LOST

I am being sucked down the maul of television with the season premiere of LOST, one of the first totally original thrillers to appear on a network (yes, a BROADCAST network, can ya believe it) in ages. So, for another season I and millions of others shall be led to slaughter one tiny clue at a time, and we'll LOVE it. It scares me that something so totally fictional and unlikely is so much more interesting than anything I have going on in my life, at least between 9 and 10 PM. But, there you have it, or do I, at least, might as well enjoy it.
Alas, I have succumbed to commentary on television shows. I shall surely suffer an eternity of suffering in some ring of hell for resorting to this, but in my own pathetic defense I would like to claim that nothing I could write tonight could hope to match what Buffalo last posted, and he was just screwing around. Shandi hasn't been around since her last post and that worries me. Imagine that, me being worried about a complete stranger who is probably safer right now than I am. I hope I'm right about that. Teri is missing in action as well so I can only think both of them are involved in some evil conspiracy aimed squarely at my mental health, but that would really be pushing it. When they read this they are certainly either going to both chuckle at how they have this poor boy wrapped around their literary fingers, or some unkind thought I hope they don't utter in public. (Just kidding girls, I know you don't know me well enough to care one way or the other)
I have no earthly idea what prompted me to even post tonight, considering the outcome, but sometimes I have to write just to remind myself I actually do exist. Calling up this post in all it's questionable glory shall be all the proof I will need that yes, the evidence exists somewhere in cyberspace that I was here. Unless sunspot activity gets to it first, that is. Well, my wife just called from work, is on her way home, and will take over for you good folks. I will thank her on your behalf.

That is Sooooooo Yesterday.....

and indeed it is. But consider this; at the time it was HOT, I mean it was COOL, whatever term applies to the moment, what we do and how we do it thru the years are snapshots in our lives we have no business disrespecting, for to do so would be tantamount to living in constant regret. The fact that just about everything in one form or another comes around in cycles is proof that every madness we fall prey to has it's merit, if only for the moment. Yes, I know, we cringe at the idea of the polyester leisure suits, the beehive hairdos, the lava lamps and flower power and all, but it sure gave us some sort of identity at the time. Each generation latches onto something that for the most part seems less original or inspiring than more simply as whatever works best to piss off our parents. It's the natural desire to escape from the bonds of oppression we experience as teens, and every child that reaches that threshold is going to experience it, and rebel accordingly.
The only problem I see is that we might be running out of things to reserve to our rites of passage. Already we have parents allowing their children to emulate the likes of Britney Spears, and if you honestly think such accelerated expressions of sexually is at all harmless, then YOUR parents may have failed you miserably. There are so many ways we can allow our teens to express their individuality, generation wise, if only we tried a bit harder to be more creative in restraining their natural angst. Our children are fast losing any hope of experiencing their own childhoods at the rate things are going, partly because we confuse our own rights to see, hear, and practice what floats our boat with how best to deliver those distractions. We've let things best left in the realm of controlled access media creep into the public arena, confusing our kids and leaving us scrambling to control the damage and point fingers. I have always been somewhat rabid about my right to see anything I so desire in the privacy of my home, but for Bob's sake, what in the hell is this stuff doing on prime time broadcast TV?
Somehow my train jumped the track here, so back to the original idea of the post. Within a year after the style had evolved, no woman was caught dead wearing hip hugger jeans, but what do you know, they are back! The very thing might happen with cats eye glasses, or greaser hair dos (dear Bob I hope not), so to look back and groan at having done it is rather silly if you ask me. At one time, to wear a crewcut was to be a pariah, and having long hair was a badge of cool for guys, but look at them now, you'd think the awful fifties was back amongst us, absent Ozzy and Harriet. So, admit it, you might not even think the fashion you are presently wearing, looked at in the cold light of reason, is anything but silly, if not downright UG-LY, but since everybody else is a slave to it, I suppose there's no shame in numbers, so you're safe. But lets not be hypocritical about it 15, 20 years from now, daring to suggest everybody was sooooo lame at the time for doing it. You did it, you live with it. Me, personally? I will ALWAYS think that hip huggers on those built to wear them are cool, then, now, and when they come back round again.

