Mr. Oatmeal's Oratories

testing posts

2012-01-14T08:18:00.002-05:00

Thanks for checking for me, please leave a commetn on FB if you were able to see this

Not sure where to start this one - Mr. Oatmeal unable to get started, imagine that??

2012-01-12T14:30:00.000-05:00

On January 5^th at10:07pm one of my oldest real life friends posted a note on Facebook that I amstill having trouble processing. We haveknown each other since the 60’s when we were both fortunate enough to be bornin Millerstown Ohio. I moved away (samecounty) when I was 5 and then moved farther away (a couple of hours) when I was11. Then I moved back (same county)after my Mom remarried when I was 14, which is a story in and of itself. Then moved back to Millerstown when I was 15,where she had been all along. There wasa time after I went in the military that we were hanging out together, I usedto make the trip up to Morehead State University in Kentucky while I wasstationed in Norfolk Virginia. Over ourlives we shared A LOT of experiences that were unique to growing up in smalltown Ohio.

We kinda grew apart in the lateeighties, I would occasionally see her and my other Millerstown friends on my sporadictrips back to Ohio. That was in the daysbefore email, texting, tweeting and even cell phones. We had paper address books and placed handwrittenletters (before computers were big) in envelopes and put a stamp on it and awayit went. My life was busy seeing theworld in the US Navy and I assumed hers was busy practicing veterinarymedicine, which is what she went to school for. Actually it was Animal Science and Veterinary Technology as I justlearned from her information page on Facebook. It seems weird how close we all were back in the days of drinking beerand smoking dope on the stoop in Millerstown compared to now that we areloosely reconnected via the Facebook thing. Seems weird to even say it that way, having moved away from there andnever going back it seems like memories from whole different part of my lifethat resides in a light fog, remaining just out of focus.

There were a few years, fromabout 1979 to 1983 (when I left) and most likely beyond that where Millerstownhad quite a crop of delinquents (that is an over dramatization, most were not delinquentsbut through my drunk and stoned eyes they appeared that way so that is myperception not the actual reality). Atleast that is how I remember it. Therewere a lot of us kids that hung out in those days, there were the Bodey’s andBasey’s, the Ervin’s and Lockwoods, the Vanscoy’s, Bronne’s (sp) andSwearingen’s, and Scott’s, Pond’s and a Williamson. Some of us were thick as thieves and otherswere associated by being from the same town that had a population of probably100. I have never made a conscience effortto disassociate myself with my origins but it seems the only folks I everreally stayed in touch with were the Vanscoy’s. I really don’t know why that is.

We all seemed indestructible backthen, I suppose that is true of all kids but to my limited knowledge all of us Millerstownersare still kicking around in one place or another. I have lost many friends and family in mylife, young, old, sick, healthy but I have not lost any friends from my farback youth that I was close with. Now tobe clear I HAVE NOT lost my friend, but she is facing some pretty tough medicalchallenges, as you will see when you read her post. I am not sure what to say or what to do andwhy I feel differently than I have about all my other friends who had medicalchallenges. Is it because we have knowneach other so long? Is it because wewere more than just friends for a while? Is it because we shared so many experiences during our high schoolyears? Is it embarrassment that I had no real ideawhat she has been up to for the last 20 years? Is it a blend of all that?

There is a simple pragmatism inher post, maybe that is what I am missing. There was never any bullshit with us kids from Millerstown, we were who wewere and if you had a problem with that, well fuck you. That was the attitude we had, not sure whyand not sure if that is prevalent in all small towns but it was like that whereI grew up. Maybe because my work rightnow is so not that, my job right now has me playing politics, negotiator and placator. Those are not my strongest skill sets, I cando it but it tastes like a warm Kroger cross cutter beer (hahaha, for those whoremember how shitty that beer was…… it was the only beer I remember not beingable to drink and throwing out the car window).

I am not sure why but her post,which is posted in its entirety further down, made a flood of memories comeraging back into my head and I was unprepared for the torrent. Not just about my friend, but all my friendsand my time growing up in small town Ohio. It is hard to describe really, I grew up in a small town with all thedynamics that brings to life and have lived my adult life in bigger cities haveexperienced all that comes with that. Iam pretty sure I don’t I miss small town life, it is just a vastly differentlifestyle.

Her bravery in the face of such adversityis admirable, but I would expect nothing less from her, same as when we werekids – no room for bullshit in her life. I am unsure what to say……… seems like an awkward silence in theconversation, if that is even possible when I haven’t actually talked to herfor years. Maybe that is part of it,guilt for not staying in touch with someone I knew so well back in theday. I guess we all have this train rideof life going on and along the way people get on our train and then getoff. Some stay longer than others, someare on the train for just a few days and others ride all the way to the endwith you. Maybe that is one of themysteries of life, who gets on when and how long they stay.

I hurt for my friend and am justam unsure what to say or how to say it that is not weird or uncomfortable foreither one of us. We have been off eachother’s train ride for so long it just seems…….. I don’t really know what itseems like. I just want my friend to beOK and not have to suffer through anything let alone the list of medical issuesshe dealing with. I am raising up someprayers for strength for my great friend and am asking you to do the same.

Here is her post

Kidneys, Creaks and Crohn's.

I don't know exactly why I am writing this note. Maybe to inform, or maybeto clarify things in print for myself. I'm at a decision making point (again)with my health and my life. I find having things written down, or in this case,typed, helps.

In 2006, I was diagnosed with an autoimmune(AI) chronic kidney diseasecalled Focal Global Glomerulosclerosis. It is basically your immune system turning on you, and what this typedoes is build scar tissue across all the tiny tubes that filter blood andfluids through the kidneys. My kidneys were working at approx 35% at this time.Because it slows up the process of fluids going through from kidneys tobladder, fluid backs up and causes high blood pressure. I had been told I'veprobably had this since at least 1999, when I was pregnant with Wyatt. Symptomssuch as the HBP did not show up until 2006. To remedy this, I take meds for the blood pressure, and was told to stayon a low protein diet, 30g per day, avoid beef, pork, dairy, eggs, and high amounts of phosphorus. The proteins in those particular items arevery large when broken down, and are hard for my kidneys to pass through. Ialso can not drink a lot of liquids.....period. I cannot take ibuprofen for anyreason because it can shut my kidneys down, nor decongestants bc of bloodpressure meds. I work on my feet 8 hrs aday, and any fluids I do drink end up in my lower legs(swelling) until I'm homeand can get my feet up. I have dealt with all this for almost 6 yrs now,changing my diet, getting regular blood tests that monitor everything, readinganything I could on it-only about 50,000 people with this disease, gettingdepressed, angry, then coming to terms with it. I have an awesomenephrologist-kidney dr, who tells me if I am craving something I'm not supposedto have, then I must need it, just do it in moderation. The blood tests measurean important waste product, Creatinine, in your blood stream. Because thekidneys do not filter correctly, a lot of the waste gets recycled back to theblood stream. Once that level gets to a certain point, you have to be put ondialysis.....forever, or until you get a transplant. They go by stages, as inother diseases, from 1 being mild to 5 being dialysis. I was put at a level 4in 2006, but have reversed to a stage 3, due to my diet changes. It won't goback any farther, I was just lucky to catch it fairly early. Back to the waste in the blood though, itmakes you tired, irritable, gives you brain fog, etc... basically toxins in theblood and less oxygen. And as far as atransplant, family would be last resort because my body would attack it just asif it were my own because of being similar genetics. I am currently with 28%functioning kidneys, with my left being a little worse than the right. It has been fairly smooth sailing sinceabout 2007 until 2010.

Early spring of 2010, I noticed my hands hurting really bad, especially inthe morning and late evening. Didn't really pay much attention until I went ona bike ride with the kids, my first and only bike ride of the year. My kneesswelled so big a few days after, I had to call the Doc. She checked me out, didblood tests, of which the inflammation factor came back really high. Shereferred me to a Rheumatologist and after a lot more tests, it was determined Ihad Rheumatoid Arthritis. I ended up having both knees drained of fluids, andafter trying to decide what meds to put me on, finally settled onPlaquenil. Plaquenil is an anti-malarialdrug, and in a class called a DMARD- disease modifying anti rheumatic drug. Gofigure. They don't know how it works but it does help some people. It seems tohelp my swelling more than the pain, and guess what, I can't take that damnibuprofen bc of my kidneys. Thenext safest line of defense isMethotrexate, which is a chemotherapy drug, and can cause havoc for thekidneys. Most meds have a black flag, DO NOT TAKE IF YOU HAVE KIDNEY DISEASE. Iam getting to be able to read fine print really good now...lol. My rheumy istaking a very conservative approach and I am thankful for that. On another note, I would like to clarifythat Rheumatoid Arthritis(RA) is NOT, NOT the same or even close, toOsteoarthritis. Osteo is from wear and tear to the cartilage between joints. RAis another autoimmune disease which is your cells attacking yourself. Itgenerally affects the synovial fluid between joints, but can also damage heart,lungs, skin, not just joints. It’s a whole other beast eating away at yourbody. I even have a rheumatoid nodule on my voice box that flares up. Coldhumid weather aggravates it, anything can really stir it up, and it causesextreme fatigue, fevers, parts of your body are inflamed and hot, but the restof me freezes. Everybody that knows me knows I'm always cold. Eventually, if itprogresses fast, it will disfigure my hands and feet first, then elbow, maybeknees. And it can and will eventually cause Osteoathritis, which will doublethe pain. I can hardly wait.

You would think that my immune system would be quite busy at this point,seeing as how it has my joints and kidneys to harass. But no, guess whathappened this fall? I began to have abdominal pain in September that progressivelygot worse. I put it down to stress, of going back to work after 11 months off,then having Dad diagnosed with cancer. Was treated early on for a GI bug,seemed to improve, then got worse again. The only thing that seemed to help thepain was being very still until it passed. It was always worst in the evening,so I gave up eating later in the day. Ihad some CT scans done, of which I could not have the IV contrast(darnkidneys), but I could drink the oral contrast. Yum! It sat in my gut for whoknows how long, making me sick and getting a migraine. The part it wouldn't gothrough(like it should have) was the last part of my small intestine, theileum. It was inflamed, and the opening very small. Initial diagnosis: Crohn's Disease. Oh yay,another autoimmune disease was my first reaction. My doctor was more upset thanme. She referred me to agastroenterologist, where I have had almost the entire length of my digestivetract examined, photographed and biopsied. Still waiting on the biopsy results,but his "informal" diagnosis is Crohn's. Right now it seems to belimited to the small intestine, no ulcers or holes, thank God. He also tested me for Celiac's Disease, whichis the gluten intolerance, but it just doesn't have the same ring to it as Kidneys,Creaks, and Crohn's. :-) For now, I amwaiting on my next Dr appt. He gave me a list of meds he wants to use, 3different ones, all scream DO NOT USE WITH KIDNEY DISEASE. I told him any meds I take have to beapproved by my kidney doc and myself before I will take them. Some meds I cantake, but the dosage has to adjusted a lot. Most drugs I can't take. I do wantto mention that surgery generally is not an option until the bad part of thebowel is so bad it creates a blockage. It being an autoimmune disease and all,will just come back and attack again. But I am seriously considering it, forone, most people are diagnosed with Crohn's while in teens and 20's. I am 46and if it doesn't get bad again for another 15 yrs then that has preserved mykidneys for another 15 yrs. If it comes back right away, it would be useless.

So now I find myself actually looking up more info, alternative therapies,diet control, surgery, anything I can get my hands on. I couldn't make myselfdo it sooner, its hard to explain why, but when you're handed a diagnosis ofwhich you know there is no cure, no reversal, you kind of go through youremotions almost like dealing with a death. There's denial, grief, depression,anger, and then hopefully you get to a calm even keel. I think I am at theanger part already, it seems soon, but I went through a year or longer of thoseemotions with my kidney diagnosis. Maybe I am immune to it now, who knows? Now that's a joke, I am immune to everythingBUT myself. Had to insert a little medicalhumor there. I am so glad that I do have a medical background, even if it wasin the animal world. I need to go back into a medical field, if at allpossible. I am going to go back to myreading now, then go to bed. Tomorrow's a new day!!

1958 Jalopy - 2012 Chevy Tahoe - WHAT a difference

2011-12-17T12:18:00.006-05:00

So as you know I drive a 1958 Jalopy, here it is.

I recently rented a 2012 Chevy Tahoe, here it is.

So, for those old enough to remember it, this was previouslyknown as the K-5 blazer. Chevy producedthe K-5 (the king of off road vehicles) from 1969 until 1994, when they changedthe name to Tahoe in the 1995 model year. Anyway, that is not the point of this blog.

We left for Tampa while it was still dark and at some point Iaccidently hit a button that turned on the rear wiper. It was dark and I did not want to stop tofigure out where the button was so it flapped back and forth for a bit over anhour and half until the sun came up and I could see where to turn the thing offat. We stopped along the way to get a colddrink and use the restroom. I took this opportunityto familiarize myself a bit with all the knobs, buttons, levers and other electronicinterface devices in this magnificently complicated vehicle.

Now as I said, I drive a 1958 ford Ranchero, fondly referredto as “Jalopy”. I have on my dash 6knobs, two of which open air vents to the outside. One is for the lights, one for the wipers andone for the heater, yep one knob controls the heat and fan. If we count the input device, non-electronicof course, there are a grand total of one, it turns on the left turn signalwhen I push it down and the right turn signal when I push it up. Now I do have a couple of buttons on my radiobecause some jack-wagon chopped up the dash to install a new style radio, the idiot,and I have not been able to find a replacement dash so I live with it. All of these are within reach from the driver’sseat. Also there are also no nestedmenus on anything and especially with 9 deep directories within those menus. Seems with those 7 knobs and one input deviceI can make my life work, it all makes sense to me. I did not have to read a manual to learn whatthe knob labeled “lights” meant, it was pretty self-explanatory and easily understoodby anyone with a pre-kindergarten pre-school education.

So with this Tahoe, I was just blown away with the technologythat was jammed into this thing. I wasso impressed that this morning before I took it back I sat there, surrounded bymore electronic gadgetry than was in use in the freaking space shuttle. I decided to do a little exploring while I sathere, counting knobs, buttons and other interfaces and menu directories. This will AMAZE you, or at least it amazedme!! Within easy reach of the driver’s seatthere are 90 buttons, some of which perform multiple tasks. 90 BUTTONS, what the hell!!! That does includethe six way switch that controlled the position of the seat. I forgot that ONE in my Jalopy. It is a knob with a mechanical linkage to amechanism that manipulates a series of pegs that allow the drive to move theseat closer to the dash. 90 BUTTONS, what in the world is going on? There are 23 alone that control the radio,and best I could tell most of those are multifunction buttons that do manythings dependent on the mode one might have the radio operating in. CRAZY!! There are also four functions alone for therear wiper.

Don’t get me wrong, I am a gadget head and not fearful oftechnology. As a matter of fact I havemade my living implementing and maintaining the latest technologies but come on– do we really need that level of sophistication within easy reach of the driver’sseat? I shit you not that there are 12 differentmodes that can be changed using the turn signal lever, and that is NOTincluding actually using the directional to tell folks which way you might wantto turn. I am surprised that we do nothave some little gadget that is monitoring your eyes and then turns the signalson based on where the driver might be looking. I wonder when they tell me that I should not text while driving, hellthere are more than enough distractions on the dash of this modern marvel tokill you 1000 different ways.

Now up to this point I have only been talking about the physicalknobs and buttons, I now want to talk for a minute about the menus. Now just keep in mind that 5 of thosepreviously mentioned 90 buttons are dedicated to driving and manipulating theelectronic menu system. I found that I couldfollow my fuel usage, average as well as in real time. It also keeps track of and displays the transmissiontemperature. Now I have been a motor headall my life and can’t for the life of me why a driver would need thatinformation available on the dash board. When I started the car, the temp was 72, the temperature outside. By the time I had reached the rental place,it had risen to 140 degrees. Not surewhat that meant or why I would need to know it. Funny thing though, when the fellow went out to check the mileage, he couldnot figure out how to get the menu back to indicated the mileage.

So as I played in this menu hell I realized, one had betterplan on reading the owner’s manual on how to operate and understand the meaningof all the different information that can be provided to the driver. I am not kidding it was crazy, maybe everyoneelse already knows this but for one who drives an old car, I had no idea. I actually found out how much life that theoil had left, it was at 16%, what that means, who knows. 16% of 3000 miles, or is there some supercool gadget that is actually monitoring the molecular structure of the oil andproviding the user direct feedback? 16%of the 3000 miles is the standard I have been using for my entire adult life,that means there are 480 miles left until that oil literally turns to water andstops being an effective lubricant. BullshitI say!!

I also noticed that I could find out the tire pressure ineach of the tires, included the spare. AsI am a curious one I looked into how that works. Seems they install a wireless device insidethe rim, that little marvel monitors the pressure with a standard transducertype device, nothing new there. Then itsends RF signals to a receiver inside that car that has been assigned tiremonitoring duty. No new technology there,only taking already proven technologies, combining them and applying them to asituation that really does not need it applied to. That system alone adds hundreds of dollars tothe cost of that car. That monsterstarts at 40 grand and I suspect the model I was driving to be fully loaded so itis probably closer to 60k. hahaha, thatis more than I paid for my first house.

Engine hours, different languages for the instrumentation aswell as direction, the compass could be calibrated by mashing a button and drivingin circles, were available at the touch of a button. I learned I could find out how many hours theengine had been running, an electronic version of the mechanical one seen on oldtractors. There was of course the backupcamera, hidden right there in the mirror. Yep, I thought it was only a mirror, but when the vehicle was placed inreverse, BAM, about a third of that mirror turned into a backup camera. It also has some sort of radar or sonar, sonarI suspect that initiated a beeping in the passenger cabin as I got to close tosome object behind me. In this case itwas Jalopy as I backed into the driveway.

WellI for one think new cars are cool, but they are just too complicated, God onlyknows what it would cost to fix some of that stuff when it quits working. I also got to thinking about what other informationthat computer is keeping track of, the cars exact location, the speed of the vehicle,it staggers the imagination to think about what it is tracking, it knows howhot the transmission is for petes sake!! My old Jalopy, the only fancy technology in there is my Crackberry when Icarry it in there with me. Nope, for me Iwill be sticking to the old faithful Jalopy type cars. If you have one, good for you but think aboutall the information that car is gathering about you as you go about your dailylife.

Another one about our Puppy - Damn I miss Him!!

2011-12-04T10:34:00.001-05:00

You want me to do WHAT??

It has been a couple of days since we lost Newton. When I wrote the last blog the hurt wasstill very fresh and I just wrote down things that popped into my head. I was all over the place but today I will tryto do better. There are so many funnyNewton stories over the 12 years he was our dog that I could just not writethem all down. We had dogs when I was akid, Timmy, Marmaduke and a little German Shepard mix whose name I cannotrecall. Newton was my first dog as anadult, although we have had a number of cats. Bride and I got our first cat when we were just dating, Zappa because hewas black and white with a little black patch on his chin.

Newton was an AKC registered Boston Terrier, even thought hewas close to twice as big as they are ever supposed to get. There were lots of funny comments over theyears about his size. Most often peoplewould just say, is that a Boston terrier? Bride got to telling people that he was a Texas terrier, everything inTexas is bigger they say. Since she isfrom Texas, that explanation worked. Bride had him in obedience training when he was a puppy and I rememberher coming home upset one night early on. She told me that one of the breeders at the dog club where the trainingwas being held just looked at Newton and said, wow, that dog has a lot ofStaffordshire terrier in him. She wasdevastated, she was VERY proud of Newton and to have a stranger so bluntly disher dog hurt her feelings.

The last couple of days without Newton have been tough!! We do have Darrel and Darrell the kitties butthe house just does not seem as full. Iremember Bride and me sitting around the house the evening we lost him andtalking about never getting another dog. That first day was tough, we cried and laughed a lot. The next day I took off from work and we justhung out. We kept leaving to go somewhere, anywhere to get us out of the house,the house where Newton was no longer a physical presence. That was rough because each time we got home,there was no Newton greeting us at the door to provide the unconditional lovethat he always shared so generously with us. While his physical presence may have been gone, his presence waspervading every part of our house. Everywhere we looked, sat, walked there was Newton’s presence. Even in the morning as I had my bowl of cereal. Whenever I had a bowl of cereal he would hearthe clinking of the spoon on the bowl and he would be right there – waiting toget whatever was left in the bowl, sometimes I thought he was going lick offthe glaze from the pottery bowl.

Friday was no better, although I had gone back to work Istill could not get that crazy little dog out of my head. I misshim so much, crazy little dog anyway. Onething that hurts is when we go to bed, each night we all had our routines,including him. Once Bride and I got intobed he would just jump on up there and come over right between us and plopdown. He would be leaning against me andit was his time for unconditional love from us. He would sit there and we would pet his little head and he would justlove it. That would go on for about 10minutes a night, after which he would stand up and turn facing the foot of thebed and plop down again. He would staythere until the reading material was put on the night stand and the light was turnedoff. At that point he would get up, jumpoff the bed and make his way out to the couch or one of the living room chairswhere he would spend the night. I missthat time more than any others.

When we first got Newton we had a kitty named Junior, he wasa giant 24 pounder who still had his claws. All kittys since have been declawed, hate me if you must but our catshave always been indoor cats so we have them declawed. Anyway, one day when Newton was very small weheard him howling and Junior screeching in the front of the house. We went out to look at what was going on –this is when I learned that Newton was a sissy, at least when it came to cats. Newton was sitting at the end of the hallwaycrying, Junior was up at the start of hallway blocking his way. At that time Newton was about 12 pounds andJunior was 24, it was at that time I think Newton understood that he would alwaysbe subjugated by our cats. Every catthat came along after , subjugated him, even Darrel and Darrel who were tinykittens had him under control within minutes of arriving, and they were only 10weeks old – they would even push him away from his dog food and eat dog food,it was hilarious to watch!

Over the last few months we could see in his behavior and hiseyes that things were not right. It washeart breaking to see the look on his face when he was not feeling well, he wasunable to know, understand or talk about what was happening to him. What that equated to for us was to see thatscared look on his face, it was heartbreaking. His behavior continued to get more bizarre than it was before. He slept a lot more than he used to but whenhe was up, he was going 90 miles an hour. One day he was out in the back yard barking with the neighborhood dogs andrunning the fence. Not sure whathappened but in mid stride he stopped and came to the door to come backin. Once inside he went over close tohis food bowl and laid down and just panted and he looked scared. I sat with him and petted his little headuntil whatever it was passed and he got up and got a drink of water.

I am unsure if I want to get another dog or not. Bride was kind of implying today that shedid. I want time to properly mournNubsy. It seems getting another dogright away would be like using the new puppy to forget about the old puppy, I donot want that to be the reason we get another dog. I have had friends give lots of advice, mybuddy Scott B. in Ohio posted something on my wall that was so thoughtful, loveya man!! Here is what he posted:

To haveloved and then said farewell is better than to have never loved at all. Forall of the times that you stooped and touched my head, fed me my favorite treatand returned the love that I so unconditionally gave to you. For the care thatyou gave to me so unselfishly. For allof these things I am grateful and thankful. I ask that you grieve not for theloss but rejoice in the fact that we lived, loved and touched each other'slives. My life was fuller because youwere there, not as owner, but as my friend. Today, I am as I was in my youth.The grass is always green, butterflies flit among the flowers and the sunshines gently down upon all of God's creatures. I can run, jump and play and doall of the things that I did in my youth. There is no sickness, no achingjoints and no regrets and no aging. We await the arrival of our lifelongcompanions and know that togetherness is forever. You live in our hearts as wedo in yours. Companions such as you are very rare and unique. Don't hold thelove that you have within yourself. Giveit to another like me and then I will live forever. For love never really dies,and you are loved and missed as surely as we are. Your pet is in heaven.

I love ya man and I sure did love that damned oldmisbehaving, malshapened, butt ugly dog - I miss him so much it hurts!!

Sir Fig Newton Bernard Smith - Our Puppy

2011-12-01T15:24:00.001-05:00

I am not even sure where to start this………… just a few hoursago we made the decision that ended our little puppy’s suffering. Bride and I have laughed and cried most ofthe afternoon and evening, remembering his idiosyncratic behaviors. He has been not well for some time but wemade him a promise, as we have with all our pets, that we would not make themsuffer at the end to satisfy our own conscience - We promised to keep his bestinterests at heart, not our own. Thiswas the third pet that we had to make that decision and surprisingly to me – ithas gotten harder with each one.

Newton led the most idyllic life that any dog could, from themoment Bride picked him up from the breeder all the way through this afternoon. Brideand one of her best friends tracked him down in Georgia. He was a malshapened mess as far as the AKCstandards for his breed, which is a non-sporting class. We would tease him about that all the time. Bride sold me on the idea of a dog, we werecat people, because he was supposed to be only 12 pounds. A friend of ours Parents had a Boston calledCookie and I said, well if we get one it can’t be a cookie, it has to be aNewton. That was how his name cameabout. He was 8 pounds at age 8 weeks sowhen he brought him home I knew we were in trouble. Bride kept telling me that the max they everget is 24 pounds, well that is the largest they can be and still show them, itis NOT how big they can get. Newton shotpast 24 pounds like a rocket on his way to 45, where he topped out.

Newton went by many names over the years, Newton of coursebut there were many iterations of his name we used. The was the Bomber, the neutron Bomber,burnsey, nubes, nubie-dean, butt ugly shitbird (only I called him that). There was Nubie-dubie, but we never didanything with fig part of his name. And wewonder why he never listened, I guess I understand that a little better now.

I remember the one time he got out, the door was cracked justan inch or two and he rammed through and out he went. I chased that damn dog for nearly two hours,running through people’s front yards, through their back yards and all over theplace. He would not listen to me, Isuspect he knew he was going get spanked for that transgression so he wanted toprolong it. He was smart like that, heknew when he was doing something wrong. It makes me laugh because there were a million times he would do that,only the once outside the back yard. When I would ask him to come in, he would stop what he was doing andthen look at me for a few seconds, then he would just on about what he wasdoing. It was a conscience decision todisobey.

I remember once when he did make me proud, no keep in mind heis a Boston Terrier, a large Boston but a Boston all the same. The neighbor kid was walking their dog, whostood taller than the little boy who was walking him. We had our front door open and all theblocked Newton from Max, the neighbor’s dog, was a thin and flimsy screendoor. Well Max came hauling ass acrossour front yard, dragging the boy with him. When he hit the bottom of the front door he came right through into ourfoyer. Well Newton tore Max’s ass up,ripped his ear nearly off and had bite marks in various places, Newton wascompletely unscathed. I was proud of himfor protecting his home.

