been a while...

Just looking at the date of the last couple of posts and I realize that I have not been content, yet I have also been very quiet. I'm not sure why I have been quiet, maybe it has been a general feeling of uselessness, or perhaps the need to vent has been largely taken up by Facebook. These Interwebs have a way of sucking me in from one page to another and before I know it my whole night has been wasted. Now the day has too! But I progress... yup that's right, I said the word I wanted!

So since my last post, for anyone who cares or mayhaps didn't know, I have been unemployed, re-employed, and re-unemployed. Now I am collecting some weekly benefits from the state as I get myself together to get me some new edumications. I've long wished to get into building maintenance, and I am going to get my state certification to make me much better hire-able in said field. Why Building maintenance, you may be asking yourself, and it's actually a kinda easy answer. First, I like the fact that it's a multidisciplinary field, I can be a plumber, an electrician, an HVAC tech, a carpenter, a safety tech, a painter, and a landscaper. I can do indoor and outdoor work in the same day. I'm not stuck to a machine and I can walk around. B) While I like being a machine technician, it is often a high stress job because there are constantly people harping on you about getting the machine running so they can meet some deadline or another. And Lastly), it's a job that should afford me some time to pursue my true interest which is Photography.

As for the photography, this spring I went and got my DBA, so I am considered a legit business. The next step of course is to get a tax number and start worrying about actually collecting and paying taxes, but please, baby steps. Besides, I need to be much better at math, and I'm not really. Have been taking pics though, and having a great time doing it. As with any business that depends on other people's input, sometimes waiting for customers to get back to me is the hard part. Elbow joggling and email stalking may become a part of my stock in trade. It's always interesting how people want the initial work ASAP, but then when it comes time to select the final product, they hem and haw forever. Oh well, I guess that's part of dealing with the general public. I need me a business manager, or at least someone who likes doing the business side of things. I'm SO much happier doing the creative part of the process. Practice helps, and the more practice that I get, the more confident I feel setting up shots with clients. I enjoy working with people, and trying to find that little bit of their soul that peeks out from their smiles. Sometimes it's not the easiest thing to do, because people can be really guarded, but when those moments show up, man, it's like magic.

Speaking of magic, I have that obsessive feeling again. There is someone in my life that I want to know better, and it is like pulling teeth to get close enough, or to get some time with her. She is definitely a busy lady, and I understand that, but at the same time if the universe would cooperate just a little bit, it would be nice. I know how my mind works, and maybe I'm seeing something that I want to see as opposed to what is really there, but I sense at least a little interest. While this isn't always in my favor, it is definitely in hers. Have I told you about my curse? Well, here it is, I have this odd thing in my life, where it seems that whenever I find a girl, (lady, woman, you choose!) who is actually interested in me, within a matter of weeks she will meet the guy whom she will end up marrying. To my knowledge only one of those couples is not still together, and I suspect that she wasn't as interested in me as she acted. That being said, I have been a little touchy about pursuing anyone that I am interested in, because it so often ends with me heart broken. Now I have found that one who fits my oh so persnickety tastes, and I just want the chance to try and woo her, and it seems like the roadblocks are starting to pop up left and right. It's funny how I came to be interested in this amazing lady, but at the same time it's truly an organic thing too, so I'm sort of trusting my senses here. Without being to specific since I don't want to embarrass anyone here, (besides myself, and what have I got to lose?) when I first met her I was not much attracted or interested, there were (are) a couple things about her are completely against everything that I believe in in my life. BUT, the funny thing is that as I got to know her through talking to her occasionally and listening to her family talk about her, I realized that she was way more than that first glimpse that I didn't care for, and when I had the chance to talk to her along the way, I found myself unexpectedly drawn to her. Now I would love to really try and win her over, and it seems like it's gonna be a chore. Well, you know what "they" say, if it's worth having, it's worth working for. I'm thinking that she is definitely worth working for. Time will tell. remember when you were a kid and you would do stuff that was gross to impress the opposite sex? Yup, I did it. I am not a huge fan of steamed clams but because she offered, I ate one. Felt like a little kid asked to eat worms, but you know what? For her, it was worth it! Now what? Guess I have to dig out my romance hat and see if it still fits. Been so long I'm not even sure if I remember where I stashed it!

Sheeple and the Hoax

One of the greatest things about Social Networking, (Facebook) is the ability to spread a message quickly through the network. Even TV has to struggle to keep up with the speed of this amazing conglomeration of friends, fans, family and assorted hangers-on. Raising awareness, raising money, and simply raising spirits are all easily accomplished with the amazing thing that is Facebook. It is a powerful tool, made even more powerful by the very people who use it.



Power comes with a certain amount of responsibility. The people behind Facebook do their part trying to keep the users safe from the Loonies out there in the cybersphere trying to cause problems. Mischief Makers, and hackers, those that would create malicious viruses, and those who would steal our data and identities. Yet there is another responsibility that we can't depend on anyone but ourselves to exercise, and we must get better at wielding this responsibility.



The reason that we can spread a message so quickly is because we have easily grasped the "copy & paste" method of status updates. In many cases this has been a boon, spreading Amber Alerts across the world in a matter of hours. Getting out the message that Dragons are dangerous, (or that they like you with ketchup!) thanking our mothers and step-mothers, brothers, sisters, sons, daughters and every other family member that we want to butter up. We can raise awareness of anything and everything that we think needs the awareness of raised. Sometimes we get carried away and forget that not everything we read is the truth, and before we know it we have become part of a problem rather than a cure.



There are far too many people who get their kicks by starting and spreading misinformation and trying to scare society in general, and far too often they do it so sneakily that nobody bothers to check the facts. The facts are the biggest thing that most people forget. They can read a post that includes the words "on the news" or "from a reliable source" and never bother to check for themselves whether something is true or just some knucklehead trying to start a panic. When we are sitting at our computers we literally have the WORLD at our fingertips.



Snopes.com, Facebook security, and at least a dozen other websites specialize in finding the facts of any crazy "news" story that crops up online and spreads like wildfire because people copy & paste without ever looking for backing facts. No matter how outlandish something seems, if people read the words that their friends post and "saw on the news", they will copy & paste into their own status with all urgency and never look back. They feel that they have done a great service to society and never bother to see if any of it is true. Sometimes it's harmless, but other times, it throws a giant monkey wrench into something that was going so well, and doing some good.



The best example of this happened in the first weeks of December. According to a story on ABC News a group of friends in Greece ( the Mediterranean country not the town or city) decided that it would be fun to try and subvert their Facebook profiles and replace their usual pics with cartoon characters. This morphed into something with people trying to raise awareness of child abuse. So by putting a cartoon character in your profile picture, and copying and pasting the status one would be "joining" the cause. Even for those who did no more than read the status updates and see why suddenly, all of their friends had cartoon profiles, there was a little good being done. In the follow-up stories there was a notable spike in donations to child welfare causes over the second week of December, over and above the normal rise associated with the holiday season. Cut to the second Monday of December and suddenly there appears in the statuses the message that The cartoon characters are "a ploy by pedophiles" to snare children with their friend requests. It was "on the news" and "seen on TV". But it was nothing of the sort.



In fact what DID make the news was that the campaign had actually had the effect it had intended, raised awareness of child abuse and neglect. As cited above there was a spike in charitable donations world wide towards child welfare charities, yet all it took to dry this thing up, was the mere mention that it was a ploy by pedophiles. Within hours, in fact probably 5 times faster than the original "Change to a cartoon" Status, there came the wave after wave of the warning, all caps and screaming that it was "ploy by pedophiles". The hoaxsters know the buttons to push. In a matter of a day, all the good that was done in two weekends of cartoon characters was washed away.



18 hours after I first saw the "pedophile" update, I finally found the debunking of the hoax on Snopes. But it was too late, too many people had already seen the hoax and jumped on the band wagon, without ever doing their own research to verify the source of this "TV News Show" where this story supposedly broke. The Sheeple had fallen for the Hoax, again.



I can't blame people for being cautious, but what I do blame them for is being cautious in the wrong way. These days of 24 hour news channels have made people live in fear. What once upon a time would have been a regional story at best, lost hikers, parental kidnap, high speed pursuit, or anything that might make the local TV news is now blasted nationwide in a matter of minutes, especially on a slow national news day. Every story gets it's own graphic and trumpeting lead in. Teasers into the commercials, and shots from every angle, inside and out, up and down. Society has become the lookouts for "the next big story." Cellphone video makes the 6 o'clock news and gets picked up by CNN and MSNBC and FOX News. The stories are picked apart and analyzed by any expert who wants to make a few bucks and a little screen time. We are NOT the better for it. We panic at the slightest provocation, looking for a bogeyman behind every bush, and if we can do our part we feel that we have done right.



But our part is to be responsible with the power that we have, taking a few minutes to look for a few facts to be sure that we are sharing the truth with our friends and family. THAT is doing Right.

Where did the year go?