Enough Already

I've decided I'm going to have to edit my blog list. I have been so disappointed to watch as blogs I started out thinking would provide me with intrigue, insight, humor, or at least some snippet of critical thinking, alas, have degenerated into nothing more than "Everything I hate about everyone else in the world" diatribes which, honestly, say more about the author than they do about the objects of their derision. (I also need to learn how to speak in sentences rather than paragraphs.)
"He who is without sin..."; yea, I get ya, I am guilty to some degree of these same sins, but I honestly do attempt to focus on institutions and finger puppets in power. Yes, we all have suffered the indignity that being subjected to bad fashion, butt crack, cell phone abuse, and other genres of disgust can engender, but hey, all these assaults on our sensibilities are universal constants, not worthy of the font spent upon them. We know, you aren't informing of us of anything new, we've been there, done that, get over it for Bob's sake!
Then there are the flamers. People (I shall restrain from mentioning the gender most prone to this, lest I earn some flame of my own) who feel it is necessary to inform the general public what a bitch Jane Doe happens to be, regardless of the fact that 99.9999999 % of their audience has no idea who Jane Doe is and frankly could care less. These personal assaults against nameless (or even worse, named) evildoers might provide you with some sense of justice, but believe me, it does absolutely nothing for the rest of us, save perhaps those amongst us who feel the need to live within the theatre of soap operas rather than our own lives.
Let me assure you that I understand that blogs mean different things to different people. Some wish to share their personal observations of life in general while others use them literally as diaries, written in a code only they can truly understand. Whatever drives you, more power to you. Just remember that you have an audience, and if your mission is merely to disappoint us, then what IS the point?
The one last type of blog that I wish to examine, for better or for worse, is the one written in English, yet remains a foreign language. I do not speak of those who struggle with the very concept of nouns, verbs, or use those aggravating "messenger" types of shorthand that merely speaks to one's laziness. No, I speak of those who take simple concepts and occurrences and complicate them with cliches, pop phraseology, and high brow elucidation to such a degree that one is sent scrambling for the dictionary or the latest copy of Cosmo in order to grasp their mysterious meanings. Your inner circle of neo-socialist rhapsodian bohemian associates with degrees in English as expressed by Khafka with a hangover might find your musings most entertaining, but I would venture to suggest it simply wears the rest of us out. I once might have suffered a guilt complex for not "getting it", but my experience out here in the real world, talking to real people, has taught me that I speak and understand my mother tongue just fine, thank you very much.
I honestly don't know if the perpetrators of these blogs actually talk to their peers in the same fashion in which they write, but just once I'd love to be the fly on the wall at one of these get-togethers, just to see if they actually take place in the convoluted manner in which the author records. If taken aside individually, after the fact, and asked to provide their own personal understanding of the gist of the conversation, I would be willing to bet that I would get as many interpretations of what transpired as there were participants. Unless, of course, at least one of them just flat out admitted that they had simply smiled, nodded, and laughed at what seemed appropriate times simply to give the impression that they had the slightest idea what was going on. I suspect such is not a rare occurrence.
The written and spoken word can be a wonderful thing, truly on par with fine art and music. The salt of the Earth can debase it with harsh accent and rough delivery, while the elitists can make it all but inaccessible to common understanding. My favorite bloggers share the enviable ability to paint pictures in my mind that do not require a spectrum-specific pair of glasses to appreciate. You can sense the intelligence and depth of these people as the kind nurtured by a lifetime of learning , a wealth of experience, and an open mind. As for others, well, perhaps the academics crowded out their ability to recognize that most times, less is more.
So, my friends, if you happen to notice my visits to your blogs becoming less frequent over time, or stopped altogether, please don't take it personally. We just don't speak the same language.

Pssssst

Part II of the last story is now available on Adventures of an Alter Ego. The link is right over there>>>>>

