I am not sure how long it has been since someone has said that to me, if ever. I do not remember it ever happening but knowing me like I do, it probably happened or at least someone thought it and just did not say it. Well this has to start with a question about gas station etiquette. I was pulling into a pumping station that had two pumps, one in front of the rear. There were two rows of these dual pumps, for a total of eight pumping stations, with an additional four on the other side of the building. So I pull into the lane and I notice that a woman at the front pump was getting into her car so I waited. I was always taught to pull up to the front pump if it is open so other folks can get to the first pump. That is where my question is, what is the etiquette there? Do you know? I looked around on the internet and I found some reference to that being the right thing but it is the internet so who knows.
So the car at the front pump gets in, gives the kids each a treat, and some other motions that I could not make out. I waited about 25 seconds and was about to just stop at the back pump, thinking that they may be butchering pigs in that car in order to make some homemade pork rinds (that is how slow it appeared). But just as I put the car in reverse to back up they sped away. So I pull on up and get out of the car. I have already slid my debit card in the pump when I hear and “excuse me”. So I look around and see a woman in a green Toyota Corolla glaring at me, her car was sitting nose to nose with Jalopetta, looking sort of like a prize fighter squaring off with the much lesser opponent. I make eye contact and she asks me to back up to the other pump. I was stunned by the question, especially since her Corolla was not sitting there when I got out of my car.
I glance around the parking lot and notice that 3 of the eight other pumps are not currently occupied. There were pumps situated that would allow her to pump gas into her car, no matter the side her gas filler was located. I said to her, what? She asked again to back up, I played stupid (it was easy) and asked what? And I even put my hand up to my ear in a gesture that I was sure indicated I was hard of hearing. She was by this point getting irritated, I could tell and that kind of made me smile. I smile at folks whose lives are so petty as to get pissed at where they put gas in their car. She then hollers – “back up to that other pump so I can get my gas”. So it went from a somewhat friendly asking me to move to more of an order, like a drill sergeant might holler at a recruit. Well I got out of the military in 1993 and I have not taken to someone barking orders at me since then. I looked around and said “there are other pumps open”. To which she responded, “ I just drove around the lot to get to that pump” I just simple told her “I am not moving, you are going to have to go to one of these other pumps”.
Well it became obvious that her primate limbic brain was under a great deal of stress and I am pretty sure her blood pressure was elevating out of control, So obvious was this that I considered calling 911 in a preemptive attempt to save this poor woman’s life. I have been cut off at gas stations more times that I can even count, I have never made a comment to anyone about it. Sometimes you’re the bug, sometimes you are the windshield has been one of my life philosophies. I simple wait for the next one. I do not recall ever doing it to someone else but I suspect as many times as I have pumped gas it has to have happened. If someone’s life is wrapped so tightly that they would act like an idiot at a gas station, what must the rest of their lives be like – I always feel sad for them.
So after I informed her that I was not moving, I already had the pump nozzle in my hand, she said “WELL HAVE A NICE DAY”. I suspect, since she was yelling at this point in a very sarcastic way, that she was not really concerned at all about the outcome of my day. After that she then lowered her voice about 10 decibels and said “asshole”. I started laughing and that did not really help her mood at all. As she was driving away, to some other open pump, I heard "asshole" again, to which as I hollered “there are other pumps open. Now I normally do not engage, I could not help myself – I added “asshole” to the end of my conversation with her. I am not sure where she went but when her squealing tire sped off I could tell the rest of her day was ruined, I laughed to myself just a little bit. By the time I left the gas station Bride and I were already done laughing about it.
Have a nice day a*^hole!
Monday, February 28, 2011
Sunday, February 27, 2011
February with 28 days - what gives?
Well, it all started a long time ago in a land far, far away, seems that a LONG time ago our calendar only had 10 months and they started with March. Why March you might be wondering, I know I was. Well that was the beginning of spring and when a society is agrarian, that is an important time and since what is now January and February had ZERO agricultural relevance, there was no need to count them. I also learned that September, October, November and December have latin roots in 7,8,9, and ten respectively. Seems odd since they are now months 9,10,11 and 12 - but I found there is a reason for that as well. Before the overly egotistical Roman Emperors started meddling July and August were originally called Quintilis, which was fifth and Sextilis, which was sixth. I could not find it but I suppose that March, April, May and June were somehow derived from 1,2,3, and 4, don’t know for sure but I would bet a dollar on it.
So how did we get to where we are now and how in world did one of the two new months end up with 28 days? It seems that it was a political, religious and superstitious decision made roughly 2700 years ago by the Roman King Numa Pompilius. Before that, the Romans had a ten-month calendar with 304 days, that included 61 winter days (between December and March). Those days were not assigned to any of the 10 existing months. Well in the 8th century BC astronomy was not as understood as it is today and although he was close there were a lot of leap days in there to keep the calendar on time with the actual seasons. Still pretty impressive when you think about it, 8000 years before the time of Christ we had gotten to with 10 days of figuring out that the planet took 365 days to circle the sun. Especially considering it was not until the Copernicus proposed a crazy assed theory that Earth revolves around the Sun. He based his research on the heliocentric theory but was never able to prove it. It was not until Galileo came along and observed that truth and later when Kepler did the math was it proven and that was not until the 1500’s AD (or CE for you common era folks).
Many years later, Julius Caesar, after becoming dictator perpetuo (dictator for life) reorganized the calendar yet again, he somehow figured out the right number of days - giving it 365. Julius Caesar also created the month of July, in his own honor and gave it more days than any other month at 31 days. A bit later when Augustus became Caesar he wanted his own month as well and he wanted it to have more says as well, hence July and August being messing up the original number system for the months and why both have 31 days. There are those who say he made February 29 days long, 30 in leap year, and that Augustus Caesar later pilfered a day; others say Julius just kept it at 28. When Christianity spread further (because of the organizational skills of Emperor Constantine), the beginning of the Calendar was changed to coincide with the month epiphany, rather than the pagan tradition of the month of the vernal equinox that more coincided with the planting and harvests. Some others say that since it was last month it simply ran out of days because of the pilfering by the Emperors of Rome. Others say that it was all stolen from Egyptians (who used a solar calendar in honor of the sun god Ra instead of the lunar calendar the Roman one was based on), which I believe is probably closer to the truth. But like any bureaucracy the Roman Senate created the now alternating (except Julius and Augustus) number of days in a month, who knows why.