One of the things that made me laugh is when he would turninghis back on us. If for some reason hewas not getting his way he would walk across the room and turn his back to usand then occasionally look over his shoulder and whimper. if he did not get enough of a treat, he woulddo it. If we would not let him under thecovers, he would do it. If he thought hewas not getting any and everything he was due, that little punk would dothat. It was hilarious and most times Isuppose it worked because he usually got what he wanted.

When we were at the Vet’s office all the folks there werecrying as much as we were, they loved and he loved going there. He made that trip at least once a month toget a bath, nails trimmed, ear cleaned and his anal glands expressed. He was always happy to see them and theywere happy to see him. There have beenlots of adjectives over the years that were used to describe him, by the folksat the Vet and all our friends as well.

I saw a woman on the beach this morning, I see her all thetime. She walks her three little dogsevery morning. A few day ago when I sawher she only had two, I asked what had happened and she told me he wasmisbehaving and was in timeout - that made me laugh. Anyway, I saw her this morning and she wasall bundled up and had all three dogs. They were each bundled up as well, little matching sweaters that coveredthem up. It reminded me of one time whenBride got one of those for Newton. Hehated it and when she made him wear it he would look at me with the look of –really, come on Dad save me from this embarrassment. Eventually I made sure that it disappearedwhen it was warm out so the next time it got cold, it was just gone.

I went to the beach this morning and it was cold, 39degrees. As I sat in the dark startingat 5:30 I just remembered Newton and his life. There I was sitting on the beach in a lawn chair, alone, bundled up inmultiple layers, in the dark, missing my dog and crying to myself. I am not sure what someone would have thoughtif they came up me but then again, I really didn’t care. Newton was a great dog and brought more joyto our lives then should have been allowed. He was spoiled rotten and he knew it, but as Bride says, we did not geta dog to show him what disciplinarians we are. As the skies lightened, it was mostly gray, I realized that I justwanted to be sad for a while and got up and left.

Black Friday - a commentary on what is wrong with us!!!

2011-11-26T09:30:00.001-05:00

It seems to me that more and more every year we hear stories of the meleethey happens on Black Friday. My favorite one this year, not because I enjoyedreading it but because the sadness that it represents, was a woman looking foran Xbox who sprayed the folks waiting in line at Wal-Mart waiting with her withpepper spray. All so she could get in there and get a freaking video game at adiscounted price. I cannot even fit this inside of my head, what was thethought process here? OK, I know they only have 12 of these games and sincethere are 13 people ahead of me I am going to take them out, not figuratively,literally. I am going to get some industrial strength pepper spray and hosedown these unsuspecting idiots. I am positive that this is the way that willget me that game. Did she not think past her short term goals to determine thecausal effect of that action?? I am not optimistic that even while sitting inthe jail cell that she understood the complete F’ing stupidity of her actions,so she could play a video game. REALLY – you idiot!! One of the victims of thisdumbasses Wal-Mart Xbox rampage had to go to the hospital.

Then I read, as if the pepper spray incidentweren’t bad enough, shoppers in California had to contend with something evenmore frightening: an actual shooting. A man was found shot and bleeding in theparking lot of a Wal-Mart in the Bay Area just before 2 a.m. The man and hisfamily had apparently been the victim of an attempted mugging, as “several” peoplewith guns tried to take the family’s purchases by force. Meanwhile, police inFayetteville, N.C., reported gunshots fired near the food court of a local mallat 2 a.m., but no injuries were reported.

And then there were the fights– after all, whatBlack Friday would be complete without the fights? In Kissimmee, Fla., two menfought at a jewelry counter at a Wal-Mart, and one of them had to be draggedaway by the police, according to the Orlando Sentinel. Other customerscaptured videos of shouting matches in line, skirmishes in stores and showdownsbetween shoppers and protestors affiliated with Occupy Wall Street and put themup on YouTube.

Sadly, Black Friday violence is nothing new,though the actual number of injuries this year seems higher. In 2010, oneshopper in California was arrested for carrying a handgun and ammunition tostores and another was arrested for threatening to shoot those in line, thoughneither actually hurt other customers. Then, of course, there was the infamousstampede at a New York Wal-Mart on Black Friday three years ago that resultedin the death of one employee.

This level of insanity begs the question – whatthe fuck?? How is that our world has become so obsessed with the materialpossessions that are made overseas that we do this. I myself have never beenand have no plans to ever go shopping on black Friday. There is nothing forsale in any store that would cause me to pitch a damn tent on the sidewalk infront of the store – NOTHING!! The few bucks we might save on that TV or gameconsole is not worth the risk of being freaking pepper sprayed or shot in thefreaking parking lot so someone can relieve me of my recent possessions, nothappening!

I researched a bit on black Friday and found thatthe term has been used since 1966 when it was coined in Philadelphia, PA. By1975 the term was spreading outside the Philly area, although I do not everremember hearing that term until at least the 90’s. it seems so crazy now thatWal-Mart is starting the day before, not just at 4 in the morning, or evenmidnight. I still think the after Christmas sales are better. Not quite as muchcraziness and they are dumping stock from the inventory so they don’t have tospend the money to count it or to have it sitting on the shelves.

I myself am looking for a new TV and I think I amgoing to wait until after Christmas to buy it. You can be sure that I will bepacking the big .45 to compete with those who are armed and I will be carryingsome pepper spray and a long wire Taser for the unarmed. So there you have it,consider that a warning, if you see me – DO NOT get in my way, that damn TV ismine!!!

Thanksgiving - I am truly blessed!!

2011-11-24T09:59:00.001-05:00

So today I celebrate my 46th Thanksgiving day, and they haveall held their own meaning to me. This yearI am most thankful that Bride has tolerated my idiosyncratic dumbassedness fora long time now and we still love each other. She has overcome some HUGE hurdles this year and I have never beenprouder of my best friend. We lead a great life and are so lucky to havefate putting us together in Annapolis Maryland 23 years ago. We are as happy as we have ever been and ourrelationship seems as if it gets better every day – I love that woman withevery fiber of my being, her love is my greatest blessing.

I am thankful for all the friends I have, I treasure eachand every one of you. Some are closerthan others but sometimes, I am thankful for that as well. I am thankful that one of my best friends gota clear PET scan after going through a brutal round of radiation treatmentsthat killed some of his saliva glands as well as his taste buds. I was thankful that he still held the “Goode'sTurkey Fry 2011” which I think is in the neighborhood of a 15 yeartradition. Knowing he would not be able toenjoy the festive meal made me sad, until I reminded him I was going to enjoyit enough for both of us! Love ya brotherand that turkey was KICK-ASS Goode!!

As I sat on the beach this morning thinking about the thingsI am thankful for all that could come to my mind was how blessed I am. I posted on FB “I am thankful that I am soundminded and able bodied enough to recognize the truly countless blessings I amfortunate enough to have received - I hope each of you have a great day!!” I am thankful that I can go to beach andwatch the sunrises in the morning, it allows me time to reflect on my life andwork through whatever issues I might be dealing with. Most times I try to just sit and stare, like Iwould any other piece of art. Trying tofind the meaning of it, not anything else but the meaning, to me, of the art. That is when I can begin to truly appreciatethe sheer beauty of it. It seems impossiblefor me to come away not feeling small and insignificant. I thankful for the time to make those tripsto the beach, it refreshes my soul.

I am thankful to all who are or have ever served in themilitary of our Great Country. These youngmen and women are the bravest souls among us and are deserving of our respectand gratitude. I will say that during mytime on the military when I was deployed we ALWAYS had a pretty damn finethanksgiving meal, I was always thankful of that. I have made some lifelong friends when I servedand I am thankful for Facebook bringing us all back together, at least in a newfangled electronic way.

Seems weird that I could write all day and not cover all thethings I am thankful for, none of them could be purchased on black Friday either. We seem to sometimes get all caught up in thematerialness of our lives, those are not things to be thankful for. Most of them just bring us suffering anyway whenthey don’t work or don’t work correctly anyway.

Lastly, I am thankful for this electronic shoebox that I canclimb up on and pontificate every once in a while. I hope everyone has a great day and a greatweekend!

Toasters - one of those innocuous appliances!!

2011-11-12T10:32:00.001-05:00

So the other day, I was making Bride a chicken sandwich on abagel thins, she like them toasted so I attempted to toast the thing. Well imagine my surprise when the toaster didnot pop up. I went to look and low andbehold about two strands on one of the four elements was glowing a VERY dimorange. As I stood and stared, I wondered,when did we get this toaster, how much had we paid for it, what caused it tostop functioning correctly? I was standing there long enough that Bridecame in to ask “what’s wrong”. Sheeventually enjoyed the sandwich on a very partially toaster bagel thin.

Now since that time I have thought a lot about the origins ofthat toaster. It was like an old friend in some ways. You sometimes never even know when thefriendships started, it just seems like it has always been there. I will inject another toaster story here thatis unrelated but funny all the same. Bride and I were at my Sister’s house for Christmas one year. My Mom was there as well with her husband. My Mom was well known for odd Christmas giftsbut this year we had an all time winner. So Bride was opening a gift from Mom, she pulls out a screaming red toaster. I immediately that, wow, a toaster is suchan odd gift and what was even odder was that it was screaming red. Bride and I hadnot one red appliance and this thing was no doubt red with chrome accents. Well as Bride was looking at it she turned itover and a ton of crumbs dropped out. Wewere all kinda shocked by that but it got even funnier. She then told us she has picked it up at ayard sale (bad enough) and then to ensure it worked she used at her house for awhile. HAHAHAHAHA, it makes me laugh tothis day to think about that. There wereyears of crumbs in the bottom of that toaster, we laughed and took it home withus. My intent was to give it back to herthe following year but it was not to be.

Anyway, back to my current toaster, the Proctor-Silex model -T4400 type T16 with a serial number of A1249. And if you know anything about toasters, you will know that is the wideslot model to allow for toasting fat bagels. After discussing with it Bride, we were unable to determine when or wherewe got that toaster. I do remember backin the day when you opened a bank account you could get a toaster or some otherlittle appliance. We wondered if we mayhave gotten that in that way when we lived in Maryland. I am pretty sure that toaster is at least 20years old and most probably a bit more than even that. One of us may have owned that bad boy before wegot together. I seem to remember havingsome appliance when I was living in the barracks in Annapolis. I do remember a microwave, a fridge, a crockpot and a hot plate. Seems only logicalthat I would have had a toaster.

So I immediately decide I would write a letter toProctor-Silex and complain about the shoddy workmanship of this particular toaster,I mean they are supposed to last forever. This toaster has seen some milage, the heat resistant plastic that madeup the front and rear covers where chipped and broken on the corners. The bottom looked horrible, burned on bits oftoast from over the years. I was just saddened by the loss of my oldfriend. I wonder how many bagels andslices of bread had made its way through that toaster. Too bad there was not a computerized counterthat would keep track of the usage. Thatwould allow one to determine the cost per slice over the lifetime of thetoaster. Imagine, 20 years of toasting,lets say one slice of toast per week. Thatcomes to 1040 pieces of bread toasted. Nowif I use the price of the replacement toaster that would work out to roughlytwo and half cents per toast, not a bad return on the investment when you thinkabout it. I know I have toasted way morethan that though, so I bet my return was closer to about .75 percent of one centper slice.

I know toaster don’t or won’t keep track of such things, who wouldcare about such an inane thing, other than me?? I doremember a the coolest toaster I have ever seen and had the great pleasure ofusing. It was the mid-seventies and the toasterwas a Sun Beam model T-20. I did not knowthat at the time but a few minutes with Google and I found it and thisvideo.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0BiAFTkkZKc

This toaster would automatically lower when a slice of toastwas put into it. How cool wasthat?? This was before the days of somecode being written on a computer chip. This was 100% mechanical!! I remember then wanting to take it apart tosee how that worked. I have never beforeor since seen a toaster that operated like that. There was no handle to push down or pull upto get the toast in or out. Its realappeal is in its performance, Sunbeam called it Automatic Beyond Belief. Thereare no levers to press down. Just put the bread in the slot. The weight of thebread activates the heating elements, causing the center wire to lengthenmicroscopically and the bread to be carried into the toaster under its ownweight.

Inside, the Radiant Control thermostat monitored the heatradiated (not conducted) from the outer surface of the bread, which is directlyproportional to its color change. There are no timers. The toast is raised onlywhen it is properly toasted; no sooner and no later. Hahaha, how freaking cool is that?? When the thermostat opened, the elementscool, and the center element wire contracts. This movement is very small — onthe order of thousandths of an inch — but a mechanical linkage multiplies thismovement approximately 175 times. This is sufficient to operate the carriageand raise the toasted bread from the toaster. I was able to find modern day automatic toasters but I do not suspect I wouldbe willing to pay over a hundred and fifty bucks for a toaster. That would raise the cost per slice to wellover 14 cents per slice, not a cost effective solution in my opinion.

So my new model is the Oster model TSSTRT2SST, and they do notassign a serial number to them anymore. Isuspect that there is no need as they are mostly disposable. I wish I understood the logic of thatmodel number, the only part I know isthat the “2” indicates that it is a two slice model. If that number were a four, it would be afour slice model. I know this because theowner’s manual covers both models and it shows me a picture of both on thecover. After reading the user manual, I wasamazed that the operation of a toaster needs to be explained at that level toanyone. I am pretty sure I could figureout how to use a toaster even if I had never seen one before in my life. Anyway my favorite part step six under the “preparing to use your toaster for the firsttime”. It talked about the fact thatwhen you first turn this bad boy on, you may get a bit of smoke coming out of it. We are to preheat the device and as theelements heated up it would “burn off any dust which may have accumulatedduring storage or manufacturing". Seemed oddbut sure enough, when I first pressed the lever down some smoke came out ofit. Hahaha, since I was assured this wasnormal I thought OK – we are ready to go.

Well, I suppose I am going to have to start building a friendshipwith this new guy, I spent some time in quiet contemplation about my old friendbut, we must move on. I don’t know howlong it will take me to get through the stages of grief but I am hopeful theperformance of the new kid will speed the process.

One year into sharing the names of those who died - Veterans Day to Veterans Day

2011-11-11T07:10:00.001-05:00

It was last Veterans Day that I decided to start posting apicture and small bio of each fallen hero from the wars in Afghanistan andIraq. That has been tough for me attime, so much loss and for what? Since Istarted I have written and posted on Facebook 513 deaths, mini eulogies is howI see them. When I started I warnedpeople that I was doing it and if they need to unfriend me that was fine. I do not know if anyone did but I havereceived feedback from one end of the spectrum because of it. Most are appreciative that someone isbringing it to their attention, since the media does not do a very good job ofit.

One group of deaths have affected me and heightened my angerat our Government. That was the deathsof a lot of seal team 6 in a helicopter crash. I have not been able to find it now but when that accident firsthappened I remember reading that it was Seal Team Six on that chopper. Since that time I have not been able to findone reference anywhere to Seal Team Six in relationship to that crash. Since then the ones killed were described asbeing in an East Coast-based SEAL team. I found my conspiracy minded brain kicking into overdrive. I believe these are the men how got Osama BinLaden and the fact that we don’t know – scares me. I can understand not wanting the public toknow that Al-Qaeda might have gotten the men who Got Osama. Each of their pictures are below, they lookjust like any of our friends might look, smiling like we were cooking out andtelling stories or something. It makesme sad that on August 6^th these 31 hero’s all lost their lives in ahelicopter crash.

So, since I have been writing (a lot of copy and pasting) andposting them on Facebook I have seen many reactions and many comments. Some comments anger me and others have mademe cry. Some have made me laugh andothers made me sit in quiet contemplation. I want to thank everyone for all the feedback, it is what has made thisself-assigned task do-able. I just can’tunderstand how it is that we (as a Country) can continue to justify, toourselves, our involvement in these faraway places. Don’t be mistaken, that we are convincing orjustifying this for other countries, we don’t really give a shit about othercountries or their culture, unless of course it affects our lifestyles. Why have we not called for the removal of thetroops from Afghanistan and Iraq? Make nomistake, congress (the ones working for us) have it within their power to endthe funding for this insanity. They alsohave the ability, and are the ONLY ones who have the ability to balance thebudget so when they get up and talk about not being able or blaming thePresident or anyone else – remember back to your school days and remember it iscongress who creates the budget.

I was not sure where I was going to go when I started writingthis, I did not think I would wind up here though. Funny how that happens, sometimes I juststart writing and I wander around where ever my mind takes me. Anyway, I also want to take this opportunityto thank all the folks who have or are serving or is the Mother, Brother,Husband, Father, Sister, Aunt, Son, Uncle, grandson or Sister of someoneserving.

Here are the pictures of the 31 men who died on August 6^thof this year in a helicopter crash, the men I believe to be the Men who “got”bin Laden. Even if they did not, theystill made the ultimate sacrifice in our war on Terror, please honor them andthe other 482 Military folks who gave their lives for the cause this last year.

Beach re-nourishment, what the heck is that??

2011-11-09T20:31:00.000-05:00

So for thosewho don’t know I live in Jacksonville Florida. I live close to the beach andthe Atlantic Ocean, I go there a lot and I really enjoy it. I was there thismorning to watch the sunrise, and the ocean was angry today. It was amagnificent sunrise all the same. While I was there I noticed we were at hightide and the water was WAY up, within 20-30 feet of the dunes. I remember backearlier in the summer the Army Corp of Engineers contracted to have the beachre-nourished, it had been 6 years since it was done last. They skipped lastyear (normally done every 5 years) due to budget constraints.

So I thoughtI would take a look about when this trend of beach re-nourishment firststarted. I say trend because the ocean has been placing the beach and coastlinewhere ever it wants to place it for about 4+ billion years. That was allwithout any human intervention. I remember the first time I saw it done wassome years ago, I remember thinking, and asking, what are they doing and why??It did not just not make sense to me to take sand from a mile or so out andbring it in and dump it one the beach. Water finds its own level and simplephysics tells one that what’s in the way of the ocean will be eroded,regardless of what composition that obstruction may be made of. The force ofthe ocean has eroded rocks and islands and anything placed in its way, sandbeing about the easiest for it to move.

I havesuspected since then that someone at some time in the past thought, I can getsomeone to pay me to move sand from here to there. AND the best part is, theocean will move it right back over there so the job will never end. They musthave been related to or knew the genius of King Camp Gillette, the inventory ofthe disposable razor. That was the first real thing made that had to bepurchased again. Before that time razors lasted a lifetime. Anyway creating amarket by making and selling a consumable product is the way of our world nowbut it was not always so. Anyway……..

So first alittle about what beach re-nourishment is. It is basically a process by whichsediment, usually sand, is lost through erosion is replaced with material fromoutside the eroding area of the beach. In the case of Jax beach they had adredger type ship that would go out over the horizon and suck up a load of sandand then return to the coast and pump that sand back onto the beach throughgigantic pipes. Once it is back on the beach bulldozers move it around. Thatsounds simple but I would bet that there is a very specific plan and thebulldozers are probably controlled by GPS to ensure every grain of sand windsup in the correct position. That in itself is kind of funny to me. I can justhear the conversation of the company doing the work - Since we are bilking thecommunity out of a shitload of money we had better make it appear that we haveinjected some science into this process. One guy with his butt crack showingsaid, hey, what about GPS controlled bull dozers, that will convince the localsthat we know what the hell we are doing. Makes me laugh and I wish I could be afly one the wall of the marketing group of the folks who perform this service.

So the firstinstance of a beach re-nourishment was in 1923, it was at Coney Island, NewYork. Since that time it has becomes a common shoreprotection measure utilized by public and private entities. I am prettysure a fortune has been made since that time moving sand back onto the beach,waiting a couple of years and going to get it and move it back to the beachagain. There was a project in Miami that took 5 years, 76-81, and cost$64,000,000, yeah that is 64 million dollars moving sand about. That projectwas 10 miles long and took 5 years and cost 64 million dollars. How crazy isthat.

Nourishment is one ofthree commonly accepted methods for protecting shorelines. The structuralalternative involves constructing a seawall, revetment, groin or breakwater.Alternatively, with "managed retreat" the shoreline is left to erode,while relocating buildings and infrastructure further inland. Which, by theway, seems to me the only real choice. This re-nourishment moved about 700,000cubic yards of sand from about 8 miles out right up onto the beach. Keep inmind that for an 1800 square foot home it only requires about 30 cubic yards ofconcrete. 700,000 cubic yards of sand weighs about 1.8 billion pounds when itis dry, and they pumped it off the bottom so it was probably closer to 2.4billion pounds. That number does not even fit inside my head and I wonder ifmoving that volume of weight changes the spin dynamics of the earth.

The Army Corps awardedthe $11 million contract to Great Lakes Dock and Dredge of Chicago in April.The project comes after years of effort to restore the beaches, which have beendepleted of sand over the past six years from repeated tropical storms andnortheaster winter storms. What bullshit!! I hear the Politian’s talking abouthow it worked, it protected our beaches from erosion. Of course they would saythat, what elsecould they say after spending 11 million dollars a few monthsago and all the sand is gone already. The Army Corp explains that a Beachre-nourishment is a complicated process. The Army Corps plans to use the sameoffshore borrow pit it tapped for the 2005 project. Barges go to a sand shoalabout 8 miles offshore and the sand is delivered to the beach with a hopperdredge. More bullshit!!

One of the unintendedconsequences were our little sea turtle buddies. It is well known that throughthe months of May through October the sea turtles take to the beaches inNortheast Florida to lay their eggs. So we started our re-nourishment in July.They found some nests, 23 of the 27 nests found so far this season had to bemoved north of the projected project area. I wonder how much that cost??

Well, I suppose all thisand those decisions are above my pay-grade. It will not stop me from wondering,what the hell are people thinking, 11 million bucks to move sand around??? Ohwell, good for the Great Lakes Dock and Dredge company for coming up with aplan, executing it and keeping some folks employed. Regardless of whether thereis sand from 8 miles out or just the same old sand that the ocean places therefor me is all the same to me. Enjoy sitting there watching the sun come up overwhatever sand is there and the water that is slowly moving what is left of there-nourishment back out to sea.

Friends – what does that really mean to you??

2011-11-02T21:40:00.000-04:00

The other day a great friend of mine posted a comment onFacebook. Here it is.

MY DEFINITION OF AFRIEND...

"Friends" on Facebook is a veryloose term. To Facebook, everyone is your friend. I see however that evenFacebook recognizes that not everyone is really a friend by creating a"Close Friends" list.

For me a friend is someone that would neverintentionally cause you harm or grief. A friend is someone I can enjoy having aconversation with, joking, laughing, sharing, and whom you don't need to takelife quite so seriously with.

A true friend is someonethat when you are faced with adversity will respect your privacy, reach-out tohelp, and listen openly without passing judgement while offering advice. A truefriend knows when you need a hug, knows how to comfort you, and can be trustedwith your most private thoughts.

I want to publiclythank my true friends: Sue, Mark, Dee, Sandy, Velora, Patti, Smitty, andVickie... Thank you guys for being you. You each have a specialness and a placein my heart.

Now just for some background my buddy and I served togetheron shore duty in Annapolis Maryland, the Naval Radio Transmitting Facility(NRTF) NSS-9. He was my boss, workcenter supervisor it was called in the Navy. We worked and played and drank together, it was a small base and therewas not much to do. He was a volunteer firefighterat the local fire department. We bothended up meeting girls at that base, there were the only two that were eligible. There were others available but theyeither had an excess of facial hair or were complete and very unpleasant women. I say that in the most polite way possible. We were stationed there together in the lateeighties and we each met our Brides. At thetime I don’t suspect that either one of us would have still been with those sameGirls 20 some years later, but we both still are happily married to the samewomen.

I say all that to get to the point about friendships I havemade over the years when I served in the United States Navy. I am not going to say that friendships I madebefore or after are better or worse but the friendships I made when I servedare some of the strongest bonds I have. Rob and Jen and Bride and I had lost touch with each other many yearsago. We often wondered where they wereand what they were doing, I am sure that over the years they had the samethoughts. Anyway, some time back wereconnected, right here in Facebook. It waslike we were still stationed back in Annapolis and before long they were at ourhome in Jacksonville Florida. They wereon vacation at Disney in Orlando and I was sad we only got to spend part of aday together.

Now we did not speak for nearly twenty years and wereconnected a couple of years ago on here and he still considers me one of histrue friends. I have the same feelingsabout him, but sometimes I do not think I do a very good job of expressingmyself. I look back on those times whenwe hung out together at that little 277 acre peninsula on the Chesapeake Baycalled NRTF. We watched the sun come upover the bay and played a lot of volleyball, first on the beach and then lateron a court right up by the barracks. We cookedout all the time at a little club house not 100 feet from the barracks. We threw parties out there where we drank allnight and listened to music too loud. Wewould go to this little shithole bar on the Naval station and drink whiskeyuntil we could barely walk, or at least I could barely walk. We worked on very important and VERY large systemsthat provided one way communications to submarines in the Atlantic Ocean.

He was there the night I drank myself silly while cleaningfor a barracks inspection, almost literally silly. That was when I quit drinking, the skipper ofthe base made that recommendation as well. It was not much after that when I met Bride. They were great times at that base, all madebetter by my GREAT friend Rob, I love him like and brother and am so happy thatafter nearly 20 years we were able to reconnect with each other and it was likewe picked up as if we were at that little shithole bar the night before. Hahahahha, I love that guy and over the lastseveral years I have learned to tell my friends that I love them, life is toofucking short not to. So if you havemade it this far in this blog then you must be a friend as well so - I love youand you have a special place in my heart as well.

You are what you eat – it is true of many other things too!!!

2011-10-16T19:15:00.003-04:00

Iam a perpetual people watcher, I love looking and observing the behaviors ofothers. I am not sure why I enjoy it or even why I do it but I do and it doesnot cost me one thin dime. When I get serious about watching folks I find thatI wonder about their lives a lot. What kind of childhood, what traumatic eventshave they lived through –what has lead them to me, at this moment. What is thecause of the behavior they are exhibiting, good or bad? What in their livescaused them to give change to the homeless man, what caused them to not holdthat elevator door because they were in a hurry to get someplace? Sometimes itscares me, more then not folks seem to have rude or gruff behavior and seemonly concerned about themselves.

Havingwatched people for so long it has given me a bit of insight into my own actionsand behaviors. I knew all along that I was an odd bird with lots ofidiosyncratic behaviors, I actually am one with them and cherish them. I don’twant to conform, I am who I am as Popeye the Sailor man used to say and since Iwas a Sailor back in the day- I am saying it as well. I have learned that wetend to see what we want to see. What does that mean you might ask?? Well if weare happy and in a good mood we will tend to see those behaviors and actions.If we are pissed off at the world and hate everyone, that in turn those are the behaviors and actions we tend to seein others. Weird how that works but it has been my experience that that is anundeniable truth.