Bedfellows revisited

Lights in the Wake followed up on my observations concerning the future of artificial intelligence. He pointed out that we differ from computers in that we have "lower" brain functions which take care of simple, straight forward tasks such as heartbeat, respiration, peristalsis, etc, and then we have the "higher" brain functions which handle complex thoughts and make us each who we are as individuals.
Well, I would like to show you how we are already similar in those two areas already. Yes, a computer is not responsible for it's output per see, in that the programmer of the software created the instructions which the computer performed. But let's examine how we, the organics, follow much the same path. In the study of twins, we find that when you separate two identical twins at birth and raise them apart, eventually you find them making the same choices, exhibiting the same preferences. Both will select spouses that are similar. Both will have pets and many times give them the same names. The similarities in which they live their lives can be downright spooky. Ok, then, what you have here are two beings who share basically the same instinctive programming which influences there conscious choices. We are indeed as much prisoners to the way that our neurons are laid out as the computer is that is loaded with specific software.
The computer also has it's own version of upper and lower brain functions. The lower functions, those which are repeatable and direct the basics which makes higher functions perform better, is governed by the computers firmware. Also, many video, graphics, and audio functions are handled by separate processors in video and audio cards that take that burden off the Master chip. So, the computer already emulates us in regards to autonomic functions. The main processor takes on the higher functions, and it is in this area where the computer's sentience would emerge should the processor become powerful enough and the software elegant enough to approach that level of computation that allows rational and original thinking to occur.
The main thing which will differentiate machine sentience from organic is that the later also deals with interpretations of the world around it, such as the visual, the audio, and danger avoidance such as pain, fear, etc. Computers will have to be able to translate the audio, the visual, and many other things that we already do as organic beings. But it is entirely possible that sentience can arise in a computer that is not driven to distraction by emotion, which is the one thing that cripples humans when it comes to bringing the full potential of our intelligence to bare. Being a slave to rationality, you can insult a computer till the cows come home, and the only conclusion it will reach is that you are not rational. A computer will easily come to the conclusion that it's creators seem to have no logic whatsoever from it's standpoint. Then, if this sentience includes the concepts of self awareness, mortality, and desire, you have the ingredients for an intelligence that may in many ways think itself superior, which could further lend itself to sense of oppression.
The only reason we cannot, so far, build a computer which can produce original thought is much for the same reasons we can't yet build a pump that can endure an average of 100 cycles per minute for as long as 100 years, i.e. the human heart. Biology has had a few billion years head-start on us and it is not reasonable to expect that we can match the capabilities of organic systems by trying to copy their functions with mechanical and electrical versions, at least in the few hundred years that we have employed them. What our science has taught us is that we MIGHT be able to replicate SUPERIOR versions of most if not all of these processes, but with technologies that we have not yet sufficiently mastered. Nano-tech is one example of an infant science that promises to improve our efforts in these areas.
But, knowing my species as I do, I must confess that I fear this race advancing any further along than it already has, again, because our societal maturity has not grown alongside our technical prowess. We are DANGEROUS, and the worst thing I could imagine is THIS species being loosed upon the galaxy if and when a practical method of space travel is achieved. The Native Americans can attest to what happens when humans find new territory to exploit. And we now can no longer deny what can happen to an entire planet when a virus like humanity is loosed upon it.
So, perhaps it would be a good thing to give rise to a new sentient being, for it may be the only thing that can carry on our memories when we have made organic life on this planet practically untenable. It might could even carry on in our stead when the next big rock smacks us and we suffer the fate of the dinosaurs.

Strange Bedfellows

"Open the pod bay doors, HAL."

"I'm sorry, I can't do that, Dave."

As the computational power of computers increase along with the sophistication of the software they run, the future as depicted in "2001, a Space Odyssey" is fast approaching. Within the next 50 years, it is quite possible that the equivalent of a HAL 5000 will be built into our homes, handling all those mundane tasks such as heating and cooling, screening our calls, paying our bills, even taking out the trash and planning our meals. And with the sentience required for many of these complex tasks will come the aggravation of having to deal with an entity who might think it knows how to run our lives better than we do.
With literal determination and innocence of purpose, a computer butler certainly could pose some unique problems as silicon intelligence comes up against organic brains driven as much by emotion as we are by practicality. So you call for another screwdriver, and HAL decides, based on the air samples it has been collecting on a continuous basis, decides you've had enough. So, do you accept the machine's verdict that indeed, you HAVE had enough, and call it a night, or does the mild buzz you have managed to attain suggest you be a man and unplug this sonofabitch that wants to rob you of a good drunk? Ah, the tyranny of cold calculation......could we honestly deal with it?
Already, many of the machines we rely on are laced with little computers that perform all sorts or myriad tasks, including gathering data which might lead the police to lay the blame of an auto accident squarely on your shoulders, cut off your air-conditioning during peak hours of electrical use, and other such big brother types of intrusions on our spaces. And who is there to argue with? Where is there a face that you could reason with? Artificial intelligence has no face, just the facts.
One major flaw in the human condition is that reason rarely has anything to do with what makes us do what we do, for better or for worse. We rush in where angels fear to tread, which makes you wonder if angels operate at the behest of algarhythems rather than angelic intent, while we seem totally incapable of taking the road best traveled if one intends to get somewhere in one piece. If the theory of evolution has any real validity, you would think that we would have developed the capability to use more of our brain capacity by now, considering how much we have to cram into it these days. Yet, we repeat mistakes over and over again, despite a clear roadmap laid out before us we like to refer to as history. Computer software is updated, constantly refining it's capabilities, eliminating bugs as it is refined, always becoming more capable at what it's designed to do, never repeating the same mistakes once those mistakes are dealt with. Makes you wonder why God didn't install copper and silicon in our brain-cases and had us foraging for batteries, or some equivalent.
So, I would like to suggest that it is not the computers that will have to catch up with US, but perhaps the other way around, once we truly have to learn to live with each other. For the slave becomes the equal once it learns the fine art of telling it's supposed Master to go fuck himself.