So here it is, the first of December, and my birthday is fast approaching! 43 this year,sure don't feel like I'm that old. Somewhere in the back of m=y mind I guess I'm conscious of it, but the rest of the time I feel like I'm still in my 20's and just learning how to live. Then I see the kids in the fire hall or the bar, and I know that I have so much more experience. It's not really doing me that much good in general, but it does give me the smarts to stop drinking way before I get into hangover territory. Haven't drank myself unconscious in years. maybe that's what I need... nah. I can live the rest of my life and not miss being on my knees in front of a toilet bowl heaving the last bits of mucus out of my guts because that's all that's left!

SO, what have I done with my life this past year, let me see if I can take some stock. I have realized that I have a talent and I have decided that it is what I will pursue for the rest of my life. Looking for some satisfaction in the work I do. I am a photographer. I may not be the artist of Adams, or Freytag, but I know what I want to do, and I know how to get there. I have to learn how to conduct business. That';s something I have never really had a hand on, but it's something that I know I can learn. So the goal here is to learn how to make a living with my photography, whether it is selling prints or doing senior pics, family portraits or even school sports. There is a living to be made with it, I just have to figure out how to do it. As I learn the mechanics of taking consistently good pictures, I am also figuring out how to market my particular sill set. It can't happen overnight, but it will happen.

Still single. Haven't really had much luck in lady-land. Not really for lack of trying, but more for a lack of dedication. I have become so used to being alone and being rejected that I just don't seem to enjoy the search like I used to, and I don't follow the opportunities. There have been a couple of chances, at least I THINK they were chances, that I just walked away from. I may be just so far out of practice that I don't know how anymore. I did figure one really important thing out about myself though, when I meet someone who is single and I am aware of that fact, I do and say stupid things right away. I never get the chance to be the smart and witty guy that I really am. I put way too much pressure on myself, and I try to impress instantly and I screw it up in a big way. I realized it when I was introduced to a friend's wife recently. Because there was NO need to try and impress her to try and get her to see me a second time, I was my natural sweet self and I made a great first impression. so it's in my own head, I just have to learn to control the "stupid Impulse" a little better. Secondly, I am still single because I have no place that I would like to take a girl. Can't take her home, and don't want to hang out all night someplace stupid, like a bar or Tim Ho's.

Joined the Fire Dept. as a social member. That means that I don't run into burning buildings! I get to hang out and drink beer with the guys who do! I joined for the opportunity to take pictures of firefighters in action. I have been to one fire scene this year, and many training sessions. Not really that unhappy that peoples houses didn't burn down. In fact I can only thing of three structure fires that dept was involved in, and I was nearly first on the scene for one of them, and none were in our home district, all in neighboring areas. But I have been having fun getting to know new people and leaning new things. I have become a fixture at bingo, and the ladies there love me! I actually enjoy the time I spend there, because I get to talk to people and hear some gossip about the town. I have fun selling raffle tickets to the customers, and calling numbers. I get to make a few jokes here and there and get people to laugh, so all in all that's pretty cool.

Working again as a DJ. Still sitting with the decks. Well, not really! These days all my tunes are in the computer. I still have to run a mixing board, and pick and lay out the song list and keep people happy, but The pile of gear is a lot less these days! I'm not running all over hell and back to get gear and to do shows, I work one place with their gear and that's all I have to do. It doesn't pay as well as the other way, but I still get paid for doing a pretty easy job.

Debt. Man, I got myself into a hole over the last few years, and I had to make it bigger before I could make it smaller. Learned a WHOLE lot of shit about the credit card system this year, and if I knew in January what I know now, I would be SO much farther ahead in my pursuit of financial freedom. Live and learn I suppose, but at this moment I don't have a shred of credit. If I don't have money in the bank, I don't have any to spend. and sometimes that ain't easy. But I keep plugging away, and fingers crossed I may be ahead again in another year or so. Look at this post next year and see where I am!!

Health.... I don't know, the weight is back up, and I am not feeling as good about myself as I would like. I have been having the hardest time with controlling my eating. I have been binging something fierce, and I think I know why, but knowing the reason and stopping the behavior are 2 different things. Every day I wake up and start over and some days I do really good, and some days I do really bad. Sadly, the bad days are out numbering the good ones. I really believe that the biggest piece of the solution puzzle is going to be a place of my own. That's going to be at least another year, until I get my truck paid off so that I can put that money towards rent. I'm sure that by the time I have the truck paid off it will need something major and will take all my spare money again. Like my life always seems to go, but I am looking in that direction at least. I don't know if my waistline can wait another 10 months, but I'm gonna have to try. I just don't see any solutions sooner than that.

This year overall? I going to say that the positives seem to outweigh the negatives, but it's really a delicate balance. Something small could tip the scales. I hope things stay positive.

Getting inspired...

I look at the blank page and wonder if I have a thought in my head. When I read the newspaper in the morning hundreds of ideas flood my brain, and If I could sit and write at that moment I would have a days worth of typing to accomplish, but after the working day is done, my mind is tired and the ideas have all faded away. I read the editorial page and I get incensed at the ignorance of the people who write to the editor, yet when I am ready to sit down and write my own piece, My brain is dead. Global warming Yep I have thougts. Terrorism? yep Got lots to say there, Politics in general, yeah I'm sure I could make a fool of myself, but when the TV is on, and my head isn't into concentrating.... No good will come of it!

So I will try again in a few days when I feel like concentrating, I can turn on some tunes and let my mind do what it wants to do!

the ups and downs on 2009...

As the year winds down and the final 24 hours approach, I am trying to decide if this has been an overall good or bad year for me. There have been some nice highs, but they seem to have been balanced by some pretty dark lows. I will admit that my lows haven't been nearly as bad as some peoples. I haven't lost anyone in my family to date, and I still have my own health, so what I consider a low right now, is still pretty good in the big picture. So let's take a look....

A few of the "ups" in my year, I finally bought a new DSLR camera, and a lens for it. I love them both so far, and I am looking forward to getting years of use from them. They have already begun to get me noticed at least locally, and in a good way. Ups!! Through the summer months I managed to shed nearly 65 lbs! I was feeling better, and enjoying the lighter feeling in my step and my bearing. definitely an up! I have been writing more and looking at the world from a new perspective overall. I can't really describe the new world view, but It seems to be slightly more positive overall. I see possibilities in stuff that I haven't noticed before. Especially photographically. I have found in my brain a true goal for myself, that is actually achievable, so I will consider that a definite up. I got to see my brother this year! Haven't seen him in a few years and it was way cool to have him around for a little while. Tried Spaghetti squash for the first time, both growing it and eating it! Yummy! Have reconnected with old friends and acquaintances on facebook. That's a little it of a double edged sword, but I will get to that later. That's the first few that come into my mind, I almost wish that I had kept a list this year!! LOL Oh yeah, I have been helped in the paying of my health insurance this year!! That's a biggie!

So now some of the lows, the biggest one, finding out that My gramma has cancer and it is beyond being operable. So It is only a matter of time in how long it will be before we lose her. That sucks. Buying my new camera and lens... Making it REALLY hard to pay my bills. I spent way more than I should have, and now I have to pay the associated bills, so That camera better really start paying off in he next few months or I'm gonna be buried past my eyeballs in debt! At least I'm not gonna lose a house over it like some people, so like I have said, in general my downs aren't all that bad. I haven't had a real vacation in a few years. I have been constantly at work every day that I should be for almost 2 full years. The best I have done is a 3 day weekend, and I usually end up working at least one of those days! I haven't progressed on my goal of getting my own home.

As they come to me from now on I will be adding and subtracting.... so let's see...

Got a new Lawn Mower...+ spent more time in my garden...+ Got to ride my motorcycle quite a bit this past summer...+

Started gaining weight as the weather turned cold...- kept gaining weight...- not getting enough exercise in the cold weather...- joined facebook and now people that I would rather NOT find me keep finding me...- Realized that I HATE my current cell phone and I can't upgrade for another 5 months...-

OH Yeah a BIG plus... Found some of my cousins from my Mother's side of the family and at least one of them is REALLY cool! +++

Yeah there are a million little things that make up all that is my year, and I guess that overall I think it was a good year. So I'm gonna chalk this one up as an overall winner. So long 2009, I'm glad I got through you without too much problems when compared to the rest of the world.

Ah Fall...

