is discreet, that it is knowable. If that is true, we can speculate about it. Then we get into how small is really small. Where does that end. How does Life start and where do I find it?

I was astounded by a line Donald Sutherland gave in the movie Animal House where he was pretending to be stoned. He said something like, imagine our universe is inside the fingernail of one being in a larger universe and his universe is in the fingernail of a being in a larger universe….

So that may be true and if so, where would it end and where would it start. I don’t know but I have to ask. Science is absolutely no help. They look at studies and observables and draw conclusions. They do not speculate well, imagination is disdained. I really have limited respect for most of them. They are at best, accountants with a flare for quadratics and other complex math systems. No disrespect but too many hide behind “proof”. We need proof, of course, but imagination is so much more powerful.

I am reminded of a line Lord Baden-Powell said. Where the curtain of stars is just that, a curtain. And as each man dies, he punches a hole in it, the size of which is determined to be equal to the scope of his deeds and ideas on Earth.

I think about that a lot. Sure the scientific nature of stars is fascinating, that one has nitrogen, this one cesium, changing the color, or that they rotate at ridiculous speeds and emit lethal levels of this or that. But what about great deeds and ideas?

Of course, the Hubble or something else makes a new observation and scientists looks like idiots scrambling to explain. I suspect most of them did the accounting for Enron is a previous life. Like they now think most stars have planets around them. No shit, Sherlock. There are likely several planets per star we are now told with assurance.

Meaning take the number of stars and multiple by say, 5, and that is how many planets there are. Duh, of maybe better said by Homer Simpson ( anyone not yet get his first name is meant to invoke the great philosopher?) D’oh.

But planets are dark, they are hard to detect, we do not know what it all means. Waaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhh. Puhleaaase, use your damn brain. I want to play poker with these guys, I would clean them out.

My solace on this solstice comes from simpler yet more daring ideas. How big is really big, how small is really small, can I explain what I cannot see instead of what I can.

What exists in the gaps of today as those gaps will surely be filled in sometime in the future. Life is connect the dots.

It has always been that way, and may always be so.

I love to look at the moon, it is peaceful in the way it changes. The Sun is more constant. While it represents absolutes, it is just one of tens of quadrillions like it. A necessary but big, yellow stiff.

The stars have always fascinated me. I know now I can only see less than one millionth of one percent of what is observable. Might as well as what actually exists. That is humbling. But stars are absolutes, they grow, they burn and they die. Their fate is cast.

The word for planet came from the greeks. They observed the sky just like we do today. They saw some objects moving in ways that no other object did. They named 5 of them, planetae or “wanderers”. Their motion was not explainable. Now we understand that but one fact keeps getting glossed over.

It seems the primary place life is possible is on a planet. Stars are too hot or too cold, most moons are too impacted by formation to house it. No, life exists mostly on the wanderers.

Life exists not on fixed points we can see but in the gaps we cannot see yet. Reach out to bridge the gaps, it is where life is.

Or to quote the Dion and the Belmonts…

“cause I am a wanderer, yeah a wanderer, I roam around, around, around…”

The Boys are back in town

2004-12-22T19:37:00.000-08:00

The boys are back in town or were, they just left to go to Australia, New Zealand and Fiji for three weeks.

I’m used to them now but they wear me out. They came early and settled in just a bit before they left to travel the world.

I met my uncles when I was little. I played quite a bit with the younger one, Jack. He turned 69 this year (for all the good that would do me, he jests). I rarely saw Jerry, now 72, until about 2000.

I like it when they come. I dream up outlandish meals and usually they are quite delicious. Marinated Rib Roast was the big hit. But it comes with a price, they take hours to cook. The crab ceviche took 4 hours. I was exhausted when I was done.

Jack taught me how to play golf really. He would come 3 times a year on business and we would really go after it on the course. At one time, I beat him 25 times in a row. He never could find a way to beat me. He finally did when I was 17 years old, for a quarter.
He was so damn excited, he still talks about it.

The boys have a pattern that you can get used to. The get up, clean up, read the paper and smoke. And smoke. I wished they smoked less but shit, I just quit this year. I never harp on them. We get some food and go do something for a few hours on off days. Then we curl up and watch TV until night time when the wifey shows up. Then it is cards of some kind, lately poker. Other days, we play golf somewhere. We played three times this trip, in about 8 days, not bad.

While I have had much more face time with Jack, I have grown to appreciate Jerry. He is wacky. Sometimes a bit too wacky. But he has a huge heart and was so selfless as my dad was fading. He was probably the last one to see him alive. His care was spectacular. My Dad loved them both very much.

So their golf game sucks anymore. Mine does too. But it is what we do, we just get to be out there.

They make me connect with my past, my heritage. Some of what I do unconsciously I see in them and realize the power of the gene pool. Some of what I am is also because of what they showed me as I grew up.

So we welcome them with open arms and large meals whenever they come. They make me realize I am not the center of the universe but part of a larger tapestry. A human rock opera of which I just play one part.

The boys are back in town, whoa, yeah…………

The bigger white ball vs. the smaller white ball

2004-12-03T13:58:00.000-08:00

I have played golf since I was nine. I joined a pool league only this year.

I first played golf just to spend time with my Dad. He was working for AT&T, (ever heard that before) did the Army Reserve thing many a weekend. Shit, I missed him and golf was 5 hours with me, my brother and my dad. Didn’t matter we all sucked. It did matter that we sucked together.

I first picked up a house stick about age 18. I played ok. Pool was straight forward at first, simple actually. Hit the right speed and angle and no magic, it went in.

So I played away from dad after a while because I liked golf. I had bad feet. I could not run fast. I had great hands, I was a killer street and flag football player. But the bigger the field, the more being athletic mattered and I faded. Give me the smaller green fields and I could do pretty well. Such is not life for the big bucks.

I became acquainted my first father-in-law across a pool tale. He was from the South, I from the West. He was old school, I was a fast kid. But we both liked pool. I beat him more than I lost (on his table) but learned respect for him and for pool. Pool is a cruel master, execute and one does well, mis-fire and the penalty is a loss.

I played golf a lot. I played 180 days or more a year from 8th grade through my Freshman year of college. I became a 2 handicap. Not incredible but ok. But there is no money in that. My relatives said go Pro Michael. I learned better on one Thursday afternoon.

I gave up pool when the kids came along. I never owned my own stick. My oldest bought his own when he was 18 but gave it up to solve his issues. Pool is not a life changing issue. Once does it to be sharp, to be in a game. He picked his game and played a while. I hope he does so again soon.

So I tied for an amateur tournament win in golf. We tied the first playoff hole, the second hole is a par 3, a 186 yards, slightly into the wind.

I have honors, grab the trusty 4 iron and knock it 25 feet away. He grabs his six iron, smacks it 6 feet and seems disgusted. I asked him why he hit 6 iron, he said “It was just a bit too far for a 7”.

I knew that second I would never make a dime playing golf. I had played for 10 years and all I had gained was a hobby. Within a few months, I swore the game off, and did not touch a club for three years. The guy that beat me never made more than 10k playing golf.

So a few years ago, I started watching the ESPN thing on pool (and poker, more on that in another blog). They were ok and IT LOOKED FUN. Terri Tillman, in a moment of inspiration, said I should play pool. She thought it would cure me of smoking and drinking, be social, etc.

Well, it took 6 months to stop the smoking but being out of sorts at pool was a factor to stop the smoking. Thank you, Terri. I drink less at pool than I did at the beginning and who knows where that road goes. It is VERY social, the second best part of pool, more refined than bowling but with the same energy.