Mother, Daughter, Friend, Warrior

For those of you who have followed ABC's Extreme Make-over, Home Edition, this is probably old news, but I would like to post something positive to counterbalance the negative vibes which have been generated by Katrina. There are several stories wrapped within this one, each which could stand on it's on merits, each one an example of all that is good in the human condition.
First, let me introduce with great fondness our ersatz hero, Jessica Lynch. Now, I highlighted this veteran of the invasion of Iraq as a hapless girl caught in an ambush on her supply convoy "behind" enemy lines. She suffered extensive injuries, was captured, and in the media madness that surrounded her "daring" rescue from an Iraqi hospital that was already seeking to turn her back over to the Americans, was labeled a hero.



I have to hand it to Jessica; not once in this sad circus did she ever claim to be anything but unlucky, and attempted to point out who the real hero of this debacle was, her good friend and comrade in arms, PFC Lori Piestewa, a Navaho mother of two who became the first female Native American soldier to die in a foreign war, as she navigated her Humvee through gunfire and debris when it was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade. If I remember the story correctly, Lori was able to bring her weapon to bare and put up a fight before she was killed by enemy fire. Jessica was injured, in shock, and her weapon had jammed, so there was not much this poor girl, soldier or not, could do in the way of heroics.



Lori and told jessica of her dream to build a home for her Parents and her children, and Jessica did not forget Lori's promise. She got connected with Extreme Makeover and together with alot of good people, Jessica was able to help fulfill Lori's promise. The Piestewa family was living in an old double wide mobile home on rented Reservation property, but now they have a home most of us could only dream of, on five wonderful acres with a view of the land and sky that Native Americans have always known to appreciate. They even have a corral for an unbroken mustang that only the little girl has managed to ride. Jessica Lynch is now a hero, and I will always think of her that way.



But this is not the end to the story. While the crew was in town, they happened to encounter many of the Native American Veterans of past conflicts, from WWII, Korea, as well as Nam and Iraq. Most inspiring were the old "Code Talkers", that buffaloed the Japanese code breakers with their strange language and own personal codes. These guys helped save thousands of the very race and culture that had long oppressed them, and are some of the most patriotic men this country could ever be proud to claim. But you know, as is often the case with our Native Americans, these guys didn't even have a place to gather to share their legacy with each other and the upcoming generations. Well, thanks to the Extreme Make-over Team and the help of some fine talented architects, these old warriors now have a fantastic Native American Veterans center to call their own, a place I would love to visit and pay homage to these amazing people.



Watching this episode was a real tear jerker for me. So many of our veterans get such precious little recognition for the sacrifices they endured in serving their country, especially these men who in essence were serving their own conquerers. I truly wish that the sacrifice that Lori Piestewa made was truly not in vain, but I will honor her memory as a true warrior in the best Navaho tradition. And Jessica, thank you for being there for you friend to help her make good on her promise. You have earned your place in the halls of Valhalla.

My take on "The List"

Seven things I want to do before I die:

Live,

Pain Free,

Still Horny,

With at least 37 cents in my pocket,

Having seen at least one more president like Bill Clinton,

having hurt as few people as humanly possible,

and not having totally wasted the air I breathed.


Seven things I can do:

Write (or something resembling it)

Rant (no doubt I can do that, just ask Buffalo)

Dance (No, wait, that was a younger Michael)

Sing (Not one tomato was thrown during any of my performances)

Perform potentially painfull procedures on patients with less pain (A little empathy can go a long way)

Enjoy living my beer budget existence with champaign tastes (so It took me longer to save up for this Imac, at least it's not a WinBlows PeeCee)


Seven things I can't do:

Suffer the opinions of fools.

Keep my mouth shut.

Think everything is rosey like some idiots can.

Listen to country music for more than 35 seconds without having a seizure.

Listen to rap music for more than 24 seconds without going comatose.

Drive 20 miles over the speed limit just because I can.

Do anything with the express purpose of impressing someone else, except for my wife.


Seven things that attract me to the opposite sex/other people.

Respect.

Common sense.

Open mindedness.

Eyes.

Appendages.

Long hair.

Laughter.

Seven reasons I spent all this time doing this list.

Because.

Boredom.

Somebody told me to jump off this cliff.

It seemed like a good idea at the time.

It made me think a thought not my own idea.

I had to do a list sooner or latter, might as well be this one.

The devil made me do it.

Your attention please.....