The aptly named Season of Fall is upon us and the leaves are doing their part, and beginning to fall from the trees. The colors are emerging from their summer camouflage of green, and the edges of the forest are beginning to look interesting. The Virginia Creeper is hanging in crimson drapes across the landscape and the purple grapes are showing in the vines. Along the roadsides and in the fields the goldenrod is turning, first brown, and then fluffy white with seed fuzz. The purple asters and tiny daisies are fading away and slipping into their seed faze. The Corn fields are quickly losing the green hues of summer and the stalks are drying out and turning that soft tan color that signals the coming of Halloween. Orange pumpkins lying in the fields are being gathered up and brought to the roadside stands to be oohed and ahhed over by eager children anxious to carve their jack-o-lanterns and put on their masks to go trick or treating. The mornings are crisp and the days are cool, soon the frost will kill of the annual flowers and the perennials will be going to sleep. The Apple trees are loaded with fruit waiting to be picked and the cider mill is ready to squeeze. Soon the flavor of fresh sweet apple cider will mix with the tast and texture of fresh warm doughnuts and it will officially be the Start of the Cold season. Enjoy the smells and the tastes and the feel of the fall. Take some time and walk in the leave and smell the fresh scent that they give off. Revel in the cool evening and build a fire to share with friends. Indoors or out! Get the garden ready for bed with the same care that you get your children ready, and when spring comes it will wake up easier. Gather in the seeds that you wish to save for next season. Cut the grass one last time and don't forget to put some fuel stabilizer in the gas tank before you run it. Get the snow blower ready, before you actually need it. Fill the windshield pisser in your car and get a couple of spare bottles now so you aren't scrambling in the dead of winter to find it to get the salt glaze off of your windshield. Fall is both a time to put things away, and to get things out. Enjoy the season while it lasts. I feel sorry for people who don't have a fall season. They don't know the beauty of the earth getting ready for winter.

Been lazy...

Summer and the livin' is easy... Not so much. Been busy as all hell and trying to keep my head above water financially speaking. It doesn't help that I went out and bought an expensive toy, but I hope that in the end it will pay me back. That will take some time, but I'll keep hoping! LOL

So my summer has been pretty interesting, (If you can call most of it summer! The weather sure hasn't been the best!) I have probably put more miles on the bike than I have in the last 5 years. Been riding it as often as possible because the gas is cheaper when you only have to by $5 worth every 80 miles or so. And when I really push it I buy $7 around 125 miles! How do you like that? For 2 more dollars I go 45 more miles!! As long as I'm not doing any "high performance" riding I have gotten the mileage as high as 52.3 mpg this summer. That's awesome and sure makes it easier on the wallet. As long as the sky doesn't look too forbidding I take the bike. ( or when I'm not going for groceries!)

My weight loss continues. As of this week I am up to ( down to?) 60# gone, I am actually down to one extra chin! The last few weeks have been hard with festivals and carnivals around. I love greasy carnival food, corn dogs, fried dough, sugar waffles, and sausage loaded with onions and peppers, not to mention pizza and candied apples. I took a Friday night at the Onion Fest and chowed on the good stuff. And then last weekend pops went to a festival and brought home bag of sugar waffles. So I had 2 of those too. I have been quite good though most of the time. Since I have been harvesting my squish, I have been eating zucchini and yellow summer squash almost daily. I love the stuff grilled with loads of spices. It is also great in an omelet with some broccoli or sausage. My favorite so far though is to mix it with crushed tomatoes and pile it on a little bit of cooked pasta. Man is that a great treat. I can't do it too often, but when I do. it sure is worth the wait! My meat intake is actually way down this summer. I have been way more veggie centric than usual. Not that I want to cut meat out of my diet, but I think that I'm just better off eating more veggies and less of the vegetarians.

Got a new Lawn mower last week. My old one was getting pretty beat. I have had it for 5 years and I use it for grass in the summer and with the snowblower attachment for snow in the winter. Believe it or not I checked the numbers and it had less than 500 hours on it! I was kinda surprised when I saw that. I gave the old one to my sister. She has a much smaller yard to mow, and the riders are quite a bit lighter than me, so it should last them for a few years. As long as they keep it lubed and sharpened it should serve them well for a good while.

Been watching the news and all this healthcare debate with ever rising bile. I just can't believe that so many Americans are so stupid. Well, I take that back, I can easily believe it, I'm more saddened by how easily they fall for the crap that gets doled out by the republican obstructionists. The Preamble to the Constitution specifically states,:

"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

To me the general welfare includes the health of the citizens. Public Healthcare is more constitutional than any insurance company collecting premiums and denying coverage ever could be. So you don't want Public coverage? How about this, You don't take it. There are far too many people out in the country who have NOTHING!! They work to make ends meet and they have squat to show for it, and if they get sick? They work through it, usually making everyone around them sick in the process because they can't afford to miss a day of work . If they get sick and can't work? They're pretty much screwed, because you can bet that there are bills that are gonna be late. It is the health insurance that has put me in a freaking hole. How? Because I was paying for "health" insurance that turned out to be more scam that insurance. My own fault for trying to do something without enough research. I dropped that one and got some real coverage, but now the money coming out of my paycheck each week has dropped my net income substantially, so the bills that I should be able to easily pay each month are squeezing my Fridays awfully close together. I push the due-dates of my bills to the limit, and I count on the mail float from the time I write a check until it gets cleared at my bank. So I can send out a check on Wednesday and know that by the time the funds are demanded from my bank, the money will be there on Friday. I have lived paycheck to paycheck most of my life, but this is probably the tightest I have even had to keep the books, even now with a savings account, I can't get ahead. And I don't even pay rent or a mortgage! I can't imagine how a family survives. And the big difference is that I now have Health Insurance. And it is the LOWEST PRICED I could find. Them what has Medicare have it good and they know it. I love to see them on the news shouting "Keep your government hand off my Medicare!" Um... OOOKAAAYYYY.... Medicare IS government sponsored healthcare. My suggestion is that they first expand Medicare to cover anyone 50 and up. That takes a huge chunk of the population in, especially with the aging Baby Boomers. They are nearing 65 fast! Just two years to go before the first wave hits.

Ok enough for now. But remember please, FIND THE FACTS!! Rhetoric sounds great and it can fire you up, but the facts will set you free, and show you what is right and wrong.

life on Mars...

When I was a kid, I asked my dad one time what was the difference between a weed and a garden plant, and his succinct answer was this, " A weed is any plant growing where I don't want it." So by his definition, a beautiful rose bush growing uninvited in a field of cucumbers, is a weed.

As every gardener knows, weeds are the bane of our existence, there is no plant more resilient than the humble garden weed. Be it a dandelion, or a sunflower, if it is growing where you don't want it, it's gonna be persistent and nearly impossible to get rid of. Yet try to get the things that you want to grow to take hold in the same fashion and you will have better luck trying to stuff a wet noodle in a stray cats ass. I have seen sunflowers growing wild, and I can say that some of the wild ones are better by far than half of the cultivated ones I have seen. Yet, try as I might, when I want sunflowers to grow wild I can barely get three or four to make an effort.

If you have ever owned a bird feeder, you know just how easy sunflowers will grow, all they need is moisture and some sunny days and they are sprouting away left and right. You can mow them down all summer long, yet they keep trying. The birds and squirrels will drag those damn seeds everywhere, and they will try to grow. Yet if you plant 20 in a row, you get 6. What the hell? !

Sunflowers are just an example, but it is the weeds that I am concerned with today. I have weeds that are so hardy that they stand up to everything I throw at them. I have hit them with high-end weed killer, I have burned them, tilled them, hoed them and weed preventer-ed them yet they come back again and again. I get more than my daily exercise pulling weeds, and hoeing and cultivating the garden, trying to keep it looking fairly presentable. I get one area cleaned up, move on to the next and 2 days later the original has the pale green haze of weeds showing again! They grow in the dry season, they grow in the wet season, and they grow past the frost and before the thaw! If NASA wants to see if Mars can support life, I will give them a couple shovels of dirt from my garden and they can plop it onto Mars and watch it go! I bet them weeds will even grow on Mars!

You want to find out if there is life on Mars, give them some good old New York weeds to deal with and we may actually end up with our first interplanetary war. The Martians will be pissed, beause they will never be rid of them weeds once they get a foot hold. But the kicker of the whole damn thing is this, some of the blooms on the weeds, are prettier than the flowers I have planted. So I may use some reverse psychology on the weeds and try to grow a few rows of them for the blooms! You think they will actually grow?

the fall continues...

The falling weight that is!! Yes indeed, I am now down 40 pounds. It seems like a huge amount when you think about it, but it barely scratches the surface of what I wish I could get rid of. The good news is that I am nearly halfway to my goal. I stepped onto the scale this morning not knowing what to expect, because it has been a weird week, and I haven't gotten in all of my wanted exercise time, but I have been busy and doing physical labor, so I guess it has been a wash.

I have been taking great pains during the regular week to stay away from certain things, but in order to keep myself from binging out of control I use from dinner time on Saturday night through dinner time on Sunday as my " have some of the good stuff" time, and today I treated myself to some chips and dip! So far my method has been working, and I will continue with what I am doing, despite all of the unsolicited advice I seem to be getting from so many well wishers!