Whyis that I wonder, seems counterproductive really when you think about it. Whenyou are pissed, you see the ugly in others and then it perpetuates itself intoa cascade of pissed off. Think about the last time you were mad in your car,people are pissed off when driving A LOT!! Does it make you feel better to takethe frustrations of someone cutting you off on that person by zooming up andcutting them off? Or not letting someone back over, of course not but the angerso clouds our judgment that we don’t even notice the toxic effect the wholething is having on us. All, due to us transferring our own irritability andbullshit onto someone else – weird I tell ya.

Anyway,I wrote this first part yesterday after being irritated in the morning andwatching my own behavior and the effect it was having on those around me. Longstory short by noon I was in a much happier mood and I was able to see theopposite reaction in the people who were around me. I went to bed last nightfeeling damn good about my day and my observations about myself. Well anyway,this morning, as I was leaving the Gate station on my way to watch sunrise, awoman held the door open for me. Now I saw her when she came in and I wasobviously late for her, up all night – for me, it was bright and early.

Iwas purchasing a cup of coffee, she was right in front of me in line. She toowas having a cup of coffee, I watched her as she was lovingly and very slowlypreparing it. It was black with a couple of ice cubes, funny because I like acouple of cubes in mine as well to drop the temperature a bit. Anyway she paidand I paid and she walked out right in front of me. She had let go of the dooralready when she saw me right behind her. She reached up with the speed of aNinja and caught door and opened it back up for me. I said thank you very much.She then said, my pleasure. That set the tone for my whole day. I hold the doora lot for folks and if or when they say thanks, I say my pleasure. It neverfails to put a smile on their face. This was the first time that someone hadused those words when I said thank you for holding the door. It brightened myday and reinforced why I say it as well.

Solighten up folks and smile. If you stay pissed or irritated, you will see andhear nothing but that. If you smile and laugh, those are the things that willreinforce you belief in who you are.

Juror number 3

2011-09-18T08:28:00.002-04:00

So there I was, minding my own business when my summonsarrived. Not just for city court, nope. This was for the USDistrict Court for the middle District of Florida, which actually covers 12counties in and around Jacksonville Florida. This was the second time Ihave been called to serve for this court, it was my first being selected andseated as a juror though. So when you get a summons from this courtyou are “on call” for one month and required to call a specific number after7:30pm Friday night. Week number one was easy, please call back nextFriday, that call took about 30 seconds. The second week of my on callstatus was different, that Friday night the voice told me my service wasrequired and that I needed to show up at the courthouse by 7am, the BryanSimpson United States Courthouse. They also instructed me to use thelibrary parking garage and that they would validate parking.

Cool, I thought I finally get to perform my civicresponsibility and sit as a Juror. Although I knew where the building wasand I was pretty sure I knew where the library parking garage was over theweekend I drove downtown to verify their locations. I realized then thatthe courthouse was sitting in a spot where an OLD building used to be, it wasindeed the very first building implosion I ever saw in real life. Anyway,with the location confirmed I was ready to get started on Monday morning. Which I did, I was the first one there, the second fellow who showed up, whileI was sitting outside was a nervous fellow who was some form a military, Icould tell by the aviator glasses he was wearing. I wanted to tell himthat those went out of fashion not long after the movie Top Gun came out, in1986!!! I didn’t though and I just amused myself watching him for the next coupleof hours.

We spent a couple of hours in the Jury Assembly area fillingout paperwork, watching some videos and receiving instructions. There wasa call for anyone who did not follow the instructions and waited to the lastpossible moment to let them know they would be unable to serve. Theoriginal summons, which I had in my pocket clearly stated that if we were notgoing to be able to serve, to let them know right away. Well my boy fromearlier was all over that, and the person who was administering was not givingthem slack but after a while she did allow 4 people to skip serving. Itwas probably for the best anyway, who wants a Juror on their case that isthinking about everything but serving and on top of that is pissed off aboutserving anyway - I do not want that person in my Jury box. It was also atthis time that we learned we were one group away from being selected for theGrand Jury, an 18 month commitment.

So we went through Voir dire, which is a high flalukey wayto say Jury selection. They ask you many questions in an attempt todetermine if you would be favorable to the defendant or the prosecution. That process took about 2 hours and I was scrutinized by the Judge and theattorneys from both sides. I answered best I could and there were 8 follow-upquestions that were asked of me. Compared to the answers of some ofthe other 20 folks I must have seemed harmless, and there were many startlinganswers in this process from other potential Jurors. I was surprised howmany had similar situations as to the one the case was about. Wespent about noon going through that process, at which time we were all calledback into the court room, not in the jury box this time though. They thenread a list of names and those names that were call were moved into the Jurybox, I was called third and therefore I would be known from that point on asJuror number three.

We were then dismissed for lunch and after that we settledin for opening arguments. Both attorneys did a fine job, there were acombined 9 objections during the opening remarks. I thought, wow this isgoing to be a wild ride. Some of the objections were overruled and somewere sustained. I do not remember which side came out on top of thatfirst skirmish. Opening statements took about 2 hours and we weredismissed for the day, we were to return two days later to get started. There was an event going on the next day that had all the judges tied upteaching high school teachers about the US district court system.

Day 2 of witness testimony was long and it was all doctors,talking in medical terms about the spine. Since my Bride has had a backsurgery I consider myself quite knowledgeable about it, the engineer in forced meto research a lot (back in the 90’s when she had the surgery) of information, Ieven found out exactly how an MRI works. Anyway, there were a lot of theterms and conditions related to disks in the back and neck I was at leastfamiliar with. There were lots of objections, some sustained, someoverruled. We heard from the plaintiff’s family, we heard from theplaintiffs doctors and we heard from the plaintiff herself. Lots ofcompelling testimony, that was for sure. This case was somewhat hard forme to understand because some facts were already decided and agreed upon. I can only assume there was at least one previous trial that determined thoseundisputed facts, although I do not know that for a fact. What we didknow was that two particular facts were established.

Having those facts decided made me contemplate what we wereactually doing here, although we were told it was about decided what amount ofmoney would be awarded. That did not jibe, in my mind, with the witnesstestimony. The witnesses were all doctors and family members and theywere talking about things that we were instructed were already determined andundisputed. I am a habitual people watcher and the folks involved withthis trial, from the judge to the court reporter to the judge’s deputy andincluding all the witnesses were providing plenty of fodder. Even a manwho was there every day out in the audience, no idea who he was but he lookedas if he could have been a Tibetan shaman who just came down from the Tibetanplateau to observe the outcome of this trial in Jacksonville Florida. Between testimonies it was amusing to just gaze out, and to see who was gazingback at us.

Day 3 was more witness testimony and the plaintiff wrappedup and the defendant started to argue their case. Lots of objections, some sustained, someoverruled. A lot of sidebars though outthe trial, they would bath the Jury box with white noise when they were havingsidebars, and it was very effective at not allowing us to hear anything. I found today more interesting with my fellowJurors, quite a diverse group we were. There were only eight of us, three men, five women and we ranged from 25to 68 years of age, four of us where black, and four were white. It was quite interesting to listen to wherethe conversations went during our breaks. The plaintiff was a 42 year old white woman from St. Augustine Florida,who we learned through the mortality tables, had 40.7 years left in her lifetime. All the lawyers, except for one were whitemen, the other was a white woman, who fidgeted with her lip A LOT!! With the end of day the testimony phase wasover and both sides had rested their case and completed any redirects.

Day 4 was closing statements and deliberation. Closing statements took about an hour and anhalf for each side, and then a last word from the plaintiff’s lawyers tookanother 30 minutes because he wanted to rebut some comments of the otherlawyers. Our deliberation took nearly 5hours while we rode an emotional roller coaster from the top to thebottom. The tangible expenses were easyto quantify and easy to award. She hadspent (in evidence) $29,387.58 in the past three years (the accident happenedthree years ago) on doctors, prescriptions and physical therapy. The testimony was that she would need atleast one anterior cervical discectomy at C4-5 and most likely one more at C5-6due to a small herniation at that level. Her side thought she would need three but each doctor indicated thatthey had never seen three done on one person. There were other projected medical costs as well and we just added themup, $326,897.00 over the next 40.7 years, which included two $125,000 anteriorcervical discectomies, we were able to come to these numbers within one hour.

Then we had pain and suffering, which was defined as thephysical and mental distress suffered from an injury. Including; the aches, pain, temporary and permanentlimitations on activity, potential shortening of life, depression, andembarrassment from scarring, which there was. We had to determine what that wasfor the last three years and the next 40.7 years. This award was not tangible and wascompletely subjective. The plaintiffs’ lawyersgave us what they wanted her to get, 20 dollars an hour for 24 hours a day forthe next 40.7 years. That equated to 7.1million!!! And that was a HUGEnumber!! We all agreed that was not afair verdict for the insurance company. Itold the story of my Bride’s back surgery and once it was done there was littlepain and suffering after the initial surgery pain and a few months of physicaltherapy. It took several hours duringwhich we applied several methodologies to determine the amounts, past andfuture. After much consternation and livelydebate we finally decided on a verdict. $200,000 for the last three years – she had been to over 200 doctor and therapyvisits. We then decided on the future,we arrived at $2,000,000. The totalverdict was $2,556,284.58 and we were unanimous.

That was what we determined was fair, I am not going to gointo how we determined that, if you have ever served on a jury I suspect youcan understand why I am reluctant to discuss the Juror’s actions and decisionmaking process. We were then escortedback into the court room and our verdict was read by the Judge. I was watching both side very carefully whilethe verdict was read, their eyes were glued on the judge. To tell you the truth, I believe both sideswere OK with the outcome, just watching faces anyway. we were thanked and released by the judge andwe were escorted went back to the Jury room. Within three minutes the Judge popped in and thanked us personally,which I thought was nice. He also askedif we had any questions about the case or the process. There were several, none of which I willrepeat and he did his level best to answer them all. I walked out of the courthouse with my fellowjuror’s, all of us were holding our heads high and feeling like we did theright thing, I whistled a tune as I walked to my car thinking that was a weekVERY well spent!!

If you ever get a Jury summons, don’t complain, go andserve. Why, what happens if one day youare in the hot seat and you wind up with only Jurors who had nothing better todo?? I want people like me and you onthat Jury, a fair and balanced group that show the diverse makeup of thecommunity in which I live. SERVE withpride and without prejudice or complaint if summoned – that is what I say toyou!!

things that make ya go hummmmmmmmmmmmm

2011-08-07T09:25:00.001-04:00

This is about as clear and easy to understand as it can be. The article below is completely neutral, neither anti-republican or democrat. Charlie Reese, a retired reporter for the Orlando Sentinel, has hit the nail directly on the head, defining clearly who it is that in the final analysis must assume responsibility for the judgments made that impact each one of us every day. It's a short but good read. Worth the time. Worth remembering!

545 vs. 300,000,000 People -By Charlie Reese

Politicians are the only people in the world who create problems and then campaign against them.

Have you ever wondered, if both the Democrats and the Republicans are against deficits, WHY do we have deficits?

Have you ever wondered, if all the politicians are against inflation and high taxes, WHY do we have inflation and high taxes?

You and I don't propose a federal budget. The President does.

You and I don't have the Constitutional authority to vote on appropriations. The House of Representatives does.

You and I don't write the tax code, Congress does.

You and I don't set fiscal policy, Congress does.

You and I don't control monetary policy, the Federal Reserve Bank does.

One hundred senators, 435 congressmen, one President, and nine Supreme Court justices equates to 545 human beings out of the 300 million are directly, legally, morally, and individually responsible for the domestic problems that plague this country.

I excluded the members of the Federal Reserve Board because that problem was created by the Congress. In 1913, Congress delegated its Constitutional duty to provide a sound currency to a federally chartered, but private, central bank.

I excluded all the special interests and lobbyists for a sound reason. They have no legal authority. They have no ability to coerce a senator, a congressman, or a President to do one cotton-picking thing. I don't care if they offer a politician $1 million dollars in cash. The politician has the power to accept or reject it. No matter what the lobbyist promises, it is the legislator's responsibility to determine how he votes.

Those 545 human beings spend much of their energy convincing you that what they did is not their fault. They cooperate in this common con regardless of party.

What separates a politician from a normal human being is an excessive amount of gall. No normal human being would have the gall of a Speaker, who stood up and criticized the President for creating deficits. The President can only propose a budget. He cannot force the Congress to accept it.

The Constitution, which is the supreme law of the land, gives sole responsibility to the House of Representatives for originating and approving appropriations and taxes. Who is the speaker of the House? John Boehner. He is the leader of the majority party. He and fellow House members, not the President, can approve any budget they want. If the President vetoes it, they can pass it over his veto if they agree to.

It seems inconceivable to me that a nation of 300 million cannot replace 545 people who stand convicted -- by present facts -- of incompetence and irresponsibility. I can't think of a single domestic problem that is not traceable directly to those 545 people. When you fully grasp the plain truth that 545 people exercise the power of the federal government, then it must follow that what exists is what they want to exist.

If the tax code is unfair, it's because they want it unfair.

If the budget is in the red, it's because they want it in the red.

If the Army & Marines are in Iraq and Afghanistan it's because they want them in Iraq and Afghanistan ...

If they do not receive social security but are on an elite retirement plan not available to the people, it's because they want it that way.

There are no insoluble government problems.

Do not let these 545 people shift the blame to bureaucrats, whom they hire and whose jobs they can abolish; to lobbyists, whose gifts and advice they can reject; to regulators, to whom they give the power to regulate and from whom they can take this power. Above all, do not let them con you into the belief that there exists disembodied mystical forces like "the economy," "inflation," or "politics" that prevent them from doing what they take an oath to do.

Those 545 people, and they alone, are responsible.

They, and they alone, have the power.

They, and they alone, should be held accountable by the people who are their bosses.

Provided the voters have the gumption to manage their own employees...

We should vote all of them out of office and clean up their mess!

Charlie Reese is a former columnist of the Orlando Sentinel Newspaper.

What you do with this article now that you have read it... is up to you.

This might be funny if it weren't so true.

Be sure to read all the way to the end:

Tax his land,

Tax his bed,

Tax the table,

At which he's fed.

Tax his tractor,

Tax his mule,

Teach him taxes

Are the rule.

Tax his work,

Tax his pay,

He works for

peanuts anyway!

Tax his cow,

Tax his goat,

Tax his pants,

Tax his coat.

Tax his ties,

Tax his shirt,

Tax his work,

Tax his dirt.

Tax his tobacco,

Tax his drink,

Tax him if he

Tries to think.

Tax his cigars,

Tax his beers,

If he cries

Tax his tears.

Tax his car,

Tax his gas,

Find other ways

To tax his ass.

Tax all he has

Then let him know

that you won't be done

Till he has no dough.

When he screams and hollers;

Then tax him some more,

Tax him till

He's good and sore.

Then tax his coffin,

Tax his grave,

Tax the sod in

Which he's laid...

Put these words

Upon his tomb,

'Taxes drove me

to my doom...'

When he's gone,

Do not relax,

Its time to apply:

The inheritance tax.

Accounts Receivable Tax
Building Permit Tax

CDL license Tax

Cigarette Tax

Corporate Income Tax

Dog License Tax

Excise Taxes

Federal Income Tax

Federal Unemployment Tax (FUTA)

Fishing License Tax

Food License Tax

Fuel Permit Tax

Gasoline Tax (currently 44.75 cents per gallon)

Gross Receipts Tax

Hunting License Tax

Inheritance Tax

Inventory Tax

IRS Interest Charges IRS Penalties (tax on top of tax)

Liquor Tax

Luxury Taxes

Marriage License Tax

Medicare Tax

Personal Property Tax

Property Tax

Real Estate Tax

Service Charge Tax

Social Security Tax

Road Usage Tax

Recreational Vehicle Tax

Sales Tax

School Tax

State Income Tax

State Unemployment Tax (SUTA)

Telephone Federal Excise Tax

Telephone Federal Universal Service Fee Tax

Telephone Federal, State and Local Surcharge Taxes

Telephone Minimum Usage Surcharge Tax

Telephone Recurring and Nonrecurring Charges Tax

Telephone State and Local Tax

Telephone Usage Charge Tax

Utility Taxes

Vehicle License Registration Tax

Vehicle Sales Tax

Watercraft Registration Tax

Well Permit Tax

Workers Compensation Tax

STILL THINK THIS IS FUNNY? Not one of these taxes existed 100 years ago, & our nation was the most prosperous in the world.

We had absolutely no national debt, had the largest middle class in the world, and Mom stayed home to raise the kids. What in the heck happened? Can you spell 'politicians?' I hope this goes around THE USA at least 545 times!!! YOU can help it get there!!!

GO AHEAD. . .. BE AN AMERICAN and vote their ASSES OUT!!!

New gas price signs are electronic - Why??

2011-07-16T10:27:00.001-04:00

So there I was putting $8,976 worth of gas into the Girl Jalopy the other day, it was when I noticed that the street sign the station had out front had been changed. Not the pricing mind you but the mechanism itself. In days of old the signs were a pretty manual operation, with plastic or metal numbers that were arranged in the correct order to let us know the price per gallon. Some employee would wander out there every once in a blue moon and rearrange the numbers with a pole that had a suction cup on the end of it when the price of gas went up, all of them but that 9/10ths of a cent (I will talk about that later).

I was talking to the manager of the Gate station where I stop for gas most times, and she told me that she has changed the price on her street sign up to 5 times in one day. I was completely shocked by this – 5 times in one day, REALLY??? That had more to do with competition with a neighboring Hess station than the anything to do with the cost of a barrel of oil. So out she went, five times with her pole suction cup and pulled all the numbers off the regular, mid-grade and high test prices, on both sides of the sign and changed them. She explained that she was not tremendously happy with Corporate that on that day. Those types of signs are all I really remember, I am 46 but I bet there was some other method before that, or maybe you just drove in and the attendant told you what the cost was before filling the tank and cleaning your windows. I do remember that and I do remember liking it when someone did clean the windows, I hate cleaning the windows.

I will swing out on a tangential course for a second and talk about the barrel of oil. Back in the early days of oil production up in Pennsylvania they had nothing to store the oil in so they started using old whiskey barrels, which at that time were either 40 gallons or 45 gallons. Cheap free barrels that were a left over from some other industry, those early Americans were an ingenious lot that gives a whole new meaning to the going green. The origins of the 42-gallon oil barrel that is used today for measuring oil are somewhat obscure. Best I can tell it happened around 1866 when the oil producers were trying to eliminate confusion by standardizing the size of the barrels. The agreed that a standard 40 gallon allotment would be what a barrel of oil held. To be fair they added 2 gallons to ensure that any measurement errors would always be in the buyer's favor as an additional way of assuring buyer confidence, apparently on the same principle as is behind the bakers dozen. By 1872 the standard oil barrel was firmly established as 42 US gallons. I suppose when talking about the oil spill in the gulf it was easier to say we spilled 430,000 barrels instead of using a unit of measure we can all understand, like 18,060,000 gallons, over 18 million gallons.

So back to the electronic gas pump signs. When the street sign was a manual apparatus they also had to change the electronics for the pump itself, a two-step operation. Change the sign, and then change the pumps “brains” to start actually charging the new price. Back in the day to change the price on the pump it was a manual operation that required someone with some tools to open the pump up and change a set of gears, they were strictly mechanical. So they would change out the gears and that change in gear ratio would cause the cost numbers on the pump to match up with the gallons pumped using the new price. Can you imagine a clerk from your gas station actually going out to the pump and changing the gear ratio on the dials – makes me laugh to even consider it.

So back to that 9/10ths, I could not find out a lot about when this started, it seems that the practice originated at least as far back as the 1920s or 1930s. That was about the time Henry Ford started pumping out tin lizzies, the venerable model T and the price was an impossible to believe 290 bucks, even using todays numbers that is only 3,800 bucks, he pumped out over 15 million of those cars. Anyway, some say that the fractional pricing was introduced in response to federal gasoline taxes, others say that tiny price changes of a tenth of a cent were more significant back when a gallon of gasoline didn't cost much more than a dime. For whatever the reason we are still stuck with it and for no real reason I could find. I would like to think that that extra 9/10ths of a cent is put into a fund to combat oil spills, such as the one in the Gulf of Mexico recently.

So now we have the electronic gas station sign out by the street, allowing them to change the price at the pump with nothing more than a few keyboard pecks and a click of the mouse. The pumps are now tied to the sign at the street, when the sign is changed, the price at the pump is changed. I am still not sure how but they must not be able to do that while someone is pumping gas, that would send me into a tirade. Start pumping at 3.49 a gallon and by the time I am done be paying $3.55 a gallon. I suspect that the pump only changes after the current user has completed his transaction. Not sure what the world has come to, I mean we live in a world where it is important to be able to change the price of gas as many times as we wish in any specific day. When you think about that for a while it will make you just sit in dumbfounded amazement, or at least it did me.

So before filling up the tank, look at the price and verify it has not changed by the time you complete pumping operations.

Scanning back over my life I realize something – is it not funny as hell where we end up!!

2011-07-10T09:26:00.004-04:00

As I sit this morning at the computer poking around on face book I just got tickled after electronically chatting with an old friend from high school. I have not seen him since high school, we were actual friends then but now we are more electronic friends. That in itself seems weird to say but the social media has allowed us to reconnect. I wonder if it has really allowed us to rekindle friendship from days gone by. In this case, it was probably graduation in 1983 since I saw him and best I can remember I was stoned and drunk so most likely I would not remember even if I did see him.

Anyway, he is now a preacher of a small church in a small town in Ohio and I would have NEVER guessed back then that he would be a preacher when we got to our mid-forties. I have been somewhat retrospective lately anyway and after chatting with my friend maybe even more so. I got to looking at the course my life has taken – what a ride I have gotten to be on!!! I have been very blessed on my ride so far, great experiences, great friends along the way and a wonderful Bride who can tolerate the truckload of idiosyncratic behaviors I bring along with me, and she acts like I don’t have them. I love that woman more than anything else in the world, and she loves me even more than that and I find a lot of solace and balance in that knowledge.

Has the ride always been peaches and cream, hell no!! But I did not and still don’t dwell on the bumps longer than I had to in order to extract the good or the lesson from them. I have many friends that I have reconnected with using the social media, which span from grade school at Graham South Elementary school (torn down since I attended), to this very day. It is interesting to look at them and read their walls, look at their pictures, posts and even look at who their friends are now. Seems weird, sometimes I poke around on their profile page trying to piece their lives together from the last time I saw them until now. It is not always easy though.

I wrote a blog sometime back about my life, I reader digest condensed version of my life so new FB friends could see what I have been up to. It makes me wonder, is that what Facebook has done to us, removed the real relationships and created superficial, condensed versions of our previous relationships? A friend of mine had a high school reunion recently and realized this as well, she wrote a blog about http://arathersimplerecipesaltlovelight.blogspot.com/2011/06/big-reunion.html

I am very careful about who stays on my friends list, if I were to create a bucket list at the top of that list would be to reconnect, in person and in a real way, with each of the folks I keep on my list in the ether world that is the internet. I understand what FB is and have made friends that I feel connected with, I feel that way anyway - but who knows, I may just be one of 3,568 friends that they have, I might be lost in the noise of a busy wall. Nothing can replace a real physical relationship, it can be augmented by social media but nothing beats a hug from a good friend and sitting around laughing together.

Anyway, back to how it is interesting to see how we have all gotten to where we are today. I like to think of it as the river of life, we get in, we ride along seeing the sights and enjoying (or enduring) the ride. Back to the moments in time I talked about in the last blog. We get in and as we float along life is happening, we better hold and realize that we cannot get back upstream. We also need to understand the end of the river is the end and we better make the best of the ride and enjoy the scenery on the trip.

I am going to stick with the river analogy here for a bit. As I look at folks I see some who are riding along in different modes of transportation. Some seem to have gotten in knowing the exact spot they were heading, fired up the powerful speed boat and set course for the destination. They appeared to have a life plan from an early age, whether they did or not that was the perception I had of it. That is not to say that once out of my sight the engine on that boat did not give them no end of trouble, but I did not see that. Others hopped into a sailboat, still knowing where they were heading but maybe it was not as clearly defined but the life plan was in place. Seems silly talking about it because it was my own narrow perspective that created that perception, funny how we do that huh?

Others jumped on the raft, having never been on a river before – or those without an exact plan but were forced to jump in all the same. Some of those on the rafts were also dealt the hand of no damn paddles and still others may have just gotten an old inner tube with a slow leak. And then of course there are those who were traveling a proverbially polluted estuary without any manual means of transportation (up shit creek without a paddle for those who did not get that).

Some of us get in and along the way we switch rides, maybe from the powerful motor boat to raft, or vice versa. Some on the inner tubes may just bounce along the shoreline stopping when something looks interesting, something that would not have been noticed if one were racing by on a speed boat. I guess my point is that the method is not important, both the speed boat and the tuber have great experiences and horrific challenges. The boat may hit a sandbar that a tube could easily slip over top of and a rafter will be less concerned with the depth of the river bed than say a sailboat with a long daggerboard.

I find it crazy to imagine my friend from high school being a preacher, but I have no real idea what his trip down the river of life has been like, and he cannot understand my ride either. When I got in the river I had no destination in mind, no place that I was trying to get to. When I was younger I think that might just have been dim-wittedness but as I have gotten older I am rather happy that I started like that. Bouncing along the shore line, into the good and bad and still continuing my ride. I look at it like this, all those experiences have brought me to where I am, the good the bad and the ugly. Each stop building on the last to create the man I am today. Who knows if I was speeding down stream in speed boat I may have missed Bride there on her inner tube and left nothing behind but a woman screaming obscenities at a passing boat for going too fast and overturning her inner tube.

Along the way we accumulate partners who ride along with us, some stay longer than others and some are there for only a moment while we are stuck on the snarled roots of a mangrove tree. Each having some contribution to who we are, even the ones who did not even realize they had an impact on us. There have been so many on my ride I could not even begin to count them, some I never even liked but I still got some bit of wisdom from them that I put on my raft for use, maybe a figurative length of rope I used of when my tube came to the head of a waterfall to save myself. I have enjoyed the ride so far, I am looking forward to going to church and listening to friend preach up a storm the next time I make it to Ohio. I will probably smile remembering the two of us getting drunk at the girl-scout camp that used to be out at Kiser Lake. The one thing I know - I am looking forward to taking a look at what his transportation and course have been since I saw him all those years ago.