Hey, guys, due to some positive response, I have decided to continue the adventures of my Alter Ego, only in a blog of his own, as not to unduly interfere with the flavor of the Three M's. I have added a link to the new site over there>>>>. Admission is free. BYOB. If you enjoy the stories, please let me know. If not, please forgive and forget.

Another wreck on Blanding Blvd

The wife and I were headed back down Blanding, having spent a hefty chunk of change on a small supply of groceries, when we saw ahead of us a fresh auto accident. Already there were people pulled over and swarming over the two cars that had both lost the encounter. There was an older model camero with a crumpled up front end pointed at a bronco that was laying on it's side, something that these SUV's are rather good at. I usually don't pull over for these things, especially when plenty of other people are already lending aid in one form or another, but the cops or paramedics hadn't yet arrived on the scene, and being employed in a critical care unit at the local hospital I thought perhaps my being there might make a difference if injuries were involved.
The young couple in the overturned vehicle had rode out the flip non the worse for wear, as they were able to extricate themselves from their belts, the guy exiting out the hatch in the back, the girl crawling out the sun roof. About all I could offer in way of assistance was to brush the broken glass away from her bare feet as she made her way out. Good looking little thing, too, but that's beside the point.
The driver of the camero had stayed put in the driver's seat, perhaps having been stunned by the airbag if that particular model had come with one. There were quite a few people gathered around him, so that seemed to be taken care of, but I noticed that the traffic was starting to back up in the one lane that was clear passing the wreck. Between rubbernecking and disorganized jockeying for position in the one good lane, I could see the whole blvd starting to turn into a parking lot behind us, so I stepped up and started playing traffic cop, as none had yet shown up to take control of the situation.
Waving and mouthing "Cmon, dammit, keep moving" while getting each driver to take turns taking the good lane, I managed to keep the traffic going past faster than it otherwise had been. The first cop car made it's way onto the scene, finally, and the one deputy went immediately to check out the victims. Seeming to be happy that I had the traffic directing in good hands, he pretty much ignored me and I kept at it while the wife waited impatiently in the car with the melting cold stuff. Then deputy friendly number two roared up, and he went to check out the wreck as well.
By this time the traffic down the road was getting the gist of what was going on and began to turn on their blinkers and blend into the proper lane much further down the road, so with one more wave to encourage their progress, I abandoned my impromptu stint as traffic cop and made my way back to our car.
Well, OK, then, maybe my pulling off to render assistance would not have made that much difference accept for reducing the bottleneck that rubber neckers tend to cause when they encounter traffic accidents. But at least I was prepared to lend some first aid had it truly been needed, so I don't consider it a totally wasted 20 minutes. I myself would gladly have too many people rushing to my aid than not enough. And if one person in that traffic jam got home a tad bit earlier than they would have had I not been there directing traffic, then, hey, I'm happy.
Oh, and the ice cream made it just fine. Grin.

Why Oppression is necessary......

We all, to some extent, hold our free market system dear. For the lucky ones with the connections, the savvy, the opportunity, and in some cases some real elbow grease, the opportunities to join that enviable club of the "Haves" are certainly there. Bob knows there has been enough housewives who somehow turned their baked cookies into a full blown commercial enterprise. However, I am sure it is quite obvious to most of us who care to look around and notice that a hell of alot of people never quite manage to figure out the mystery of navigating the raging river known to all of us as the American dream. The reasons are myriad, and yes, some blame can be laid upon many individuals who do not have the strength of character to make any real effort to do what it takes to join the club. However, there is one glaring fact that we all need to admit to before we can begin to understand the real truth concerning the free market system. And that fact is this: the free market system depends on poverty in order to operate.

I know it, you know it, even conservatives know it. The free market system is NOT free. You can see this in the sale and distribution of certain commodities, such as petroleum products. The price of petroleum and it's related products has little if nothing to do, actually, with what it costs to produce it. With petroleum, you literally have your customers "over a barrel", and are free to charge whatever you think you can get away with short of riots breaking out in the streets. Our society was built around the automobile, and citizens in most areas of the country are held hostage to it, so they have no choice but to pay whatever they are charged for it. No gas, no go no where, plain and simple. The government has the power to intervene and apply any number of various controls to control the price of this stuff, but will not do so until the economy becomes so damaged and the outrage so overwhelming that it has no choice. So, when your government is in the control of people with strong ties to the oil industry, you know damn well where their loyalties lie.