So who really knows why February has only 28 days, the only thing I do know is that like many things in our lives today the current calendar was organized by the Roman Empire, those guys we WAY ahead of their time.
So how did we get to where we are now and how in world did one of the two new months end up with 28 days? It seems that it was a political, religious and superstitious decision made roughly 2700 years ago by the Roman King Numa Pompilius. Before that, the Romans had a ten-month calendar with 304 days, that included 61 winter days (between December and March). Those days were not assigned to any of the 10 existing months. Well in the 8th century BC astronomy was not as understood as it is today and although he was close there were a lot of leap days in there to keep the calendar on time with the actual seasons. Still pretty impressive when you think about it, 8000 years before the time of Christ we had gotten to with 10 days of figuring out that the planet took 365 days to circle the sun. Especially considering it was not until the Copernicus proposed a crazy assed theory that Earth revolves around the Sun. He based his research on the heliocentric theory but was never able to prove it. It was not until Galileo came along and observed that truth and later when Kepler did the math was it proven and that was not until the 1500’s AD (or CE for you common era folks).
Many years later, Julius Caesar, after becoming dictator perpetuo (dictator for life) reorganized the calendar yet again, he somehow figured out the right number of days - giving it 365. Julius Caesar also created the month of July, in his own honor and gave it more days than any other month at 31 days. A bit later when Augustus became Caesar he wanted his own month as well and he wanted it to have more says as well, hence July and August being messing up the original number system for the months and why both have 31 days. There are those who say he made February 29 days long, 30 in leap year, and that Augustus Caesar later pilfered a day; others say Julius just kept it at 28. When Christianity spread further (because of the organizational skills of Emperor Constantine), the beginning of the Calendar was changed to coincide with the month epiphany, rather than the pagan tradition of the month of the vernal equinox that more coincided with the planting and harvests. Some others say that since it was last month it simply ran out of days because of the pilfering by the Emperors of Rome. Others say that it was all stolen from Egyptians (who used a solar calendar in honor of the sun god Ra instead of the lunar calendar the Roman one was based on), which I believe is probably closer to the truth. But like any bureaucracy the Roman Senate created the now alternating (except Julius and Augustus) number of days in a month, who knows why.
So who really knows why February has only 28 days, the only thing I do know is that like many things in our lives today the current calendar was organized by the Roman Empire, those guys we WAY ahead of their time.
Friday, February 25, 2011
Federally funding PBS and NPR – why, or better yet, why not. A lifelong republican’s take on the matter
There has been much talk lately about cutting the funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) which is the primary mechanism to supply Federal funding to the public broadcasting stations. It is nothing new really, dating back to the inception of CPB there have been cries about the funding of television and radio stations with tax payer money. CPB was formed on November 7th 1967 when President Johnson signed into law the public broadcasting act of 1967. It was not until 1969 that the Public Broadcasting Service was established and in 1970 National Public Radio was formed. Historically 15-20% of the aggregate revenues for those stations come through CPB. Their budget is composed almost entirely of an annual appropriation from Congress plus interest on those funds. For fiscal year 2010, its appropriation was $422 million.
Yep, 422 million ANNUALLY and by my math that is about what our government is wasting per day fighting wars in foreign countries – that is PER DAY folks (based on the last number I found of 12 billion per month). Another comparative number is Medicaid, which is in the neighborhood of 833 million dollars a day, again that is PER DAY! Or if one were to look at social security, we are talking about a whopping 2.2 billion dollars a day, 2 billion dollars a day. If we look at the normal defense budget, 1.9 BILLION dollars a day. Those damn numbers do not even fit inside my head, the scope of money that the government spends each day is staggering and scary. I was only using those federal programs to demonstrate comparisons on the money, I in no way am comparing the services of Social Security and Military spending to PBS and NPR funding.
With CPB funded at 1.1 million dollars a day it seems so out of place to be on the chopping block. Those 1.1 million dollars a day cover about 350 local TV stations and about 900 local radio stations. When I say local, most are producing and broadcasting locally oriented programming that no one else would or could do. That local content is critical to the communities they serve. If overly simple math were used (the kind I can understand) on those funds it comes out to about $880 bucks a day per station. Now I know the distribution is not even among any of them and it is based on market size (how many people can hear or watch) but you can see that the federal funding is not enough to keep us going. It is however significant enough to have a detrimental impact on the local stations if it goes away and I do not want to imagine a world without the programming and services PBS and NPR provide.
Especially when you consider that on the TV side, PBS provides kiddo safe programming, FREE over the air, to every person in the United States using the ultimate wireless technology, all you need is a TV and a coat hanger. And it is not just shows like you might find on Nickelodeon or the cartoon network, these are all shows that bear the small “e i” at the top. That "e i" means that those programs are teaching our yut’s something meaningful. You do not get that for providing sponge bob square pants, while entertaining it has no real educational value at all. That means if you must use a boob tube as a babysitter you will never have to worry about what your kids are watching on PBS, NEVER!! I grew up fascinated by what Mr. Rogers was showing me and later realized that Big Bird was teaching me lessons I would need later in life for conflict resolution. You do not get that from regular cartoons folks and you never will.
On the radio side, NPR does provide more in-depth stories than any of the so called news outlets. Sure most folks on the right, and I was one of them, claim that it is 100% liberal nonsense. Trust me when I tell you, I used to think that way as well and ya know why – because they were presenting a viewpoint that I did not agree with. The so called news organizations today are driven by ratings and base their coverage on whatever the news cycle is for that particular moment in time. We have all seen it, putting two idiots on opposite sides of the table and letting them spew their take on whatever topic for 3 minutes each does not constitute news. No one ever digs into the story to find out which one is lying and call bullshit on them, not that they do not want to BUT because there is always another news cycle and the details of the story will not make ratings, only the sensational bullshit they call Fair and Balanced or The Worldwide Leader in News or A Fuller Spectrum of News or any other number of tag lines. I am not saying that all are biased, only that none of them are without bias. I feel strongly that NPR and the little bit of PBS news is at least telling us more of the story than the others are.