I have found the secret to life – on the cool side of a pillow

2011-07-09T17:56:00.003-04:00

So the other day I was tossing and turning in bed, that is something that I do not normally have issues with. After 10 years in the Navy I can pretty much sleep anywhere at any time thorough just about anything. Anyway as I turned the pillow over to enjoy the cool side and I realized that there it was, right under my head for all these years – the secret to life. I am sure everyone has experienced that fleeting feeling of the cool side of the pillow, I say fleeting because it starts to change almost instantaneously. It moves from a feeling of crawling inside a warm hug from someone who loves you to just a warm pillow so quickly. Since then then I have tried to determine how long that feeling lasts, if you get 20 seconds of joy out of the experience you can hold it longer than me, the feeling starts to fade the moment my head hits it but takes about 10 seconds before the sensation of wonderfulness is gone. Another thing I noticed was the more I watched and harder I tried to hold on to the moment the less I enjoyed it and the shorter the joyous time was.

I will come back to that so hold that thought. A big event going on in my life right now is my best friend of over 20 years is going through radiation treatment. He had a cancerous tonsil removed some time back and the prognosis for this treatment is great so I have not dwelled on the things we don’t talk about, not even to our best friends. He started radiation treatments 3 weeks ago and has a 11 more treatments left to go. The first weeks of treatment were once a day but he just started two treatments a day. Anyway, he has lost about 10-15 pounds and since the radiation is directed to neck he has been unable to swallow since the end of week one and is forced to drink 6 of those ensure drinks a day as food. No solid food for over two weeks, he has never complained but that has to be a bitch.

I have been spending more time hanging out with him lately, not that I can do anything but be there for him. He has joined me on numerous occasions on my early morning excursions to the beach to watch the sunrise, this morning he even went for a swim. It is kinda funny, I send a text when I leave my house, usually about 10 minutes to 5, and if he wants to go he will open his garage door and when I drive by I stop, or not depending on the position of that door. I secretly hope that door is up each morning I drive by, I so enjoy just being there for him, to talk to, to be someone he can complain to and whatever else he needs to do or say. As I am typing this I think I will go by tomorrow morning and I can only hope the door is up when I go by. Seems like a silly thing, to build so much symbolism into the position of a garage door – thinking about that is making me smile though so silly or not I don’t care.

I have stopped over to see him after work a number of times since his treatments have started. Not that he would ever complain but it has been hard for me to listen to him describe each new malady as the treatments persist. That sounds stupid saying as I read it – “hard for me to listen”, what kind of stupid shit is that to say? It has been hard for him to endure and I am embarrassed that I might even think that listening to my best friend describe his issues would be hard for me – sorry brother. I listened and try to understand as he described a sour taste and phlegmyness, then the sore throat and inability to swallow food. From there it went to that radiation sunburn on his neck and face to now his teeth are very sore and hurt and his saliva glands are slowing down production, which creates a whole new other set of maladies.

I try hard not make our time together awkward for him, or for me. Sometimes I get scared that I might say something or do something that will offend my friend or make him mad. I keep it loose and never presume he needs assistance with anything, I have to believe he will ask if he needs something. I can only imagine the reaction if I were to assume (and ask about helping with something specific) he needed help with something. I suspect he might think he is losing more control of his situation – I know I would. I am pretty sure my friend will read this so if you need something you need to tell me, I will do whatever you need without question – because you would do the same for me.

I find that we laugh a lot though, the other day he was telling me that the plastic mask they use to strap him down to a board to hold everything in place while the treatment is underway was getting looser and more comfortable because he was losing weight. We laughed about that, I told him he was an eternal optimist, able to find and appreciate the fact that the mask did not hurt as bad because the radiation treatments were making him lose weight. We laughed and laughed, he is so strong in his approach to these treatments, what is going to happen is going to happen he says. I quit drinking a long time ago but almost every time I stop by lately, mostly after work I share a beer with my great friend. On my last visit, due to the treatments, he could not swallow so he ended up pouring it out in the bushes. I think that frustrated him to no end but I did not say anything although I did consider calling him a lightweight. We also laughed about his nurses at the treatment center. He told them before he was done with treatments that he wanted a picture taken. One that shows him strapped into the treatment apparatus with each of the two nurses each holding whips. I told him that has to be a day that I take you for the treatment because I want to take that picture!! He wants to use that as his profile picture on Facebook – we laughed some more, I love that guy!

So why did I run through that when I started about the cool side of a pillow and the meaning of life? Well what I was reminded of is that ALL things in life are fleeting and will change soon enough. You cannot hold on to moments in time, that cool side of the pillow quickly changes to the warm side. I can’t predict the outcome of my friend’s treatments, but I can just spend time with my buddy, being present for him – whatever that means.

That cool side of the pillow is it, I got the meaning of life from it. We have to work HARD to live in the moment, life is nothing but a series of moments – each of which we need to treasure. Kind of like a series of snapshots in time, watching as the march of time pushes our snapshots across our life – there is no stopping it no matter what. One moment we are looking at one snapshot and the next moment that one is gone and the next one presents itself. That cool side of the pillow, it is fabulous and then it gets warm. Instead of missing the coolness we need to stop and enjoy that snapshot of when it is cool and know that it, like all things in life are fleeting and ever changing. The moments come and go and if we spend all of our time anticipating the next one or trying to hold onto the ones that have past we miss the ones that are present, right there in front of us.

I guess it could be equated to the phrase, stop and smell the roses but to me it so much more. I want to be present for my buddy, to listen to whatever he wants to talk about. The past is gone and the future is unknown, enjoy the conversation and laugh at the mental picture of him strapped in a radiation mask to a board while the nurses are holding whips. Sorry buddy but if I get that picture it will be on facebook!

The one constant in life is that it will change and it will change no matter our efforts to hold onto it or to predict it. No matter the circumstance, life is a hell of ride and if we spend our time bitching about standing in line of life while we wait to get on the ride we are missing the point. Waiting in line is ride. Stop and just be present, watch others or watch yourself, strike up a conversation with a friend, with a stranger, give some change to those less fortunate but whatever you do, don’t let the wait ruin your day because life is in that snapshot of time you spend waiting.

Lawn equipment maintenance - not sure where it will end up.....

2011-06-19T12:29:00.004-04:00

So unless you are a condo or are an apartment dweller or can afford to have someone take care of your lawn you most likely have a couple of lawn related devices that need maintenance every year. I have a number of items, the oldest, and most reliable, is a little 20” push mower that I bought brand new in 1991 for 79 bucks. I also have a Snapper, with hydrostatic drive, a 38” deck and powering all that is 16 horse Briggs and Stratton industrial/commercial single cylinder engine, it is a 1997 model. I also have a Troy Built Stick edger, that is a piece of shit but I can’t get it to stop working completely so I can’t discard it – yet. I have a gas powered hedge trimmer as well, an old lawn-boy model that needs some work right now, it is about 12 years old. I also have a backpack blower that, once properly tuned, will blow wind out of a modified nozzle at over 500 miles an hour – that thing is bad ass!! The newest addition to the fleet is an Echo string trimmer that I bought about 4 years ago, it is a fine machine and has not given me one problem, yet.

First and foremost it seems ridiculous that I need (or want) all those gadgets just to maintain my surroundings in an approved (by society) way that will not get me in trouble with the homeowners association. I have written about that before, here is a link "lawn implements" I have also written about my lawn mower by itself, here is link to that one "mower with hood scoop" Ya know, after reading those two again I realized that I laughed all the way through - at the things I will write about, and I do know that something is wrong - I just do not care. As a kid I occasionally worked on farms and I think I have more implements than some of the farmers I worked for.

So when one’s stable of equipment is as large as mine it takes quite a bit of maintenance to keep them all running and happy. Some folks may be able to take their machines to the shop every year to get “tuned up”, me I spent all the money I have buying them so can’t do that. I have to maintain them myself so every year I spend a few bucks and a few hours and perform preventative and corrective maintenance on all of them. As if late it seems to be getting ridiculously expensive to purchase the materials, I suppose the shops are charging more as well these days. I spent, between two different stores, 80 bucks to buy some air and fuel filters, some spark plugs, edger blades and trimmer line and a quart of oil – 80 freakin dollars!! I am still pissed off about it and that was yesterday I spent that money.

I am upset at several things, the cost yes but also at the way these big box stores operate. When I speak of big box stores in this case I am talking about Lowes and Home Depot. I am also upset with the green revolution and what it has done to the cost of spark plugs and air filters. Maybe I am just upset that I don’t make enough money to take my equipment someplace or to just have someone else maintain my yard. Not sure but I think there is something more to that then I might want to admit.

Anyway, I am not able to get all the pieces parts at one store, each of the BB stores carries certain brands and sometimes they match what I have, sometimes they don’t. They change the brands they carry so often that it makes it impossible to plan on them having the thing you just bought from them yesterday. They look for the products they can make the most margin with and that is what they are selling that week. So I spend about 40 bucks at Lowes and that gets me the air filter for my lawn mower, the edger blades, tow of fuel filters and spark plugs for the 3 of my machines. Not a normal old ordinary 99 cent spark plug, oh no you can’t buy those anymore as they do not burn 100% of the fuel and when they are used it creates unwanted emissions, more than my old Jalopy I am told but do not believe. You have to buy the eco-friendly models that cost 6 bucks a pop – yeah for a lawn mower spark plug. I remember when I was a kid we used to take the ones from a car we just tuned up and used them – for free!

Next stop the Home Depot where I find no one to assist but do find the rest of the items I need. The other spark plug, the trimmer line (titanium the box tells me although I doubt there is any titanium in the string) and one more air filter. I have it all except the filter for the blower, evidently neither place carry that brand anymore so therefore they do not carry the replacement parts, silly bullshit in my opinion. So on my way home I also stop at the auto parts store for a can of carb cleaner, it is half the price that the BB stores charge for it. As I am riding along in silence I started to wonder how it can be that the air filter for my lawn mower costs more than the air filter AND oil filter combined that I use for the Jalopy – and those are Fram models not the knock off brands. Mowers used to have a foam element for the air filter, once a year it would be pulled out, rinsed in leaded gas using our bare hands and then the gas and dirt were wrung out, right there in the grass and then that little wad of foam was reinstalled and voila’ another year of clean air was supplied to the mower. And the thought of a fuel filter was unheard on a lawn mower or yard implement.

So this morning I am sitting in the garage, surrounded by my 80 dollars’ worth of goodies getting ready to perform some maintenance. So all the carburetors come off and get thoroughly cleaned and inspected for loose or broken parts, thank God today none were found. After a couple of hours all the new parts were installed and all the machinery was looking cleaned up and ready for prime time. I immediately set about mowing, edging, weed eating and blowing my yard. Everything came out looking fabulous so I suppose the money was well spent, I am not sure I am 100% over it but I am getting there. And what choice do I have really, to neglect routine maintenance will only shorten the life of the equipment and since I complaining about the 80 bucks you can guess that I do not have the cash to replace any of those items, so 80 bucks it is.

What do you spend to maintain your lawn equipment, or what do you pay to have it done?

There is nothing worse than a dead battery - really??

2011-06-17T18:40:00.002-04:00

There is nothing worse than a dead battery, that is what a commercial told me. Nothing worse than a dead battery, I am not sure I agree with that assumption. The commercial starts out with folks trying to start their car and then realizing that the battery is dead. The first ones we see is mother with her daughter who says - no, not now. I am not sure they could make either the mother or the daughter look more pathetic, it was stupid in its imagery. The next victim of this horrific sequence of events is a middle aged man with a beard, he has no talking lines but he just looks dumbfounded, as if someone told him that his toes were going to be cut off one at a time. From him we run into a woman who is uttering, come on please, it appeared that her world was literally coming to an end and the Reaper was waiting right outside her door.

My favorite one was the man who starts out saying, ohhh and then laughs, almost satanically, and then mutters, great. I like him the best because I have reacted exactly like that before when my car would not start. The next targets of the dead battery are a couple who look like they are going to miss dinner with her folks at which they would be told they will be getting the inheritance, which since they won’t be there - they will not receive and they know it. The next poor bastard is sweating like a politician under oath and looking as if he is getting ready to have a stroke and appearing moments away from crying, my heart goes out to that guy. Him and the lady who is sitting in her SUV in a work parking lot with a monsoon beating down from the skies, her life is over, it is obvious.

We move from there to folks who have purchased the Duralast battery, the one that is engineered to start, day in and day out we are told and this technological marvel operates flawlessly, even under the most extreme conditions. Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these batteries from the swift completion of their appointed starting tasks, I am not sure it was worded exactly like that but that is what I heard. That damn battery has been proven tough, I am not sure exactly how but we are lead to believe that a testing program the likes of which might be used on the international space station is in place to ensure your car batteries operation, every time all the time. No specific testing methodologies were noted but I am sure there were some scientific and repeatable testing methods are used.

That commercial was just wrong on so many levels that I wonder what dunder-head would buy that battery based on that commercial. The one fact they neglected to mention was this, that wonder battery they are hocking will one day be dead and leave those smiling idiots in the same position as the folks they showed in the commercial, yeah the ones who did not have the Duralast battery. The primary killer of batteries is age, although charging causes the sulfate deposited on the plates to return to the acid, the process is not perfect. A small amount of sulfate insulating residue (sulfation) remains on the plates of the battery. With each charge/discharge cycle of the battery this residue accumulates. This process eventually results in diminished electrical conductivity of the plates as well as permanently diluted sulfuric acid and eventually the battery will no longer maintain a charge. That happens slowly until you are that person muttering aloud or under your breath - oh, great!

So I got to wondering about the comment of “nothing worse” than having a dead battery. How ridiculous is that statement? Bride and I drive old cars and there are times that they won’t start. Is it an inconvenience, sure. Is there nothing worse – of course there are worse things. My old Jalopy is a three speed so I never worry about a dead battery. I have, on more than one occasion, just pushed it a little bit and dumped the clutch and voila, she be started right up. In Brides car we keep some jumper cables for such inevitabilities.

When I think about all the craziness in the world I am not sure how having a dead battery on our car can be called “nothing worse”. I would think that our Military dying in far-away lands is far worse than a bit of inconvenience in our ability to get from point a to point b. I would think the murder rate in your home town being ridiculously high is much worse than being able to run down to the corner store for your damn Twinkies. I would think that children being abused does not even fall on the same scale of “nothing worse”. I could go on and on but my point is the stupidity of the advertising we are bombarded with. Nothing worse, maybe there could be nothing worse than never seeing that foolish damn commercial. I am making a pledge right now, it will be cold day in hell before I ever buy a Duralast battery – just because your commercials are idiotic.

Nothing worse my ass, what idiots!!

What has techology done for us lately (or done to use lately)

2011-06-11T16:15:00.001-04:00

I really should not have one bad word to utter about technology as fixing the busted electronic gadgetry has been how I have made my livelihood - for over 25 years. When you sit and wonder though, yes that is something that does not require an “app”, blue tooth or a WIFI enabled hot spot, to do. To just sit and stare and wonder about inane things is relaxing, to our overworked and over-connected brains. Computers were to solve the world’s problems, create a paperless world and allow us to do more of nothing. Well they have morphed over the years but not into any of those things. They created words like multi-tasking, which is a bullshit word, and others have joined the lexicon as well. I am not sure I like it because it separates us even more, in my opinion.

Technology is advancing so rapidly that the curve has left even the remotest correlation to anything linear – it is a curve that is almost an exponential version of an ever increasing exponentially insane curve. For us in the field of selecting and maintaining technological gadgets, for business or personal, we are increasingly behind the 8 ball to select the correct technological solution to compensate for some issue that was created by nothing more than non-cooperative departments with clueless leadership. If I was to think about it in an old school sort of way it could be compared to nailing Jell-O to the wall, for those who didn’t get that because there is no “G” number in it or no “app” involved - I am so sorry for you.

I understand that some technologies are GREAT, better than good and simply stupefying – MRI machines, laser knives for the removal of cancerous cells and the fact that they can replace an entire knee joint in a few short minutes, that is the kind of technology I am all for. Technology that solves big and real problems in the world, those are good and I am onboard. The ones that saves lives and prevents accidents, love em! The ones that make our kids safer in school and at the mall – can’t beat that kind of stuff at all.

Ya know, as I am pecking away on the keyboard I am beginning to realize that maybe my issues have more to do with the application of technology and the fact that we have not spent enough time considering its long term impact. Not on the problem solving side, those benefits are pretty clear in most cases but on the social side of things. Sure calculators have made some not as smart in math, I am in that group, but if we forget to learn the theories then when the calculator breaks where are we left? In the dark I suspect. Each new advance of technology makes us more susceptible to it, by that I mean we are beholden to it because we forget the theory we needed before the gadget started doing those functions for us. A perfect example of one that is inane as hell, what is your best friend’s phone number? Or your parents of coworkers or other family members? Think about how critical your little hand held electronic gadget has become to you.

It has become so important that other technologies have sprung up to solve these new problems created by old technology. We can now back our stuff up, in what they call the cloud. What the hell is that?? We are all going to working and playing in the cloud soon they say, whoever this nebulous group called “they” is. Well if I scroll back through the spiral bound ram that is my brain I seem to remember that sometimes clouds will rain down on us a pure hell, water, hurricanes, tornados and hail storms. That is where we are all putting our stuff, has anyone taken a few minutes to think the ramifications of that all the way through? The cloud, like all technologies, provides many pluses but we have not determined what the down sides are. I don’t suppose it matters, whatever they are we will invent some new technology to fix that problem as well. Technological solutions that were created to solve issues that were created when we solved other technological problems. Are ya beginning to see what I am trying to say?

Sometimes I like to just sit and stare and wonder and ponder. Recently Bride and I were rearranging a room, after my Niece moved out, and we hung a big picture frame, with nothing in it. At first I was not sure about her idea but now I have sat and stared at it, I love it. It allows me to just stare and I use my imagination to fill that frame with pictures and memories. It did not happen at a fast pace, there was no app to speed up the process, just sitting and staring at the wall through an empty frame. It has provided a starting point to some very personal journeys, I have thought of my Dad while staring into that frame, I have also thought of my Mom, all while staring away in silence. I miss them both but that frame has allowed moments that brought them back to me as if they were sitting beside me. I have also pondered what my life would have been had I not left small town Ohio, what it would have been with 10 years in the Navy, what it would be like without the 20+ years with Bride. I love that empty frame.

There is no technology, just a frame on the wall. I also like to work with wood, recently I spent a few hours on a couple of different afternoons sharpening chisels and hand planes. Sure they made a technological wonder that plugs into an outlet and will get them razor sharp in no time. I rather enjoy sharpening them the way my Dad taught me. Is it slower, yes by several magnitudes of order, but that time of monotonous stroking can be spent wondering about other things, and that is a good thing. Also when you finally get that 14 inch long smooth bottom Bailey plane sharp enough to shave with (yes that is how sharp mine is) it provides a lot of satisfaction simply because it was not easy to achieve. When things are easy to accomplish there is rarely ever pride in the work because it only took moments to complete before you were on to something else that is made easy by some other technological gadget.

I love those old tools and I get even more satisfaction when I stroke that plane across a piece of birds eye maple and it shaves off a sliver of wood that is about a third of the thickness of a sheet of paper and it has not torn up the wood in the process. For those who have ever planed birds eye maple you know how sharp the tools must be. So not only do I get the enjoyment of keeping the tools in proper working order and sharp I get the enjoyment of using them to make something. And that something will have been created with pride in workmanship, something that is lacking in our world, in my opinion. I suppose that was inevitable when things can be sped up and done at a rate that staggers the imagination because we have applied a technological solution to a problem that did not really exist in the first place.

I implore you, if you have never spent hours refurbishing a wood plane and even more hours sharpening it to literally razor sharpness, then go to a flea market and by an old rusty one and call me. I will teach you how to refurb it and how to sharpen it and hopefully it will slow you down long enough to teach you a thing or two about our fast paced world and how to better cope with it. I might even teach you how to fashion some little wooden trinket using your new block plane. I ask that you spend some time every day, away from your gadgets, staring a frame, staring at the clouds or just plain staring into space and let your imagination take you on a journey, to where ever it wants to go.

Why are we so quick to judge others and so slow to judge ourselves?

2011-05-29T09:51:00.000-04:00

We seem to do it almost subconscious and we do it all the time – why? We judge folks who are driving in a way that does not satisfy us, we call them idiots or dumbasses or worse. We let that anger at them affect our own driving. We grip the wheel a little tighter, we stomp a bit more on the pedals, gas and brake. We stop paying as much attention to others around us, and then someone is saying similar things about us and doing the same thing. The next thing ya know, everyone on the road is pissed off and driving like an idiot and for what? So we can get to our destination a few seconds earlier? So we can get to the red light one car length (15-20 feet) ahead? In comparison to the trip, 15-20 feet will turn out to be a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of the total distance traveled. Do you think your anger at the dumbass driver is affecting him or her or their health in the same way it is affecting yours? Of course not.

We judge the folks who are slow in the line at the bank, at the grocery or at the pool store, we call them pokey, slow or worse. We think that we must be serviced in an unrealistic time frame, this goes back to a blog I wrote about patience and why I think the world is a mess, here is the link old oratory link We have all seen the person go ballistic in line because the cashier or the customer is slow. If you have not seen that then you have seen someone just sigh a big sigh over and over again and then move to another line that appears to be moving faster – or you have been living in a cave for the last 20 years0. And the funny thing is that Mr. Murphy and his blasted laws will get them every time. Once they are ensconced in a different line the line they were originally in miraculously speeds up. Now the slow poke or idiot has become peppy and speedy and they watch in growing frustration the person who was behind them walk out the door, while they are waiting for three more people to be serviced.

We judge folks who dress in a way that does not meet our standards – we call them bums or slobs or worse. We think wow, their clothes sure are shabby and dirty and might even think – they should clean themselves up. Even though we have ZERO idea about what hand life has dealt this person we think they should just get their shit together. We have passed judgment, instead of asking if they need something or just giving them the change in your pocket we just judge, I try to keep change in my pocket for just such occasions.

We judge folks on simpleton things as well, why are you not pushing the elevator button fast enough, why did that person stop there to tie their shoe, why is that person typing so slow and this list goes on and on and on and on some more. So what is wrong with us, we just seem to be so wrapped up in ourselves that nothing but our needs and desires are important. We judge folks for walking right in front of us, we judge them for the way they eat at restaurants and we judge them for the things they do for entertainment. We judge a lot and I think we are almost taught to judge. Look at media, news and regular programs, look at our work places and places we frequent, this person is a better singer, that person is more glamorous. Instead we should just enjoying them making their music or spend the time to find the beauty in them.

So this morning I was sitting on the beach at a few minutes after 5am to watch the show, it was magnificent as always. When I go I like to just sit and admire the beauty of it. I try hard not to think about any problems I might be having, I try not to think about work I just sit and stare. So this morning I was sitting there and about 5 minutes before the sun came up my friend Roy wandered out on the beach. We talked for a while as we admired the stunning magnificence of a sunrise. We talked about how it NEVER gets old and how excited we get when we get to watch it on the beach. This morning he told me some stories about his parents, we laughed and contemplated life and all the intricacies of it, a hell of ride I said. Since I get there so early I get great parking, usually one of the closest three spots, today was no exception.

When I was leaving I was walking out with my plastic chair and as I get to my car to get the camera and tripod and all put in a fellow pulls up behind where I am and asks I am leaving. I say yes, here in a minute. I have dropped the chair behind the car and am putting the cameras and phone in the front seat and then I go start knocking the sand off my chair, it has been less than 30 seconds at this point, and I can tell by his body movements that the guy who is waiting for my spot is getting frustrated with me and the apparent slowness of my actions. That did not really motivate me to go any faster and to tell ya truth is actually made me want to go slower. I have nearly gotten my chair strapped in the back of jalopy and am ready to dust off my feet and this guy loses his patience with me and drives away in a huff. I would suspect that if I had looked over he would have been telling me I was number one by showing me just the one finger that made him feel better. Me, laughing out loud as he squealed away probably did not help his mood either.

For me the beach is a place to relax, rejuvenate and enjoy myself, I wondered why this man who squealed away would be coming to the beach before 7am. Was it to relax, was it to enjoy himself, was it to meet someone? Who knows but I suspect that his day was not starting out as well as he planned. Well I went through the same routine I go through each and every time I come off the beach and then fired up jalopy and backed out. Although I have never timed it, that routine takes maybe a minute and half, tops. I will never time it either because it does not really matter to me how long it takes. Well somehow I think I inadvertently poured a bit of salt in the wound for this guy because as I pulled away and someone else pulled into my spot, this guy was making his way towards the beach on the sidewalk a few spots down from where my car was parked. I watched him carefully and he never once looked over at me and he looked mad as a hornet whose nest was just sprayed with poison.

I try really hard not to judge folks, the ones on the top of our society or the ones on the bottom. I try not to judge their actions, we most times will only have a very limited amount of information anyway. Not enough certainly to pass judgment. One of the things that has taught me patience is driving cars that are 53 and 48 years old – patience in many areas actually. Because I work on them I have to patient, when working to get a right lower control removed if one rushes it could be disastrous with very costly side effects. When driving you do not want to be aggressive, the old cars do not have the responsiveness of the newer more costly modes of transport. No following too close or going to fast – there could be disastrous with very costly side effects. We have all had adversities in our life that we can use, use to practice patience or use to make things worse. Every bad situation is only bad if we do not spend the time to look for the positive, look for that life lesson that we can take away from that situation.

So I am asking that the next time you find yourself getting frustrated at someone or something for some stupid reason I want you to think of me and remember some idiotic thing that I did in your presence. I have been doing idiotic things my whole life so I know you will each remember a situation that will make you forget the perceived problem that is facing you and hopefully it will make you just smile  Even as I write this I suppose I am judging that man from this morning. Please remember that everyone you will ever meet has some personal hell they are dealing with that we will never know anything about and probably could not begin to understand even if we did know. Try judging yourself with the same reckless abandon you might judge others with – it is a hard bar if not impossible bar to get over.

Funerals suck and especially so around the two year anniversary of losing my Mom

2011-05-29T08:18:00.004-04:00

Recently a great friend of ours called to let us know that her Mom was being transferred to Hospice care. That sucks and it does not matter who or why! When we got the call, my heart was heavy, for my dear friend and her Mom and the rest of her family. We have been friends for about 7-8 years and have not been in as close a contact as we once were and I am not even sure why. I suppose our lives just got busy and we have not seen each other for a while. I think that is the poorest excuse ever and I am ashamed to admit it but that seems to be the truth of it. Her and her daughter are came over this weekend and spent the night and Bride and I really enjoyed the visit and catching up. My friend is one of the most intriguing and by far the smartest person I know but she is also so down to earth it makes it easy to be friends.