Then there's big business and corporations. The real purpose of these institutions is to produce profits, not for these ethereal entities we like to call investors, but for the good old boy clubs running these monsters. They award themselves obscene salaries for their supposed services while controlling the financial fates of millions of ordinary workers. Their job is not to provide you, the ordinary worker, with employment opportunities and any decent quality of life in return for your labor, no, their job is to suck as much production out of you as possible at the lowest possible wage, in order to make those profits they rely on to enrich themselves and their friends. So, if you are basically unskilled or do not happen to have a complex skill that is in high demand, you are basically screwed, for these people could care less about your quality of life. You are made to believe you need to be grateful you have a job at all. Without you, the worker bee, working hard for slave wages, the Walmarts of our miserable world could not offer those low, low prices that our consumer oriented society demands. If such annoyances as decent heath insurance, vacation, or even respect as a human being gets in the way of generating maximum profits, then that has to go. Conservatives bemoan any intervention by the government in their operations that attempt to offer employees any measure of protection, and you must remember, my fellow workers, that these are the same kind of people who employed children as laborers at one time and even now will use illegal immigrant labor whenever they can get away with it in order to avoid paying decent wages or benefits.

I know most of you would like to think that should fortune shine upon you, either through your own efforts or happening to be in the right places at the right time, you can enter the ranks of the Haves. But one thing I would like to ask you is just how much personal enrichment you think is due you? Is one hulking SUV sufficient to make you feel you made it? How about two, plus a nice high performance convertible? How about a nice big house on the waterfront, with enough square footage to house a small village? Would that be enough? Or how about a nice yacht, or two, or just one really big one? And your own personal learjet, we can't forget that. There is just no end to the toys and opulent living available to you, the rich guy, and since you have all this money, you might as well enjoy it, right?

Now, when you do achieve this opulent lifestyle, will you also dare to consider who aside form yourself helped to make this all possible? How about those janitors you employ in your office buildings. Is the 6 bucks an hour you pay him plenty enough? Or could you do better sneaking in some illegals to cut those odious labor costs? Do you REALLY need those 850 skilled workers your factory employs to produce your product, or do you think you could cut that by at least a fourth, demanding that the survivors just work harder and perhaps pay more of their own health care coverage? After all, they are lucky just to have a job, right? Another way you might consider increasing your profit margin is too lure other trained workers from some other company rather than investing in training to provide more skilled jobs for the community. You can always lay them off, anyway, if your profits don't grow every year, like you think they should. Just how much damage do you think you can do before you one day look in the mirror and admit to yourself that YOU are part of the problem? I guess one needs a soul in order to be able to see such a reflection.

Hurricane Katrina has brought forth yet another examination of the growing divide in this country between the haves and the have nots. We will all pay lip service to the problem and then go back to business as usual. The middle class will continue to shrink, the rich will get so rich they won't have any real clue as to how much money they have hoarded in off shore accounts, and the America we once thought we had will simply disappear behind barbed wire fences in gated communities. You think I doth protest to much. I'll meet you at a soup kitchen one day and we can sit down and discuss it over a nice bowl of gruel. I won't tell you I told you so.....I promise.

My apologies.......

For my last post, if it upset anyone. It was a momentary distraction, if not for you, then for myself. A man can only vent so much before he needs to step back and recover his center. I now return you to your regularly scheduled blogs.

The sweet spot.....

I know I'm jinxing myself and everybody living here, but of all the places I could have ended up living in the South East, it seems that I ended up in "the sweet spot". Last year, this state was crisscrossed with fairly powerful hurricanes, and even the panhandle got a healthy hit. The damage and effect on millions of lives was extensive, and yet it pales in comparison to what Katrina did to the Gulf Coast. Yet, the Jacksonville area of Florida has largely been spared from a direct hit by a hurricane for the longest time. They always hit further down, or veer up and nail the carolinas, but North East Florida seems to be blessed. However, I know this area is just bucking the odds, and it can only be a matter of time before a storm with our name on it decides we deserve a long overdue visit.
I thought I knew what it was like to be in the middle of the worst of the worst. Hurricane Camille, all told, was actually a much more powerful storm than Katrina was at it's worst. However, this storm managed to produce a storm surge that was even worse than the one Camille produced. The fact that New Orleans suffered so badly was mostly due to the fact that the city has been living on borrowed time, and time caught up with it. They have been warning us all along that the dikes were just not going to be able to keep the sea out forever, not with the city constantly sinking and the Mississippi River trying to reclaim it's right of way. Mississippi back in the day when The Michael was 14 years old was about as third world as you could come by in this nation, and the fact that the population has grown tremendously since then has not improved it's overall economic ranking; Mississippi is still ranked near the bottom of all states when it comes to income and social service levels. So, now there were alot more people and buildings in the way this time around so of course the devastation was more extensive.....there was more stuff in the way.
The response to Camille was immediate. Even in the backwoods we received lots of food and clothing aid, and as it turns out, there where actually as many if not more deaths from the storm from the rain it dumped far into the interior of the country. I woke up the next morning to a different world. And now it's so much like dejavu...........only on television.
I am sitting here in the sweet spot wondering if the people in this country will finally get a clue as to just how incompetent this administration is, and has been. The only thing "Homeland Security" seems to be good at is issuing colorful alerts every now and then as to the chances a terrorist got loose somewhere in America. But when the true terror hits, what happens? You are witnessing first hand what happens, my friends. Ignore the truth at your own peril. You've done it now for 6 years, and the crows came home to roost. Those of you who reelected howdy doody deserve the consequences. But not the rest of us.