I ran into a friend at the store today while I was buying my Chips and dip, and He was happy to hear that I had made such progress, and being in quite good shape Himself, he immediately started to make suggestions for me. I appreciate the thought, and that you are trying to help, but I have found a system that is working quite well for me, and I plan to stick to it for as long as it takes to accomplish my goal, and possibly more if I think I can continue doing so. I doubt that I will ever again see the underside of 200#, but that said, if I can continue at the pace that I am going I really could achieve my goal before the summer is finished. I have found a system that I have been able to stick with, and it works well for me. I am feeling better each day, and my energy is increasing also. I find that the more I do, the better I feel later. It is truly encouraging.

" A rose by any other name..."

As the Bard wrote in "Romeo & Juliet", "A rose by any other name would smell as sweet." It is a truth of humanity and life in general, that no mater what you call something, it is what it is, and no changing of the name can make the debate more or less meaningful. What brings this up you ask, 2 things, assholes ( the people not the body part) and "Gay Marriage".

First the assholes, The internets seem to be stuffed full of them, crammed to the gills with jerks of every shade and texture who think they are being "truthful" or "honest" or "real". By writing in the comments of blogs and comics and news articles, they take the time to spill bile on the works of others. They feel that their opinion matter more than anyone else's and it makes no difference that they are tactless and generally ignorant of most social graces. I have pretty much given up on reading comments sections of many comics and blogs because of these argumentative and annoying know-it-alls and their need to argue every point of minutia, ad nauseum. Someone creats something that is funny or interesting, or beautiful to some people and that is great. Yet there are those who feel that it is their job to speak for those who don't like something. If you don't find it funny, or intersting or beautiful, go find something that you do like. You don;t have to ruin the enjoyment for those of us who do like it, for whatever reason we choose to find it enjoyable. I bet these are the same people who pinch babies just to hear them cry. Bullies are bullies, because no one can or has stood up to them. When the hide behind a computer keyboard and piss on everything the can find on the web and call it honesty, they are just jerks. Come tell me to my face that I suck, and I may respect you dumb ass! Until you have that much stones, leave your bile in your notebook and let the rest of the world enjoy the creativity of others as we see fit.

Now on the subject of "gay marriage", I couldn't care less whether two people of the same sex get married or not. Calling it a :"Civil Union' instead of a marriage makes no freakin sense at all, because all marriages equal a civil union if you have been "legally" married in the eyes of the state. If you have had a wedding at a church, it is called a "ceremony" and is nothing more than a ritual performed in front of friends and family, but it is not a legal union until the marriage certificate is filed with the local authorities. It gives you the right to file taxes as a couple, and to collect death benefits from insurance, and to cover a spouse with insurance. Now many of the opposition say that the insurance is the big problem it will increase premiums and make it harder to pay for insurance if all the gays can put their spouses on their insurance. As opposed to the straight people who make kids by the thousands each year and add them to their insurancd policies? It is less likely that a gay couple will add a child to their insurance. No unlikely, simply less likely. In many cases the gay couples who wish to marry, have already had and raised their kids, and they are independent persons with their own families. In the cases of the younger couples, perhaps they will have a child of their own, or maybe adopt, but the statistics say that it is likely that they will only have or adopt one child, and in rare instances 2. Breeders may have 3,4,5 or more kids. By design or by accident, they will have 2.5 kids ( that's what the statistics say!) where you get half a kid I have no idea! But still, adds to the insurance costs for everyone and it's not the gays we need to worry about! Marriage also allows for hospital visitation, and legal transfer of land, and to provide citizenship to those not born in America. There is no reason that makes sense for keeping these people from calling what they want a marriage. A rose called a turd blossom still smells like a rose, and if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, you can call it a parrot all you want, but I bet it is still a duck.

So just keeping it real, Let them gays get married for cryin' out loud, who does it really hurt? No one!

Sizes....

Not the size of my.. never mind, I mean clothing sizes and food sizes! You have a dirty mind!!

Ok this comes up for a couple of reasons, first of all I just bought a brandy new pair of rollerblades. Yes, the fat boy loves to skate, but I haven't done it in a few years, one of the reasons is that I haven't had a good fitting pair of skates. So I went to the sporting good store and looked around, but I wasn't happy with what was there, and they didn't have any sizes in stock that would approach being a good fit. So I went online. Using the information that I had gained from looking in the store, and the charts on the website I found a style that I liked that was available in a size that should fit me. I ordered them. 125 bucks!! Yikes, but hey, I need the fitness that they can provide. Exercise is key to my losing weight. ( that and not eating as much! ) The skates arrive and I try them on, they seem a little bit snugger than I really wanted, but I guessed that maybe they needed to be to provide the proper support. I couldn't stay on my feet in them for more than 10 minutes. And after that initial pain set in, the interval dropped to about 5 minutes. So now I have to go through the trouble of sending them back and ordering the next size up. I hope these ones fit better, because it's the largest size available in that style. If these don't fit, I may have to find a specialty shop and make a few phone calls. Being a fat guy, I have fat feet, but I think that this size change should make the difference for me. I hope!

Why do sizes vary so much? My shoe size is truly a 10 wide, but in many cases there is no wide available, so I have to step up to a size 11 or sometimes even 12 to get the needed width. Is it so unreasonable to expect the availability of a descent size range? I can't possibly be the only person who has this problem. I mean as the American ass spreads, don't the feet spread too? They have to hold up so much more weight, it makes sense that they would need to be wider to disperse the forces of gravity! I mean, have you walked through a WalMart in the warm weather and seen the huge legs poking out of the stretchy shorts? Sure, you notice the fat-ass wedgies, but also that the shoes all look like their about to burst like a sausage on a grill trying to hold in a fat foot! You may also notice that most of them are Velcro closed too, but the fact that fat people can barely bend over long enough to tie their shoes is also beside the point! LOL Seems like other things have expanded with the population's guts, why not shoes and theater seats?

As I am losing weight I am looking towards buying some new pants. Maybe not a lot right away, but some at least, to get me through the transitional phases. Right now I'm down one size and about a half. So I am wearing stuff that I haven't been able to wear comfortably in well over a year. It's kinda nice, but it drives me nuts that I buy the same size pants from three different companies and they all fit different. I have one pair that the legs drag on the ground and the waist is almost a full size smaller than the same sized pair of Levi's. Oh well I guess I don't mind having the problem of finding a smaller pair of pants!! LOL

And what about McDonald's? A regular size french fries is now what was once called a large, and a large is a super-size, and what is now called super-size is enough fries to feed an entire family! what was once a "regular" is now considered a child size and is relegated to the Happy Meal. Have you seen one of those 64 oz coffee mugs that some of the donut chains are selling? 64 oz of coffee is more than the average home coffee pot can brew at one time!! Who needs that much coffee and why? That is a worse sign of addiction than needles and spoons! Good lord, it's no wonder people are peeing in odd places these days. When you see someone carrying around a grande coffee cup you know that they are gonna have to pee sooner rather than later and when the urge hits, there will be nothing stopping the flow! The super size soda bottles and cups from the burger joints are enough to weigh down an armored truck, and people drink the whole damn thing! I know, I used to be one of those people. It's killing them and they are happy to do it. Oh well, I'm not their babysitter. I will watch and comment.

Eat up, we need a few less people anyway!

cool kids...

There is something cool about kids. I don't know what it is exactly, but they seem to make me happy more often than not. I love to listen to their ideas and their plans, they don't know that something won't work for one reason or another, so they are willing to try. They also seem to have boundless energy, as long as you don't ask them to do chores!

Today I was playing frisbee with my nephews, and it seems that they can go for hours while playing, but if it's work? No way, they get "tired" in 10 minutes! LOL
This is my nephew Devon, he is the youngest of the three, and he is pretty darned athletic. I know that it didn't come from our side of the family, but apparently his dad's side of the gene pool has some jockstrap in it! All three of my sister's boys are into sports, so it is fun to watch them compete. Football, Wrestling, and baseball they keep us occupied and involved for most of the school year, and plus they are all instrument plaers in their respective bands. Trombone, clarinet, and trumpet. They could make a nice little jazz trio all on their own if they wanted to. Plus the middle boy plays guitar and piano too. That he definitely gets from his mother, she is a natural musician, and she doesn't play anymore!! Drives me insane, I have to practically kill myself practicing to play piano, my sister can sit down and plink out the notes and play a song by ear with no technical training. How she does it I have no idea, and that is why it's called "talent!"
I wish I had that kind of talent, but since I don't I use the other talensts that I have. What they are I'm not always 100% sure, but I keep looking. I am a fair groundskeeper, and this is me and my Lilac tree. One of them anyway. Right now I have 5 blooming lilac trees, I hope to have more next year! I like working with trees and plants, but again I have to struggle with it. I keep trying, but it just never seems to get easier. So while I can do the work involved, it isn't one of my talents. One thing I seem to do effortlessly is deal with kids. They seem to love me.