Anyway, if you do not know, I work for a PBS and NPR station, I have been there 13 years and it is the best, most rewarding job I have ever had. I doubt that I will ever work for a for profit company again, being able to work at a place that is mission driven is SO DIFFERENT than working for one that is bottom line driven. I am not saying that being driven by the dollar is a bad thing at all, it is the American way. But I am saying that mission driven organizations are also an important part of our society. Where would Parkinson’s research be without Michael J Fox, they would be 228 million dollars behind where they are now. Imagine a world with no Bill and Melinda Gates foundation, the ultimate republican doing good things because they need doing. At WJCT (in Jacksonville Fl) WJCT’s mission is to provide programming and services that celebrate human diversity, encourage joyful learning, promote civic participation and empower citizens to improve the quality of their lives.
That mission covers a lot of ground and they do SO much more than just broadcast programming to radios and televisions. They provide outreach programs to teacher and kids and the commitment goes far beyond television, encompassing Ready To Learn, Share a Story, and other initiatives that put educational tools directly in the hands of parents and caregivers. WJCT is a trusted classroom resource, providing free lesson plans, teachers’ guides and online activities for K-12 educators. Assisting parents, caregivers and educators in countless ways, to help kids succeed.
I have also heard the talk about Sesame Street being able to stand on its own, and it could, if the playing field were equal. The problem is, the playing field is not equal, public broadcasting is severely limited by the charter that the congress setup all those years ago. They do not have commercials, they have underwriting and most folks do not know or understand the difference. There is a book about 5 inches thick that details the rules about the content of those underwriting spots, there can be no calls to action statements. There are also very few places to insert underwriting, there is usually about 84 to 168 seconds of time per hour that is not programming. In that short amount of time they have to get in a legal identification, any promo’s for upcoming shows and events and any underwriting they can get in there. There are simply not enough seconds per hour to get enough ad revenue in there, even if there were not the crazy rules they must operate under.
The spots on PBS and NPR stations are only allowed to talk about the attributes of the product being presented, there can be no comparisons of products like you see in regular television commercials. Like this car has a better handling that that other car, you will see none of that and hear none of that on PBS or NPR. Big deal you might say, well I used to agree BUT the folks who want to advertise primary want that kind of sensationalistic spot, hell I would as well if I were advertising. I mean some of those super bowl commercials are incredible. Public Broadcasting can not do that, not because they don’t want to but because they are not allowed and all things are obviously not equal.
PBS remains #1 in public trust, with 49% of the population of our country trusting PBS “a great deal“. Second in trust are “courts of law,” which are trusted “a great deal by 27%”. The first in public trust, 49%!! That is not insignificant to me and it should not be insignificant to you either. It seems completely crazy to me that CPB is being targeted for removal from the budget, removal of funds. I mean of all the things that our government wastes money on, on a monumental scale, CPB is a cheap date with a hell of a foot print in our society. I mean seriously, who among us has not enjoyed an episode of Mr. Rogers? I am not afraid to admit it, I enjoyed watching that show well into adulthood. He did very interesting things long before there were a glut of cheap imposters.
I can’t imagine a world without public broadcasting in it, from Bert and Ernie to Elmo to Nova and Scientific American Frontiers to Morning Edition to Car talk . Are they all good, no, but they all have meaning to someone and without them our country would be missing an important part of who we are. And with only 422 million dollars at stake, we are not going to balance the federal or state budgets by cutting that funding from the budget, NO WAY and NOT EVEN CLOSE.
I am asking that you follow this link and let your vote count, if for no other reason than I asked ya to.
http://www.170millionamericans.org/
Here is a link to WJCT’s site
http://www.wjct.org/about
And here is a GREAT article by Rick Steve’s about the issue.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/forum/2011-02-17-column17_ST1_N.htm?sms_ss=facebook&at_xt=4d5eaeb327587299%2C0
Yep, 422 million ANNUALLY and by my math that is about what our government is wasting per day fighting wars in foreign countries – that is PER DAY folks (based on the last number I found of 12 billion per month). Another comparative number is Medicaid, which is in the neighborhood of 833 million dollars a day, again that is PER DAY! Or if one were to look at social security, we are talking about a whopping 2.2 billion dollars a day, 2 billion dollars a day. If we look at the normal defense budget, 1.9 BILLION dollars a day. Those damn numbers do not even fit inside my head, the scope of money that the government spends each day is staggering and scary. I was only using those federal programs to demonstrate comparisons on the money, I in no way am comparing the services of Social Security and Military spending to PBS and NPR funding.
With CPB funded at 1.1 million dollars a day it seems so out of place to be on the chopping block. Those 1.1 million dollars a day cover about 350 local TV stations and about 900 local radio stations. When I say local, most are producing and broadcasting locally oriented programming that no one else would or could do. That local content is critical to the communities they serve. If overly simple math were used (the kind I can understand) on those funds it comes out to about $880 bucks a day per station. Now I know the distribution is not even among any of them and it is based on market size (how many people can hear or watch) but you can see that the federal funding is not enough to keep us going. It is however significant enough to have a detrimental impact on the local stations if it goes away and I do not want to imagine a world without the programming and services PBS and NPR provide.
Especially when you consider that on the TV side, PBS provides kiddo safe programming, FREE over the air, to every person in the United States using the ultimate wireless technology, all you need is a TV and a coat hanger. And it is not just shows like you might find on Nickelodeon or the cartoon network, these are all shows that bear the small “e i” at the top. That "e i" means that those programs are teaching our yut’s something meaningful. You do not get that for providing sponge bob square pants, while entertaining it has no real educational value at all. That means if you must use a boob tube as a babysitter you will never have to worry about what your kids are watching on PBS, NEVER!! I grew up fascinated by what Mr. Rogers was showing me and later realized that Big Bird was teaching me lessons I would need later in life for conflict resolution. You do not get that from regular cartoons folks and you never will.