I used to have what I called my over 40 rule. If I shot 41 or higher on the front nine, I would quit. I had no skills that day. I was not good enough for myself. I hated my play from age 25 to age 44. I lost the drive I had, lost the time to play, lost the execution, why did I still play.

So I join the league at pool. I decide right away I would NEVER shoot so bad I was the worst in the league over a season or even over a week. I almost got there 3 weeks ago. Missed by a ball. But I was clear. But that is not why I play. Not even close.

I made a fortune at AT&T a few years ago and decided I wanted to play real golf again, just to play, for just the love of a few shots a round. I spent weeks, more like 4 months, studying clubs. The total cost of my set was about 2k. My game jumped immediately but my joy jumped even higher. I discovered Harvey Pennick and my love of the game, equipped with serious weapons of war.

Pool is a serial game, tightly controlled on a small field of play. After the break, it is possible to see the whole game in front of you. It is Algebra in action. There maybe no opportunity to solve for mystery, you hit from ball to ball. But sometimes, it as simple as a map from your house to your mother’s house on Thanksgiving Day. The series of equations can be solved for in 1 minute. From there on, it is direct and precise.

Golf has mystery in it. The wind can blow. The field is not 8 feet long but 18,000 feet long. Missing left in pool means the ball bounces back into play. It golf, it means penalty strokes, broken glass and ridicule from your partners.

Use of your whole body is essential in golf. Conditions matter and evolve as you play. It is a complex, ever-changing problem to solve. But I can hit just as a great a shot in golf as any pro. I, too, can hit it from 186 yards to three feet. Not as often as Vijay, but I can. I too can smack a wedge upwards of 100 feet into the sky and have it land softly for an easy tap in.

It can be majestic, as though you create your own tapestry across a landscape. There is only the smallest delta from me to Vijay to Vinnie Van Gogh. Or so says me and Harvey.

I watch others do it as well. My friends Paul and Tim each can hit their own share of great shots. I get a tremendous joy of watching them execute a few shots as well as any master, even though it just meant I lost a few dollars.

Grace in action is usually worth the price of admission, even as a spectator.

Pool is more straight ahead. Booze, sex, chalk all distract you and I have never worn rain gear to make an 8 ball. But a bang, bang, bang series of pool shots is satisfying. This is not a video game, this is the real deal. A missed shot does not mean resetting your Xbox, it means your team just lost the match.

I am not here to tell you which is better. For me, it is golf. At least, today it is. I love solving more variables in the solution set.

But pool is fun, I meet more folks, can beat even a great player on my best day and it is just a different set of problems to solve.

Do I choose the better one forever now? No. Do you love one child more than another, do you love a mother more than a father?

I like each for their own qualities.

And besides, neither is a vocation, just an activity, each one highlighting my own self, or at least pieces of the mosaic that makes us all unique.

The Boy, Belle and Mr. B.

2004-12-01T18:13:00.000-08:00

I have three kids, Mike, Chris and Jen.

This blog is about Chris, and about Belle and now Mr. B.

All will be explained. I think.

Chris is wacky. I tried to raise them all that way but only Chris is truly a nutbar, you know loopy, slightly off kilter.

Bright, oh my yes. Hard working, genuine, sweet, determined, full of integrity, honor, respect. But a jumblehead. I will use pets to eventually describe.

He laughs at almost everything, gives me shit whenever he can, beats me up as often as possible ( oh a story for the future), loves his woman and lives in the moment. We did good with this one.

Chris likes cold weather, cold is good, colder is better. I like slightly warm, my wife loves crisp (like now here in Cal, daytimes mid to low 50’s, slight breeze perfecto for wifey).

He likes hockey. A lot, in California, there are like 15 of us, 6 of those are Canadian transplants and he dates one of them (which explains why he went to Canada in the summer, because he is a nutbar).

He banged his head pretty damn good when he was three, cracked a section of his skull into 22 pieces if I recall it right, went to a children’s specialty hospital at quite a nice clip, thank you very much, big dent in the side of his head. Belly Buttons, innies are good, children’s skulls, innies are bad.

Doc did a phenomenal job fixing him but there was always a doubt the doc told us if he had brain damage. They had no good way to tell except by how he behaved when he got home.

So we take him outta there after a few days (maybe a few daze is the better way to describe it) and take him to my parents house. He is surrounded when he comes in but we all just watch. He goes to the computer room and announces “boot her up Grandma and put her in C”. Well this is when computer games had to be accessed from the C prompt in DOS. He was not allowed to start the PC, only adults were. But he knew what to do from there, except he never talked like that ever.

Did a broken skull hurt him, crap no, it may have helped him. He was hit by a car twice before he was five, got up both times and just walked away.

You try that.

So we needed a dog, a family dog. We discussed it for more than 12 months, I am not kidding. We did some construction on the side yard to clean it up so the dog would never (crap I don’t even remember why we had it done but the wifey said it had to be done before we go get dog. I may have been tricked there, just now realized it. Man, if she did that, she is really good.).

Studied dogs, lots, decided on beagle. No idea why, we all just kinda said so. I had a friend who volunteered at the county pound and would watch out for one, study it for us and call. A few weeks pass, a beagle arrives, we study it, a bit hyper but hey, beagles are hyper and we wait it out. We pick it up; car one, daughter and I take the dog home. Car two, carrying two sons and the wifey go buy the requisite start up kits at the gigantic, dog supply place. We get the dog in the house and he goes wild, runs around the house, never touching the floor, leaping from ledge to ledge, sill to sill, a nutbar.

I decide a walk is in order to calm him down, he must make the right impression when car two arrives. Jennifer opens the door just as I open the garage door and the beagle goes flying out, down the street and passes car two which is triumphantly carrying the dog set up supplies, as beagle goes by, barks and is gone.

Well, we have the dog right where we want him, parties on foot and in a chase vehicle. We proceed to chase him all over the neighborhood, nearly catch him twice but he escapes. We finally caught him about an hour later.

Because he had been hit by a car and was dead. We were devastated.

We did what any normal family would do, return him, dead, to the pound (oh, that was a pretty encounter, we had found a way to have him expire on us in less than 90 minutes) and go out to the next nearest pound (our cache expired at the county facility I think, I suspect our pictures may still be on the wall).

That pound had a huge black lab that Chris named Beau (he was just starting to learn French). We put a reserve on him and went to pound number three for the day. Nothing, off to one more. It was the best by far. We walked in and my wife saw her first. Her first words were, “So there you are Baby”. I swear to God. The dog sat up as best she could and her tail wagged enormously. We all kept looking, not the wifey. We ambled back and all decided we should take her to a private room. That went well, she was shy but sweet. It was decided this was the one.

She became Belle, thanks to nutbar boy’s attraction to all things Francais.

She had a rocky start, we discovered after 6 months by a stroke of luck that she had been hit, a lot, by someone who used a rolled up newspaper. Ah, she was beaten. But she was so sweet to us. Our vet told us she was part pit bull (a small amount), part Sharpei and part terrier. She even had that Sharpei tongue. And she would chase and attack other dogs. Training never cured her of it. Part of her nature. But people, oh my goodness. The best. She became the dog of the wifey and the Chris. No way I can tell you who she was more attracted to. Not Mike, nor Jen, nor me. Oh Belle was nice enough, more than civil.

But if Chris or wifey walked in, we were an ornamental plant. If they walked in together, she went wild, switching between the two.