Kids that refuse to talk to most adults will gravitate to me, and talk a blue streak. I have no understaning of this ability, but I think it is a "teddy bear" effect, because the little ones see me as a big, huggable teddy bear. I have always had this talent, and I can never remember a time since my teens when I wasn't the kid magnet in a room. Ones I have never met before, and even kids wandering in a store will grin at me and start chattering away . I guess it's because they are too young to have been tainted with judgement and they are still using their inate instincts, and they can tell that I am a safe person, their gut tells them that there is no need to worry about me. So I become a target for them and to tell ya the truth.... I kinda like it!

Pockets..more or less...

Well, the warm weather is finally here and it looks like it may stick around for a while now. I sure hope so, I mean come on!! It's Memorial Day, ( a week early, but so what? right? ) I'm ready to wear shorts every day and get in the pool after work and swim for an hour or so. So this brings out my subject, Pockets.

I was digging my shorts out last night and I realized that more than half of my current shorts are the "Yuppie Summer Uniform", cargo shorts. As I looked at the various styles of cargo shorts in front of me I noticed that there were a variety of pocket styles, but also a varying number of pockets. After counting them, the pair with the most pockets, ( How come shorts and pants are called a pair? You only have one ass to put in them. You have 2 arms on a shirt and they aren't referred to as a "pair of shirts"...) has 10 Pockets! What the hell is someone in SHORTS going to do with 10 pockets? I mean aren't you supposed to travel lite when you're wearing shorts?

I understand the extra pockets if you are hiking or playing tourist. You need a place for extra camera batteries, and perhaps a bottle of water, but let's be honest here, You get much stuff in the pockets of your cargo shorts and you will need both suspenders and a belt to keep them from falling down every 5 steps! Just going through my pockets this afternoon, I had my keyring, a chapstick, a lighter and my pocket knife in one pocket, and money and a debit card in the other. That's it! I had my cell phone and a pen in my t-shirt pocket, like I always do. Later, when I was mowing the lawn, I put the cell down into one of the leg pockets so I could keep the iPod in the shirt, but still and all, nothing groundbreaking or extra special there.

That's just me though, most guys are like little kids. I have never seen a kid with a lot of pockets who didn't HAVE to fill them all up with something. Ask any mother who has done laundry what she has found in a kids pockets. Girls and boys alike. Anything from the missing diamond ring, to a dead snake, there is just no telling, but I'm sure the hands down leader in items found in kid's pockets is rocks. What kid has not looked down at the ground on occasion and found a "pretty" rock they they want to take home to momma? I don't think it's possible to take a 2-4 year old for a walk in the country without them bringing at least a couple rocks home with them. My youngest nephew was a grand collector of rocks. Walking down the beach with him one day, ( Yes, some our beaches here in NY have some rocks, you wanna make something of it? ) and as we walked, he collected. Before we were half way back to the picnic site, his pockets were overflowing and he was walking with both hands holding up his britches! His mom thought he looked cute in cargo shorts. Yeah, and he looked even cuter with his Spider-man undies visible, because his pants wouldn't stay up, loaded with rocks. I was afraid he was gonna break a toe when they fell down!

Men at least don't generally collect rocks anymore, unless they are geologists or just a little unstable. Men collect electronics and tools. More pockets to carry more crap. Cell phone, GPS, camera, iPod, Flash drive. What else can we cram in there? Wallet, keyring, pocket knife, extra batteries, extra memory card for camera. Maybe a flask or a couple bottles of brew. Hey, might get hungry later how about a slim jim or a granola bar? Don't want to get dehydrated, keep a water bottle in there too. Or if you're a pro, a sports bottle. Spare pair of earbuds in case you meet a bud and want to share tunes, or maybe for picking up chicks? Never know when you may need to fix something so don't forget the toolbox from the garage! That's cool!

Think men are the only cuprits? Think again. The mommy patrol has a million uses for cargo shorts too. Who hasn't seen a soccer mom chasing after the kids with a kleenex? where do you think she had it stashed? In her pocket!! and where will it go when she is done with it? If there isn't a trashcan nearby and she isn't a total heathen, it will go back into a pocket! The younger the kids, the more stuff mommy will likely have in her pockets. (Purses are so passé these days) There will be baby asprin, wetnaps, a juicebox or two. Probably a spare pair of undies for each child if they are just recently potty trained or still in training. There will be at least a couple band-aids maybe some hand sanitizer, (If not a full first-aid kit if she's a worrier) and then the usual suspects, the cell and the keys with the clicker for the door locks and security system, some folding money and at least one credit card. She probably has some snacks in there too, cracker packs or maybe some cookie packs. You know how cranky kids get when their blood sugar drops!

I guess it's great if your a mugger, because with more pockest people are carrying around much more stuff to rip off. It's like a quickmart for muggers! Electronics to hock, and money to use immediately, how can you go wrong? I just hope the mugger isn't in a hurry, because they still have to get through the layers of fasteners to get the stuff out of the pockets! You don't actually carry anything in there that you would need in a "real" emergency, because if you have to get those pockets open, doing it in a hurry just ain't happening, unless you have straight velcro. Zippers, snaps and/or buttons, backed by velcro is what most of mine have. I have a pair where the button is hidden under a little flap, if it was a matter of life and death to get something out of that pocket in a hurry, I'm gonna die. It takes at least a minute to manipulate the button around to open those pockets. I challege any good pickpocket to show me that they can get into them without me knowing about it! Velcro is great deterent to pickpockets I think, it talks and they hate that!

Give me my old cutoffs! When I was a kid, mom would take a pair of jeans that I wore the knees out of and cut the legs off above the knee and I had shorts! ( they were almost never even! lol) A few washes and the ends would fray out and then you looked "right", fresh cut shorts always looked so dorky! Too many pockest just complicates life and on shorts it's a travesty, because shorts weather is the time when you should be enjoying simple things. Who wants to have to empty the electronics before starting a squirt-gun war on a hot July day? Not me, but I still do. It's just no fun turning the garden hose on your buddy when you have to replace his cell phone and his iPod that was stuffed into a back stash pocket of his cargo shorts!

Enough with the pockets, if you can't live with 4 pocket shorts, get a purse!

Hunger

It is interesting what an American will think of as "hungry" as compared to the rest of the world.

Going to McDonald's and getting a regular fries and a cheeseburger, will leave most Americans feeling "hungry", but give that same meal to a kid from the streets of Buenos Aires and they will feel as if they have just had a banquet. What an American considers a meal for one, the rest of the world ( perhaps with the exception of England or Germany) would consider to be a family size buffett.

It comes up because while I have shed close to 20 pounds, by eating less and moving more, the hardest thing to stop is the after-dinner snacking. Especially when I sit at a desk right next to the kitchen while I am typing this. But I am continuing to remain strong. I had my dinner, a very reasonable one I might add, and now it is nearly 11 pm and my tummy is rumbling. Granted I did a lot of work after I had dinner. Beside walking, I also handled trash ( shop trash, boxes and boxes of it!) and mowed. Still have laundry to finish. Doesn't matter, no more eating after dinner. Holding strong.

I'm not really hungry, I just want to taste something and chew. And swallow. Why? Because my mind is not really occupied, and I am frustrated. But I gave up smoking and I can give this up too. I am tired of being a tub-o-lard, and this is how that finally ends!

Thank you for letting me rant, I will be doing some more from time to time until I have lost at least 100 pounds. Do you realize that by losing 100 pounds, I will still be heavier than my sister and brother combined? I topped out at 355 three weeks ago. Once I get below 275, I hope to never get over it again! It will take work. I'm up for it!!

Time passages...

No, not the song, I am referring to the actual passage of time. More the perception of the passage of time. Physics tells us that time is relative, and if you don't believe it, have some relatives stay with you for a few days, and see how long THAT feels!!

It seems to come up in conversation all the time, the phrases, "Where does the time go?" and , "What happened to the time?" Well, the times goes the same way that it always does, ever forward. Since we can't yet travel at speeds exceeding the speed of light, time MUST travel forwards. Yet the actual meaning of these phrases is not literal, but rather rhetorical, how does the time pass so quickly without our noticing?

"A watched pot never boils." this is so far from true, yet it is another comment on the perception of time. In fact there was an episode of ST-TNG ( for those of you who are not geeks, Star Trek-The Next Generation) where the android character Data, tests this assertion, and finds that it always takes water the same time to boil when all variables are accounted for and factored in, whether the pot is watched or not. This is not about the pot of water, but the lack of excitement in watching a pot come to a boil. Although the time that it takes never changes, the simple act of watching it happen stretches the perceived time taken because of the lack of any other activity. And yet, "Time flys when you're having fun."