On the radio side, NPR does provide more in-depth stories than any of the so called news outlets. Sure most folks on the right, and I was one of them, claim that it is 100% liberal nonsense. Trust me when I tell you, I used to think that way as well and ya know why – because they were presenting a viewpoint that I did not agree with. The so called news organizations today are driven by ratings and base their coverage on whatever the news cycle is for that particular moment in time. We have all seen it, putting two idiots on opposite sides of the table and letting them spew their take on whatever topic for 3 minutes each does not constitute news. No one ever digs into the story to find out which one is lying and call bullshit on them, not that they do not want to BUT because there is always another news cycle and the details of the story will not make ratings, only the sensational bullshit they call Fair and Balanced or The Worldwide Leader in News or A Fuller Spectrum of News or any other number of tag lines. I am not saying that all are biased, only that none of them are without bias. I feel strongly that NPR and the little bit of PBS news is at least telling us more of the story than the others are.
Anyway, if you do not know, I work for a PBS and NPR station, I have been there 13 years and it is the best, most rewarding job I have ever had. I doubt that I will ever work for a for profit company again, being able to work at a place that is mission driven is SO DIFFERENT than working for one that is bottom line driven. I am not saying that being driven by the dollar is a bad thing at all, it is the American way. But I am saying that mission driven organizations are also an important part of our society. Where would Parkinson’s research be without Michael J Fox, they would be 228 million dollars behind where they are now. Imagine a world with no Bill and Melinda Gates foundation, the ultimate republican doing good things because they need doing. At WJCT (in Jacksonville Fl) WJCT’s mission is to provide programming and services that celebrate human diversity, encourage joyful learning, promote civic participation and empower citizens to improve the quality of their lives.
That mission covers a lot of ground and they do SO much more than just broadcast programming to radios and televisions. They provide outreach programs to teacher and kids and the commitment goes far beyond television, encompassing Ready To Learn, Share a Story, and other initiatives that put educational tools directly in the hands of parents and caregivers. WJCT is a trusted classroom resource, providing free lesson plans, teachers’ guides and online activities for K-12 educators. Assisting parents, caregivers and educators in countless ways, to help kids succeed.
I have also heard the talk about Sesame Street being able to stand on its own, and it could, if the playing field were equal. The problem is, the playing field is not equal, public broadcasting is severely limited by the charter that the congress setup all those years ago. They do not have commercials, they have underwriting and most folks do not know or understand the difference. There is a book about 5 inches thick that details the rules about the content of those underwriting spots, there can be no calls to action statements. There are also very few places to insert underwriting, there is usually about 84 to 168 seconds of time per hour that is not programming. In that short amount of time they have to get in a legal identification, any promo’s for upcoming shows and events and any underwriting they can get in there. There are simply not enough seconds per hour to get enough ad revenue in there, even if there were not the crazy rules they must operate under.
The spots on PBS and NPR stations are only allowed to talk about the attributes of the product being presented, there can be no comparisons of products like you see in regular television commercials. Like this car has a better handling that that other car, you will see none of that and hear none of that on PBS or NPR. Big deal you might say, well I used to agree BUT the folks who want to advertise primary want that kind of sensationalistic spot, hell I would as well if I were advertising. I mean some of those super bowl commercials are incredible. Public Broadcasting can not do that, not because they don’t want to but because they are not allowed and all things are obviously not equal.
PBS remains #1 in public trust, with 49% of the population of our country trusting PBS “a great deal“. Second in trust are “courts of law,” which are trusted “a great deal by 27%”. The first in public trust, 49%!! That is not insignificant to me and it should not be insignificant to you either. It seems completely crazy to me that CPB is being targeted for removal from the budget, removal of funds. I mean of all the things that our government wastes money on, on a monumental scale, CPB is a cheap date with a hell of a foot print in our society. I mean seriously, who among us has not enjoyed an episode of Mr. Rogers? I am not afraid to admit it, I enjoyed watching that show well into adulthood. He did very interesting things long before there were a glut of cheap imposters.
I can’t imagine a world without public broadcasting in it, from Bert and Ernie to Elmo to Nova and Scientific American Frontiers to Morning Edition to Car talk . Are they all good, no, but they all have meaning to someone and without them our country would be missing an important part of who we are. And with only 422 million dollars at stake, we are not going to balance the federal or state budgets by cutting that funding from the budget, NO WAY and NOT EVEN CLOSE.
I am asking that you follow this link and let your vote count, if for no other reason than I asked ya to.
http://www.170millionamericans.org/
Here is a link to WJCT’s site
http://www.wjct.org/about
And here is a GREAT article by Rick Steve’s about the issue.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/forum/2011-02-17-column17_ST1_N.htm?sms_ss=facebook&at_xt=4d5eaeb327587299%2C0
Monday, February 21, 2011
I am fat, I have figured out why and what needs done to correct that issue
So I am not sure how life works sometimes, a couple of years ago I started a new way of eating to lose some weight. When my Dad passed away all that went out the window, I had lost over 50 pounds over about 11 months. I knew when I was losing the weight that the harder part was going to be to maintain it after I hit my target weight. Well that sure proved to be true, I have gained all the weight back and still cannot for the life of me understand why I did that. I remember thinking during that weight loss that there would be no way I would throw away all that work, yet that is exactly what I did. I was mad about that but that was not really a productive outlet. I had already gained the weight back so why spend time beating myself up about that, I was fat again and I needed to just deal with it. So, that is where I am, rededicating myself to getting healthier.