Belle died some 8 years later. By catching a bone in her throat the night of Jen’s graduation from High School. It took us and the vet a week to find it and her throat was too badly damaged by then, had to put her down. I cried for days and days, we all did. Chris did probably the least. I have never asked him why.

Oh my the house was empty when Belle was gone, so sad, still is in a way.

But we soon started a slow process to understand the neighborhood cat, a tabby. He was fat as all hell, with a huge head on him. He was kinda bad ass and got into lots of fights. The kids in the area all tried to figure out who owned him, we still don’t know. He got into fights, healed up on his own and kept going. He can catch mice, tolerates squirrels and can fend for himself, thank you very much.

Chris named him first Big Head Kitty, then that evolved into the more esoteric, Mr. B. A sign of respect. Everyone calls him that now. Chris would play with him for a few minutes a day when the cat went by our house on his rounds. He spoke to him in cat. He learned to speak to him. He slowly tamed him.

Over time, Mr. B. would come in our house and visit. He was checking us out as much as we checked him out. That was over a year ago. Two weeks ago, we bought him dry cat food. And gave him a permanent bowl and place for it. It had been the occasional half can of tuna. But we all talked and B was welcome. Plus he was losing weight and was actually, while quite furry, quite thin.

Watching Chris and Mr. B. talk is hilarious. “Hello Mr. B, brrrreallow” ( brrrreallow back goes the cat, ( have to roll the r when you do it to get the sound just right))

Burrrryeow goes the nutbar and the cat replies in kind. They evidently can talk like this for 5 minutes or more, each in synch with the other. Spooky.

So yesterday, I feed B and he eats up the dry kibble like the world was ending, ( Chris insisted we buy dry food, not wet and he was on the money) sniffed his water and stood over and pissed into it. He took three steps, looked back at me and went “ brrweyeow” nice and crisply.

I yelled back “you know this means I am putting you in my blog!”

“Brrrow” goes B and prances off and then he let me have it.

“Brrrrrrrmeeeeyyyeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeooooooooowwwwwww”

Go away you damn cat.

“Brrrrrrrmeeeeyyyeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeooooooooowwwwwww.”

Oh he wants out the front door, he is done with us. Out he goes, he’ll be back later. Chris would have known this but I speak very limited cat, mostly pleasantries.

He isn’t our cat yet. He spends the night, eats and leaves in the morning. He visits in the evening, then goes out and is let in to sleep.

He treats us like we are a hostel and not a home. Damn cat.

So again, I am not in control of the pet situation. But it is better than the silence. B suits our fancy fine for now. I am home most days so having a pet blow me off daily stings a bit.

But the pet situation was never about me. It was about the wifey and Chris. My sweetness and the pit bull/lion tamer/Dr. Doolittle protégé. Well, maybe a Rich Little for cats is better stated.

Mr. Nutbar may move away next fall for college. Belle will be just a memory and maybe Mr. B will be fully tamed by then. But I doubt it.

The house will be really quiet again. Hopefully, in a few years, we get grandkids and new pets but the house will never be the same as it was.

This was only a slice of things, not a complete picture. There are more stories to tell and I promise to tell them.

Oh, hi Mr B. “ bbbbrrrryeow” he tells me, how crazy is that.

“Come here honey”

He is letting me pet his head now.

Good boy.

Alpha and Omega

2004-11-30T14:35:00.000-08:00

My last day was just as good as my first. Maybe better, you, the reader can judge that.

My first seems so long ago. It was November 1, 1983. My company was new. I was only a few years out of college. I had a desk by the window at the unbelievably beautiful 3 Embarcadero Center in San Francisco. I had made it.

My last day was yesterday. It was spent on BART, then at 3 Embarcadero on the same side I used to sit on, then at a dingy conference room in a non-descript State office building, being interviewed by lawyers and State Deputies and a mis-informed former employee.

The view from the 11th floor at my building was just incredible. My own view was facing south. I could see the Bay Bridge below me, the Hyatt Regency Hotel, and Justin Herman Plaza. On the other side, where I wandered over to at least once a day, the Golden Gate Bridge, Alcatraz, and the Pacific Ocean and so on. I would never tire of those views and I miss them but time moves on.

The meeting in the conference room was a wage claim matter. Had my firm AT&T screwed over an employee? No way we thought, hired outside counsel to defend it, went to the hearing and made our case. We learn the result in 15 days but I think I already know.

I met my wife at 3 Embarcadero. She was sales rep then, I a mighty Sales Executive. She was not that impressed and I was still married to number one. Little did I know that she knew my Dad, her dad and my dad worked together and more. I was too busy planning, plotting, hoping. I made promises that I would do great things, learn great lessons, become someone to be proud of.

Watching lawyers interview someone is like watching grass grow. They take forever. Get to the point. Oh no, every point, no matter how minor is just as important as the big ones. I know differently now. I learned that at AT&T. There are times where you just be certain you get the big points, 20 questions on a minor point makes the deputy lose focus. Leading means doing things when conditions are less than ideal. Perfect exists only in the heart, no matter how badly damaged.

I did some nice things at AT&T. Saving the University of California from making a tremendous mistake in their networking plan. Crap, they used my response as their new plan for 5 years. Developed the Organ Donor Software at UCSF that was fulfilling. Helped create the AT&T network resource allocation process so all groups did joint planning on how to deploy capital expense as a team, not in their silos. We saved the firm tens of millions and made AT&T a better executing firm. I did do some of the grand things I hoped for when I first stared out that 11th floor window.

The meeting went extra long. My lawyer was too ponderous. Of course I got too long winded myself on some answers, and my lawyer had to tap me on the leg to make sure I answered what was asked, especially on the cross. But I made some very nice points and even invented a phrase on the spot, systematically impossible. Sounds irrefutable.

So I got my “package" on 10-1 and handed over everything on 10-15. I had 6 weeks to sit and nothing would come of it. Or so I thought. AT&T called me and asked if I would testify at a wage claim hearing, on my last day on payroll, from 2 to 5PM. And did I have any documents and what do they mean and can we have some meetings to discuss and can you come to San Francisco to have them.

Well that took guts to call me. A bit of nerve. They said they would understand if I refused, they had just told me to take my 22 years and put on the shelf forever.

I thought for 15 seconds and said, yes. It is the right thing to do. The man is not owed any money, not one red cent. I could take my retirement monies, severance and pride and spite them. But I was there too long for that. I was taught there ( and in Boy Scouts) that one does the right thing. It just is THE ONLY WAY.

So I was asked a question by the judge, that what you guys are doing looks more like a bonus than a compensation plan. Bells go off in my head, I feel my lawyer’s body tense up, think Michael, think. “Well, that depends on how one defines a bonus your honor, so please explain more” My lawyer relaxed. He went on a while and I had some time to think. I explained what we were doing was paying the Sales Executive for the servicing aspect of their job with this part of the plan, and gave an example. Mostly fluff but a nugget of truth. He bought it.

I got a nice tap on the leg from the lawyer and a thumbs up under the table. I looked at the clock. It was 5:01 PM. I was officially off payroll.

I got cross–examined and struggled only once, Diane provided a better answer than I did for the proceeding.

And that was it, over, done with.

I did some great things there. I started with nothing but hopes and aspirations. I achieved some goals, made products that got a service mark and trade mark. Helped invent stuff, sold the first Internet network to a commercial customer.

But I also learned how to think on my feet and do the right thing when the time came.

I have plaques, posters and proclamations.

But I feel much better that I know how to act, can be relied upon and show the highest integrity possible. Those plaques will get buried in a box but my behavior, well, I can take that anywhere.