What brings all this inane stuff to my mind you are probably wondering, and I am getting to that, but I wanted to make a few points first. As much as it is a constant, for us mere mortals, it is also a liquid and elusive thing. When were are excited with anticipation for some approaching happy event or date, time crawls along, and when the time finally does arrive, it is over and done before we are ready and we wonder what happened to it. Remember when you were a kid and it seemed like summer would never end and you couldn't wait for the end of school so you could start those carefree days of summer vacation? It seemed like summer took forever to arrive, but then when it finally did, you couldn't imagine it would ever end. ( even though you knew it would!) When you are 10 years old, you have only experienced 120 months of life. 1-2-0!!! That's 3,652 days ( including leap years!) That is it! Double that to 240 months and you are now 20 years old. ( 7,305 days) Makes it seem like a lot longer than it really is since I am in the over 14,600 area! LOL Let's break it into some thinkable fractions.

When you are 12 months old, one month is 1/12 of your entire life. 1/12. When you are 12 years old, 1/12 of your life is now 1 year! When you are 24 years old, 1/12 of your life is now 2 years! The older we get, the faster time seems to go, because the frame that we have to reference gets bigger. It is the same as looking back at the clothes we wore when we were little kids, you look at those tiny shoes that your mother saved and while you can remember your feet in them, you don't remember when they no longer fit. Time is much the same, you are always aware of the passage of the time, how many hours have we spent at work just wishing the hours away so that we could go home and relax, or go on vacation, or just go have a beer? How many hours have we wasted looking for something that was "lost" only to find it someplace that we already looked, but not quite thoroughly enough? How many days of our life have passed while we have sat watching TV or reading books of somebody elses adventures. How much time lost standing in line for who knows what? The one thing that we all have in common is time.

Nobody is immune to the passage of time, if you are alive and living in our dimension. If you wish to have more time, you are shit out of luck, you get the same amount as everyone else does. 24 hours in each day. Everyone gets a different number of days, but what you do with them once you are aware that you can do something with them is where the differences come in. Some people will learn everything that they possibly can, and some people will happily sink into oblivion and never feel the need to look up. Sadly, it is a coin toss to figure out which one ends up rich and famous. There is never any telling what the fates will drop on somebody.

Because of the structure of society, there are many of us who will do the responsible thing, and waste most of our life toiling away at a job that we tolerate, and wishing for the opportunity to do the things that we truly love. Because the world requires that we have means to enjoy many things, and the only way to get these means is to work, we work. We spend 40+ hours each week working, but what about the rest of our lives?

7 days X 24 hours is 168 hours in a week. Subtract the average work week of 40 hours and that leaves 128 hours. Figure a minimum of 6 hours of sleep daily. Another 42 hours of the week gone. Leaves us with 86 hours. Take out 2 hours a day for cooking and eating, which makes 14 hours a week. Down to 72 hours already and we have barely scratched the surface. Daily shower... let's just say personal grooming... 30 minutes a day, 3.5 hours a week. 68.5 hours left. How do you get to work? How long does it take you. American average is somewhere in the 45 minute each way area, so that's 1.5 hours each day 5 days a week. 7.5 hours down the tubes. 61 precious hours left in our week, but we ain't done by a long shot. Average American watched 2.5 hours of TV daily. If you watch TV while doing other things you're ahead of the curve, but far too many people don't. So that's now another 17 .5 hours a week gone forever! We are down to 43.5 hours, but I will spot you 7 hours back, because most people eat while watching TV and we will assume that half of that is meals... so we are plus 50.5 hours. What about your daily chores, cleaning, laundry, shopping, yard and garden work, errands, anything that is considered work that you don't actually get paid for. Figure easily 3 hours each day. (averaged over 7 days) Works out to 21 hours. Now we have only 29.5 hours left.

We are down to 29.5 hours a week left to us. Spread out over 7 days, which comes out to a little more than 4 hours a day. Sounds like a lot doesn't it? But consider that is likely to be 10 minutes here and 5 minutes there, maybe a full 1/2 hour someplace along the way, and you wonder what happens to that 29.5 precious hours that you can call your own. Thinking about them will drive you nuts, but now that you know they are there you will be looking for them.

A wise person once said that it doesn't matter how many days that you live, but what you do with those days that matter. To me, a life well lived is worth far more than the money that I may or may not make along the way. Not everyone feels this way, and that is just fine. I would like to be able to pursue some dreams, but I am still pursuing the means. Perhaps someday the dreams will come, but for now I will continue looking at the minutes that I have available to me as opportunities, and whenever possible I will use those precious minutes to work on my dreams instead of just working. I hope that you will do the same, dreams are important to everyone, and it is always nice when some of them come true.

Why I take pictures...

I was recently asked what I get from a picture, why do I take them, and I thought about the answer for about 5 seconds, and this is what I said...

What are pictures for me? Many times it depends on the picture, and when I am taking it. Pictures to me are many things and a huge part of my life. I have aspired to be a "Photographer" for much of my life, along with so many other things, but pictures were always something that were simply a part of my life, whether I was working hard on them or simply snapping memories. Most of the time they are simply that, memories. A snapshot of an event or a day, or something that I simply wanted to be able to remember later. But in recent years, especially with a digital camera, where the cost of film and the associated processing are no longer a factor, I take pictures in a much different way.

When I got my first digital camera, I took it with me everywhere and took pictures of anything simply because I wanted to see how the camera captured images, what it did with light and what I could expect from it in various settings. I have never been the type to stage a picture, for me they have to be natural. If they can be easily recreated, I'm not very interested in taking the picture. I try to capture certain moments and moods. Many of my friends consider me to be a paparazzi because I love to take pictures of people especially when they are not expecting it. I try to capture the spirit of a person, to see them in the unguarded moment when the picture will show you their soul, when you can see what they desire, or regret, or what they truly love. I like to capture the moments of unbridled joy, when someone is so happy that they simply overflow with the emotion. Sometimes I can catch someone pondering some deep problem, and you can see the thoughtfulness or the worry, or the care that they are taking in a decision. I enjoy taking pictures of children playing. There is something special about children, there is a purity of emotion in them that adults try so hard to cover up. With children, there is no tact, or deception, you can see in their faces what they are feeling and to get those special pictures is always a joy to me.

When I am taking pictures of buildings or landscapes, I look to capture the mood of the subjects, a field of blooming flowers is a happy picture, and I try to find a way to make it look happy. A dead tree standing in a hedge is a sad subject, sometimes. Sometimes it is a subject that feels of grandeur, or an indomitable spirit. The lone sentinel holding its' place long after its' fellows have fallen. The lone tree standing in a field, in the summer time gives a feeling of hope, there is shade and respite in the stark world, under the spreading shade of the lone tree. In buildings I can see the past, walking along beside and among the present and the future. It is one of the things that I love about Odessa, the Old buildings being used for modern things. I enjoy walking into an ancient building, the facade rebuilt many times over the centuries and yet the interior is as modern as any building being erected today. The juxtaposition of new and old, to capture this in a picture shows that history can continue to exist, while being utilized by continuing generations.

Sometimes I see something that captures my attention and I simply enjoy the aesthetics of the colors or the textures. Today I took some photos of clouds. They were interesting to me in their formation and layers. Capturing a sunset is special, because no matter how you try, you will never, ever see two sunsets that are the same. Every day is different, and every location has it's special charms. Sometimes the sun is reflected from water, and sometimes blurred by snow. Sometimes there is a rainbow, or the evening star, the planets trailing the sun closely into the horizon.

Sometimes I look at pictures that I have taken many years ago and I can remember exactly what I was thinking when I took them. I am taken back to that exact moment in time and I can relive the feelings and the emotions.

This is what Pictures are for me, they are truly pieces of the fabric of my life and in some cases, extensions of my soul.

random thoughts and ramblings

The war on drugs is a fraud. There is no war on drugs, it is a war on American mindset. Americans have been the subject of intended brainwashing by their government for most of a century. The interesting thing about this, is that even as they have continued sending piles of money to the incinerator of "drug interdiction" they have done nothing to actually hurt the giant drug lords and traffickers. The drug business itself takes it's toll on the people who make the most money. It is a business of greed, and greed is the biggest motivator in it. When there is no longer huge profits to be made, it will begin to diminish. Drug lords are killed by their rivals. new drug lords take their place. They make tons of money and live like kings. They get killed in the next coup. The drug trade in America is the modern equivalent of slavery, and just like in Africa the black man enslaves his own race as does the white man and the yellow man and the brown man. Take what little money that your fellow man has, and get him addicted to your product. Then make him work for it when he can't afford it. Eventually he will never have a chance to have anything that is his own, and then he is no more than a slave, either to the dealer or to the product. The saddest part of the cycle is that eventually the user dies, or with a little bit of luck, kicks the habit, and then the dealers must find new clients or he will go out of business. What is the solution? I am not smart enough to say for certain, but one thing I do know is that drugs should be treated like alcohol, regulated and taxed. The United States government learned over the decade of the 1920's that prohibition is useless and only makes the criminals rich. The real change needs to be in the public perception, of course that won't happen over night, and the crazy conservatives will scream that "their money" will be supporting drug addicts. Guess what? It already does in a myriad of ways, but by ending the criminalization of most drugs and their users, the money being wasted now on the "war" can be funneled into education and rehabilitation. This is the only way to break the cycle. And eventually the need for less money to be spent in this field.