So I also have some theories about why I got and why I am fat. There is a perfectly acceptable and scientific explanation of why myself and many others are gaining weight. If one were to believe the commercials that are hocking all manner of weight loss medications it could never have been our fault, it is the stress at work, our older and slower metabolism and a mess of other reasons, none of which are our fault. Well my tack is more scientific and has less to do with any specific medication. Despite my poor eating choices my weight gain is not my fault, clearly there are forces working against me. The blame obviously lands on the very universe we live in, yep, I said it - the fault lies in the cosmos. Here me out on this, this is high tech, scientific shit I am getting ready lay on ya …………
I have found, through extensive research, that 40,000 tons of space dust land on earth every day. I bet you are saying, so what? Well, let me tell ya why that is the answer to our lack of will power and subsequent obesity. With an additional 40 tons of space dust adding to the already hefty weight of the earth, (6,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (6E+24) kilograms to be exact) the mass of the planet is increasing each day. Well, we all know happens when you increase the mass of an object. When mass increases so does the gravity that is created by that object. So we are all getting pulled down harder towards the center of mass of the planet, pulled down harder on the scales we use to measure our weight. I could go into the calculations here but I am pretty sure (99.9776458764% accurate) that over the last few years that dust accumulation has increased exponentially. Does it seem like there is more dust everywhere, at your work place, in your home and car and even in the pool filter. I am telling ya, we are getting fatter and heavier because the very planet we reside on is working to slowly crush us by increasing its gravity.
So what is the answer to us picking up this space debris, well I think we need to start blasting off the earth, 50 tons of trash every day. I mean we have all heard the concerns about landfills, why not throw it away in the biggest landfill around. I am not sure why we would not continue our short sighted approach to large problems, I mean how many generations do you think it will take before we fill up space with junk? With the ejection of more weight from the planet than is dropping on it will eventually reduce the gravity of the planet. With less gravity pulling us down we will all begin to lose weight. Seems simple to me, let’s start building those damn rockets.
I think we also need to look at the ever expanding universe as well, I mean it has to have some effect here. If everything in the universe is traveling away from everything else at an increasing speed, which is a theory I do not buy into by the way, how could that not have an effect on the specific gravity of the planet earth. I mean our solar system is but a spec, nothing more than a grain of sand on the cosmic beach called the Milky Way. There are forces afoot that are beyond our comprehension or control, there has to be an adverse effect out there somewhere, in some way, impacting my ability to lose weight, all this time I thought the stars were beautiful, until now when I realize those damn things are at fault for my fat ass – damn them anyway!
There is one other option, we could start building antigravity machines, again it seems so simple to me. If we were able to construct large scale antigravity machines we could reverse our obesity in no time. I have pondered the implementation of such a system and the challenges will be great. There are lots of issues, including a power source for such a massive machine, or groups of massive machines. I was thinking that we might start out smaller scale, units large enough for a medium sized city. I mean we have built machines that take single protons, all spinning randomly, catches them in a strong magnetic field, and lines them up, blasts them with a short, precisely tuned bursts of radio waves in order to get them to flip around and thereby creating a brief radio signature that can measured and some hot rod software can then create a picture of our innards (they call them MRI machines) a simple antigravity device will be child’s play for the smart folks who build big fancy machines.
Well, all of that aside I think I will just start eating better and exercising more, that is the only real way to stay fit and prepare ourselves for older age.
So I also have some theories about why I got and why I am fat. There is a perfectly acceptable and scientific explanation of why myself and many others are gaining weight. If one were to believe the commercials that are hocking all manner of weight loss medications it could never have been our fault, it is the stress at work, our older and slower metabolism and a mess of other reasons, none of which are our fault. Well my tack is more scientific and has less to do with any specific medication. Despite my poor eating choices my weight gain is not my fault, clearly there are forces working against me. The blame obviously lands on the very universe we live in, yep, I said it - the fault lies in the cosmos. Here me out on this, this is high tech, scientific shit I am getting ready lay on ya …………
I have found, through extensive research, that 40,000 tons of space dust land on earth every day. I bet you are saying, so what? Well, let me tell ya why that is the answer to our lack of will power and subsequent obesity. With an additional 40 tons of space dust adding to the already hefty weight of the earth, (6,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (6E+24) kilograms to be exact) the mass of the planet is increasing each day. Well, we all know happens when you increase the mass of an object. When mass increases so does the gravity that is created by that object. So we are all getting pulled down harder towards the center of mass of the planet, pulled down harder on the scales we use to measure our weight. I could go into the calculations here but I am pretty sure (99.9776458764% accurate) that over the last few years that dust accumulation has increased exponentially. Does it seem like there is more dust everywhere, at your work place, in your home and car and even in the pool filter. I am telling ya, we are getting fatter and heavier because the very planet we reside on is working to slowly crush us by increasing its gravity.
So what is the answer to us picking up this space debris, well I think we need to start blasting off the earth, 50 tons of trash every day. I mean we have all heard the concerns about landfills, why not throw it away in the biggest landfill around. I am not sure why we would not continue our short sighted approach to large problems, I mean how many generations do you think it will take before we fill up space with junk? With the ejection of more weight from the planet than is dropping on it will eventually reduce the gravity of the planet. With less gravity pulling us down we will all begin to lose weight. Seems simple to me, let’s start building those damn rockets.
I think we also need to look at the ever expanding universe as well, I mean it has to have some effect here. If everything in the universe is traveling away from everything else at an increasing speed, which is a theory I do not buy into by the way, how could that not have an effect on the specific gravity of the planet earth. I mean our solar system is but a spec, nothing more than a grain of sand on the cosmic beach called the Milky Way. There are forces afoot that are beyond our comprehension or control, there has to be an adverse effect out there somewhere, in some way, impacting my ability to lose weight, all this time I thought the stars were beautiful, until now when I realize those damn things are at fault for my fat ass – damn them anyway!
There is one other option, we could start building antigravity machines, again it seems so simple to me. If we were able to construct large scale antigravity machines we could reverse our obesity in no time. I have pondered the implementation of such a system and the challenges will be great. There are lots of issues, including a power source for such a massive machine, or groups of massive machines. I was thinking that we might start out smaller scale, units large enough for a medium sized city. I mean we have built machines that take single protons, all spinning randomly, catches them in a strong magnetic field, and lines them up, blasts them with a short, precisely tuned bursts of radio waves in order to get them to flip around and thereby creating a brief radio signature that can measured and some hot rod software can then create a picture of our innards (they call them MRI machines) a simple antigravity device will be child’s play for the smart folks who build big fancy machines.