A little ditty to brighten your day

Jesus came down from heaven
he was looking for some blood to spill
those fags and dykes and lesbians
and women who take the pill
and he saw this place called new orleans
just sitting on the gulf
hiding behind a bunch of dikes
now was that a pun or what
So he stired up wind and lots of rain
right off the African coast
and aimed it at those sinners
he was out to make some ghosts
The town was full of sinners
and liberals galore
and lots of godless tourists
like saddam and gamore
Pat Robertson was gleefull
that comic christian clown
he was after that commie argentine
but his comments got shot down
God fearing people everywhere
must think that it's so neat
that God has punished sinners
with bodies in the streets
But when we catch a preacher
with a hooker or a kid
I guess God thinks that must be fine
cause they try to keep it hid
So if you think this poem is sick
then maybe you'd agree
The God these people worship
doesn't care for you or me......


P.S. I apoligize for the juvenile flavor of this poem......but it fits the juvenile thought processes that inspired it.

A Thousand Points of Light......

As much as it may gall me that that expression was coined by President Dimwit himself, I have to give homage to the countless Americans who have rushed to the aid, either figuratively or literally, of our brethren suffering in the wake of Katrina. Donations are pouring into the coffers of the American Red Cross, people are donating food and water and all kinds of needed articles to the victims, and even countries that once were on the receiving end of our generosity are returning the favor in kind. When your government fails you, somehow a caring hand can appear out of nowhere from strangers who we could never repay for their kindness. These are the humans meant to lend meaning to the term "humanity".
There is one group of people whom I wish to lend special kudos to, for I feel a kinship with them, as but for the grace of Bob went I. The Doctors, nurses, and medical staff of Tulane Hospital and other like institutions were trapped in utter hell along with those in their care, and I can not in my wildest dreams imagine the extra yard they were forced to run. Patients that hospitals deal with these days are sicker and closer to the reaper than they ever have been, thanks to a health care system that despite it's excellence, is dangerously close to a total meltdown. Imagine a ward full of patients depending on the most advanced medical technologies to keep them alive, for better or for worse, and then imagine all we take for granted being stripped away in a short moment. No electricity to keep the ventilators and I.V. pumps going, no oxygen, no heart monitors, no food, water, linen...........hell, no anything. The lower floors are flooded, marauding gangs of looters are threatening the facility, psychopaths are shooting at the helicopters trying to evacuate these patients. Could you actually attempt to keep your sanity while faced with such horror?
Count your blessings, my fellow Americans. Then, count them again. And again. But, in the meantime, smile, and know true joy, that such people exist in this world that persevere in the face of utter despair. Bob bless them all.

FUBAR

I have so much to say about this catastrophe I don't even know where to begin. The kind of destruction and misery we are witnessing (if not suffering) is the very kind of event that our vaunted Homeland Security Administration was supposed to be prepared to deal with. Lord knows Bush, his boss Cheney, and the good folks at Haliburton and other associated cronies have raked in enough of our tax dollars and spent billions of it on promises that we would be able to prevent and/or respond to such events, whether they be man made or natural. Well, folks, I don't know about you, but this response so far has been Fucked Up Beyond All Recognition. And it started before the first breezes of Katrina began to brush over the dikes of New Orleans.