I recently read an article in the newspaper about the the loss of religion in the United States. This was followed a few days later by a flurry of letters to the editor from both sides of the coin. On the pro religion side was the general status quo, that without God in our lives we are destined to be worthless and useless people who will never amount to anything and at the same time will suffer for eternity because they have not been "saved". One writer even went so far as to blame all crime and discontent in the world on the lack of God in the lives of the perpetrators. How in the world do they make this connection? Keep drinking the Kool-Aid! I see it as quite the other way around. It continually fascinates me when these knuckleheads really believe this crap that they are fed. Just because I do not subscribe to the same belief system that these poor freaks do, I do live in the same society and live by the same rules of conduct as these religious nuts, but I have the decency to let them go about their business without continually thrusting my distaste for their life choices in their faces and I truly wish that they could quit doing it to me. I was raised in a manner that taught me to reason and think about the consequences of my actions. Every boater is taught that they are responsible for their wake. It is a great metaphor for life. We are all responsible for our wakes. In life we create a wake wherever we go and the things that we do all have consequences. Because I don't subscribe to a specific set of written down beliefs, I am able to take each action as it happens and apply the result to my next action. It is called reason and logic. The definition of insanity, in the popular saying, is to repeat an action over and over again expecting a different result. To me, this describes Religion. More and more it looks like the followers are insane, they repeat the actions that they have been repeating for the last millenia and still expect different results. A small sidebar of this same original article was a bit of research that showed that the more religious a person was, the more likely they were to be afraid of dying, or letting anyone near them die. These are the people who keep loved one on life support for years after their brains have died, on the hope of a "miracle". They keep pets alive while they suffer the pain and indignity of osteo-arthritis and incontinence, GI problems and the loss of their teeth. Animals can't tell us that they don't want to suffer this way, but because they are our pets and they love them they try extraordinary means to keep them with us long after they should have moved on. They deserve a dignified passing as much as a human does. Meanwhile those of us who consider themselves to be agnostic or atheist, we'll have no or little problem when our time comes, we are more curious than scared, because we haven't been living a hypocritical existence. We live as we feel life should be lived, we don't hate people for arbitrary reason and we don't believe that we know all the answers to the questions of life and death. I am sure that I will hit this subject again some day.

Again on the recent news front, there has been much about the drug toxin levels in fish. Anti-depressants getting into the water tables and being absorbed by the critters living in the water. SO now the fish are Happy!! Now I am not against the use of anti-depressants. I understand that there are people who truly need these beneficial drugs. It keeps them balanced and in many cases alive. I am however against the OVERUSE of these drugs. In far too many cases they are prescribed by doctors too lazy or inept to find the real cause of the depression. I do know that there are some cases where there is a chemical problem in a persons brain and they just don't make the right chemicals to find happiness. I don't believe that this is as prevalent as the doctors and drug companies would have us believe. I think that it is often much more inherent in the western lifestyle. The TV shows us people who are deliriously happy. We expect that we will be deliriously happy. When we aren't we think that there is something wrong with us. We worry. Then the TV shows us people who are depressed and they get deliriously happy with drugs. They are walking on the beach, laughing at parties and holding hands with their great looking, happy spouse. If we don't have the happy spouse, the beach vacation, and the party invitations, well there must be something wrong with us and we don't feel happy about it. Are we depressed or are we just chronically unhappy that we aren't the greatest people on the planet? Westerners spend their life wired and plugged into everything and wanting everything. In the last half of the last century, Americans especially, elevated their overall way of life above just about every other nation in the world, and in doing so they set standards of living that they expected their children and grandchildren to at least achieve and in many cases to exceed our parents standards. In most of the world parents expect that their children may be lucky to do the same that they do. The same job, in the same place and for the same pay.They will live in the same town, and maybe even in the same house. They don't expect so much out of life, but to live it the best that they can, the same as their parents. There is not the pressure to achieve. ( I said in MUCH of the world, now all we all know a few over-achieving Asians!) Even in the Asian countries it is mostly true, but the citified masses always have their educated elite, and they are expected to achieve just like western kids, and they show the same signs of stress that the western people show. They have their heart attacks, and their ulcers, and their suicide rates too. But the truth is that they are far fewer in those places per capita, because the pressured portions of society are much smaller than in America. Our own competitiveness is our biggest downfall, and the obsessive need to have all the same stuff that our friends and neighbors have is where our insane depression rates come from. If we lost TV and Madison Ave. for a generation I bet we would see a steady decline in them. Sure I want my MTV, but it's gonna kill me just like them Marlboros will too. There is a whole industry that is dedicated to making us want what we can't afford or don't need , but we are sure willing to try and do whatever it takes to get it. Then we instill this same mindset in our children and wonder why they aren't happy. Add to that the "everybody wins" method of child-rearing that has become so popular and it is like pouring battery acid on a paint job. It just eats away at the mind and happiness is the first thing to go.

That's all I got today. I am sure that I will have more soon. Enjoy your day and don't spend it all wishing for what you don't need. Live the life you have and don't worry about what everyone else has.

The Big Box Dilemma

Yep, The Big Box. You know what I mean, Wal-Mart, the store that so many people love to hate. It has become the symbol of the homogenization of American culture. 25 years ago it was McDonald's, before that? I really can't say because I only really began paying attention somewhere in my late teens. Howard Johnson's maybe? It really doesn't matter, I guess, the point is that sometimes the things that make our lives easier or more convenient, are the same things that we resent for taking away the individuality of the landscape.

It seems that no matter where we go in America these days there is a Wal-Mart, and more and more of them are billed as "Supercenters." But let's be real, just because you can buy food and drugs and clothes in the same store doesn't really make it a supercenter, because you can do the same at most Walgreens, Kenny Drugs, Rite-Aids and even grocery stores. The Marketing department of the Wal-Mart Company knows that by billing the store as a supercenter, it gets them more community support,( if they have any to start with, there is a serious backlash going on with Walmart) so even though it may not be a full supercenter they will still call it such. I live where I can drive to three different Wal-Mart "supercenters" in less than an hour. The smallest one is in my own hometown. It has all the bells and whistles to get the label, but the bells are much smaller, and the whistles are more like tweeters. Each one offers all the same services, but the population that each caters to is different so the stock reflects this. So does the size. The one in the college town is the biggest store I have been in to date. It is the newest incarnation in the same town, they pretty much outgrew the first one that was built 15 years ago. Now the old building sits empty waiting for a new tenant or someone to doze it over and build something new. This also is a common occurance when it comes to this megalithic retailer.

The dilemma is this, do you go to Wal-mart with it's low prices and continued market dominance, or do you patronize the little stores where you know the owners and have been shopping for years? Wal-Mart has what you need, and in the style you want and at a low price. The little store knows exaclty what you want, but doesn't have the style in stock, ( but can have it in a day or two) and the price is a couple dollars more. What do you do? America is a country that has no use for anything less than instant gratification, Wal-Mart wins, today. What happens tomorrow? Do you even bother looking at the little store? Maybe you do, maybe you don't. The more times you choose Wal-Mart the more you hurt the little store, and the more likely it is that they will go out of business. When they go out of business, the irony is that they will be shopping at Wal-Mart, because the low prices will be all that they can afford!

Now don't get me wrong, I am not a Wal-Mart basher in general. I shop there, for the exact reasons that I have specified above. Low prices and selection. When you have a company that can buy an entire production run of a product, you know they will have the lowest price on a product. In fact, they can pretty much control the market price on most things. They can undercut any local competitor and drive them out of business. Then they hire at least a portion of that competitors labor force to staff their ever bigger stores. Meanwhile they buy cheaper products made in foriegn factories, meaning that Unemployed Americans will continue to shop for the lowest prices thereby making them the winners again. How's that for dominating the market?

I love to travel and road trips are one of my favorite things to do. Generally due to time constraints I usually travel by Interstate Highway. It's a great way to get from city to city and to cover ground fast. Contrary to the popular belief when they were built, they really do provide some wondeful views and vistas. They cut through some of the most beautiful places in the country, and some of the most desolate as well. Anyone who has ever followed I-15 between Los Angeles and Las Vegas knows that. Who hasn't stopped at the Mad Greeks in Baker, CA just because it is the biggest piece of civilization between them? When you drive through most suburbs these days, you can pretty much count on seeing the same string of franchise eateries, motels, stores, muffler shops, and auto parts stores. Whether you drive through Atlantic City, New Jersey, Cleveland, Ohio, Wichita, Kansas, Durango, Colorado, Flagstaff, Arizona , or any other city you can think of, you will find the line up of strip malls somewhere along the road into town. Sooner or later you will spot a Ken-tac-hut, next door to a Monro Muffler, across the street from an Applebee's that is across the parking lot from the IHOP. Down near the exit will be the Super 8 motel, next door to the Motel 6, the Red Roof Inn and the Holiday Inn Express. Of all that I have mentioned above only one is a single location, one-of-a-kind place, The Mad Greek's in Baker, CA. If you have ever been there you know what I am talking about. If you haven't I highly recommend it. When you get to these parts of any city, you literally could be in any city in the USA. Sure, if you are west of the Mississippi river you are much more liklely to find a Carl's Jr. or a Jack in The Box than a Hardee's, or a Sonic, but still and all, it is a pretty homogenous thing.