Well, all of that aside I think I will just start eating better and exercising more, that is the only real way to stay fit and prepare ourselves for older age.
Sunday, February 13, 2011
So here is anufur burfday – 46, who’d a thunk it?
So I am getting ready to turn 46 tomorrow, seems hard to believe really. Seems like it was just yesterday, we were sitting around in our teenage years on the stoop in Millerstown, drinking beers through a straw and smoking pot. Don’t get me wrong , I DO NOT miss those days and would not go back and relive any of them. But they, along with lots of other life experiences have brought me to where I am today – one day shy of 46 years old. I am the age my Dad was when I was that hellion of child drinking beer through a straw and smoking pot, and that makes me laugh. Think about how your life has guided you to where you are, my Dad was guided by his life to where he was. I could not imagine ever being friends with my Dad at that age. Maybe it was different time, maybe it was a different place but I can not get my head around what it would have been like to been a friend of my Dad’s.
I am very content with my station in life, where I am personally, where I am professionally and where I am as a citizen of this great Nation. All of the experiences of my life have lead me to where i am, some were good, some were great, some were bad and some were very bad. But all of them, together, have lead me here, to writing this blog about turning 46. I really had no idea what I was going to write about when I opened this word doc, the first thing that popped into my head was the fact that tomorrow, I have a birthday.
The sunrise tomorrow will be the 16,801st (including the 11 February 29th’s) since my arrival back in 1965, it seems like a lot of revolutions but really if compared to geologic time it is but a blip. Consider that is has been 85,000 sun ups and sundowns since the United States of America declared our independence from Great Britain. There have been 750,000 since Julius Ceaser was killed on the senate floor. Since homo Erectus was wondering the savanna’s of eastern Africa on his way to the top of food chain, there have been 474,500,000 sunrises and sunsets. And it there has been a staggering 237,250,000,000 sunrises since the dinosaur’s were roaming the earth. So a paltry 16,801 is but a blip on the scale on time.
There have also been 11 leap years since I was born, I wonder what it must be like to have your birthday on a leap year, how weird would it be to be able to say, yep – I am 11 years old today but actually be much older. I suspect I could have had fun with that if my burfday was February 29th. There have been 8 presidents since my arrival, I have voted in elections for 5 of them. Today I have 132 Facebook friends, I have met all but 3 of them, and I look forward to meeting those folks one day.
I realize that I most likely have had more days here than I have left, and you know what – that is fine with me. I am not sure I want to live to be older than 92 anyway, don’t know for sure but I don’t think I can picture myself at 92 years old. Haha, makes me laugh just thinking about it. I guess our own ending is something we think about the least but is the most present thing in our lives, the only guarantee we got when we arrived. The end, it does not scare me or frighten me, why should an evolutionary inevitability be something we fear? Why not use it, use it to force ourselves to live for and in today, the right now.
Yes, I am talking to you – do not wait or put off what you want from life, if you do – you will get to the end and wonder, why didn’t I do that, why did I do that. I do not want to have unanswerable questions when my time comes, whenever that is. I remember when my friend Brian was dying of cancer I told him that we all come with an expiration date, it happens to be tattooed on the inside of our asses and most likely we will never get a look to see it. Well, on one trip to California for treatment he actually asked the doctor to take a look and see if he could find his tattoo. To hear my friend Brian relate that story back to me and describe the look on the doctors face was priceless. I do miss Brian, his loss was hard but I was able to patch that hole in my heart and move on, just like I have with every loss I have suffered.
I am so lucky to have been hanging with Bride for the last 20+ years, she has brought more joy to my life than I could even describe. Her name is tattooed across my soul and that ink is not wearing off. She has brought meaning to my life and I hardly remember my life before she came into it. She got me red velvet cupcakes with cream frosting for my birthday, they were good! We don’t exchange gifts much anymore, we got everything we need and I am sometimes embarrassed by how fortunate we have been in our lives. If we do get gifts it is usually something small and silly or practical.
I am so enjoying the ride, this ride of life, and do not think I have ever been in a better place, personally. The world seems out of control to me right now, but ya know….. if you are a student of history there are many examples across time where folks must have had the same feelings we all have now, but here we are, a testament to humankinds ability to survive. So my (day before) burfday, I got to spend it with my best friend and I enjoyed the day, what more can I ask for. This is also my 214th blog, which really as Bride just pointed out to me is also my Burfday, 2-14, that makes me laugh for some reason, the perfect alignment of the stars right there I tell ya.
I love each of my friends and I do not feel I have told you enough but I do and I cherish your friendship
I am very content with my station in life, where I am personally, where I am professionally and where I am as a citizen of this great Nation. All of the experiences of my life have lead me to where i am, some were good, some were great, some were bad and some were very bad. But all of them, together, have lead me here, to writing this blog about turning 46. I really had no idea what I was going to write about when I opened this word doc, the first thing that popped into my head was the fact that tomorrow, I have a birthday.
The sunrise tomorrow will be the 16,801st (including the 11 February 29th’s) since my arrival back in 1965, it seems like a lot of revolutions but really if compared to geologic time it is but a blip. Consider that is has been 85,000 sun ups and sundowns since the United States of America declared our independence from Great Britain. There have been 750,000 since Julius Ceaser was killed on the senate floor. Since homo Erectus was wondering the savanna’s of eastern Africa on his way to the top of food chain, there have been 474,500,000 sunrises and sunsets. And it there has been a staggering 237,250,000,000 sunrises since the dinosaur’s were roaming the earth. So a paltry 16,801 is but a blip on the scale on time.
There have also been 11 leap years since I was born, I wonder what it must be like to have your birthday on a leap year, how weird would it be to be able to say, yep – I am 11 years old today but actually be much older. I suspect I could have had fun with that if my burfday was February 29th. There have been 8 presidents since my arrival, I have voted in elections for 5 of them. Today I have 132 Facebook friends, I have met all but 3 of them, and I look forward to meeting those folks one day.