Bride had just met her and became friends right before her husband passed away, unexpected while on a trip to Michigan. That was a terrible time and she was hurting when I first met her. I could not then and cannot now imagine what it will be like to lose a spouse. We spent a lot of time together, her and her daughter and us. Bride and her worked together so it made it convenient for all of us. The more I got to know her the more I realized how much I enjoyed being around her, she is very smart and I like hanging around with smart people, it make me feel smart and I always hope that some of that will rub off on me. Her daughter was a joy as well, we played in the pool and we enjoyed her company. She was insulin dependent so I learned how to do the testing and even administered the shot a couple of times. That is somewhat scary and I was very scared the first time I had to do it. Finger pokey and arm pokey she called it and it was handled almost like a game. Big responsibility having and or caring for a diabetic child, I would wither under that type of pressure.

I met and saw my friends Mom on various occasions and I learned quickly that she was a great cook. She was a fantastic woman and we enjoyed going to her home in the World Golf Village. She was German and I was fascinated by tales of World War II Germany from the perspective of non military normal folks. She had lots of stories from that time in her life, a young girl living in Germany when a tyrannical leader was waging a war against everyone who was not Aryan. She once made this absolutely beautiful standing rib roast and we dined like kings. She later brought out the desert, Tiramisu. I have had Tiramisu before and since but she ruined the desert for me. I have not before or since had that desert where it even came close to comparing to hers. I am not sure what she did or how she created that masterpiece but I am here to tell ya, it was FABULOUS! That was just one delicacy I sampled, everything she made was the same, really good and better than my previous experience with it. Hell even her mashed potato’s were stellar and how do you do that, mashed potato’s are just that – mashed potato’s.

When we received the call that “Liz” had passed it was sad, especially so for me as I had been thinking a lot about my Mom. My Mom passed on March 17th of 2009 and I know how hard it is to lose your mother. I got to pondering the differences between Liz and my Mom and they were MANY! I loved them both and they both had outstanding traits and they both had some not so outstanding traits. I loved my Mom and I wish she had been a better cook, she sucked when it came to cooking and meal planning in general. There are myriad stories in our family about a burned meal here, not enough food for this function or that. She was a chronic underestimater when it came to determining how much food was needed for an event she was hosting. I remember more than one occasion when it was just family that she had to start cutting orange Danish’s into three pieces. Yep, a 3 inch pastry that is about an inch think was cut into three individual pieces and served. The memory is making laugh out loud as I am typing this. This was never an issue that Liz had, I suspect not ever.

The ceremony was held at the Our Lady of Good Counsel Catholic Church on Route 16 close to the end of World Golf Village drive. It is a beautiful church and the father gave a beautiful service. I could tell he knew her well and liked each other. He made me cry a couple of times with stories and especially when he explained his reasoning for the scriptures that were read. He knew her very well indeed to have picked those three readings. My Friend gave one and she also gave the eulogy, I cried again during that. It was weird, as much as I knew Liz and loved the time I got to spend with her I think I was sadder for my friend because I could relate to that pain she was feeling. I know that may sound callous but I was sad for my friend and the pain she was feeling, her mother was already out of pain had made the trip up to heaven already so for me it was all about my friend. She was a rock, there is no way I would be able to deliver a eulogy, I tried speaking once at a funeral for a very good friend of mine and it was VERY difficult for me. I guess I was not blessed with the ability to express myself in such situations, those who are able to do that are my hero’s.

So as the Father was speaking he told the story of the church dinners and how she would bring special treats to those who were volunteering to cook and serve. Did I mention that she was a GREAT cook and her pastries were unrivaled? Anyway he related a story of one of the volunteers who would great her and take the trays of goodies, and believe it or not he would hide them all for himself, these are the Fathers words so I have to believe him. Plus I could see myself doing the same thing, I laughed about the story. Then he mentioned the man’s name, it was even funnier that I know him. I have yet to speak with him since the funeral but you can rest assured I will be poking a bit of fun at him about that. I am sure we will each have Liz stories to share as well. After the service there was a graveside ceremony and interment, this was going to be problem I could tell because it was raining and I mean throwing it down. We drive through this monsoon down to the south end of St. Augustine and when we arrive at a very small tent that is completely drenched, including the chairs. It was funny really, to me it was like, a thing where she got the last laugh. We all huddled together as the wind blew rain in sideways and the Father said a few words and we were back in our cars within 15 minutes.

Back to the church we went for the reception and food, of course. We had a great time, I was not sure I would but we sat next to a fascinating lady. We told stories and I listened to some incredible stories of hers. She told us of a trip out west and how her husband died and about her 75 acres of commercial timber. She was fascinating. She told of this three week trip out west to see Rushmore and Crazy horse and some of the other national monuments and parks. She was so happy that they just did it, even though it was very difficult for her to get the time off from her nursing job. She was just so happy to have done it and kept saying, if you get the chance to do something like that to just do it. I am still fondly remembering both my friends Mom and my Mom as well. Death always brings deep contemplation for me. Not necessarily to determine the meaning of life but to relive in my mind the great times I share with the deceased. I miss my friends Mom, I hurt for my friends loss and I hurt myself remembering my Mom at the anniversary of her death.

Reposting of a quote from His Holiness, the Dalia Lama - gone crazy on facebook.

2011-05-21T20:20:00.003-04:00

So the yesterday I posted a comment, a repost actually, from the Dalia Lama. Here is the post – “Love, compassion and concern for others are real sources of happiness. If you have these in abundance, you will not be disturbed even by the most uncomfortable circumstances. If you nurse hatred, however, you will not be happy even in the lap of luxury. Thus, if we really want happiness, we must widen the sphere of love. This is both religious thinking and basic common sense” and I added “- HH the 14th Dalai Lama”. Well from there , I am not sure how, it digressed into questions about my patriotism and comparing comments I made to doing a disservice to someone’s son, who PROUDLY served in the military – that WAS NOT my intent.

I want to warn you now though, if you are a Fox News automaton who lives, breathes and gets their talking points from the likes of Glen Beck and Bill O'Reilly you should stop reading now because you will not enjoy the rest of this blog. There are still people who believe the United States did not START two wars by invading two different Sovereign Nations and I find that almost incomprehensible to understand. I can tell already, someone kept reading and their blood pressure just spiked, sorry but I told you to stop reading. I cannot be held responsible for any heart attacks, coronaries, strokes or any other malady brought on by reading further - ijs.

I remember 9-11 and I remember the stories about why we needed to invade these countries, testosterone and patriotism run amok is all I saw and it saddened me. Afghanistan did not blow up the twin towers, Iraq did not blow up the twin towers, invading those countries was testosterone and patriotism mixed together at a costly and ridiculous level.

First I guess I need to say that the war on terror is just as stupid as the war on drugs. War, by definition is (from dictionary.reference.com)

1. a conflict carried on by force of arms, as between nations or between parties within a nation; warfare, as by land, sea, or air.
2. a state or period of armed hostility or active military operations: The two nations were at war with each other.
3. a contest carried on by force of arms, as in a series of battles or campaigns: the War of 1812.

We have deluded the meaning of war by attaching “war” to ideological differences. A war on drugs, a war on terror, they are nothing more than buzz words and they are silly, stupid and costly. How can you wage war on an ideology, it is an opened ended fool’s errand. Take a look at the war on drugs, how is that going for us and how much has it cost us? So tell me, how exactly, do you send troops to fight an ideology (terror), instead find the perpetrators of terror and systematically eliminate them

Now as much as it may surprise you al-Qa'ida is not a nation, not a place and not something that is tangible, it is a rag tag group of terrorists, who got lucky and were able to commit a horrible attack on the United States. al-Qa'ida, is a global militant Islamist group founded by Osama bin Laden back in the 1980’s, they say it operates as a network comprising both a multinational, stateless army and a radical Sunni Muslim movement calling for global Jihad – not a place mind you, another ideology.

The folks who were in charge of Afghanistan were the Taliban, which means students in Arabic in case you did not know, were an Islamist militia group that ruled large parts of Afghanistan from September 1996 onwards. Although in control of Afghanistan's capital and most of the country for five years, the Taliban's Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan gained diplomatic recognition from only three states: Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. Those that recognized their country speak volumes on unasked questions I think. While they were bad people who repressed the population in unimaginable ways, they did not plan, coordinate or execute the attacks on the United States. I think it is clear that we started that war and invaded that country. They did nothing but provide al-Qa'ida with a place to hang out. As did, AS DID Pakistan, the Sudan and many others countries that were not so easy to invade, so Afghanistan drew the short straw, sorry you get the shitty end of the stick Afghanistan.

There was one place that al-Qa'ida was NOT and that was Iraq. Saddam Hussein was WAY too much of a megalomaniac to allow ANYONE or ANY THING to block the sun from his presence. There is no way that the boogie men moved to Iraq when we invaded Afghanistan. It would be comparable to saying that the French moved to Austria after Hitler circumvented the Maginot line by going north through Belgium and took up the battle there, it is just as ludicrous. And yet there we are, still in that country, still spending an obscene amount of our taxpayer money. Saddam Hussein did not attack the United States on 9-11, he was a bad man and his government was tyrannical, he was a shit heel, but he did not attack us. There are A LOT of those types of leaders around the world, why not pick that one? We invaded a second sovereign nation within 2 years of invading Afghanistan. We put testosterone and patriotism together in the most heinous way, in a way that if one questioned the motives, asked why are we doing this, we had our own patriotism called into question – what bullshit!!

To me this war on terror is the worst thing our country has ever done and world history will not be kind to us when it looks back on these wars. War is NEVER a good thing and a nation should deliberate carefully before engaging in it. Let’s look back at our own history as a nation. If we go back to WWI the United States did not declare war until after the sinking of seven U.S. merchant ships by submarines and the publication of the Zimmerman telegram, Wilson then called for war on Germany, which the U.S. Congress declared on 6 April 1917, that was 3 years after the war started, and then it was in defense of others and not a proactive attack on a sovereign nation. It was weighed very carefully (3 years) and there were clearly defined goals and a strategy. Same with WWII, Hitler invaded Poland in 1939 (he was being a rascal long before that though) and we did not declare war until late 1941, that day that will live in infamy when Japan perpetrated that horrible attack on Pearl harbor. There is an example of war, Japan attacked us, it was not a group that happened to be in Japan, but the government of Japan itself.

The term War on Terror was coined in the aftermath of 9-11 by President Bush, we were all stinging from the chaos our country was thrown into. We had a cowboy President standing on the rubble calling for action, here are the words:
President Bush: Thank you all. I want you all to know -- it [bullhorn] can't go any louder -- I want you all to know that American today, American today is on bended knee, in prayer for the people whose lives were lost here, for the workers who work here, for the families who mourn. The nation stands with the good people of New York City and New Jersey and Connecticut as we mourn the loss of thousands of our citizens
Rescue Worker: I can't hear you!
President Bush: I can hear you! I can hear you! The rest of the world hears you! And the people -- and the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon!
Rescue Workers: [Chanting] U.S.A.! U.S.A.! U.S.A.! U.S.A.! U.S.A.! U.S.A.! U.S.A.! U.S.A.!
President Bush: The nation -- The nation sends its love and compassion --
Rescue Worker: God bless America!
President Bush: -- to everybody who is here. Thank you for your hard work. Thank you for makin' the nation proud, and may God bless America.
Rescue Workers: [Chanting] U.S.A.! U.S.A.! U.S.A.! U.S.

All patriot stuff, very cool and it all needed saying but the thing that never happened – cooler heads did not prevail. When faced with a crisis of that magnitude cooler heads had to prevail, but did not. We needed our leaders to lead at that critical moment and they lead us into the craziest 10 years in our countries history.

Having served in the Military for 10 years I know we have capabilities that are beyond the comprehension of most, what should have happened is a strategic attack, against the actual terrorists. We could have reached out with any number of assets and jerked a knock in Osama Bin Ladin’s ass and every one of the leaders of that organization. No need to invade a country, just a well-planned mission using highly trained operators sent into a sovereign nation to kill a bad man who did bad things. Hey, wait minute….. isn’t that what we ended up doing to get him anyway? Almost 10 years later the name Osama Bin Laden should be nothing but a bad memory from long ago – him and his organization should have been systematically taken apart by the end of September 2001 - regardless of where the bastards were hiding. There would be no need to invade countries to do that and no need to have spent over a TRILLION dollars to get him – OBVIOUSLY!

I know this will not go over well for many, sorry but I told you to stop reading

What I have been doing since 1983 – for those from my past that I am reconnecting with

2011-05-17T20:24:00.003-04:00

1983 – Graduated high school and I had a few months off before going into the US Navy. Boot camp in Orlando in July was a mistake – it was HOT and the bugs were HUGE compared to the dwarf bugs I had grown accustomed to in Ohio. After boot camp I went to my first electronics school, basic electricity and electronics. After about 4 months I had completed that training and went moving on up to Great Lakes, Illinois – north of Chicago for 9 months of Electronics school. Once completed I was off to Norfolk Va. For more specialized electronics training. I spent about 4 month’s there learning about an Air Search radar, some navigational systems as well as a main frame computer system called SNAPII. I knew even then that computers would change the world, little did I realize just how much.

I spent from late 84 until early 88 on the USS Stump, (DD-978), a Spruance Class Destroyer - it was a great ship and I learned a lot about life, myself and how to interact with coworkers. The highlight of my time on that Ship, the UNITAS 1985 Cruise. WOW, there were some good times for me on that cruise. We toured around South America showing the flag and then we continued across the pond with a show of flag up the west coast of Africa. I got a tattoo on Copacabana Beach in Rio, WOW now that was a great place. When we were in Africa, Dakar Senegal I think, in what was considered an alcohol related incident I broke my right eardrum. Too much Polar Star beer (I think) out of big gold cans and a quick fall from a high dive into a pool and voila, an alcohol related incident was added to my permanent record. I am laughing as I write this as those were some carefree and CRAZY times, those who were there can testify to that.

I made a lot of friends on that ship, but like any duty station before the internet and social media, ya’ kind of lose track of folks. The only people I kept up with were Mark Eby and Vince Boucher, and it has been in the last 5-7 years that I have lost track of them as well. With the advent of social media, Facebook specifically, I have reconnected with many of my old shipmates from those days when I still drank. Some of them, after friending them, were still the same dirt bags they were back in those days and they were quickly ejected from my list of friends. Some were the same old buddies I remembered. I learned a lot on that ship but I got in trouble there as well -- two Captain’s Masts. Those are non-judicial punishments, for those unacquainted. That is where the Skipper can take some of your pay for a while and take stripes and restrict ya’ to the ship for extended periods of time. One was bullshit charges, dereliction of duty; the other the ship was leaving for 9 days and I decided something else was more important so I did not go. Article 86 and Article 87 were the charges and the Skipper was none too happy with my reasons. Hahahahaha, I always thought he was a prick anyway (it was worth it!).

Once I left the Stump, I transitioned to shore duty in Annapolis MD, the Naval Radio Transmitting facility Annapolis (NRTF). It was a great base, small with only about 50 us of and it was a secret base. We provided one way communication to submarines in the Atlantic, that was all we were allowed to say about that. I was soon off to Vallejo CA for some additional training on a very old piece of gear. Four months later, I was ready to go! New responsibilities and more opportunities to learn about very high power transmitters. Hell we even maintained our own 33kv substation. It was here that I stopped drinking, and I am glad of that. The Skipper of the base was the one who recommended it after finding me passed out buck naked in a pool of my own vomit during a barracks inspection. I knew there was a problem before he pointed it out.

Lucky me, I knew bride since she was stationed on the base as well but we became “better” friends in the months after my drinking stopped. We made a lot of friends there as well, two of them met and married as well. We lost track of them after that though, until Facebook reunited us. They stopped by our place on a trip to Orlando last year. I love those two! Rob and I spearheaded the building of the best volleyball court in the world, right outside the barracks, we played A LOT of volleyball on that court. Bride and I had moved in together, with a zero commitment relationship. We decided that we would hang out together until we stopped having fun. I was so happy that she stayed in Annapolis when she got out and did not make that trip back to TX. The highlight of this tour of duty, meeting Bride.

As my tour was wrapping up there I started making trips down to see the detailers in DC, a short 50 mile ride. They are the ones who assign duty stations to folks and I wanted to get a PreCom Aegis Cruiser really bad. I bought a lot of lunches for the folks down there but I did finally get the USS Gettysburg (CG-64) being built at Bath Iron Works up in Maine. Bride, who was still girlfriend, stayed in Baltimore while I was off to Norfolk for another 8 months of training before heading to Maine. I was to be a communications specialist on the new ship. This was early 1990 and we were just months away from Saddam invading Kuwait. I was watching the movie Lion Heart when the counter attack finally happened. Like a lot of folks, I called the detailer, the guys I had bought lunch for, to get on something that was haze grey and underway to the gulf.

Girlfriend and I were engaged at that point but we had not set a date, it was some years down the road for us, we were in no hurry to legalize our relationship, we loved each other and that was what mattered. When I started trying to get a ship and go, we decided we better get hitched because a girlfriend is not going to get information about her boyfriend but a wife, they can. It was not to be though, too much time invested training me up for the Gettysburg they told me. But we were married and there were some additions to my paycheck to cover housing and others, I can’t remember what all they were but it amounted to about 500 bucks additional money in my check so the marriage thing wasn’t all bad. I had one Mediterranean cruise while I was stationed aboard the Gettysburg. The highlight of that duty station was getting to Naples Italy and taking the trip up to Rome and spending a few days. Sitting in the Sistine Chapel staring at the ceiling for hours – that was moving.

I got out in 1993, when they were paying folks to get out. They had paid me to stay a few years earlier and then, BAM, they paid me to get out so I did. I started a small business doing home repair and remodeling. I had the money, the wife’s approval and I did not want to look back and wish I would have tried so I did it. Almost Anything Handyman Services Inc. was born and it grew over 4 years to a client base that included all the Jacksonville Taco Bell and Wendy’s restaurants and about 1500 residential clients. It was great fun and I really enjoyed it, I learned a lot about home repair and got to purchase a bunch of tools, a hobby gone wild. After 4 years it was getting tough to keep up with all that goes into running a business and I was missing the challenges that electronics offered. I was on the hunt again.

I got a short lived job working for a company that installed and maintained copiers that were just starting to be connected to the networks and I thought that might be interesting. It was, but the ridiculousness of that business soon grew on me and I needed out. I found an ad in the paper for a television engineer. I remember reading the job description thinking, I don’t have that, I am not that and I have none of that, but I remember thinking - damn that looks like a cool job, so I applied. After reading a couple of books on television fundamentals and an interview with a former Navy electronics technician, I was hired. First order of business was to get the transmitter fully operational. It took months and 10’s of thousands of dollars. After that (1998) the station was starting the digital transition and that gave me an advantage, the engineers who were there did not know the digital at all. My training in the Navy covered a lot of digital systems. Those skills, coupled with my own vigorous study program, allowed me to advance pretty quickly with me ending up leading the Engineering, Operations, Traffic and IT departments.

That is a greatly condensed version of what I have been doing since 1983, if you have questions about any specific time or want more stories, or want to share with me stories from any period we may have shared just let me know.

facebook stalking, WTF is that!!

2011-05-15T10:16:00.000-04:00

So the other day I noticed one of my FB friends were talking about someone “creeping their profile”. I suppose it got me to thinking about my activity on FB, could I be considered a FB stalker. Because I do sometimes go look at my friends walls, their pictures and what interests they may have that I did not know about previously. I thought that was one of the purposes of the social media on the first place, connecting with folks in a new and modern and all digital way. Once I started looking up the definition, I am even more scared.

Evidently a FB stalker is a person who spends large amounts of time on Facebook looking at other people's profiles, often browsing photos, walls (or wall-to-walls), groups, or recent activity posted on the stalked person's mini-feed. Well I would not say that I spend large amounts of time doing those things but I have done them before. I am not sure how an individual can secretly look up people on FB, going through albums, comments and personal information to piece together a picture of this person. I can’t figure out how to look at people unless we are my FB friends, in which case I am not sure it is stalking - is it.

They say you qualify as a FB stalker if you, A) click on someone's profile more than once a day even if they haven't messaged or tagged you in a photo. B) Have dragged and dropped more than 3 FB photos (not from your own profile) C) actually go to a place mentioned on someone's page in hopes of seeing them in real life. Well there have been times that I looked at someone’s profile more than once a day, sometimes a comment they place on their feed, or wall or whatever that area is called, and that prompts me to go look at some picture or some group that they are in, sorry to those of you who I have done that to. I do not know how to drag and drop a facebook photo in my own profile so no chance of that in someone else’s profile. And as far as going to a place mentioned on someone’s page, that happened just recently. I reconnected with an old friend from the USS Gettysburg and on his page we discussed where we were going to meet, and then on our pages again, we planned and he came to our house for dinner.

I do look at my firends profiles, I do look at thier pictures and I do look at what groups they are in, do I spend “large amounts of time” doing it, no. So I guess there are now programs that let folks know who is viewing what and the periodicity of which they are viewing it. Well, I guess I am busted because sometimes I may come to your page more than once a day, hell I might even leave some traces (a comment) that you don’t need a “secret app” tracing my comings and goings. I hope you never need to come watch your house while you are out of town, although I bet you have those little hidden cameras watching me anyway.

You know what else I do, every week or so I pick friends that I have not seen any activity from in a while and guess what, I send them a “secret message” and ask how things are in their world. Not because I am stalking them, because I want to know how my friends are doing and that all is OK in their world. Something else I did was send FB email’s to about 20 different people, all named Marc Gagne asking if they were the Marc Gagne that I served with on the USS Stump by in the 80’s. A number of them messaged back with a comment "not me" but you know what happened yesterday, my buddy Marc from all those days ago checked in with me. I suppose that could be considered stalking as well but you know what, I don’t give a shit and if you care that much about me stopping in on your page then boot me from your friends list and that will stop that activity immediately. If you don’t care then you WILL be seeing me looking in from time to time (God forbid, I might even go look at one of your friends pages) and you might, just maybe, get a message from me asking how things are in your world.

Osama Bin Ladin

2011-05-02T18:28:00.001-04:00

Osama Bin Ladin

The name itself conjures images of the boogey man. While I am happy that he has received his 72 virgins I am not sure it makes a shit bit of difference in the grand scheme of things. The United States martyred him TEN YEARS AGO!!! I was sleeping when the news broke last night and learned of his demise when I logged onto Facebook this morning. There were lots of comments about the event, mostly involving his arrival in Hell and comments about pride in our Military and the work they have done. All pretty patriotic stuff, me I am not sure how I feel, mostly anger I think is what I have.

Why anger, I was as surprised by it as you might be. Maybe it was anger at the turmoil that this man threw the world into? While he did that and that is good reason to be angry I don’t think that is it. Maybe the anger is at the senseless deaths of the 2,998 folks who died on September 11th 2001? I am not sure that is it either. Maybe it is the 5,978 Military deaths that have occurred in the wars that were started by his heinous acts, this one makes me really angry but I don’t think that is it either. Maybe it is the $1,188,466,004,284 (over one trillion) the United States has spent on the wars tracking this guy down, this is about a quarter million dollars a minute, for every minute, over the last 10 years. That is a BIG problem for me as I feel that is part of the reason our economy is in the toilet, but I do not think that is the root of my anger either.

No, I think what I am mad about it that fact that it took the most powerful nation on the planet 10 years to catch him. I believe in the beginning that we did not want to catch him. I believe we (as a nation) needed him out there to chase. Without a boogey man out there how would we justify the costs of the wars to the tax payers? The very thing that Dwight David Eisenhower warned us about had come true – the military industrial complex was on its way to becoming self sustaining. There were LOTS of companies and LOTS of people who got very rich from lubing the mechanisms of the worlds most powerful military machine.

I served in the Military for 10 years and got out in 1993. I was not exposed to every capability the military has but I did observe quite a number of impressive capabilities and I find it IMPOSSIBLE to believe that we did not know where this guy was the whole time. When I can get on Google maps and look at the front door of my house and see it from outer frickin space I will never be convinced the government could not find a 6 + foot Arab who needed regular dialysis. I will never believe it, period.

Chopping the head off of a franchise type organization such as Al-Qaeda will do little to slow terrorism and thinking it will reinforces the naïve nature of our citizenry. We live in our insulated world and do not spend the time to learn or even understand the culture of others, that is one of the problems and why he hated us in the first place. We apply our thinking of the world to it and you know what, the world does not think like us, and we are two wrapped up in ourselves to notice.

I guess I am wondering if we should use his death to celebrate a victory over terrorism, why you might ask? Well let me tell ya why. Do you remember when the towers fell and people in foreign lands danced in the streets and we were pissed. Well here we are, doing the same thing – celebrating the death of another human being by dancing in the street. Granted this was a bad man but we are just as bad a society to a lot of people in the world and us celebrating in the streets has to be compared to “them” dancing in the streets. I saw a the view of folks outside the white house, if you were turn the volume down it looked just like what the terrorists were doing when the towers fell, shameful!! Don’t get me wrong, I am happy he is no longer leading the organization but really how engaged in that leadership do you think he has really been. I think he kicked a snowball down the hill by planning the events of 9/11 and then stood at the top of the hill, laughing about the snowballs crazy assed trip, hollering down occasionally to taunt us.

How big of a difference do you think his death will make, 10 years later. Most folks would not consider it a success when it took 10 years and $1,188,466,004,284 dollars to complete a mission. I am not sure I do. A lot of people died because of him, so I guess I am happy that he is gone, but that is not right. What ever happened to forgiveness? He was unable to forgive us for occupying the holy lands in Saudi Arabia, we seem unable to forgive him for a heinous act of terrorism. Forgiveness is not the same as justice and I am not saying it is, he had to be brought to justice for his actions. He needed to be called on the carpet for his horribly heinous acts. But in our hearts we must forgive those who trespass against us, I have heard that someplace before…….. where was that???

I heard a pundit this morning that his death is the most significant event in defeating Al-Qaeda. WHAT??? Most significant event, not sure I agree with that. I am also not sure that the world is any safer with him gone, do you? I am also trying to correlate his death to the heightened security we have to deal with at the airports. I am sure, it is tied in there somehow, but I just cant get there. Investors are doing well though, the stock markets of the world have rejoiced and they are all trading more briskly that normal. Why do you think that is?