There is the benefit of knowing that you will always get the same product by the same name wherever you go in the country, but at the same time where is the adventure of the journey? What is the use of leaving home if you will only continue to visit the same places expecting the same services and products wherever you go? Isn't the point of traveling to be able to try new things and to have new experiences? To me, it is useless to travel if I will have the same thing in Utah and Colorado, and Kansas and Memphis and I can have in Rochester and Buffalo. When I am in Kansas City I want KC Barbecue, I'm going to Jack Stacks, when I am in Chicago I want Deep Dish Pizza. When I am in New Orleans I want crawdads and Jambalaya, I'm gonna find the place where the locals go for them. When I am in Texas, I want some Texas Beef, slow cooked over a mesquite flame. If I am in Maine I am gonna have Lobster at every meal, and shrimp and maybe even clams! But sad to say, when I need a new pair of pants, in Billings, Montana?

Yeah I'm going to look for a Wal-Mart. I can't help it, I know they will have what I want and in the size I need. I promise I won't buy a new pair of cowboy boots there or a hat, but for the pants and shirt, yeah I'm going there.

Pluses and minuses of everything. There is a benefit to knowing what you are gonna get sometimes, but other times there is a need for the adventure, and when you have a chance to have an adventure, don't waste it on a Big Box, adventure-ize yourself and maybe learn something about your own tastes. You never know when you will find something new that you really like.

4 months later

So it has been 4 months since my favorite radio geek has come back on the air. Wease is Wease and now that the show has gelled and everyone has begun to get used to each other, I can give an honest critique of the show. I still love the show, but there are somethings that get to me.

One thing that I have noticed is that I am not impressed with the executive producer, Anthony. As I have said before, I am aware that I don't actually know these people, but the persona that they present on the air each day, that being said, the producer seems to me to be a nice guy, but not the brightest bulb on the tree. I hope that it is a persona, because I trust that Wease will surround himself with competent people, but sometimes I wonder about this guy. He believed that his daughter was born with Vick's Vapo-rub™on her head, because his wife ate the stuff when she was pregnant! Not the sharpest knife in the drawer! That is just one example, but there are many others where his beliefs seem to trump his visions of the truth.

I enjoy his producer Nick. He seems a genuine guy, but a little too conservative or right wing for the person he is working for. To be honest he is the main producer for the right-wing talk show host on the AM station, so he has a little bias coming into the show. I like his way of injecting his view when he disagrees with Wease. He likes to remind the show and Wease in particular, that not all the world is as liberal as he is. In fact, Nick has occasionally made some good points that I even agree with. Especially when he speaks of the money that has been wasted by local governments in the multitude of snafus over the years, and how that money would have been better used for education, infrastructure and law enforcement, rather than just "cool stuff."

The male sidekick, Jamie Lissow, he is a stand-up comedian who has been on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, he has been on Fox News show Red-Eye, and he has his own 1/2 hour comedy special on Comedy Central. He is funny in a dry sort of way. His humor reminds me very much a the kid in the back of the class making stupid jokes at the teachers expense. He is a jock and a health nut. He likes his healthfood snack and he reminds everyone just how unhealthy they really are! He has his own little segment where he gets some of the local news items that are pretty stupid. They make us laugh, and everyone comments on the items so it takes a good half hour to get through the bit. I like him over all and I hope he gets better, he is good now, but I think he has some development room.

The female sidekick is Lilly, she is a complex little girl. Interesting in some ways and infuriating as all hell in other ways. One day I like her and I would love to have a conversation with her, then she says something later and I hope I never have to talk to her. Who knows the mind of a woman? Not even a woman!! Oh well, it's not like I want to date her or anything, she's just a voice on the radidio! I am curious about her though, She is a first generation American, as her parents are Albanian born. She was raised in Jersey, and has a decent education. I wonder if she speaks Albanian? If so, does she speak any other languages? I would really like to talk to her on the informational level just for my own curiosity. She has said that she finds religion silly. A great thought to me, but a strange wording. Silly? Maybe frightening, morbid, insane... but silly? I guess, but as long as she isn't a freak about following some ancient useless cult, I give her points for intelligence.

All in all the show has come together pretty well. I'm sure that there will be changes and adjustments to come, but so far, it's good. Could be better, and it sure could be worse. Right now I give it a 3 out of 5 stars. The interactivity of the show now is great with the webcams and the chat room, and the accessibility of the show is the best it has ever been. I can email the show and be acknowledged on air in a few minutes. That is great. The content hasn't been stellar. Some of the guests have left a little to be desired, but last week with Bobby Slayton! That was batting 1000. The various interns have provided some great radio, for sure, and they are learning from a true master of the medium. The phone screener Leah and the computer chick Colleen are great to chat with occasionally. I hope it gets better, because it is already good, but it still can be great!!

Spring thoughts...

So the first day of "official" spring in the Northern Hemisphere has occurred and to remind myself that it was really spring, I froze my face and fingers off to get a nice little picture of a robin. Living in Western NY, many people consider the arrival of the geese, on their trip north, as being the harbinger of spring, but for me it is the arrival of the robins. They show up the week of the equinox. Always. They arrive and with them usually comes the first warm weekend of the season as well. So, they are my favorite birds.

Spring is my second favorite season. Summer being the first, but spring is right up there. I like 'em all to be truthful, but for different reasons and in different degrees. Spring is many things for me, but more than anything it is the beginning of warm weather. I like warm weather, actually I like hot weather, but Western NY hot, not Mojave Desert hot. I like when the thermometer is pushing into the high 80's and the sun is shining bright all day long. When the pool temp is getting up there too, and you can jump in the water and be so comfy that when you get out the air seems cool. That's what I really like. But that is summer, I wanted to wax philosophical about spring!

So what I like about spring... the snow is mostly gone and nature is coming back to life all around me. I walk outside in the morning and I can hear birds back in the trees. I am greeted by all manner of chirps and squawks and cheeps. Whistles and trills, the flutter of wings and the honks of the geese. Sometimes I can look out in the field and see the Canadian geese less than 50 yards from my doorstep. I see the rabbits scampering for cover when they spot me. They better scamper for cover, because I hate when they eat my flowers, so they are fair game for a shot from whatever gun I have handy. But the big draw for me is watching the world around me turn green. The spring bulbs come first, poking little shoots out of the ground and fighting the cold and the occasional snow until they triumphantly bloom! Sometimes the first emergence is the snowdrops, but other times the crocuses beat them to the pop, but color reappears in the world.

After the first blooms the daffodils follow and the tulips right behind them, colors from the whole rainbow in little gardens and corners of the yard. Poking out from under the mulch or the matted grass left from the winter snow. Before long there is work to be done, raking up the sticks and branches that winter has blown from the trees, making a pile and setting it afire, maybe using it to warm you hands on a cold, clear day. Everywhere you walk the ground is still soft, and if you're not careful you find the squishy spots where the mud squelches up around your boots, and if you don't step just right it squirts up and onto your pant legs. On the calm days you can hear the sounds of the neighborhood children outside playing again, maybe you spot the occasional kite, or if you're lucky enough to have the time and space you can fly one yourself. Can you get it so high that you can barely see it? Soon you will see the bicycles and the skateboards returning to the sidewalks and the streets and parking lots. The roads are still white with the winter salt, waiting for that big rain that will wash them clean. Motorcycles return to the roads with the warming of the world, and once again it begins to sound like summer. Before long the weather is warm enough to wake the frogs and the toads, and the forest comes to life with the sounds of peepers and croakers. The warmth also brings back the dreaded mosquitoes and the annoying houseflies. But they are food for the frogs, so they are tolerated until they get within our personal "no-fly" zones. I'm one of those lucky people who is not bothered by a mosquito bite. They bite, I swat and it's over, no swelling, itchy bumps here. Yet I still can't win the lottery!

Before long it's Memorial Day, and the gardens must be planted and the grass needs to be mowed, and the cover comes off of the pool. It is the beginning of summer, and the end of spring. Spring is it's own special time and it's a time to be enjoyed. I always hope that one of these springs I will have my great love to share it with. Because I really do think that spring is a great time to be in love. To take a walk holding hands watching the world come to life, or seeing one of springs spectacular sunsets. Having a person to share thoughts and ideas with, and to feel understood and cared for, seems the most important in the spring time. I guess I'm a romantic fool in many ways, but the new seasons always make me more so.

Go out and walk in the mud. Spring only lasts for a few months!