I realize that I most likely have had more days here than I have left, and you know what – that is fine with me. I am not sure I want to live to be older than 92 anyway, don’t know for sure but I don’t think I can picture myself at 92 years old. Haha, makes me laugh just thinking about it. I guess our own ending is something we think about the least but is the most present thing in our lives, the only guarantee we got when we arrived. The end, it does not scare me or frighten me, why should an evolutionary inevitability be something we fear? Why not use it, use it to force ourselves to live for and in today, the right now.
Yes, I am talking to you – do not wait or put off what you want from life, if you do – you will get to the end and wonder, why didn’t I do that, why did I do that. I do not want to have unanswerable questions when my time comes, whenever that is. I remember when my friend Brian was dying of cancer I told him that we all come with an expiration date, it happens to be tattooed on the inside of our asses and most likely we will never get a look to see it. Well, on one trip to California for treatment he actually asked the doctor to take a look and see if he could find his tattoo. To hear my friend Brian relate that story back to me and describe the look on the doctors face was priceless. I do miss Brian, his loss was hard but I was able to patch that hole in my heart and move on, just like I have with every loss I have suffered.
I am so lucky to have been hanging with Bride for the last 20+ years, she has brought more joy to my life than I could even describe. Her name is tattooed across my soul and that ink is not wearing off. She has brought meaning to my life and I hardly remember my life before she came into it. She got me red velvet cupcakes with cream frosting for my birthday, they were good! We don’t exchange gifts much anymore, we got everything we need and I am sometimes embarrassed by how fortunate we have been in our lives. If we do get gifts it is usually something small and silly or practical.
I am so enjoying the ride, this ride of life, and do not think I have ever been in a better place, personally. The world seems out of control to me right now, but ya know….. if you are a student of history there are many examples across time where folks must have had the same feelings we all have now, but here we are, a testament to humankinds ability to survive. So my (day before) burfday, I got to spend it with my best friend and I enjoyed the day, what more can I ask for. This is also my 214th blog, which really as Bride just pointed out to me is also my Burfday, 2-14, that makes me laugh for some reason, the perfect alignment of the stars right there I tell ya.
I love each of my friends and I do not feel I have told you enough but I do and I cherish your friendship
Saturday, February 5, 2011
How to memorialize a GREAT friend
Yesterday I received in my email the most amazing memorial from a great friend about another one of his great friends. The subject line read simply “lessons from life”. As I was reading through I was reminded how much I enjoy talking with, emailing with and face-booking with my friend, he holds some genuine wisdom of life and we share a great many of the same life philosophies. Neither of us consider ourselves religious but we are both, most assuredly, spiritual seekers. We have been friends for about 10 years I guess, after spending a few hours outside the MGM Grand’s convention center in Vegas smoking some fine cigars talking about life I knew we would be friends forever. I was so touched by my friends memorial that I asked if I could post it here with a little of his friends story, and he agreed.
Lessons from life:
It seems you eventually come to understand that the tough times illuminate what's really important in your spirit. They disperse the trivia, annoyances and minor issues and make you aware of reality- of yourself as finite, fallible and often helpless. Your wish you could transcend the situation and emotion- but often, you can't. You just have to try to find a way to handle whatever it is, store it in a place where you can absorb it or at least minimize the damage from it and figure out how it affects what you do next. I used to try to just glaze over the bad stuff- "tough it out" -kinda' ignore how bad it really hurt and act like if I ignored it - it would go away = not a realistic or healthy practice as it eventually ferments, expands and explodes into your life. So- I've learned through repeated practice to manage the tough times by trying to confront the tough thing face-to-face and fight it - try to get it 'fixed' and try to move on. Honestly it doesn't always work and some things are too big to fight all at once and you have to fight them in multiple bouts, over multiple years- or even forever.
More importantly these times remind you how precious each day really is and they make me even more committed to 'wring every drop out of every day'.
...today a dear friend who's been fighting ALS (Lou Gherig's disease) decided to be taken off life support , freeing him from paralysis and allowing him to "go to be with the creator of this amazing world"
Powerful stuff right there!
Later I was one FB and noticed he was online, so I pinged him. We “chatted” in the new electronic way for a few minutes, during which I asked him to send me an email with 2 things in it. First I wanted to know the story of they met and secondly I wanted to hear the funniest story he could remember about the two of them. I ask that question of friends who have suffered a loss, I find it helps take the sting out of their loss. Even if for only a moment it gets them remembering their friend instead of their own loss.
He sent me back a two page email telling the story of how they met and about some great adventures they had in Alaska, where his friend had lived since the 70’s. He told me they had become “instant friends”, his friend was amused that he was so excited about being in Alaska. My friend had always planned on getting to Alaska after watching Marlin Perkins tagging Polar Bears on Wild Kingdom as a little kid. I love that show as well, I will sit safely in the boat while Jim wrestles the 30 foot anaconda - that Jim was one bad dude. My friend later got to meet Marlin Perkins while working on a research project for North Carolina State University.
The same day they met, his friend invited him to dinner at his home, he rode with him to pick up his son, all zipped up in a 'Michelin man' snowsuit, from kindergarten and had big grilled Silver Salmon steaks. Later they spent time pouring over maps and planning various treks out to see some of the places on his "list". From that meeting grew one of the best friendships he has ever had, they got to see each other almost every year- sometimes more than once, until now. They worked together on a distance learning project that ran for many years and touched the lives of countless kids that gave them the opportunity to put together a really cool link between the kids in the middle school in Barrow Alaska - the northernmost town in the continental US and the kids in a Middle school in Jacksonville , FL. where the temperature difference between the two places was greater than 100 degrees. My friend told of how the he kids sat there for the first few minutes staring at each other till finally one of the Inupiat kids asked "what kind of music do you all listen to?"- and it was on- a true cultural exchange.