Sunrise, Sunset

2004-11-22T16:47:00.000-08:00

So I have been bouncing around so many ideas, this post may seem dis-jointed. I hope not.

I am at a turning point. For many, many reasons. Saturn has returned to my sign. My job is gone that I have held for 22 years, about 47% of my entire life (my age is determinable from that). My kids are almost all gone, best they can. My heart has determined I will have a somewhat encumbered life although it appears I asked for it. Many new paths await but perhaps fewer, which would be fine with me.

You see, in my life, it is just past 2:30 pm. Sunset will be about 7, maybe 7:15 if we are all at the beach that day. So, I have some time yet. But the observations are worth noting.

I had a rocky sunrise. My feet were thoroughly fucked up and required surgery when I was born and again when I was 6. They still hamper me. I did have a Mom and Dad and by in large, I was treated quite well. While not poor, we had no spare cash for many years. But hard work and hope paid off.

I moved from Salt Lake to Shawnee Mission, Kansas to Dublin Ca by the time I was 9. Nothing unusual there, many people did more moves than I did.

I have had a job of some kind since I was 9. The early years were paper routes but a few jobs later I worked 46 months, 15 days , 8.5 hours at a McDonalds ( so who is counting). Then Control Data, selling insurance and finally AT&T. That was 1983, many, many years ago. I guess you could say it was about 11 am then, life was grand, skies continued to brighter, things continued to fit together.

In all that, I found golf. I love it as I can control my own fate and stun myself there. Without it, I never would have succeeded. More on the joy of golf in another post.

I found information was fascinating. Not for the jeopardy value but because information linked everyone together. Language, sounds, led to culture, led to history and therefore my future. If I got the past, well I could get the future and express it to others but I had no way how. A course at Cal State changed that and I found that I could use all that to define ethics and logic in a way that was more than an intellectual exercise, it was a reason to have life. Cogito ergo sum just for me.

I had three children with the first wife and it was such a rocky road. AT&T was hard, expenses were hard and the kid load was heavy. But, more than anything, I discovered that what I saw as my vision was not shared and I had to leave.

That created chaos, that created heartache that I regret but it was the best thing. It is now High Noon.

In a while I discovered Trish, the best thing that may have ever happened to me. I fell for her after a bit and eventually she decided it was no use resisting (Ha !). We took over the kids to save them, at our own expense. We raised them the best we could, full well understanding that it would be a mess when they hit the teenage years. Jennifer had multiple issues that were barely addressable with counseling, the oldest refused to even go and his were worse.

We had to thrown him out, my, that was perhaps the worst day of my life but maybe the best. He floundered and made excuses but now, some 6 years later, he is finally standing on his feet. I saw him just a few weeks ago and we played street hockey with his younger, more hockey talented, brother. He and I were on the same team for the first time in 10 years, that was really nice.

Trish left AT&T about 3 years ago and in her mind, struggled. We have enough money but she needs more than cash, she needs purpose. I think she will find it.

But my days are numbered. I have shopped more in the past than the future, as well as played sports or read or spoke to a crowd.

No I can look up now and notice that the sun is past straight up, it is slowly turning over to the west. Time is left but it is not indefinite. It has not changed color yet but it will start in a few years. So time is a’wastin’. I have all the components, time to add just a few more and create the finished product.

That is a major reason for the blog, to integrate. To call George Bush on his lies, as well as any democrat. To point out the beauty of simple things. To converse. To observe. To spend some time watching the clouds color the sky as the sun sinks lower.

I hope I have a beautiful sunset. But it is not required. Reds and pinks and purples at the end are cool but a crisp, clean sunset can be just as inspiring.

Then it will darken and a new day will start. I will see you all then as well.

Oops, the Mall of Life closes soon, time to get going. I need to get in and out before dark and get back to hug the wifey, waiting for the end of the day. All I need is a parking space. This one seems to fit for now.

The lack of the art of compromise

2004-11-10T14:46:00.000-08:00

Well, here we go.

I was so willing to compromise with the Republicans, especially the far right poster boy, fellow Cancer, the W2. ( a lot like the WB except far less interesting, no content, really just a knock off)

Well, it just ain't gonna happen.

First, he absolutely treats the press with disrespect at his news conference. He gently but firmly berates the first questioner because he asked more than one question, or the question had two parts. He evidently has a new policy for press conferences. One question, no follow-up. Except he hadn't had a press conference in 6 months. He said now that he was re-elected, he didn't need to be so nice to the press anymore ( sounds like Nixon, only not as smart).

Second questioner, he gives a look of disgust that two questions get asked and he repeats the new policy. Of course, the new policy started just two minutes earlier. No heads up from the staff or anything.

He did it again on the third person. Now he seemed really annoyed for a second.

Well, the press was finally getting it but W2 showed all the grace of a rhino working the savanna.

Later on he said he would compromise as long as everyone stuck to his agenda.

My that sounds like absolutely no compromise to me. But it only gets worse.

He ridicules the press for the speculation process around his cabinet issues. It seems old friend John Ashcroft has been shooting his mouth off to everyone around about a desire to leave. Turns out now that it was true.

But oh no, the press needs to not speculate about Cabinet changes, except of course in Washington, that process is viewed as "sport".

Well screw you George. It is a free country and we can discuss it if we want, all we want. You may not like it but shit, you got a second term, some inconvenience on your agenda and lifestyle is expected. You signed up for it, you had 4 years to decide if it suited you.

So W2 whining is just pathetic. You won dude. Act gracious. You act like you lost. He must have been fun to punish as a child. Barbara and HW must have never heard the end of it. Go back to Wisconsin George and get some extra cheese for that whine.

But I was willing to wait. Then they announce Ashcroft is leaving along with the Commerce guy ( shocker, who knew, why everyone at the press conference last week knew because both guys had been telling people for weeks they were out if W2 won. But oh no, no "sport" of discussing it.

So who does George nominate for AG, why his friend from Texas. Who helped write the opinion on Gitmo detainees and that we could keep them forever, without any form of due process, any form at all.

DOES THAT BOTHER ANYBODY BUT ME ? DUE PROCESS IS ONE OF THE FOUNDING TENETS ( NO OFFENSE GEORGE THE CIA GUY, MAN YOU LOOK LIKE THE CLASS ACT OF THE ENTIRE ADMINISTRATION THESE DAYS) OF OUR COUNTRY.

WE REVOLTED OVER DUE PROCESS, RIGHT TO TRIAL, FACE OUR ACCUSERS.

But oh no, now this guy will be the Attorney General of the US, head Law Enforcement guy. He gets to interpret the constitution for the entire administration and he has ABSOLUTELY NO CLUE ABOUT DUE PROCESS. I know he is a lawyer but did he sleep through 8th grade Civics? Oh well, he had a chance in High School to cover the issue there. And of course Law School covers such matters and then of course the Bar exam does, must have been the part he had trouble with.

Thank God the Supreme Court is slowly dismantling the Patriot Act and giving some of these guys their day in court while we hold them in a damn cage.

Disgusting, embarrassing, humiliating. Not for them. I do not adhere to their beliefs or even qualities but our behavior violates core beliefs of our country.

So his first major "compromise move" is to pick a guy even further right wing that Ashcroft. Man, I didn't think there was more than 4 or 5 people like that. He found one in less than a week.

Now he had no answer for Commerce yet. I only have one scenario I can come up with.