You know what I am going to dislike more than anything else, all the media coverage. They will be pulling out people who had some obscure involvement over the last 10 years and put them on the tub as an expert. All of them will be talking about how they knew this day was coming and how important it is in the war on terror. Hell I even heard Colin Powell said that he knew he wasn’t hiding in a cave. Hindsight is 20/20 proves itself once again. Every one of these media types will be drooling over this, some trying to make a name for themselves, some trying to keep their name on top. I listened this morning for about an hour, that is all I really need – the actual news part of it. Like Joe Friday used to say “just the facts ma’am”. Osama Bin Ladin was killed by the Navy Seals in a stronghold in Pakistan that took 40 minutes and he was buried at sea within 24 hours in keeping with his religious beliefs. What is everything after that really – just noise.

Bride and I, an example – of what I am not sure.

2011-04-19T14:14:00.000-04:00

The other day on Facebook a friend I went to high school with said “Maybe you should write a book to help young people starting at in marriage. You two have a very good example for couples to learn from.” I was honored that someone I have not seen since high school would say such a thing about me. Although I am pretty sure I do not have a book in me trying to get out I thought, I can write I blog about it. So here I am, at the keyboard pecking away. Not sure this will be able to be a stream of conscienceness, as my blogs usually are. When one ponders what makes a great marriage it is complicated and I had to ponder this blog for a couple of days before I started writing it. I suspect if I were to write a book about helping young people starting in marriage it would be a short book, it is really not that complicated the way I see it. I won’t say it is easy but it is not complicated. I think I will write this blog in chapters, kinda like I was writing a book.

Chapter 1 – Be best friends and treat each other like best friends treat each other.

Sounds easy enough huh? It has to mean something, those are not just words. It has to be backed up with actions. How often do you yell at your best friend? I have seen married couples who holler and swear at each other in a hateful, vehement way, it makes me sad. That kind of behavior erodes the love and it becomes “ok” to disrespect your spouse – that is NOT ACCEPTABLE under any set of circumstances. That is NOT OK and one should NEVER start doing it because it is the beginning of the end. Folks also respect their best friends, we respect them and their opinions, even if they do not fall into perfect alignment with our own opinions. I can not think of anything that would make me disrespect my best friend, I am not saying that there are not differences of opinion at all. What would the world be like if everyone had the same opinion? If there are any BIG things that are deal breakers for ya, probe that area when you are dating and if they can not be resolved – move on to someone else, do it long before you have kids and alimony payments. Just be nice to each other, in every way you can think of to be nice.

Chapter 2 – life is a bitch, get ready for it.

We must take the hardships that life deals to us and learn from the struggles. We then have to use that wisdom to shore up who you are, individually and more importantly together. Remember you will not be the same person in 5 years, and you will be different again 5 years after that. Want to know a secret, your spouse will not be the same either (Refer to chapter 1). I am not saying here that life is all bad, actually just the opposite. We try to look at things for what they are, not what we want them to be. Things that happen to us or around us are COMPLETELY out of our control, we like to think they are in our control but I have found that 99.99999% are not. Our reaction to the natural ebb of flow of the world around us is what makes those events good or bad, not the events themselves. Hang on and realize, the ride is underway and you might as well enjoy it because it is not stopping for any of your petty bullshit. The only thing you have is each other so hold each other, look into their eyes and tell em you love em, and mean it.

Chapter 3 – Never go to bed mad, nothing, NOTHING is worth that.

Over the 22 years Bride and I have been together I can count the arguments we have had on three fingers, they were not even what could be called fights. When we first moved in together we would have a bitch session every day. Not a knock down drag out or anything like that but simply telling each other the idiosyncratic behaviors that bothered us. Things like leaving the lid off the toothpaste to leaving the lid up. After a couple of months of that we were able to go a couple of days between sessions, and now after 22 years we still do it. Seems silly now but it fostered our ability to have honest and non-confrontational communication with each other. We talked about the small silly little things so nothing ever got so big that it became a monster that needed tamed. We just don’t have anything that reaches that level, we have talked it out long before then. Sometimes we would agree, sometimes we would agree to disagree and that is OK. NEVER look at an argument or disagreement from the perspective of “winning”, trust me when you approach a relationship with that attitude it will never last, you have to be on the same team.

Chapter 4 – realize that you are an individual - you do not need to have all the same interests and likes.

Everyone is a unique individual and it is not fair to expect someone to change who they are to accommodate the other one. I am not sure if two more different people than Bride I could be found. We are each our own strong individual in our own right and then we are also a strong team at the same time. It has been fun to grow as a person by myself over time but it has been more fun to grow as a team, together. Like any team there are strengths and weaknesses and like any team you find out where your strengths and weaknesses are and you learn where your teammates strengths and weaknesses are. Once that is known you grow to cover each other, to temper those strengths and to shore up those weaknesses. It almost becomes an automatic over time and there is no better feeling in the world than to cover your teammate when they need help or to be covered yourself when you need help. You also don’t have to do everything together, and I would highly recommend having some separate hobbies. I am not saying that these activities be off limits to the spouse, Bride even acts as a helper when I am wrenching on cars. Not sure how to say it exactly but just have things you do by yourself or with others and let your spouse have the same.

Chapter 5 – don’t sweat the small stuff, oh and by the way – it is all small stuff.

Again this sounds so simple to me but it is often overlooked, with tragic results. We have a saying, what will this matter in 5 minutes, 10 days or 15 years, the old 5, 10, 15 rule if you will. Most things you may want to get your panties in a bunch about really don’t matter, not even in 5 minutes let alone 10 days and we have had nothing was so important that it would have an impact in 15 years. This kind of ties back to chapter 3 but is a bit different. The small stuff is all the things that could, if combined, turn into an argument. The small stuff is to be dismissed as non-important, small stuff can not be allowed to raise to a higher level than say, a pesky fly. If the small stuff is allowed to fester and turn into more than small stuff, a big bomb of small stuff, the results can be catastrophic. Why, because you will no longer know what you are arguing about, there is not one thing, it is a list of things that are so tangled and confused you will never be able to sort them out. A bunch of small stuff will have turned into a big pile of stinky shit that winds up covering everything and everybody. Remember most ALL THINGS are really small stuff, will it matter in 5 minutes, will it matter in 10 days, and will it matter in 15 years. I think not, unless you want it to, for your own sake, don’t want it to.

Chapter 6 - For you guys, do the boy jobs.

We have, over the years, split the household responsibilities into Boy work and Girl work. It really just kind of worked out to a mostly traditional arrangement with Bride doing the bulk of the inside work and me doing the bulk of the outside work. We tradeoff sometimes but mostly it is Boy work and Girl work. Now there are some jobs that we share doing and that is fine too. I could not imagine sitting inside watching the game if Bride were outside schleping the mower around the yard and trimming the hedges. I know couples that do that, I am not sure why but that is what “works” for them, or least it appears. I was at the gas station the other day and the man sat comfortably in the SUV driver’s seat while his Bride got out and pumped gas, I was shocked. I keep the all the cars filled with gas at our house and would NEVER, EVER consider having Bride pump the gas with me sitting in the car – that is a boy job. It is the same with toting the trash to the curb, boy work. Cleaning the pool, boy work as is painting and most home repairs - all boy work in our house. You have to find your list of girl work and boy work but boys, hoist your Bride up a pedestal and do the dirty messy jobs for her, if for no other reason than so she won’t have to do them. (refer to chapter 1)

Well who knows, there seems to be more in there about this, another blog may be coming soon

Separation makes the heart grow fonder - my ass!!

2011-04-17T10:00:00.003-04:00

It has been better than a couple of weeks since Bride went out to Texas and over a week since I was in Vegas. Seems it has just really started getting hard for me to think about not seeing Bride when I get home from work. I guess the first few days were cool, house to myself and all of that male machoness. Then I went to Vegas and was busier than a one legged man at an ass kicking contest, with an arthritic knee by the way and I did not have time for it to sink in. When I first got back I was busier than a one armed paper hanger, one who suffers with tennis elbow no less, so it still had not really sunk in. Now as I sit around that house and there is no Bride and I am sad. There is no one to tell about how my day was and I am not getting to hear how her day was. It is a routine we have and evidently I have taken it for granted because I really miss that first sight of her when I walk in and my heart still leaps. All I have now are the critters. Don’t get me wrong, I love them all but they are not bride.

I think Bride and I have the best marriage on the planet, I suppose everyone thinks that about their marriage, and I think we communicate very well. It is almost scary that she can anticipate, with a VERY high degree of accuracy, what I will do in almost any situation I find myself. I am pretty in tune with her in the same way. That does not mean we still do not communicate very well with each other, just that we do it not only verbally but using all the other ways as well. I can tell by the sound of her voice if she is happy, sad, upset joyful or freaking out about this or that, Hamster fits we call. Hamster, now there is a funny nickname with a funny story. I will give you the short version. One day while we were dating I was trying to call her Honey and Sam (I nickname from early in her life) well it came out Ham and well, I am sure you can figure out the rest. So she is the Hamster and sometimes when she is pissed, she has Hamster fits. I am laughing even writing about it.

Seems like we have always been together and I can remember Hamster fits as far back as we go together. I love her so much and in so many ways and I know that she loves me in the same way. It is so cool to me that I have found not only my life partner but my soul mate. It is like we were destined to be together, we laugh all the time that “no one else would have either one of us” so at least we got that worked out. We are so different and we are so a like, seems weird to say but it is true. She completes who I am and I complete who she is and I could not imagine my life without her in it.

I think the mix of both of our combined dysfunction is what makes it work. We both have a good number of idiosyncratic behaviors but we know what they are and ya know what – they are just not important to us. We do not have to be alike or like all the same things. That is where I see the slippery slope in some marriages that have ended. Two people are not going to always like the same things and that is OK. I could not imagine us both liking ALL the same things, how crazy would that be. For those who know Bride just imagine for a second her out in the garage laying in a pool of grease with half Jalopy’s transmission laying on her chest while I was attempting to align the clutch plate. Hahaha, I don’t think she would be a very good helper, let alone a mechanic. It makes me laugh just thinking about it. But there are things that Sandy does that I would be just as inept doing. The point is we do our own thing and we do our thing together and it is OK, we are different people. We are different people than we were when we started dating but we grew into our current selves together (however dysfunctional and bizarre as we might be).

Plus when we are pursuing our individual interests we get a break from being on top of each other, I don’t mean that in a bad way at all. I am just saying as much as I love Bride I could not spend all of my time 24/7 with her, and she most assuredly could not deal with me in chucks of time bigger than 3 hours at a time (ok she could most likely handle more than 3 hours but not much more). A relationship expands and contracts over time, and that is OK. We just have to recognize when the ebb and flow are happening so we can recognize and accept or change what is happening. I miss her, she gets back on Tuesday and find that I can hardly contain myself or think of anything else. I am planning (probably too much as that is my way) our reunion. Funny that she knows me well enough to have anticipated my over complicating things and has a better plan in place that she will, when it is said and done, have convinced me that it was my plan all along.

Our relationship is the most special thing in the world to me, it is so wonderful to be so committed to another that who you are blends into who you are together. There have been many others who can better express themselves and their love via the written word but I do not think any have felt the way I feel about Bride, the “Technicolor Rainbow” and it describes my feelings pretty well.

A life changed, Contorted, warped, painted as a Technicolor rainbow, And spun three hundred and sixty degrees.

You’re a magician, a creator, a vision, an artist.

You recreated me completely, drew me in with your seductive scent.

You smell of the rain, peppermint, and lust.

An aroma which clings to the air I breathe in.

Your embrace is a comfort I had eternally craved, and now I have,Like the warmest of blankets in the coldest of winters.

So warm, so strong.

Together each day will fill in the spaces, and remove all the grey.

Redecorating our lives for a more homely stay.

I’m right where I should be, and it’s all thanks to you, In our castle is where we will stay happy, alive, together at last.

Kiss me, hold me now, my sweet, my angel, a darling Princess.

I am in love.

Amen, I am in love with Bride and that sums it up!!!

Old Friends from my Navy Days - what a blast from the past

2011-04-17T08:08:00.002-04:00

I served on two ships and had one shore duty assignment and I spent a lot of time going to different schools. I got to my first ship after a year and half of training, yep Naaaavvvyy Trrrraaaining sir. The first ship was the Spruance Class destroyer USS Stump, named after Admiral Felix Budwell Stump. All the Spru-can’s (as they were called) were named after Admirals. I then had a stint on shore duty in Annapolis Maryland, no not at the Academy. There was a small transmitter site there, Naval Radio Transmitting Facility (NRTF) Annapolis. Gotta love the acronyms. We provided one way communications to submarines in the Atlantic, that was all we were allowed to say about that. After a couple of years there I then got orders to pre-commission (precom) the USS Gettysburg, it was to the latest Aegis Cruiser at the time, CG 64. It was a newer version of the one that shot down the Iranian Airbus back in the 80’s (for those who remember that). Our XO, can’t remember his name, was actually the OPS boss on the USS Vincennes when they shot that plane down.

I got out in 1993 when they were paying folks to go, seemed weird to me that they paid me to stay, with a selective reenlistment bonus (SRB) and then they paid me to go because they did not want me to stay and retire. Some bean counter in some obscure office someplace in Washington figured that if I were to stay to retirement I would end up costing the Government X amount of money and if they paid me off, at some rate lower than that, it will all come out OK and they could save a buck or two. Seems stupid to me but I was going to get out anyway so why not take the money and run. I have kept in touch with a few folks from those days, not many though. With the advent of Facebook the whole phenomenon revolving around that, I have reconnected with a few more friends from those days.

I am Proud of my service in the Navy, I gave a lot and I received a lot. I went in out of high school and I learned some simple things, responsibility, how to work as a team, how to depend on others, I learned how to be a man and a productive member of society. I learned a trade, and it is one I am still plying. I learned that we American’s are a spoiled rotten lot, and that even the most unfortunate of those among us still is better off than most in the world. I got to see incredible things and have amazing adventures. I stared at Michael Angelo’s ceiling and was awed. I traveled through the master piece of Teddy Roosevelt’s sheer will, the Panama Canal. I got to spend time in Rio de Janeiro and for a hillybilly from Millerstown Ohio that was a BIG deal. I was exposed to culture and cultures that I would not have otherwise had the opportunity to have experienced and I grew as a person.

I got to meet some of the brightest and funniest people I know, I also got to meet folks who were walking idiots, some I was amazed could walk upright and breathe, at the same time. That was the dichotomy that was the Navy, the brightest and the best serving right along with folks who might have been given the opportunity to join instead of going to jail by a judge somewhere with a great sense of humor. I was educated, not just in my trade but in the ways of world, the real world not our insulated American lifestyle. I am not in any way knocking our Country, I am living the American Dream as well, I just think by and large we are VERY lucky to have been born here. I am proud to have served and am honored and amazed by those who serve still today.

So, on January 2nd I posted a comment on the USS Gettysburg facebook group page looking for an old friend and recently, April 13th a different friend posted “What's up Smitty. I haven't found Chuck yet.” Well from there it was a facebook stalk on his page as well as friend suggestions from my buddy that lead me to find Dave, a friend whose dog died at our house some time ago. I was weird because just a couple of weeks ago I was telling that story and BAM, a couple of weeks later I find out he has retired and is living right here in Jax. I won’t go into the story about his dog here, that may be a separate blog. So last night I was on my way to the beach to go cruising around and I called him up.

We met at the Navy Exchange on Mayport road, I had forgotten how much the strict hierarchy of the military really bothered me. As I waited I was looking at the reserved parking spots, two for CMC’s (command Master Chiefs) one for the Ombudsman, some for squadron officers – ridiculous I remember thinking. As I was thinking that some snot nosed butter bar makes his way to his brand new car parked right up front like a handicapped spot. Following him was a Senior Chief pushing a buggy of items and he had to go clear across the lot to his old clunker car. It made me mad just watching it, here some NUB (non usable body) ensign, through nothing but being fortunate enough to go to the right college, gets to park up front. While that is happening, a man who has served for many years and risen to E8 has to schlep his buggy to BFE. I got mad just remembering that part of military service.

Anyway we met and went riding down third street down to JTB and we turned around, we stopped at one of the side streets that lead to the beach and went for a walk. It was like it was yesterday, after a few minutes of describing where our lives had taken us over the last 18 years we took up just where we left off all that time ago. That is something that I have not experienced except with friends who have served. There is a camaraderie that is built between folks who serve, I have heard it said and tried to explain it to folks but unless you have been there and have that tee shirt it is hard to understand. I don’t know if it is the shared experiences, hours on end at GQ hollering “Hot Mike” into the sound powered phones or if it is spending so much time together or what but it creates a bond that can not be broken by time or distance.

We had lots of laughs remembering guys the G-burg, some of the great ones and some of the dipshits and some of the just plain weird ones. One guy, his nickname was Dawg and I will use that to protect the stupid, was just one of the most bizarre guys I ever had the pleasure of working with. He was SMART, in a book sense kind of way. He could ace any electronics test placed in front of him but he could not take that book smart and translate it into troubleshooting his way out of a wet paper sack. He was a good resource but not a very good employee to have when your primary responsibility is trouble shoot things and then fix them. He was the only person I ever had to council for BO, no kidding three times I had to give him instruction, exactly and step by agonizing step, how to take and bath and keep clean. That sucked! We also talked about a couple of the E7’s we had in our department and how we would purposely do things just to watch the veins on the side of the forehead start to pop out. Damn we laughed until I was almost crying.

As we walked on the beach I picked up a seashell to remember the experience of reconnecting, it was about this time I think he noticed my left big toe nail painted screaming red. He did not say a word, which I thought was funny, most people don’t for fear of what the answer might be. Hahahahaha, I suppose I will tell him the story someday, maybe. We setup up some plans for the following weekend to come by the house, he remembered Bride makes a kickass Lasagna, but I think we might just have steaks.

Sir Fig Newton Bernard Smith – that is my damned old dog’s official AKC registered name.

2011-04-14T19:58:00.002-04:00

Newton, as he known, was born on April 1st 2001 to a breeder in Georgia, he is indeed an April fool’s joke alright. He has grown into a horrible example of what a Boston terrier should be. That matters little to Bride and I because that is THE MOST lovable dog in the world. He is not well behaved, even though he received over 10 weeks of obedience training when he was a puppy. I think what happened was that he spent that time training Bride because she has doted on that dog since we got him. Bride and I were together 12 years before she was able to convince me to get a dog, we were and still are cat people.

We were visiting some friend’s parents and they had a Boston, Cookie was only about 10 pounds, max. Well after a couple of days Cookie kinda grew on me and I think Bride picked up on that. I did say that at that time “it can’t be a “cookie”, it has to be a Newton” from the fig newton commercials that were popular at that time. I later learned of an area outside Boston Massachusetts called Newton, a well to do area no less. Well after the casual conversations about names for a dog the next thing ya know she is working on me about getting a dog like Cookie, only not a Cookie, a Newton. After some pretty heavy lifting on Brides part she convinced me. For me I was looking forward to a tiny little dog getting his ass kicked by the 24 pound cat we had at the time. So sue me, I thought that would be fun to watch, get over it. That is when the hunt started, she wanted a perfect specimen, nothing less than an AKC dog would do. Me, I could care less, mutts will love ya just as much so it really did not matter to me, other than I got scared that we were going to spend of fortune on an “AKC” dog.

Well after searching high and low she found a place in Georgia and her and her friend go trucking up the road to Georgia to look at him. Bride assured me that her friend would not let her get a dog that was not the perfect specimen. Hahahaha, that makes me laugh thinking back on it. Well they get there and this puppy just ran over and jumping into Brides arms, it was over right then and there. All the discussion of getting the perfect dog was gone, he was 8 pounds and 8 weeks old and they bonded immediately. I am pretty sure he could have weighed 20 pounds and she would have brought that little lover puppy home. There was no way her friend could have ever convinced Bride to listen to the very reason bride asked her to tell her. Eight pounds in eight weeks, for a dog that is supposed to be only 12 pounds – yeah right. For those who know Newton you know – he grew to be a 40+ pound Boston Terrier, that was not a typo, forty plus pounds.

Since that day Newton has lead an idyllic life, he has been subjugated by EVERY cat we have had since that time, and there have been 5. Even the brothers’ Darryl, as kittens, subjugated him in just a few minutes. He has never attacked any of them, luckily because his jaw is similar to those of a pit-bull and he could have eaten all of them at any time he really wanted to. As a puppy, before the official registration process, his name grew from just Newton to the long goofy name of Sir Fig Newton Bernard Smith. I thought it would be hilarious that if one of his siblings were to ever go on to greatness in the AKC world that they would have a brother with that name, it sounds kind of regal I think and I like it.

Recently he began to lose a little weight, very gradually but after a while it became noticeable. We have been feeding him weight management from Iams forever, that was more me holding onto the hope that someday he would weigh only 12 pounds. After some trips to the vet’s we found he had pancreatitis, so we had that to deal with. Medications and nearly zero fat allowed in the diet while he was recovering. The doc was not sure if all the blood numbers were accurate as the pancreatitis could be throwing them off. After he recovered from that it was back to see the doc again, the good news was the pancreatitis was OK but the liver function numbers were not great.

More medications and we were going to take a look in a month, when he had finished that line of medication. Well back we go and the numbers were going in the wrong direction. The Doc was not sure what was going on so she wanted to schedule an ultrasound, which we did. Bride went to Texas on vacation and I went to Vegas for work and when I got back I took the boy up to see them again. They do not have the ultrasound machine but a traveling Vet does and he was scheduled to come in and preform the test. I got a call later that afternoon from the Doc, who started in with the results. I stopped her and told her I would come on up and see her.

I knew that is was not good news by the sound of her voice and did not enjoy the ride to her office or the wait in the waiting room. She brought him into the examination room and he was his normally self, jumping around and giving Daddy the love. She got right to it and it was not good news at all. She started out telling me that Newton had stones in his kidney, gall bladder and bladder. She could not tell me how long he had them but she did say that they do not appear to be bothering him. I was giving him the love while she was describing what was going on and it was all I could do not to cry, I knew that was not the worst of it. Newton was amusing looking as his right side and under his belly were shaved, I teased him about being cold.

Then the Doc went on to tell me that he had a mass in his liver that was half the size of his liver. She went on to describe how a biopsy would allow them to determine if it was cancerous. Bride and I had already decided we would never torture one of our pets with kemo and radiation. Then she went on to say that the tumor was inoperable anyway. She told me we were going to keep him on Denamarin, a medication that improves liver function as much as possible. She also went on to tell me that he could be fine with less than one quarter of his liver functioning, I was surprised by that. She also went on to tell me some of the symptoms of when the liver starts to fail and told me that at that point we needed to talk again and make some new choices. Seemed like an odd way to put it, we both knew we were talking about euthanizing our boy.

I am crying right now writing this, just like I was in her office. I dread the day but we refuse to torture our animals to keep them around for us to be happy. This is not new territory for me, I have had to put two cats to sleep that were some of my best friends. It is the hardest thing a pet owner can do and I cried like a baby for days when each of their days came. The Doc did not really give me a timeline, suppose she couldn’t really because who knows how long that tumor had been growing in his liver. She just told me of some of the symptoms to watch out for. That dog has lead an great life and I will cherish all the time I have left with him and I will miss him when he is gone.

Viva, Las Vegas – my stay in Vegas Baby!

2011-04-10T20:21:00.003-04:00

So I got out of the airport with relative ease and got a taxi, I learned my lesson on the shuttle bus and decided I would just pay the 15 bucks plus tip. I get to the MGM Grand, the hotel of choice when attending a conference at the MGM Grand convention center. The very first year I went to this conference I stayed at a hotel called the San Remo, it is across the street and was a reasonable place in price and amenity. The next year I was going to book there again and I found that it was now called the Hooter Casino Hotel. Well there was NO WAY I was going to Vegas by myself and staying in the hooter hotel, my Bride would not have approved and I did not even need to ask. I then stayed at the Excalibur one year, wow it looks like it is right across the street. Well it is but that added an additional 20-25 minutes to the walk in each direction. Ever since then I have stayed at the MGM Grand, it is still a 10-15 minute walk from the room to the convention center depending on Casino and Studio Walk traffic.

Day one was pretty uneventful, got a hot dog at a Nathan’s hot dog stand, it was late and I did not want anything heavy. A few minutes planning which sessions I was going to attend and then it was off to bed. Day two started with a breakfast at the Grand Buffet, not bad for 18 bucks but they used to be a lot cheaper. Then off to conference registration and sessions basically all day long. At 6:30pm I was invited to a dinner hosted by PBS at the Sea Blue and I had not been there before. They had invited about 20 of us that were instrumental in testing a new delivery system as a way to thank us for the time we spent helping them. It was FANTASTIC!! It was also open bar, and although I do not drink some of my colleagues were enjoying some pretty expensive drinks and wines – good for them too. I wished for just a bit that I still drank because I could have easily had a few. We wrapped up after 10pm and I crashed, the 3 hour time difference was already kicking my ass.

Day 2 started with me watching the window washers, I wondered how much they made and I wondered if they stayed busy. Seemed to me that the MGM Grand had enough windows to keep a whole team busy cleaning them. On the way to the convention center I followed a family down an escalator, a kid (8 or 9) was facing back up the escalator talking to his parents and when they hit the bottom, he did not even look and landed right on his ass. His parents did not even warn him that the end was near – dumbasses is what I was thinking as I walked around them. The rest of the day was as busy as the first and it was also the day I presented on a panel discussion about combined master control operations in the Florida PBS group. I am not as convinced as some that the economics will work out but we are studying it very hard so we shall see. I was nervous leading up to when I started speaking but then I just get to it, pontificating like I knew what I was talking about. I always feel more pressure speaking to my engineering peers, cant bullshit them like you can some others. Hahaha. I got to reconnect and chat with several guys I only see when I go out there, that was nice. It is always nice to sit around and listen to their problems and realize that we are all facing the same issues. On the way to the convention center I also saw the life guard for the pool, nothing exciting about that huh? Well they were dressed in sweat pants and hoodies.

On the way back to the room to get ready for dinner I came across an amusing site, the door opens and a guy is laying on the floor, apparently passed out. I can’t see but his buddy nudges him with his foot and says lets go. The guy leaps up like he was shocked and bam, out the door they went in a bolt. I get ready for dinner with one of my Great friends Garrett. He was bringing a couple of other guys from his company and we met up at Emeril’s. The first time I tried that place was at Universal in Orlando with my Sister and her husband. We ordered, rib eye’s for all four of us and they came with a celery puree that was magnificent. We had a great time, Terry was in the Air Force and with me in the Navy we told many a funny story from our days in the service of our Great Country. As we were leaving I noticed a family eating dinner, all I will say is that more than one of them had on camouflaged hats and it seemed out of place in Emeril Lagasse's restaurant – I say BAM, and out they go!