My friend used words like - educator, curriculum developer , Big Thinker and master communicator when describing his friend. His friend had helped him fulfill his adventure quests and had followed him to places even he would have never gone alone, even saying that it helped him discover things about Alaska that he never noticed even though they were right under his nose. My friend, in his thirst for the essence of life, often challenged his friend to 'set his spirit free' - expand his boundaries and to be more adventurous - they once went out to a Glacier when he was suffering through a tough patch and stood and YELLED at the top of their lungs and then laughed their heads off- a practice that brought them much joy and one they adopted and regularly practiced in "THEIR CHURCH". (remote Alaska)
As we chatted on FB he told me about an email exchange they had the day before the life support machines were unplugged. He did not tell me of the contents of his email to his friend but he did share with me what his friend’s reply was, the simple and profound reply was "love you my friend" what more can you say?” After letting my mind absorb that for a moment I told him, “love you my Friend, what more can one say - he was at peace with the world, you know that right?”
So my heart is heavy, not for my loss, but for my friend who lost a GREAT friend. For some reason I am reminded of a scene from the movie, Waking Ned Devine where Jackie (a lead character) delivers a well crafted eulogy about how wonderful it would be to tell a friend you love him while he is still alive. Maybe it was because my friend told me he loved me, we both try to live in the moment and do not mind telling our friends and loved ones how we feel about each other, one never knows when ones time is up and what a shame it would be to miss the opportunity to tell the people important to you what they mean to you.
Buddy, you must go find that movie, Waking Ned Devine, and watch it, after that I want you to go find yourself a great cigar, head north till you find a snow covered lake and have a yell, yell and laugh and remember your great friend. Thanks for sharing the stories with me brother.
Here is picture of them, having a yell on a glacier in Alaska.
Lessons from life:
It seems you eventually come to understand that the tough times illuminate what's really important in your spirit. They disperse the trivia, annoyances and minor issues and make you aware of reality- of yourself as finite, fallible and often helpless. Your wish you could transcend the situation and emotion- but often, you can't. You just have to try to find a way to handle whatever it is, store it in a place where you can absorb it or at least minimize the damage from it and figure out how it affects what you do next. I used to try to just glaze over the bad stuff- "tough it out" -kinda' ignore how bad it really hurt and act like if I ignored it - it would go away = not a realistic or healthy practice as it eventually ferments, expands and explodes into your life. So- I've learned through repeated practice to manage the tough times by trying to confront the tough thing face-to-face and fight it - try to get it 'fixed' and try to move on. Honestly it doesn't always work and some things are too big to fight all at once and you have to fight them in multiple bouts, over multiple years- or even forever.
More importantly these times remind you how precious each day really is and they make me even more committed to 'wring every drop out of every day'.
...today a dear friend who's been fighting ALS (Lou Gherig's disease) decided to be taken off life support , freeing him from paralysis and allowing him to "go to be with the creator of this amazing world"
Powerful stuff right there!
Later I was one FB and noticed he was online, so I pinged him. We “chatted” in the new electronic way for a few minutes, during which I asked him to send me an email with 2 things in it. First I wanted to know the story of they met and secondly I wanted to hear the funniest story he could remember about the two of them. I ask that question of friends who have suffered a loss, I find it helps take the sting out of their loss. Even if for only a moment it gets them remembering their friend instead of their own loss.
He sent me back a two page email telling the story of how they met and about some great adventures they had in Alaska, where his friend had lived since the 70’s. He told me they had become “instant friends”, his friend was amused that he was so excited about being in Alaska. My friend had always planned on getting to Alaska after watching Marlin Perkins tagging Polar Bears on Wild Kingdom as a little kid. I love that show as well, I will sit safely in the boat while Jim wrestles the 30 foot anaconda - that Jim was one bad dude. My friend later got to meet Marlin Perkins while working on a research project for North Carolina State University.
The same day they met, his friend invited him to dinner at his home, he rode with him to pick up his son, all zipped up in a 'Michelin man' snowsuit, from kindergarten and had big grilled Silver Salmon steaks. Later they spent time pouring over maps and planning various treks out to see some of the places on his "list". From that meeting grew one of the best friendships he has ever had, they got to see each other almost every year- sometimes more than once, until now. They worked together on a distance learning project that ran for many years and touched the lives of countless kids that gave them the opportunity to put together a really cool link between the kids in the middle school in Barrow Alaska - the northernmost town in the continental US and the kids in a Middle school in Jacksonville , FL. where the temperature difference between the two places was greater than 100 degrees. My friend told of how the he kids sat there for the first few minutes staring at each other till finally one of the Inupiat kids asked "what kind of music do you all listen to?"- and it was on- a true cultural exchange.
My friend used words like - educator, curriculum developer , Big Thinker and master communicator when describing his friend. His friend had helped him fulfill his adventure quests and had followed him to places even he would have never gone alone, even saying that it helped him discover things about Alaska that he never noticed even though they were right under his nose. My friend, in his thirst for the essence of life, often challenged his friend to 'set his spirit free' - expand his boundaries and to be more adventurous - they once went out to a Glacier when he was suffering through a tough patch and stood and YELLED at the top of their lungs and then laughed their heads off- a practice that brought them much joy and one they adopted and regularly practiced in "THEIR CHURCH". (remote Alaska)
As we chatted on FB he told me about an email exchange they had the day before the life support machines were unplugged. He did not tell me of the contents of his email to his friend but he did share with me what his friend’s reply was, the simple and profound reply was "love you my friend" what more can you say?” After letting my mind absorb that for a moment I told him, “love you my Friend, what more can one say - he was at peace with the world, you know that right?”
So my heart is heavy, not for my loss, but for my friend who lost a GREAT friend. For some reason I am reminded of a scene from the movie, Waking Ned Devine where Jackie (a lead character) delivers a well crafted eulogy about how wonderful it would be to tell a friend you love him while he is still alive. Maybe it was because my friend told me he loved me, we both try to live in the moment and do not mind telling our friends and loved ones how we feel about each other, one never knows when ones time is up and what a shame it would be to miss the opportunity to tell the people important to you what they mean to you.
Buddy, you must go find that movie, Waking Ned Devine, and watch it, after that I want you to go find yourself a great cigar, head north till you find a snow covered lake and have a yell, yell and laugh and remember your great friend. Thanks for sharing the stories with me brother.
Here is picture of them, having a yell on a glacier in Alaska.
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