See, W2 wants MORE tax cuts. Make the existing ones permanent ( hello W2, no such thing as permanent with these matters, the next congress or the one after that can reverse them. Did you sleep through 8th grade Civics also? Or just your National Guard duty where you violated a direct order to get a flight physical. You never did. The Guard confirmed it. Now you get to be Commander in chief, again. )

Then he wants to privatize Social Security ( START UP COST 2 TRILLION, plus 50-100 BILLION PER YEAR FOR TEN YEARS)

Plus pass even more tax cuts and have the Commerce Secretary testify before Congress and with a straight face explain how we can do all that and reduce the deficit by 50% before the end of the reign of W2.

See we can do it through economic growth. OK, so I did some simple math and we would need 60% economic growth starting now to offset that. Rough but close. Annual and I'll throw in the compounding factor.

Except to achieve that, George would have to achieve a state of hyper inflation that would make the Germans envious.

Greenspan would of course step in and raise rates to slow it down, defeating the plan. This would raise borrowing costs by a net of 100 BILLION a year just to cover each annual debt.

So George has the ability, the skill and even the desire to double the national debt in 4 years. More the FDR, more than RWR, as much as all of them put together.

But, evidently, so far sanity has prevailed. There is no one on the planet that has stepped forward to defend this math. No shit.

No way I can compromise with this guy. He actually believes in this stuff.

Gonzales will fly through approval, no one wants to challenge George yet. How sad.

But a day must come where we stand and resist. Where we say these policies need real discussion, that some premises lack sound thinking. I can live with some some privatization of Social Security. But not in combination with all the other mumbo jumbo W2 advocates. I love my kids too much to screw them over that bad.

We use to fight wars over people this onerous. To paraphrase Pogo, I have met the enemy and he is one of us.

How sad is that.

The Wingsman

2004-11-05T16:35:00.000-08:00

Well, the Blue team lost. But this post is not about that, not yet.

We left the middle wide open. We sent in a leftist liberal from the East Coast. And we lost.

Well, duh. George pulled in just enough middle of the road votes to win. He didn't get many but didn't need that many either. There we were, each on the side of the road, screaming at the middle.

Either side could have lost. George only got 51% of the middle. That was enough. Think about that.

Folks, in the US, the person who controls the middle wins. Period. Each side can protect their base. What about those that are liberal on some issues and conservative on others. Security moms, want abortion rights, strong view on their sons going to war. We lost those votes, so we lost.

Now it may be Hillary ( oh for god sakes no) vs Rudy.

Rudy kills her. Sure she can win here in California and in NY but my god, he would mop the floor with us in the midwest.

Please Hillary, save your party and stay a Senator.

This opinion voiced by Mike North, man who wants to win the next election. He approved this message. ( do those comments at the end bother you also? Like George hated the Swift Boat ads. But people, swift boat ads didn't sway the middle, reform on Social Security did, elections in Iraq did)

No tonight we talk about the wingsman.

I have this friend. He loves pool ( and is better at it than me). I love golf ( I am better at it than him). We can call it even about politics and technical issues ( ;-) ).

But, crap we just think alike.

Like last night. Here I was boring the living crap out of someone on our pool team. At the end of the conversation, I made an obscure reference. She laughed and must have thought I was insane.

1 minute goes by, Tim walks over and asks what we were discussing, I mention the general subject and he repeats my punch line, then says that was just for me as we think alike.

Now I laugh REALLY hard.

This happens all the time. We complete thoughts together, we analize data the same way, we find obscure references hilarious. We test each other on them all the time. I am better at sports, barely, history oh yes but he is pretty good. Movie and music references, Tim wipes me out.

But that is not why he is the Wingsman.

No, he love Hooters. Not for the shorts or the T shirts. No they make fabulous Buffalo Wings and he loves them ( ok we need to go again.)

Tim just adores them. Usually 9/11 style but occasionally hotter. Now his neck is very flexible while we eat. He surveys the entire restaurant but he loves those damn wings the most.

And he loves the Oakland Raiders. Man I hate that, Al Davis is a jerk. He could care less. And he loves the Montreal Expos. Oh yes, you read that right. Always has. I guess he gets to love them when they hit DC next year, need to ask him.

But he loves them. When the comes to SBC Park, he buys tickets and cheers like a mad man.

How many California guys you know think Rusty Staub was a god. I only know one.

I admire that. He knows what he loves. A wife, 2 lovely daughters, the Raiders, the 'Spos, knowledge, pool, golf and so on.

He and I no longer work together. We only occasionally play golf and play pool most every week.

But AT&T sucks. His day is coming there also. I hope I find a job where he can work.

I miss the wingsman. Once a week just doesn't get it done for me.

That is the worst part of leaving AT&T.

Why Senior?

2004-11-05T09:13:00.000-08:00

It started on a small planet far, far away.

OK, no it didn't. But I always wanted to type that.

It actually started with Ron Flynt. Blame him. Lots of people do on many issues and it just makes him laugh longer. I love that about Ron ( I need to see Ron, he is good for me).

No, Ron was having his son "cross over" from Cub Scouts to Boy Scouts. We were at a Cub Scout Pack meeting and the normal amount of bedlam was in place.

Ron is perfectly suited to just that sort of event. The crazier it got, the more he loved it. He ran the meeting of course, expertly, but it just cracked him up. It was a joy to see that much joy in one person in the midst of more chaos than the last three days of a Presidential Election campaign. You may quote me on that.

So, Ron, as part of his plan, hands me a piece of paper and says " when it is time to start Peter's crossover, read this".

Well, Ron does this all the time. He gives people something to do. He invests them in the process. He lightens his load but he solves some chaos and therefore, creates new chaos. Then he laughs, lowers his head slightly, pulls his laughter back in and keeps going. What a glorious man. A true master at work.

I was in awe when I figured out what he was doing. Of course, now I have a speech to read.

I am not shy giving speeches now ( DAMN YOU RON) but was somewhat then, in public. I could read stuff off a slideshow but do a straight public speaking speech, ah no, my knees buckled like everyone else.

I read what he gave me to myself and loved the story. Indian theme, travail, conquest, victory.

I decided I could do this from memory. It was a full page. I had 5 minutes to memorize it.

This was a major step. I would conquer my fear, I would show that bastard Ron a thing or two, how dare he make me become involved. Oh yeah, I see your little speech and raise. Dude, I am all in.

I won't tell you my secrets to memorize a speech ( a boy must have some) but I did the speech.

And I NAILED IT. I got a round of applause from the 60 people there. Man, that was heady stuff. I walked back to Trish (ok a post about Trish soon. I LOVE HER SO MUCH, you will just have to meet her. She is just so damn radiant and glorious. I am so lucky to be in her space) and she said, nice reading, good tone, inflection and so on ( Trish is NOT AFRAID to tell me anything and does so quite gracefully).

I said, ah, dear, ah, that was no reading, I did that from memory. Well, bless her, she got a bad case of Betty Davis eyes right there ( or Marty Feldman eyes or whoever, they bugged out).

"You did that from memory?" She had read it once and loved it. But this was a full page.

"Yes I did"

" wow"

Pass the morphine, or whichever opiate of choice. I am now hooked. Or close to it.

Butthead Ron walks over and says " nice job but you missed one sentence".

I do a Betty Davis and he almost falls down in laughter. He thanks me for my performance, still giggling the rest of the night. He knew what he was doing.

My son later asked me to join Boy Scouts, would it be ok if he and I did that. It melted my heart, but of course I said yes.

We met Pete and Ron and many other people I consider close friends now, almost 15 years later, like Jed, Justin, Diane, Nancy, Garth, Dylan, Dave, Wally, Gagan, Terry, George, Adrienne, Marilyn, Cathy and so many more. They are dear friends. My tribe. I love them all and they seem to love me.