On the way back to the room, this is like 8-8:30, I pass a woman who looked like hell, mascara all smeared, hair disheveled and barefooted. She was playing the hell out of a slot machine and yelling at everyone who walked close to her. She wanted more to drink and I assured her I would bring her one right away. I walked away laughing, at her. It makes me laugh to see people smoking inside, in Florida one ca’t smoke inside buildings anymore. Out there, you can pretty much smoke anywhere you want to, along with drinking just about anywhere as well.

Day three was busy and ended on the 64th floor of Mandalay Bay watching the sunset and ya know what, I went ahead and had that drink – Crown and Seven. Then I had another and it felt good, which is why I stopped drinking 20 some years ago. I liked drinking WAY too much and still have one or two per year just to say I did. It was a very nice ending to the busy trip, the plane was leaving at 7am in the morning so I turned in early as I knew the 4am wakeup would come early.

Viva, Las Vegas – the trip out to Vegas Baby!

2011-04-10T11:24:00.004-04:00

Well I recently took a trip to Las Vegas, the place that never sleeps and even if it did – it would stay in Vegas. That place is CRAZY!!! That is the only short way to describe the town. I was reminded by many of my friends that Vegas is nothing more than a jumping off point to many other things that are cool. I was reminded of things like, Hoover Dam, Death Valley, Mojave, Red Rock Canyon, the Panamint Range, Bryce Canyon, and a dozen more natural wonders. But for me, I was bogged down with a pretty intense technical conference. Maybe I should not have made it so intense, it was the crop of PBS and NPR engineers getting together to talk about (commiserate) about the state of our stations, the state of funding and the challenges we have keeping things running with no money. I learned a lot and am more optimistic than I was before I went but the same problems still exist.

So this blog is going to cover some things that I observed while I made my way to and from Vegas and some of the things that happened in between. I took notes along the way so I would remember moments in time that I found amusing, inspirational or just curious, I hope you do as well. When I left Jacksonville it was raining to beat the band, I was not looking forward to flying in the heavy rain. Bride told me later that those storms made the national news. The flight was unaffected by them though. As soon as I was inside the airport I went straight for the Cinnabon for a little piece of heaven in a box with a heart attack waiting at the bottom of the box. I love those things but only have one when traveling, any more often and your heart would stop immediately. I sit to enjoy my tasty treat and then make my way to the security checkpoint operated by the TSA. I was, like everyone who goes through, accosted. That process is not too far from the process shown in the Echo Chainsaw advertisement. click here

Once on the other side and safely into the Delta quadrant I realize that I no longer have my neck pillow. Yes I am one of those sissy’s who carry a neck pillow when traveling on the plane, get over it. I immediately remember leaving it on the chair I was sitting in when eating my Cinnabon – DAMN ten bucks down the toilet. Now that stupid Heart attack in a box actually cost me closer to 20 bucks and it was going kill me anyway – what a shame. Instead of leaving the security of the Delta quadrant to retrieve my sissy boy pillow I decided to spend another 10 bucks and buy another one, Cinnabon up to 30 bucks – DAMN! I thing started wondering what became of my pillow, was it seen as an unattended bag, did airport security swoop down like the fictional Jem'Hadar, the shock troops of the powerful Dominion from Deep Space Nine (Star Trek spinoff) and rush the “pillow” to an undisclosed location? Did they decide to blow it up in a precautionary attempt to save humanity? Were they scanning through the surveillance footage of the airport looking for the miscreant who planted a pillow bomb? My flight must have left before the storm troopers descended on gate A8, lucky for me I guess.

So my flight went through Chicago, yes the one booking the flight failed geography, not that there is anything wrong with Chicago but it is not normally considered a layover when flying from Florida to Vegas. No worries though, I thought I would make the best of it and enjoy a couple of slices of Deep Dish pizza while I was whiling away the three hours I had before my next flight took me away from there. I was eating my pizza and I am looking around and I see a woman that looks exactly like Bridget Moynahan, that is the woman who plays Tom Selleck’s daughter in the new CBS hit Blue Bloods. I took a picture with my Crackberry (discreetly) hoping to be able to compare a Google search later on. The camera on a Crackberry leaves a bit to be desired, especially if using the zoom function. I know it was her though. I remember once Bride and I were waiting in a Pittsburgh airport restaurant and we saw the guy who played Greg Brady, Bride asked and she got an 8x10 glossy of Greg Brady signed, “keep it groovy”.

The time spent in Chicago was for the most part uneventful, exactly how you want EVERYTHING to be when you are flying. There were no problems in or with the airport and there were no problems with the airplane. All was right with the world and I slept almost all the way to Vegas. Upon arrival I was reminded how much I dislike the incessant dinging of slot machines that start assaulting immediately upon departing the jet bridge. If you have ever been there you know exactly the sound of which I speak, if you have never been there is no way to describe it, other than awful.

Hard to tell but what do you think?

19 days, wow that seems like a long time.

2011-03-31T16:44:00.002-04:00

Bride and I have been together a long time, we met in 88 and got married in 1990 and I was in the United States Navy until 1993. We spent 189 days apart once and we were routinely apart for months at a time. I look back and wonder how we did it. I cannot imagine being apart for 189 days now. Those were the days before email and the proliferation of portable electronic devices that allow people to stay connected 24x7x365. When we were out to sea the best we had was “mars” (Military Auxiliary Radio System) radio calls where you had to say over when you were done speaking. That seems so archaic to me now looking back – hahaha

I remember my last Med Cruise in 92-93, it sucked. Bride was working for Barnett Banks and working 60-70 hours a week and I was gone. It was much harder on her than it was on me. I had folks cleaning my house, other folks cooking my food and so on and so on. Bride was at home having to handle all her normal tasks but also taking care of all the other things that I used to do. I remember toward the end of that cruise we were both road weary from the separation and there was a “blowup”. We had pulled into Sicily on our way home. It was very close to the last port we hit. I for the life of me can not remember what port it was, I have even been staring at a map of Sicily. So work that day was tough, it had been a tough day and all I wanted to do was go out on the town and call Bride and come back to the ship and go to sleep.

So I ride the bus out to the drop off point and it just happens to be in front of a hotel. Perfect I thought, there will phones in a nice lobby. In I go and find the phones, like always they are out of the way and on the way towards the bathrooms. So I call up Bride and she had had a bad day as well with work. It was 5 am her time, and she was already at work and running on one coffee. So we are talking about how close we are getting and how great it is going to be to be home again. I did not even notice at the time a group of Women walked by on their way to the bathroom, they were young so they were talking and laughing. It was towards the end of our conversation and we said our goodbyes.

Well, unbeknownst to me she had heard the “40 laughing Italian Sluts” giggling and laughing on the way to the restrooms and had convinced herself that I was out “living it up” in Sicily with the “laughing Italian Sluts” and before reason could invade her anger she whipped out a letter and put it in the mail. She was selling the house, leaving Florida and going back to Texas and I could have everything in the house. Before that letter could traverse the Atlantic Ocean and find the Aegis Cruiser, USS Gettysburg with the hull number of CG64, we pulled into another port. When we talked next she was still upset about my slutty girlfriends and their incessant laughing.

Once we worked though something that I did not even know existed we realized just how hard 6 month cruises were. For those going now it has to still be hard but the ability to communicate on a more regular basis has to make it somewhat easier to avoid the laughing Italian Sluts situations. I never did have the heart, or courage, to remind her I was on the island of Sicily and while close to Italy they would have been, at least technically, 40 laughing Sicilian Sluts. I tell that story to demonstrate that the sacrifices our military asks its members and their family’s to make is mighty high. Also it proves that no matter how good a relationship is and no matter if you believe absence makes the heart grow fonder that separation from your loved ones is HARD!!

Forward ahead to now. So anyway, I am getting ready for the pilgrimage to the morally bankrupt hell hole in the desert of Nevada, or more commonly known as Vegas for work. I have to say right up front – I HATE THAT PLACE. I do not drink, I do not gamble and I am not chasing any laughing Italian, or Sicilian women so the town hold little for me. Sure I have seen Freemont street, I have seen some pretty cool shows and the first trip was interesting. Now it is nothing but drudgery for me, the conference I go to is a technical affair with a bunch of engineers. Strangely enough, this is the part of the trip I enjoy, hangin’ with my kind of folks. This trip will be 5 days, the longest one was 11 and that REALLY SUCKED!

Well with me going there Bride decided she wanted to go to Texas to hang out with her family. Cool idea I thought, we got someone to house sit the animals and we are ready. Well after the tickets were purchased and we start out planning – supplies would be needed, trips to the airport scheduled and all the other things that happen before a trip. Most times the couple is at least going on the trip together. Well after all that we start talking about it more and it turns out that we will be separated for 19 days straight. Does not seem like much but that is the longest we have been separated since I got out of the Navy.

So this Friday Bride will be riding a jet plane out to Dallas, Texas to start her mini vacation without me. The following Tuesday I will be making my way to the southwestern corner of Nevada. I was in the northwestern part of the state a few months ago on work as well but that was only for 3 days. She will be amongst family for the entire time, I on the other hand will be in Vegas and at home alone. She has already told me that what happens in Vegas does not stay in Vegas as well as laying out some other ground rules in the game of marriage. I do have a full understanding of what the word “is” means and there was no room for any ambiguity in the definition.

I am missing her already and one thing we used to do we are not anymore. When we knew I was getting ready to leave on the ship, the days leading up to my departure were always weird. We would, almost purposely I think, start nick picking at each other. We never really understood it but I think we figured it out towards the end of my enlistment. We would nick pick in an attempt to separate ourselves before I left, maybe in an attempt to make the leaving easier. Seems stupid but leaving for 189 days is a stupid thing so we had that going for us. Seems weird that we are going to be apart for 19 days. I do not really like the thought of it. I am glad she is going to be getting some time with the family but I am somewhat possessive and I will miss her terribly.

Well just so you know there are folks staying at my house and they do have access to all the weapons I have stored there, so I would not consider taking this opportunity to rob my house. It could wind up like the scene from Scarface, “say hello to my little friend”

A bit about eastern religions, as understood by a hillbilly

2011-03-30T17:38:00.000-04:00

In the Indian Religions, Hindu specifically, there are four ages, the Satya Yuga, Treta Yuga, Dvapara Yuga, and the Kali Yuga. It is believed we are now in the Kali Yuga, the "age of vice". And just so ya know, it is the last of the four stages that the world goes through in the cycle of yugas. First there is the Satya Yuga or the “age of truth”. This is also referred to as the golden age or perfect. During the Satya Yuga the Dharma Bull was standing on all four legs, the Dharma bull symbolizes morality. During the golden age, morality was standing strong and sturdy and not easy to topple.

From there we move into the Treta Yuga or the second out of four yugas, or ages of mankind. Most famous events in this yuga were Lord Vishnu's fifth, sixth and seventh incarnations as Vamana, Parashurama and Ramachandra respectively. The Dharma bull, which symbolizes morality, stood on three legs during this period, seems a three legged bull is just a bit less stable. From there we move to the Dvapara Yuga or the third out of four yugas, or ages, described in the scriptures of Hinduism. According to the Puranas this yuga ended at the moment when Krishna returned to his eternal abode of Vaikuntha. That poor old Dharma Bull is now standing on just two legs, from tripod to bipod as times get tough. I hope he at least has one in the front and one in the back.

Then we get to the last stage or the Kali Yuga or the age of vice. This is the last of the four stages that the world goes through as part of the cycle of yugas described in the Indian scriptures. Most interpreters of Hindu scriptures believe that earth is currently in Kali Yuga. Hindus and Sikhs believe that human civilization degenerates spiritually during the Kali Yuga, which is referred to as the Dark Age because in it people are as far removed as possible from God. Kali Yuga is associated with the apocalyptic demon Kali, not to be confused with the goddess Kālī (read as Kaalee) (these are unrelated words in the Sanskrit language). The "Kali" of Kali Yuga means "strife, discord, quarrel, or contention." Now the Dharma Bull is a one legged creature, can’t walk, can’t get around and is pretty much condemned.

Now for me I never gave much thought to the idea of an “End Times”. I suppose because I am not a biblical religionist, when I heard folks talking about the “End Times” my analytical mind would dismiss any such ideas as religious fanaticism. Seems weird to me though that almost all cultures and religious orders talk about or have some reference to an “End Times” period of evolution. Maybe that was where my problems came from, I understand Darwin, and we have tangible proof of evolution, at least in my opinion. But how then could so many folks in so many cultures come up with a similar thing, I mean we just had a movie come out talking about the end of the Mayan calendar and why do they all kind of point to the same point in time, now of all times? That is to coincidental to me to summarily dismiss as nonsense or happenstance.

So I am not sure that these are the End of Days or not, but I have feel compelled to at least look into it. The Shaiva Oracles of the Hindu Purana tell us that the End Times (aka the Kali Yuga period) are not a short period of intense turmoil like many anticipate. Instead, the End Times is a fairly long period of time that began about 5,000 years ago and encompasses the Roman Empire, the Inquisition, the Civil War, the crash of ‘29, World Wars I + II, the Holocaust, etc., etc.. According to author Alain Daniélou, we entered the twilight stages of the Kali Yuga in 1939, just prior to the start of WWII.

The Purana speaks of a continuous cycle of ages, each lasting approx. 58,000 years. Each of one of these cycles consists of four ages (this is similar to the Hopi and other Native American teachings of four worlds of evolution). The Purana teaches that each 50+k year cycle starts with a Golden Age (Satya Yuga) and ends with a Dark Age (Kali Yuga), and at the very end of the Kali Yuga, a new cycle and a new mankind begins yet again. The End Times predictions of the Old Testament and New Testament are widely known (these religions themselves are seen as products of the Kali Yuga by some). Lesser known are the many similar predictions of other religions and similar prophecies of the other indigenous tribes from all over the world.

Over a thousand years ago, Padmasambhava, the great teacher who brought Buddhism from India to Tibet, predicted that this particular dark age would be distinguished by our increasing cleverness. Our discursive minds would run rampant. We would create myriad ways to keep ourselves entertained, becoming experts in how to spend free time……. Does any of this sound familiar yet? Padmasambhava also predicted that as we as a people would become more shrewd and clever and in turn compassion would seem increasingly futile to us. We would lose our knowledge of how to bring meaning to our lives and at the same time the number of weapons, diseases, and starving folks would grow out of control. Our negative emotions would increase as our motivation to lead a meaningful life, a virtuous life, waned. I don’t know but for me, a prediction like that is hard to ignore in present times.

For the Hopi Indians of the American Southwest it seemed simple enough, they believed that Mother Nature would tell them which way is right way and which way is wrong. When earthquakes, floods, hailstorms, drought, and famine become the life of every day, the time will have then come for the return to the true path. Think about how pissed off Mother Nature has been over the last few years, we have had earthquakes, floods, hailstorms, drought, and famine in a MAJOR way. They believed that during this time we would see that things will speed up, that people on the earth will move faster and faster. Isn’t that what the internet and all the cool handheld gadgets have done for (to) us, speed us up? Grandchildren will not have time for grandparents, parents will not have time for children and it will seem that time is just speeding by faster and faster. Eerie I tell ya.

Their elders advised them, as things speed up, you yourself should slow down. The faster things go, the slower you need to go. Because there’s going to come a time when the earth is going to be shaken a third time. The Great Spirit has shaken the earth two times: the First and Second World Wars to remind us that we are a human family, to remind us that we should have greeted each other as brothers and sisters. We had a chance after each shaking to come together in a circle that would have brought peace on earth, but we missed those opportunities. They also believed that when we see people living in the sky on a permanent basis, we will know the Great Spirit is about to grab the earth. Seems we have folks living in the international space station (I think that could be considered living in the sky). Only this time it will not be with one hand, but with both hands. When this house is in the sky, the Great Spirit is going to shake the Earth a third time, and whoever dropped that gourd of ashes, upon them it is going to drop.”

In the Onondaga Indian tribes it is prophesied that the end of the world will be near when the trees start dying from the tops down. That’s what the white pine weevil is doing to coniferous trees right now. That is what other wood boring bugs are doing to hardwoods the world over. Their instructions say the time will come when there will be no corn, when nothing will grow in the garden, when water will be filthy and unfit to drink. And then a great monster will rise up from the water and destroy mankind. Well with the forcible use of ethanol in our gasoline the corn supply for food is drying up and becoming more and more expensive. I for one would not drink any water straight from the St. Johns river.

In the more publicly recognizable Mayan Civilization (mostly due to the movie) they do not fear the end of days. For them it does not mean there is an approaching cataclysm, in fact, it’s the opposite. It will be the coming of a new Golden Age, (there is that golden age thing again in a different society) in which we will possess the powers of the ancient ones. You will notice that more and more people are becoming interested in crystals, enlightenment, and the etheric and astral planes. At the same time, much chaos is happening now to balance the world’s karma so we can all ascend together. This is the law, and by following it, we will ascend and be freed from karma. This is why many of you may be experiencing times of turmoil. It is there for a reason, it will never happen again, or so they say. I would also suspect that was said at the end of the last Kali Yuga.

Not sure what it all means but it has been fun exploring it and I will continue to do so.

Deep thoughts, by Jack Handy Smitty, OK mostly shallow thoughts by just plain ole Smitty

2011-03-27T10:02:00.007-04:00

This morning I have taken a few dips in the pool, watched our critters eat, play and go back to sleep and watched Bride sleep for a while (I love that). I wonder why every day is not like this one, today there are no worries that I am worrying about. I lead a pretty idyllic life, is it without problems, of course not but whose is. I still have more days like today than not so why does life seem so crazy lately. I suppose it is not even work, that is a symptom of larger more looming issues and they are not even ones I can do anything about.

I am not sure, maybe it is just me, but I wonder, what is going on in the world and where will we be in a few years. Not just in a superficial news sound bite kind of way but in a more challenging to think about kind of way. I mean if we look at the financial crisis going on it is still out of control, at least from my perspective. We have spent money to get folks back to work but the unemployment numbers are still unacceptably high. The scariest part is the government is spending money it does not have in an attempt to get things moving. Seems our short term memory is not so good, isn’t that what we the people (living the American Dream) did to get ourselves into this problem in the first place. Sure banking institutes were complicit but it was us demanding no money down, no interest for 5000 years on our house notes, on our credit cards, on everything. The old axiom, if it sounds too good to be true is still holding true.

The Scary part about this is that it is the government doing it this time. Let me back up just a bit though. The American Dollar is the world’s currency, things are priced using our money. Yes it is because we are the big dog on the block but that also comes with the some issues. Take for example Germany, when they want to buy oil they have to do it in Dollars, so they have to convert their money to dollars and if they have enough they can buy the oil, if not well then “no oil for you”. The United States on the other hand can just literally print more money, sounds good but that will come to roost at some point. If we continue to borrow like drunken sailors and spend like even drunker sailors our creditors (China) may call some markers due and at some point the yuan will become the world’s currency and then the United States will becomes like Germany, forced to live within its means. That will be such a shock to our way of life that I wonder if we can make it as a nation. It will counter to EVERYTHING that it means to be American.

Another issue I have is our false pretense of giving a shit about Egypt and Libya, and to some degree Iraq and Afghanistan. Those interventions have ZERO to do with helping the oppressed, deposing a despot, no they have EVERYTHING to do with keeping the flow of oil coming to us. If we (as a country) really gave a shit about the oppressed and downtrodden then why did 800,000 Rwandans die in just 100 days in 1994 with little or no intervention from the US? Why have hundreds of thousands died in Darfur with little to no intervention from the US. Do most people even know where Darfur is? Could you point to Rwanda on a map? Could you imagine 800,000 folks being killed in Hawaii or Massachusetts , they are about the same size as Rwanda. Or imagine a few hundred thousand killed in a state somewhere between the size of California and Texas.

We did little because there was no payoff to do anything, at least that is my opinion. We are a scratch my back and I will scratch your back kind of country and for those who have never left our shores you will not have any idea and probably raise hell with me for saying it but that is a fact. That fact is well hidden by our government but it is an inescapable truth. Our interests are keeping our country going and that interest is getting harder each day to maintain by our government.

So the world just seems crazy and I do not know what the answers are, it may be that the problems have been ignored for so long that they can not be fixed by our elected officials. Another one that cracks me up is our Governor here in Florida, he ran telling us all that he was going to cut spending and balance the budget, it was the hallmark of his campaign. He even talked about selling the plane they fly around in. Well once in office he sets about doing just that (balancing the budget) and then even the people who voted for him are saying WHOAAA, you can’t cut that! It reminds me of the lines from “A Few Good Men” , it goes like this “I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom I provide and then questions the manner in which I provide it. I would rather you just said "thank you," and went on your way” We hired him because that is what he told us he would do, how can we then be pissed when he does exactly that. No I do not agree with his approach but he is doing what he said he would do and ya know what, that might be a first for a politician. Seems funny to me that folks want cuts in government, as long as it does not impact them personally and if it does, then it is morally egregious – get over it is what I say to that.

So the world is crazy, so what is Mr. oatmeal to do…………….. study the differences between the ancient Jain Religion and compare that to Buddhism and Hinduism, and why not? The Jain’s were like the engineers of their day so I can definitely relate. Their religion is strongly based in order, lists and processes. To them Karma is thought of as pollution that stains the soul, the bigger the stain the less likely your transmigration (rebirth) will be to a higher level being. In Jainism karmic theory is kind of superglue, meaning that your individual actions are your own responsibility. No longer can we repent, no one but ourselves to blame for our actions, or at least so say the Jain’s. They say that it is possible to change our Karmic aura, mainly through austerities and purity of conduct. Purity of conduct, that is big.

I really don’t know what my point is here, I just wonder why the world is like it is and then wonder, why do I care if I strive to lead a good life and be a good person. That is the bottom line on all the religious orders really isn’t it? Do the right things and in some religions it is VERY important that the reason you are doing the right things is also pure in nature. The intent has to be carefully examined and sometimes the intent is clear, others times it is muddied by the complexities of the world we live in but I know this, right and wrong will always be a battle for us, yin and yang – good and evil - tragedy and comedy – heaven and hell and that, to me, that battle is what is important in my life. Some might say there are scales of evil and good, levels of tragedy, well for me I try to keep things black and white. We talk a lot about how the world is really gray and black and white can’t be defined, that is nothing but an excuse for inaction or apathy because we don’t want the truth, can’t handle the truth. Because deep down in places we don't talk about at parties we don’t want to make hard decisions, we wants things to be like they should be for us as Americans, easy.

Barry Royce Fitzpatrick

2011-03-21T20:18:00.000-04:00

I was sitting in my office this morning going over some issues with the Boss and the phone started ringing. I ignored the first 5 or six calls as I did not immediately recognize any of the numbers. Then came one on my cell from another PBS Chief Engineer, I answered and was, and still am, in shock by the news he delivered. The Chief Engineer from the Tallahassee PBS station was killed in a motorcycle accident over the weekend. Now I will not pretend we were best of friends but we just met a few weeks ago in Tampa to discuss the technical and economic feasibility of combining the operations of all the Florida PBS stations.

We sat next to each other for the whole meeting, talking shop and then on the breaks talking turkey. Him and I had more of a phone call, email relationship due to the nature of our work. The nature of the conversation in Tampa was complex and at points the discussion was lively, as they are when you have a room full of very damn good engineers. Before the Tampa trip and since we have been working through the logistics of how a combined operation might work and there are lots of opinions and lots of ideas.

All of that went flying out the window at 9:59 am this morning. Work has been rough for me lately, PBS and NPR funding has been under attack. Attempting to predict the future of the local station is very difficult and it gets harder and harder as folks consume their media in different ways. The costs of very slim budgets over the last few years is coming home to roost. When certain systems are ignored because there is no funding to properly maintain them it becomes very stressful because now we are in a run to failure mode. That is an abhorrent place to be for a conscientious engineer. I hate the stress it causes because when systems do fail it is a 100% reactionary response instead of a proactive response.

I digress, the point is work is very stressful for me and a lot of broadcast engineers lately and that call this morning REALLY just slammed the dot on the exclamation point at the end of the statement – the job supports the life, NOT the other way around. I have been kind of in a funk all day thinking about Barry and his family. He leaves behind a wife and 2 kids in their 20’s, he was 53.

Here is what was on FloridaToday.com

One person is dead following a motorcycle-versus-car crash Sunday afternoon on North Meridian Road near Orchard Pond Road.

Barry Royce Fitzpatrick, 53, of Tallahassee, was driving a 2001 Harley-Davidson Road King behind a 2004 Volvo S80 driven by a juvenile, according to a Florida Highway Patrol news release. Both vehicles were heading south on North Meridian.

The Volvo's driver tried to make a U-turn and pulled off into the grass, FHP Trooper James Anderson said. As the car's driver tried to turn around, Fitzpatrick's motorcycle hit the car on its driver's side, Anderson said. Fitzpatrick was taken to Tallahassee Memorial Hospital and died from his injuries. According to the news release, Fitzpatrick was wearing a helmet at the time of the crash.

The car's driver — Anderson said his name was not released because he is a juvenile — was not injured.

FHP troopers were dispatched at 12:38 p.m. and arrived at the scene at 1:02 p.m.

The road was closed for a couple of hours as FHP investigated the crash, but was reopened by about 4 p.m. According to the news release, charges are pending.

My heart is hurting for the family he left behind. It is a stark reminder of our own mortality, we ought to be spending more of our time loving the ones we love and telling them how we feel. We should spend more time doing good things for those who are less fortunate. We should help those in need and be nice to folks. Those are the important things in life, not whether the Florida PBS stations can figure out how to, or not to, combine operations.

Lately I have gotten a bit too wrapped up in work, I have not been to the beach to watch the sunrise as often as I need to keep everything in the correct perspective. I have not done any volunteer work for to many months. I have not been enjoying the parks project as much as I want to be. I have been short with Bride on three occasions that have been over stupid shit. I guess I have been feeling a little overwhelmed, working at working, working side jobs to help cover the tax burden this year. I have a million things around the house that need doing and I got no money to do them. I am not complaining I am only saying that it seems my life has been out of control, at least to me.

While Barry’s death is tragic it has helped me get things back into the proper perspective, what better tribute to my friend could there be than to use his death for something positive. What does it all mean, I have no idea, I am raising up some prayer for Barry’s family and hope they can find strength in these coming days, months and years.

For 9 years I was an American Idol fan

2011-03-10T06:24:00.003-05:00

So for the first 9 seasons Bride and watched American Idol without fail. We were there when little Kelly Clarkson won year one. She has turned into a truly incredible singer that is very talented, but if we were to put her in the group from season 5 or beyond she would not have made it. She would have been outclassed by all of the top 12 and she would not have made it through. She was GREEN in that season, as they all were. There was NO comparison to the talent and stage presence of the performers found in later seasons. American Idol has come a long way, there is no doubt. We have traveled the road with many of them, even season four’s Carrie Underwood – the biggest of the post idol superstars.