I am so enriched for meeting each of them. Those are just my friends in the troop. I have other friends in the overall view of scouting, Alan, Marcus, Uncle Buck, Jan, Tony, the Parker brothers, Bill, Roger, Tom, Ray, Ron, Judge John, Mike, Linda and so many others.

But they all know me and call me Senior.

So why Senior?

Well, the easy answer is this. When I first started in my troop, there were 5 people named Mike. I had a son named Mike. It made sense, not at my suggestion, that I be called Senior and my son be called Junior. I have no idea who suggested it but maybe it is better that way. It just made sense at the time. I guess. He is still called Junior and he thinks it makes sense. 15 years later, 300 people call me Senior and do not know my first name.

I was still hooked on the speech thing but had no voice. So I looked around and found out that at the end of every Scout meeting or event, there was a tradition ( I LOVE tradition) that allows the Scoutmaster to give a small speech comparing Scouting values to real world events.

But I was not the Scoutmaster, Jed was. I asked Jed, could do a Scoutmasters Minute at the end of a meeting. He said, why not. I did my first one. It was lame.

But I did one the next week. I was about a friend of mine ( Brad) who died when we were in High School. It was about his bravery in confronting a life he knew would end before he was 21.

It made people cry, including me.

I became Senior that night. Not because I was old ( hell, I was 33) or clever ( oh do not go there) but because I found my voice.

In my District, I am now the King of giving speeches about Scouts. I am humbled that each year for some time now, I get to close out the District Dinner with my words. My friends tell me that they actually come to hear me speak. Just once a year.

You have no idea how humbling that is.

I just want people to see my vision, that the world is a wonderful place most days, that we can partner, that every day events link us to great events in the past.

So, evidently, I am Senior. And Senior has rules.

Every speech I give should last less than 2 minutes. After that, it is a sermon.

It needs to reflect the use of values to events. That is the struggle of mankind. It needs to be relevant to adults and youth.

When I speak, hopefully both parties gain. I have seen it happen and trust me, I have created spiritual capital from it. No disrespect to George but I'll take mine any day.

What that means to me is I have a responsibility to advance the cause of the development of youth.

I have a tradition now of my own. If a Scout Youth I know asks me, they get their own speech about what I think they are about if they make Eagle Scout. It happens at their Eagle Scout Court of Honor. Perhaps 100 or so of their circle is there and I am allowed to close their ceremony with my words. It is solely about them and their nature.

My, what an honor I am allowed. I print up what I say, put it in a frame and perhaps they keep it for many years.

So far, all of them have.

I hope you can see the joy that gives me. I can make any Mom or Aunt on the planet cry. But I also can make grown fathers, uncles, grandfathers cry with pride about their offspring. And always be about the truth.

My favorite story is about Josh. Josh made Eagle Scout ( My first Eagle specific speech was about Justin, Josh was about number 5).

Josh crashed his car into a parked truck. He broke his leg, his hip and made his forehead a shatter mess of 43 pieces. For the first 36 hours, he should have been dead.

The doctors decided to wake him up. To see if he had brain damage and then put him back to sleep.

His Aunt went home, pulled my minute about him off his wall and came back to the hospital. They relaxed the medication and his Aunt and Mother started to read. After one paragraph, he joined in.

He spoke what I wrote. All of them had memorized what I said about Josh and now they said it in unison, comfirming Josh would be ok. He really is OK now.

Well, they told me this 5 minutes later. I weeped with them. Does it get better than that. I cannot imagine it if it does.

So, I am Senior. My posts are about values. I have said for 15 years, I wish I had a space to show values to current events outside of scouting. Not that they are mutually exclusive. No, I love scouting and always will.

But now I have perhaps a larger voice. Values are the key to life.

This is why I call this space Senior Thinking.

So when you ask, why Senior, now you know. And I hope you come back. Hopefully, I'll be here.

I live in a Blue House, at least for now

2004-11-02T15:16:00.000-08:00

Why is the White House "White?".

Because we painted it white late in the War of 1812 to hide the smoke stains. There is a small place next to the Truman Balcony that has never been painted white. You can still see the smoke on the original paint.

I don't live in the White House. I have been informed however that I live in a Blue House.

I am a huge political junkie. I LOVE this stuff. I teach Citizenship in the Nation Merit Badge. I bet you I can repeat most of the constitution from memory. Not that is is better than the Magna Carta, just that is is such a cool construct of governance. A beautiful blend of flexible rules that allow change gracefully over time.

And all over the document is the issue of the Electoral College. Each state gets two Senators despite their size. Damn good reasons for that. The Blue team did not lose because of the Electoral College. They lost because they forgot the middle, in real terms and figurative terms.

My friend Paul called me yesterday afternoon to play golf today. Get out some as well as fence mending. Paul is a Red team guy. That doesn't bother me alot and that I am a Blue team guy does not bother him. We still play each other hard at golf.

Today, Paul won. I hurt my leg on the 12th hole ( no idea how but I did, still is sore) but by then, Paul had pulled ahead I think and we actually played even from there.

But we agreed that we need need to find common ground more. I CONCEDE that I do not appreciate the Red Team perspective enough. But there are SO many Red team people that their opinion is vital.

Paul agreed that the Blue team had lots of votes and has some valid points.

Our best opinion is on gay marriage. I can see his point that a gay union is not marriage. Marriage is a religious thing. Ok I said dude, call that a religious matter, the term of marriage. But allow my gay couple friends to get the same benefits as straight couples.

Shockingly, unbelieveably, he was ok with that. HMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM.

Perhaps the far right and the far left have been so BUSY defending their turf that they forgot to communicate.

So Paul, if we gave gay couples' tax rights and hospitals visitations rigthts and 401k sharing, you are cool with that. Oh yeah says Paul.

Well crap my pants, we never REALLY disagreed the whole time.

My son came home yesterday and made a list that showed the three occupants of our haouse voted Democrat.

He said " Well I cannot change my state or my precinct but we live in a Blue House." that made me proud.

And I think in every election, at least two of us will vote Blue.

But real progress will come when each side sees the opinions of the other side. Politics really is the art of compromise. I do understand that I need to REALLY understand my Red Team Friends opinions and the underlying values to make progress. They may not be as bad as I thought.

Besides, conservative values of the 1960's are illegal today. Progressive values happen over time. The issue is really the span of time and the education of conservatives and progressives.

I live in a Blue House. Many of my friends live in a Red House.

We need to talk more. Some of what they want is OK. An some of what I want is OK.

I am willing to meet in the middle.

By the way, look at the color map. The reason the Dems lost is they forgot the middle of the US, both geographically but MOST IMPORTANTLY, on the issues.

For too long, each side has stated an extreme position. Clinton won because he could work the middle. Gore and now Kerry lost because they could not.

I want to work the middle now. I want to understand the real issues of the Red Team. I want them to understand mine. If they do, on some issues, they get my vote and progress takes place.

And in 4 years, if I understand them better and run the person who understand the middle better, my blue team wins. But more importantly, represents the whole country, not just the extremely.

Is that not what governance is all about?

Ray and John and George

2004-10-31T18:56:00.000-08:00

I went and saw the movie Ray today.

spectacular.

Say Oscars, not one, many. If not, we are robbed.

Ray was a genius. This is not news.

The portrayal is not a betrayal. It is not flattering. It just shows the truth and the truth is messy. In the end, it is a love story. Our love of surviving struggle, and for moments, achieving greatness.

The goal was the result of the struggle.

But the music of Ray Charles Robinson is unbelievable. I had some of his albums many years ago. So I went and bought some new ones. What a treat, what a joy.

Ray says in the movie and in his life " my ears were my eyes". " I wore hard sole shoes so when I went by a door, the change in sound told me where I was. " " I hear what you see".

So I turned the picture off and just listened to John and George. Well, too bad Ray is not running ( although I doubt we would elect a blind, former heroin addict from the south who is also black).

But the sounds of the men tell the tale to me.

George sounds whiney. He sounds desperate. I hate to say it but you can hear that damn smirk. He makes it sound that a dissenting vote is stupid.

John sounds determined. He has weak moments sure.

But one learns the sound of command. Which one wants to lead to a new place as opposed to being a shepherd?

Which one wants the wheel in his hand as opposed to letting the current steer?

George never struggled. Daddy and grand daddy picked him up when anything went wrong. ( did you know Barb Bush, nice lady, is a direct descendant of Franklin Pierce, former President of the US , see MASH for Maine connections to the BUSH family all you hawkeyes).

Kerry married well, sure, pass the ketchup. But he worked his way to the doorstep.

He made some extreme accusations. Stuff that made some veterans mad. But in general they were true. We did commit war crimes. Every damn day for a while. No way not to. War is damn messy and the Administration didn't want anyone to know.

Ring a Bell?

A relative of mine ran a whorehouse and did some other really nasty stuff in Nam. He was a child over there. Nam was nasty people, worse than Kerry said it is. I had many relatives serve over there. War is hell. My dad was haunted his whole life by the image of his bullets tearing the face off a North Korean that intended to kill him a second later.

Haunted, I have heard him scream out over it.

Then John went to Congress and told them what they did not want to hear. War is hell and we have no purpose. The purpose would justify the hell except there really was none by the time he testified.

That made "swift boat vets" angry. Hmm, who do we blame for the betrayal? Probably not John ( or George). He didn't issue the orders to get them there.

When did George struggle? If we are in a crisis, would we not someone who has survived them?

Ray is most famous for? Georgia on my mind.

I think his two best songs are Hit the Road Jack and Unchain my Heart.

I want a man in the White House who survived struggle, who conquered it, who changed the planet rather than rode on it while it spun around.

If you don't know who that is, you haven't been listening.

All's Faire in Work and Play

2004-10-31T09:29:00.000-08:00

So I went to the Ren Faire. Dressed up like a goofy 17th Century merchant ( again). I also went to a job faire again. I learned such a great lesson about people at each.

The Ren ( renaissance ) Faire was first. Held near Gilroy Ca. Thousands of people come each day. My wife and I usually go once. But this year is OHHHHHHH so special. I have no job, I have crapo to do and my wife is near LA in a training class, working her ass off to help provide. Not sure she likes it in the slightest but we will discuss that in the future. It will be about timing and sacrifice and selfishness. I don't do so well on that one.

But anyway. The Ren Faire is 90 minutes away. My time is my own. Right out of the gate ( ok right INSIDE the gate) was an ale stand.. They had raspberry Mead. Niceeeeeeeeeeeeeeee. Out comes the drinking horn ( exactly holds one serving of Mead, accident, why no) and to quote the great Gleason, away we go.

Within 1 minute, saw my daughter from a previous lifetime, ( we always go to see her and touch her energy, it is so pure, so clean and she loves us too. I need channeling on this, it means we feed off each other and I personally love it. Not sure why, no sex there, just love and compassion between us all. Damn, what a good thing). Well she is off to an event with her new beau. Bye sweetie. Just so she knows, I want to tap her energy later. I need the pump and so does those around me.

I walk the ground, shoot a bow and arrow course ( actually do ok, I bet I have done this a few times and then check out Tarot readers. Our favorite reader doesn't show here anymore, too far, so we tried one 5 weeks ago, she was ok but I need a new one, or so I say).

I tried a raspberry mead ( ok 2) and a duck leg, oh my god what a treat. Screw turkey, this was HEAVEN and off to the tarot wench.

She gave me an ominous reading ( like I have 15 years to live, which is not ridiculous) but she was WORKING MY ENERGY ( pls note, this theme will appear soon.)

I told the wifey and scared her shitless ( don't you love blogs, I can type shitless and nobody calls Michael Powell) .

I told trishy all of it ( including all the daughter sightings, 3 and let it go).

SO Wednesday comes. I go to a job faire ( similar to a Ren faire but the fabrics appear more recent) and I see 1 ( thank you very much ) 1 job that matters to me.

They process me like pork in August to get ribs out and I think I am special.

Then I meet Mike.

Mike is the guy who did the whole job faire. I had no idea when I stopped by his booth at the time. We conversed, we traded secrets. But we were open. His issues will be hidden from you but we have similar paths and I think will stay connected.

Finally he wanted my resume. My friends have made it high quality ( thanks Tim, Stan and Paul).

But he wanted to share it PERSONALLY. He handed me his card and ONLY THEN did I realize he was the publisher, owner and driving force.

At first, I felt like an idiot. Then I said that the universe looked out for me. I played with truth and got it back.

Anybody see Indiana Jones 3 ? He had to walk on an invisible bridge to live and he did.

Well, maybe I did the same thing. I found being real provided me the most direct data. The pressure of the moment is not the answer. Not Real World, not Road Rules, being actually in the moment.

NOW, that is scary. That requires FAITH. Of others, of yourself, of the Universe.

My Channeler said I would be ok if I held to Truth. My Publisher said, give the resume, you are a product of quality.

Being true is the path.

I know now people want me.

I now know my wife is wanted also.

BUT MOST IMPORTANT, connections are not straight line. Life is a matrix. That makes for free choice. So resentment and bitterness are useless. Just choose a new path and multiple choices appear. Results fall on you, yes but so many paths appear after each choice.

Be open, choose again. Each choice creates a new matrix of choices.

All is faire and you can drop the finishing e if you want.

The Ordinance Issue in perspective

2004-10-29T11:52:00.000-07:00

First, let's be clear on the ordinance part of the conversation.

We found and destroyed 400,000 TONS of Iraqi ordinance.

They sent in a Major on this site. Yes, this was a big site but by far not the biggest. Big sites bring in the colonel. We are talking about 370 tons max. A friend of mine has a son who blows this stuff up. Found Iraqi stuff. He himself, just a corporal, have blown up over 5,000 tons and hundreds of miles of Det cord. IAEA tagged it because some of the plastic could be used in a nuclear weapon. Of course, Iraq had thousands of tons of RDX, all over the countryside. One uses RDX, C4, C5 and so on in so many other applications. In a war, it can be very handy.

Oh my, this stuff was weapons grade. Well, duh. Well double duh. We had several million pounds of weapons grade ordinance over there when the war was full on with our side. I would bet we have 50,000 tons right now. F18 Super Hornets drop 5 tons per flight and did 3 flight per plane per day for weeks. Not to mention B-52, F15, F-15, F111, F17 and so on. I was in Hawaii when the Lincoln returned to Pearl. My those pilots have egos. Anyway, one pilot bragged he dropped 500,000 pounds HIMSELF in his tour. One plane in 6 weeks, about as much as we are talking about.

My point is 200 tons of weapons grade stuff is so small, it would be easy to miss. Plus the place was guarded by the 101st. That is a premier unit. No way they let that many pallets just sit there then walk off and leave them.

We almost certainly moved it to a disposal site and blew it up. We have hundreds of people over there who do nothing but that. Still.