I was always engaged with Sister about the show as well, calling each other during every break of almost every show. The talent just got better every year, the top 12 were just fantastic. My Sister and would laugh and cry and vote together, only when one of the contestants gave us goosebumps I like the music and I like the show, we started recording it because there were so many commercials. Over 20 minutes per hour were commercials and on a 2 hour show that is 40 minutes of wasted time looking at ads.

Maybe one of the appeals was the fact that there were really 3 different shows. The early ones, that were taped ahead of time, were mostly just about making fun of the people who could not sing. It was sad to watch sometimes, folks who thought they could sing failing miserably. If I had a friend who said they were going to audition and they could not sing, I would not lie to them and tell them they could. This is obviously what happens a lot, hell even parents are lying to their own kids. Once that embarrassment was over they moved onto the next phase, the start of a talent contest. Mostly it was about pairing up unlikely groups in Hollywood to create and record drama. I mean who could forget Tatiana del Toro from season eight, talk about high drama.

Then there was the top 12, the truly gifted of the bunch, there have been a bunch from that group and below that have gone on to recording careers. This was where I thought the show really got interesting, it was no longer under the control of the producers and judges. We the people got to get involved and get involved we did. By the millions we would call and text our votes for the kids we thought should continue on. I mean really voted, in the case of David Cook and David Archuleta together garnered 97.5 million votes from ‘Idol’ viewers. 97.5 million votes. I mean to tell ya, President Obama received between 65 and 70 million of the popular vote, George before him only received a bit of 60 million. Is that not crazy? We cast more votes for an entertainer than for the leader of our country – CRAZY. Although I wish folks as talented as the idol hopefuls were running for office, maybe our country would be better off.

I am not sure what happened though, this year we have not watched one single show. I do not think it has anything to do with new judges, and from what I hear Jennifer and Steven are doing a fine job but……. I suspect that I just did not want to make that big of an investment of time to watch. If you watch, you must watch all of it, you can’t hunt and peck on which shows to watch. It is a large investment of time to watch, a couple of shows a week, some 2 hours long for a few months. In a time where we are watching less of the mind sucking crap on the tube I was just not sure I was up to the investment in the drama. Like all shows this one is built around drama, the drama between the contestants, the drama between the judges, the drama between Ryan and the judges – drama, drama drama. I think it was just getting old for me.

who in the hells cares??

2011-03-08T07:02:00.002-05:00

I am sure you have heard about Charlie Sheen, the dope addled, self-absorbed dipshit from TV and movie fame lately. Of course you have, for some reason the media just will not let us forget him or his porno star dope suppliers. His real name is Carlos Irwin Estevez, like his Dad I suppose he thought Sheen sounded better. I am very frustrated with all the coverage of this knuckle head. We wonder what is wrong with our society, well the handling of Charlie is a perfect example of what is wrong. This rich, narcissistic, blow hard, addict makes almost 2 million bucks a week. I have seen his show, it’s funny but I will ever watch it again. Funny or not our watching is what gathers rating for the show and the rating are what make advertisers buy ads and that is how this lunatic supports his out of control lifestyle.

I really do not care how he lives or what he does, what I do wonder about is why the media is playing the story to death. I was glad to see that Warner Brothers finally shit-canned him, how could they not when he was his own biggest problem. Don’t get me wrong, I have empathy for those addicted but until one wants to quit and get help there is no helping them. Help yourself and I might lend hand, act like a stupid teenage who just found girls and dope for the first time and you will get NOTHING from me.

Another thing that REALLY aggravates me is this, since January 28th, which is when ol Charlie had his latest relapse (of MANY), we have had 31 military heroes make the ultimate sacrifice with little to no mention on the news. But this primadonna, cocaine huffing good for nothing bag of shit has had more coverage then probably has been spent on all the 5907 fallen Military members and that is a shame.

I have only seen snippets of his ridiculous behavior but one does not have to look long and wonder, maybe there is something else going on there. Maybe, just maybe there are some undiagnosed or at least untreated bipolar issues. DO NOT get me wrong, I am in no way defending this booze hound womanizer in any way I am just saying that his behavior is SO bizarre one has to begin to ask, what in the hell is wrong with that guy.

I for one am asking that people stop watching the ridiculousness about him on TV, that is the only way it will go away, that and stop watching his shows. To do otherwise is to contribute to his problems, that we have to deal with when the media goes batty over his actions.

And that is the last you will ever see about Carlos Irwin Estevez in my blog

This is a look at walls, and what I think about them

2011-03-06T11:08:00.000-05:00

I recently read an article in Texas Monthly talking about the wall our government is building along our border and it just never ceases to amaze me how our government is so reactionary. It also points out to me that nothing good comes when decisions are made from or in a committee. Folks have been building walls since the dawn of time, fencing in our livestock to sustain life I suspect is where it started but a fence serves the same purposes as a wall. There have even been, in more recent times, walls built as memorials and even as pieces of art.

I do not think the wall along our southern border with Mexico is really art but one Frenchman shot it in a way that almost says it is beautiful. I love great photographs, I do. They capture a moment in time and depending on the equipment and methodology used a truly magnificent piece can be created. Seems that Maurice Sherif, a French photog has published some pictures in “The American Wall” which they say is an outright attack on the wall. They say reading the essays will inform you and are against the building the wall but when you look at the photo’s they are indeed truly beautiful.

How can we put this dichotomy together, a tragic story of isolationism and some really incredible pieces of art depicting the same thing. Seems strange to me really that we are building a wall along the border to begin with.

We can scroll through history, recent and ancient, and find examples of failed wall systems. We can look at the Wailing Wall, the famous Jewish religious site located in the Old City of Jerusalem that was created by Herod the Great in 19BC. That wall did not start out as a holy site that folks make a pilgrimage to. The Great Wall of China was built, rebuilt, and maintained between the 5th century BC and the 16th century to protect the northern borders of the Chinese Empire from the attacks of nomadic tribes from the north. That wall meant little to Mongol hoards, they befriended the wall builders and got in anyway. We also have Hadrian’s Wall, which was built by the Romans to protect their colony Britannia from the tribes in Scotland. 73 miles of wall across the north of England that was another wall building folly, over 9000 roman soldiers garrisoned along the wall, that today is little more than an archeological oddity.

If we scroll up a little closer in time, we can look at the Maginot Line built by the French after getting their asses handed to them in WWI by the Germans. Leading up to WWII they started building a wall, with serious fortifications, along the German border. When the blitzkrieg got rolling the Germans simply went through Belgium and the Netherlands as well as through the Ardennes Forest which was north of the main defenses and whooped their asses again. Keep that last sentence in mind as I will come back to that. So in 1961 when the cold war was heating up, the Berlin wall went up. That boondoggle was a desperate but effective move by East Germany to stop East Berliners escaping from the Soviet-controlled East German state. A stupid wall that many lost their lives over. I have a piece of that wall that my Mom got for me when she visited Germany, taking a small hammer and breaking off a chunk for me.

There are however some walls that are good, the American Immigrant Wall of Honor for example.

This wall is tracking the 17 million that have immigrated to the United States through Ellis island.

There is also the Veterans Memorial wall in DC, a tribute to the 58,195 Military that made the ultimate sacrifice for their country during the Vietnam War. That is a powerful piece of art blended with history and if you have not taken the trip to sit a stare at that wall for a while please do, it speaks a powerful message. That wall is the quintessential example of a wall as art.

There is also the Chewing Gum Wall in San Luis Obispo as another example of art. “Bubblegum Alley” is a local tourist landmark in downtown. That one is kinda gross to me but I do feel it is art and should be respected as such.

The Lennon Wall in Prague is another such example of art in wall form. The Lennon Wall was once a normal wall but since the 1980s it has been filled with John Lennon-inspired graffiti and pieces of lyrics from Beatles songs. I would like to see that someday.

So we have all these example of walls, used for different things. The ones that were walling people in or walling people out were all abject failures, history tells us as much. I just listed a few, there are MANY, MANY more examples. So I am not sure how building a wall along the border went from concept to reality. I know it involved our elected representatives in Washington, I suppose that is all that needs to be said about that. These dunderheads who represent us have decided to spend an ass load of money building a wall and for what? They are obviously not students of history, walls to keep folks in place do not work. But here we are building walls, probably more for the pork barrel spending in those districts than anything else.

It is, and will be, like the Maginot Line. A disconnected set of walls, with openings here and there, that will let the boogie men in anyway - when they want in. Instead of fixing the problems with immigration, something harder than they can understand, our government has decided to build walls instead. I know there are valid concerns for the security of the border, seems most of the “brew-ha-ha” lately has revolved around the drug gangs operating along the border. That is a Mexican problem that did not exist before because the Mexican government was paid handsomely to “looked the other way”. They gave up on trying to control the flow of drugs, and in return the gangsters kept the violence to a minimum and did not draw undue attention. The new regime does not feel that way, undoubtedly due to pressure from the United States to crack down on the “War on Drugs”.

I am not sure what the answer is, but it does not (or should not) take anyone long to see that building a 25 foot tall wall along parts of the border is not the answer. What is this wall costing to build? What will it cost to maintain? What will the costs be in human lives? For the wall in Germany, the costs were too high on all fronts.

So I say to you Mr. President, tear down this wall

Have a nice day - A&^hole

2011-02-28T19:46:00.004-05:00

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!

February with 28 days - what gives?

2011-02-27T08:58:00.002-05:00

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.

Federally funding PBS and NPR – why, or better yet, why not. A lifelong republican’s take on the matter

2011-02-25T20:46:00.001-05:00

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

I am fat, I have figured out why and what needs done to correct that issue

2011-02-21T17:31:00.001-05:00

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 here is anufur burfday – 46, who’d a thunk it?

2011-02-13T16:04:00.003-05:00

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

How to memorialize a GREAT friend

2011-02-05T13:17:00.000-05:00

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.

The loss of a GREAT friend - I will be forever changed

2011-01-29T17:33:00.002-05:00

Losing friends is never easy, they are terribly missed and the closer the relationship the more painful the loss. I recently lost one of my closest friends, we have been friends as long as I have been an adult. It has been so bad that I have had terrible headaches since the loss. I miss him and I miss everything he represented, to me and to others. He was widely known and much respected. I am not sure if I will be able to adjust my life to work without him in it, that is how important he was to me. I have cried until my eyes were swollen shut and the hole in heart is still there. The hurt is literally tangible, my body hurts because of my loss.

So who this friend I lost, who was he really? He was born in 1959, one year after the Jalopy was built. He lived a full life and brought joy to millions, yes millions of people and yet he was accessible to normal folk, just like me. He and I had become closer than ever in recent years and he was very good to and for me. He helped me get through every day, sometimes it seemed like that help was…. insignificant. That was until he was no longer around to offer support to me. The fact that he was an inspiration to me every day was sometimes taken for granted, I am so sorry that was how I felt some days because now, well now I feel hollow and not at all myself without him in my life.

I scanned back through my blogs to see how often I mentioned his name and was shocked by the results, I have mentioned him in 46 different blogs, and I have only written 211 of them. I scanned back through the 46 and found that I never had a cross word to say about him, not one. But alas, I guess everyone has their day and their time in the sun and his time was up, sad as it was that is the reality of the situation. He had the greatest pet in the world as well, Conchita was the most loyal animal a man could ask for. Conchita did not make it through either, I am almost equally saddened by that, I will miss that mule.

My friend’s name, Juan Valdez and his pet, Conchita the mule, that carried the bags of coffee beans. Yep, I have given up coffee! I am saddened and all that I said earlier is true, the lack of caffeine is giving me a killer headache since I quit. What has brought me to this lowly fate, a couple of reasons really. If you read regularly you know that I have recently started examining myself against the 13 virtues that Ben Franklin created and judged himself against for most of his life. I have been looking at Temperance first and it is eat not to dullness and drink not to elevation. Since I do not drink I decided to look at my coffee intake, which was substantial. Basically over a half a gallon a day with nearly 1000 calories in flavored coffee creamers.

So I was looking at that when Bride got some news from the Doc’s that she needed to remove caffeine from her world. So after that I thought I would, in an act of solidarity, join her in giving it up. Caffeine is HORRIBLY rough on the lining of the stomach and even though i was not having issues – Bride was so I thought I would join her. She is continuing with decaffeinated but my thinking is why bother to drink hot brown water if it does not contain the nectar of the gods? Not worth it to me so I decided to just quit, cold turkey and it has been rough.

So back to the virtues of Ben Franklin I decided to go look a bit at number 5, frugality. Now I get that coffee every day from the Gate station, there were many reasons but I very rarely ever made it at home. We also use Quicken on the computer for our banking, it ties right in and synchronizes up with our bank. Since we enter our receipts religiously and do so with as much detail as possible I was able perform a detailed report. That lead me to make the fateful decision to pull up all the times I bought coffee at gate with my debit card, which would be close as I rarely carry cash. So a couple of clicks and that was the cold, stark reality of my coffee consumption. I was SHOCKED at the amount, in the last 12 months alone I have spent $757.89, on coffee. HOLY COW I thought and wondered why I have never looked at that cost before. I am so glad I only queried the last 12 months and not the last 10 years, yes I keep those banking files in perpetuity sorted by calendar year.

So the bottom line is that while I was working on Temperance and with Brides news to cut caffeine out I was able to make a positive change in my life and make progress on two virtues, Temperance and Frugality. For some reason it does not seem to positive a change yet, I am hopeful that when the headaches subside I will be able to realize the positives of this change. I do not have to worry about it eroding my stomach lining to the point that I start having problems and I will be able to save 750 bucks a year – BONUS. I am now wondering what to do with all the free coffee cards I have saved up. I suppose I will go to gate and break the news to my friends who work there and give them the cards to hand out as they deem fit.

Juan Valdez, Conchita – I will miss you more than I can describe and I will always love you but you are dead to me now!

Well, I am still looking at myself with respect to Temperance – this is interesting!

2011-01-27T19:52:00.006-05:00

1. Temperance - Eat not to dullness; drink not to elevation.

Well since I started examining myself I have found a few things that I need to improve upon. Eating is the main one, I love to eat and I eat fast. I think that is a leftover from my days in the Navy, not sure but I think. Both are bad, eating to dullness, stuffing too much crap in my pie hole. Eating fast can not be good for the digestive system either. I have found that it is not even that I am eating bad things, I just eat too much of it, whether it be a salad or a steak or ba-skeddi – I did not even realize that eating to dullness was one of my hobbies. Not until I started looking at it. I suspect that is why I am overweight.

I did see a commercial that other day that told me that being overweight and having extra weight in certain areas was not my fault at all. It has to do with the stress at work and the fact that I am older now and my slow metabolism – what a bonus I thought, my fat ass has nothing to do with my obvious lack of self-control at all and is somehow not at all my fault or caused in anyway by my shoveling food into my face like someone who knew not where there next meal was coming from – shameful!

So Bride and I have decided to change some things in our lives, not a diet per say but a change in lifestyle. There are a number of things we are implementing into our lives and a number of things that we are looking at removing. I think more than anything it boils down to portion control and moving my chubby ass around more. The more movement the more food one needs, the less movement the less food we need. It all sounds so easy but I know it is not.

A couple of years ago I decided I would change my eating habits, I ended up losing about 52 pounds. It took almost a year but little by little the weight dropped off. I was astounded at the ease at which the plan was working, it was not hard. I knew though that when I hit my target weight it would be harder to transition from losing to maintaining. Then on October 24 of 2009 my Dad passed, for reasons I can not really get my head around I completely abandoned my new way of eating. I have pondered that for some time but I stopped eating from the outside edges of the grocery store and packed the weight back on, I was stunned, amazed and ashamed all at the same time. No idea why my Dad’s death would manifest itself in my abandonment of my new eating habits, I had been doing it for a year.

So I am going back to a better way of eating, less of everything. I do not plan to cut anything out per say but just reduce the intake. I will I think slow the intake of beef in the process but the reasons for that have nothing to do with losing weight. Bride picked up come cookbooks that are geared towards a diabetic because that is a very good way to eat, regardless of whether one is diabetic or not. I am looking forward to seeing some of the master pieces she will be creating. I am also going to continue to watch my intake, I know I am not going to be perfect but if I slow down long enough to just look at myself and what I am doing I know that will help he curb the intake. I usually eat so fast that I never pay attention to volume.

I really never even noticed it before I started looking at Temperance, it really amazed me to start analyzing my behavior. I have not really been pleased with what I am finding out about myself but as they say, problem recognition is the first step to problem resolution.

The other part of temperance is not drinking to elevation. I do not drink so I decided to look at the coffee intake. I drink a cup from Gate every morning, and most days I go get a second cup before 10am and then most days Bride and I go to the park on the river with another coffee to watch the sun go down. Doesn’t seem to bad right, well considering that each cup is 24 ounces, or 72 ounces total for the day. That is over a half a gallon of coffee a day – holy shit that is a lot of coffee and of course in that coffee has Irish Cream flavoring. Now that stuff has 35 calories per tablespoon, and get this – I just measured it out and I put 8 of those bad boys in each cup. There is a little pattern on the inside bottom of the cup so I filled the cup to that mark with cream then filled the rest with coffee. That is 840 calories a day in coffee cream for petes sake, I have run off the rails on that.

So the other day Bride had some scoping work done and we met with the doctor a few days later to go over the results. He indicated the stomach lining was problematic and asked, do you drink caffeinated coffee, yes was the answer. He said that has to stop, coffee was OK - but she was to stop the caffeine part. So Bride is obviously not happy about that. A bit of research quickly told me that caffeine is not good for the lining of any stomach. That has lead me to, in an act of solidarity, stop drinking coffee for a while. If I do have some it will be decaffeinated. I am somewhat scared, tomorrow is my first day. The last time I stopped drinking coffee was when I stopped smoking. It, along with Mt. Dew were triggers and I never have picked the Dew back up but after a month or so I brought Juan Valdez back into my life.

I have pondered the why a lot lately. Why do I eat like I do not know where my next meal is coming from? Why do I need more than a half a gallon of coffee a day? I am not sure of those answers, I did determine that I think it is getting worse. I pondered that as well. Maybe I do not know where my next meal is coming from, not the very next one but with the economy the way it is…………. So I ponder that and looked back our evolutionary arc. Back when Homo ergaster was roaming the eastern and southern parts of Africa back in the early Pleistocene he would pack on the weight when the times were right. Food was short and they, along with all the other quadrupeds migrated around to where and when food was available. Maybe an evolutionary protection and survival gene has kicked in to insure that I persevere, again I thought – NOT MY FAULT.

I have wondered about that and many other explanations for the way I am. It could have something to do with the MONSTROUS portion sizes that we have all been lead to believe are normal. We used to need a lot of calories when we were an agrarian society, we were not sitting our overgrown asses in office chairs, we were working the land for the food we were eating – and that work is NOT easy. It is not just the fast food joints, most everywhere you go to eat serve you WAY more food than is needed, supersize it please. That goes back to the marketing that we are bombarded with, if we buy in we are doomed. Even a healthy choice frozen meal is more food than we need.

It is not easy to find all the answers but I am still looking for them. Without the answers to the why, it makes it hard (at least for me) to understand my own egregious actions and if I cannot understand why, how can I commit to the why not. Not sure what the answer for me here is but I know I want to ponder it a bit more. I am in no way perfect and I am not any delusion that I will be able to fix all these problems I have with food and drink but if I can train myself to look closely at it each time hopefully I can at least make a conscience effort to control it – that is really what I am hoping for. I hope anyone who is working on this with me is getting as much as I am from it.

Posting the military deaths, in a small and insignificant way, was my way of honoring our Military Hero’s

2011-01-19T19:21:00.004-05:00

I started doing this after veterans day last year, I even wrote a note on facebook about my feelings, here it is:

I am a Veteran of the United States Navy. Veterans are people who swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic. It is an oath to protect our way of life here in the United States of America. That oath sometimes requires sacrifices, sometime the ultimate sacrifice. 5772 (Five Thousand Seven Hundred and Seventy Two) of these heroes have paid that ultimate price in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. I encourage you to visit this site (link below) every day to read their stories, look at their faces, mourn their loss and pray for their families - I have and will continue to do so every day – it takes their deaths from being a 15 second news bite to making it personal - AND THEIR DEATHS SHOULD BE PERSONAL for all of us!
http://www.militarytimes.com/valor/index.php

Well, I posted that on November 11th and that was just a bit over two months ago and the count was 5772 (five thousand Seven Hundred and Seventy Two) American Military deaths in Afghanistan and Iraq since the beginnings of hostilities. If you still, or ever, read the posts (I do not mind either way) you will have noticed that we are 5871 (Five Thousand EIGHT Hundred and Seventy One). One service man or woman away from 100 (One Hundred) more American’s, DEAD because of the wars in TWO MONTHS.

Writing a little blurb and posting them on facebook seems ridiculous to me, it is not enough or the best way to honor them. It has started to take its toll on me as well, I can hardly get through one anymore without crying a little bit. Crying because they have been denied what most of us take for granted, a free life here in America – to live the American dream. That term, the American Dream, means different things to different folks but no matter, whatever it might mean to anyone, these folks have been denied the pursuit of happiness.

The first person I wrote about was Marine Staff Sgt. Javier O. Ortiz Rivera, 26 years old. He died on November 16th in the mountainous hell that is Helmand province, in Afghanistan.

If you have ever heard someone describe a distant place as Bum F&^k Egypt, Helmand province is about 2280 miles (literally) on the other side of that.

Javier died in a land that has been at war with someone since humans have been warring. Do you think the training Javier received at Camp Lejeune prepared him properly to perform his duties on the Marine Expeditionary Force? I can not imagine it is possible and it makes me mad and it breaks my heart that he is not with us anymore.

And then I remember Army Sgt. 1st Class James E. Thode, he was 45 – that is how old I am right now. He most likely left a family behind, a wife 2.3 kids, a cat and an old hound dog that loved him like no other. So what are the long term impact on his kids, his wife, his friends. He was in the Utah National Guard, at 45 he was a leader of the younger men and women that served with him – what impact did his death have on them?

Not sure where I was going with this blog, mainly I wanted everyone to know that those little posts are very hard for me to write and the more I do it the more angry I get about it, not angry about doing it – it is the VERY LEAST I can do. I get angry that the media seems oblivious about reporting it and the Governments inability to get us the hell out of there. When was the last time you saw or heard the number 5871 people have died in these wars. I guess I need to find something productive to do with my anger on this matter, writing this has helped. What else can we American’s do to bring this insanity to light and to an END. That is not a rhetorical question, I am looking for suggestions that will be a productive outlet for my anger. Folks we are one hero away from ONE HUNDRED Military members DEAD in a bit over 2 months.

If we actually had everything we wanted, where would we keep it all? This is our largest problem!

2011-01-17T12:40:00.003-05:00

We all have way too much stuff, stuff in drawers, stuff in cabinets, stuff in closets, stuff in the garage, stuff in the attic and stuff in the basement – TOO MUCH STUFF. It sometimes seems inverse to me, the poorer we are the more stuff we seem to have. I guess we are poor because we spent our money on all of our stuff. Seems weird doesn’t it?

Here is a perfect example, houses built before WWII did not have a lot of closet space, if any. Why? Because everything they had would fit in the chest of drawers and the dresser. There was no need for 2 car garages and walk in closets the size of bedroom and bathrooms that are so spacious several homeless people would be proud to call the place home. As a kid I had what I thought was a huge of stuff, hot wheels, toy cars and Tonka trucks – what I thought was a lot is dwarfed by the amount of toys that kids have these days.

Where does this new found fascination with stuff come from? Is it driven by the marketing companies that inundate us with the latest stuff? I suspect so but that is driven by our economy, we need to buy and sell stuff so the money is always changing hands, it is the free market and capitalism at its best. So does that mean I blame the very foundations of our country for the need for all the stuff? I do not know the answer to that. AS I sit and look around at all the stuff I can see from this spot I wonder, why do we have that and better yet, why did we buy that in the first place. I can see a set of ugly (my words not Brides words) set of wine glasses on top of a hutch in the dining room. Now neither one of us drink wine so there is that, we got them at an estate sale because they matched a room décor, in a house we sold 10 years ago. So why do we still have those glasses and decanter – stuff, stuff with no use but stuff we spent money on. Hard to figure out sometimes.

Stuff continues to get cheaper too, allowing even the poor to buy more of it. Some of the stuff we have is not worth what we paid for it, some stuff actually costs us money to have. We have to buy the stuff, then transport the stuff to the house. We then have to take the time to properly clean the stuff, we would not want any cooties from the previous owners to make it onto our house, with our other stuff. Stuff we thought we needed and that we accumulated eventually gets a trip to the Good Will or SPCA thrift shop, it is the way here in our house. What seemed like a bargain at the time of acquisition always seems like a worthless item when it is on the death march to the donation center, we simply did not need it.

Stuff is really only worth the value we associate with it, or the value we derive from it – it is hard to quantify the actual value of stuff. How much money does that stuff save me in the long run, does it protect some other, more valuable stuff for us, then its value is closely tied with that stuff at that point. Stuff if almost the antithesis of a liquid asset, an illiquid asset if you will and in this case I might. The only way we are ever going to extract any value from it is to use it. The problem with that is that if you do not have any immediate use for that stuff, you probably never will and it becomes worthless junk getting ready for the death march to the donation center.

Another issue with stuff is that the more you have, the more it owns you. We have to look at a bigger house to keep all of our stuff from the weather, unless it can bear the weather. Our small houses full of stuff become our bigger houses full of more stuff. Remember when you moved into your current house, wasn’t there some area that you did not have enough stuff for? That extra bedroom with no furniture, the den with only old chairs that should have been thrown away. We will fill whatever space we have with all of our stuff, whether it is a 900 sq foot apartment to a 10,000 mansion, they are all full of stuff that we most likely do not need and or do not use.

I find all the stuff to be tiresome, it takes a lot work to properly maintain all that stuff. Just the energy spent in determining the correct location for it is hard enough. Then you have cleaning and maintenance of all the stuff, this seems crazy to me. I have a garage full of stuff that I need to maintain all the other stuff i have, I have A LOT of tools. Work working tools for that hobby and to repair stuff. Construction tools for remodeling or changing ceilings. Mechanics tools for keeping the Jalopy and the Girl Jalopy going. It is literally a garage full of stuff to keep the other stuff going, shit man my stuff has stuff.

I vow to get rid of one thing of stuff this week, join me friends in dumping some stuff. Although my stuff is stuff, your stuff is shit, according to George Carlin anyway, so maybe I will keep my stuff and you should get rid of your shit instead.