Was this stuff a WMD, ah no. Capable of use in a WMD, why yes but so was 5% of the 400,000 tons we found in other places, some of which the IAEA never found. So that is 20,000 tons we did find and destroy of a similar nature to the 200 tons at Al Qaqaa. Using IAEA as an expert is silly. They missed a lot of this stuff. Saddam had everywhere. That he made classic weapons bunkers shows this was not a strategic site for him. He hid the stuff he wanted to use for WMD.

Do we not re-elect Bush based on this. Why no. If we did leave it behind, a colonel somewhere with the 101st blew it. In all likelihood, we just did not mark as inventory before we blew it up. 200 tons at a ordinance disposal facility is nothing. We probably blew it up the next day.

Do the math, how many people at 10 tons per "shot" would it take to blow up 400,000 tons? Like 400 people working every day for a year. And like that is exactly what we have over there. 200 tons or 370 tons takes a day at a good bomb disposal facility.

and blow it up we did I believe with serene certainty. Why keep it around. This stuff was not THAT special. Yeah, the bunkers were tagged and the boxes had labels but likely so many others did. The stuff is not permanently stable, and would eventually be a pain in the butt to maintain. Plus, because we did not make it, we are not sure if it is contaminated.

So, you blow it up and the problem is gone.

The media is way too far over the top on this one. They are not putting this in context. They should.

We have MUCH better reasons to not elect Bush that this.

Let's keep our composure here. 370 tons of stuff does not reflect on bad administration policy.

The war itself, the evidence used to justify, the lies told to the UN and the people, the coverups of the prison issues.

Note he said issues, does Guantanamo bother anybody else as much as it does me? Sure they are enemy combatants but even the Germans got a freaking trial within 2 years after the war was over. The bad guys are owed due process. Bush wants to make us the moral leader in the war on terror. Well then give these guys their day in court. What we will find is we have no evidence on most of them. While bad guys, one cannot hold them for life based on suspicion. Some may go back and do bad things but we in America let some bad guys go so we do not imprison innocent people. We will discover and admit how bad this is in the next 4 years. Not as bad as Japanese internment but down that road folks. As bad as some of those cats may be, Bush should be ashamed and he personally approved the policy.

No we have all the reasons we need to throw Bush out. 400,000 pounds of C4 like stuff is not it. A B52 squadron or two dropped that every day during the war.

No this issue is fearmongered and enforced ignorance. Let's not use the same tactics we want the current administration thrown out for. We are better than that and don't need it.

Mad Dog ! Mad Dog !

2004-10-22T15:55:00.000-07:00

So like I was born with really dark teeth. Doc says tragically by my Mom. For years and years, Doc Harold said nothing could be done.

A while back my wife got tooth trays for whitening. It is working, her teeth are whiter.

Then I lost my job and decided and I would do crazy things like get what I want more ( I am typing on it now), I would take better care of myself and I would do some crazy cosmetic stuff because life is too damn short.

So I decided to get the teeth trays. A bit nasty to get fitted. Doc Harold even remarked I have a over-active gag reflex ( looks like I picked the right sex this time).

And they came in with a teeth mold of my teeth that I get to keep. And they look just like my teeth, spooky. I felt like Louis B Leakey building something out of a dig. ( I never understood how those guys could tell so much from teeth. Ah yes Bob, Cro Magnon man, not to be confused with I Magnin woman, here ate lots of leafy vegetables, mostly in a Caesar dressing and pork chops, wild in a peanut sauce. Creme broule or bananas Foster for dessert, we are still studying that.)

So as I am leaving, Doc shows me how much stuff to put in the tray. I say yeah, yeah, yeah ( never say that, the third yeah means the universe will punish you immediately, without mercy, George says yeah, yeah, yeah way too much. This dude is living on borrowed time but he still will win. His timing could not be better).

I am 47 now, and the eyes occasionally are not so hot. I thought I could figure it out.

So I take the trays and the 30% peroxide solution and play chemist in the front seat of my car. I am satisfied with the result ( how can one use too much peroxide, oh just wait).

In go the trays and off I go to the mall.

Doc is like 5 minutes away from the mall and as I drive, I begin to taste the peroxide stuff. My chemist brain kicks in, ah yes, mixing an acid saliva mix with peroxide in a base, expect vapors to be emitted, reaction seems endothermic but tolerable.

I park , get out and suddenly my mouth is FULL of foam. I immediately do what you would do. Look for a place to spit it out where no one can see the vulgar act. But people are walking by, people are parking their car and have to wait for others to pull out. I try to smile but feel the foam ooze out of the left corner of my mouth. I get a nice reaction from the passenger in front of me. A fake smile and then, recognition and she quickly faces forward. I bet she stayed in that car for 10 minutes.

I walk toward the mall and the foam returns, in larger quantities than the first time. Crazy thoughts enter your brain, are my teeth dissolving ( no I know what ground tooth smells like, and acid etching on tooth, no, this still smells like weak bleach) Will I change the color of my gums.

What I need is to be home in front of my washer so I can spit into my underwear load, thereby multitasking ( take that Clorox!)

So I kind of spit/ooze onto a tree. Because you have the trays in. You don't want to send them flying and you really cannot spit in a normal way. I have much greater appreciation for women at this point, ahem.

I enter the mall. A few minutes later, back comes the foam, and there is no place to ooze in the mall. The bathrooms are always hidden away and I was in no shape to ask the kind folks at the information booth ( ah excuth me, I need to usth tha bathroo, where migh it be pwease. Poor man, how noble that in his condition he goes out in public).

So, yes, I am forced to swallow. The taste, the vapors, the lack of coordination. Ladies, my hat is off to you. Never did I understand what swallowing meant until now.

I finish my business in the mall and leave, quickly. I get to my car and see a friend I had not seen in a while. He was with his wife on the way to their car. He called over and I was forced to speak.

Hith!

What?

I said Hith, now much softer with a wave. Maybe signals can distract him?

How are you?

Damn doesn't he know one never has a conversation in the mall parking lot. This a an major suburban party foul? Or now it should be?

I had to think. No way to spit out the trays. It would look like I spit out food or my teeth ( the latter still seemed remotely possible at this point still)

So I pointed at my wrist ( which has no watch on it, so that looks slightly stupid) and then gestured significantly along with several waves. I felt like the Red Sox Third Base coach ( oh they have to win. It kills the curse for 86 more years until they win again and that town will be lit up like Christmas mixed with LA quality riots. I love these kind of celebrations.. But your honor, we won a game, we are champions of something. So I started a car on fire to celebrate. Your honor, it has been 86 YEARS, the curse of the Bambino, we have to say the word Yawkey too much. You're right, these are all good reasons, however, you get 30 days anyway.)

I got in my car and ripped those trays out and voila, my teeth stayed in but I did pull on them. I was after all only 5 minutes from Doc Harold and he can fix anything if there was a problem.

Now I feel bad for my friend. He was left looking rather perplexed at my behavior ( what was wrong with Mike dear. Don't quite know but I think he wanted me to hit and run and I haven't played baseball in 25 years) But these are trying times.

So like I have learned the following:

Being an idiot is not a disaster. It just feels like it.

Disasters are usually a short term event.

Mall walking with teeth cleaning is for everyone over 65, not me, I know too many people.

Foaming at the mouth can be a bad thing, it really does depend on the length of your ability to stand pain.

Christopher Walken is a much better actor than I thought. Screw Joan Rivers, screw the academy, go freak boy. He probably had to wear whitening trays as punishment as small child.

Women are amazing. Given that days events, I know I don't ever want to give birth.