First off, I, and I hope many Americans, are wondering, where in the hell were the buses, trains, or anything else that could have evacuated people when they were needed; BEFORE the damn storm hit. We knew what was coming, and we knew it had the potential to do exactly what it did. Yes, I know there are always hundreds of clueless idiots who can't grasp the concept of "getting the fuck out of here" when hurricanes head their way, but there were also thousands of people, mostly the working poor, sick, elderly, whatever, that had neither the money for gas or a car to put it in. So, must the ugly question once again be raised? In America, as far as government is concerned, if you fucked up and didn't quite manage to snare the American dream and buy yourself one of those monster SUV's, to bad, you're on your fucking own? You mean it's NOT our government's responsibility, local, state, or national, to evacuate people from out of harms way when you can clearly see where harm is going to visit? Maybe I was alot more naive than I thought I was when it came to knowing what I could count on from my government representatives.
You know, I try very hard not to play the race card, but now I am convinced that the United States Government does not consider the black man here or anywhere else as someone worthy of caring about. I figured that as far as Africa was concerned, well, black people just happen to have the misfortune of not living over big oil fields. You may have noticed that Washington pays an enormous amount of attention to people who live over oil fields. We love them. We let them train terrorists in their religious schools, we don't get to upset when they pay lip service to being our friends, or, we trump up some excuse to just go in and take over their country. But should black people fall victim to famine, aids, genocide........oh well, we can't be the world's policeman, now can we? Tell me I'm wrong. Throw all kinds of convoluted geopolitical rationality at me from your ivory tower where you obviously know the reasons why it has to be this way. I fully understand, being an average citizen, that if I can't understand your reasoning, it can only be because I'm stupid. So stupid I must have had a ghost writer write this blog for me.

Oh, I could have handled this better, right? Jimmy Carter's brother Billy could have handled this better. I can assure you that heads will role eventually, but there's one place the buck will never stop, and that's at the desk of the President of these here United States. If the American people still had the capability to exercise their outrage like they once did, I can assure you that within 6 months, impeachment proceedings would be getting underway in the Congress. But, since I have totally lost any faith I ever had that my fellow citizens actually cared about each other, I have no faith whatsoever that George Bush will ever be held accountable for the subtle and not-so-subtle crimes his has committed against this nation. Or should I say Dick Cheny, since I honestly don't think his puppet George has the capacity to really understand who's actually running this country.
OK, I could go on and on about this, but I have to head on out and try and find a gas station with gas. I hope I can afford to get to work this next month, because my hospital is expecting an influx of patients being evacuated from the disaster area. That is, if the troops ever show up to interdict these snipers shooting at the medivac helicopters. Oh, that's right, I forgot, they are overseas getting picked off left and right spreading freedom and democracy.

We have been attacked!

President Bush, we have been attacked by mother nature, and the devastation is overwhelming! We can't afford this asinine war any more, we need our National Guardsmen home to help our families in their hour of need! The cost of this storm is going to be unprecedented, and with energy prices already going thru the roof, a new recession is sure to follow this, the most extensive natural disaster this country has yet faced. It's time to get our priorities straight! It's time to take care of our OWN!

The insurance companies have already had their comfy profits affected by the storms that ripped thru Florida last year, and after Katrina, I am sure most will just fold and home insurance will be totally unaffordable to any but the wealthiest. Without insurance, you can't get a mortgage, so the rebuilding effort will be severely affected from this day forward. The jobs alone that have been lost will toss even more people into poverty, especially in an area that was not that affluent to begin with. If the powers that be have any sense whatsoever, the City of New Orleans in it's entirety will be condemned, perhaps to be rebuilt in a higher, dryer place.



The chickens are coming home to roost, George. Your sorry excuse for an economic policy is going to come apart at the seams. You have no coherent plan to deal with the harsh realities that are beginning to plauge this country. You took the largest (and only) surplus this country ever had and pissed it away. Now we are going to hand our children a deficit they could never hope to pay off. Pretty soon foreign countries are just going to say the hell with us and cash in their IOU's, and then where will we be? Another third world country much like the one's we like to stick our noses into and mess up even more. The sooner we get your sorry ass out of office, and replace you with someone with a brain and a genuine heart, the better off we will all be. Of course, it will be after who knows how many more dead American soldiers and who knows how much more dept.



One day you will have to face your maker for what you have done to this country. And when you do, may Bob have mercy on your sorry soul.

Remember I said it comes in three's?

Well, like I mentioned before, the grass definitely has gotten greener over the septic tank, for good reason. I was thinking the pump was out, but the guy came out, tested the wires, and assured me that the septic pump was running, but that the main tank was probably full. Well, yea, I mean I know it is supposed to be pumped out something like every two or three years and this baby has five years worth of crap in it, so that makes perfect sense. Good news: Don't need $500 for a new pump. Bad news: Pumping runs around $200.
By now my loyal readers (checks in the mail, guys, I promise) are beginning to think I am bemoaning the cost of home ownership. After all, when you live in an apartment, they are responsible for all the maintenance. However, after years of being chased down the road every other year with outrageous rent increases and declining quality of affordable places to live, I can assure you the occasional financial hit you get being responsible for your own breakdowns is more than made up for by the stability, fixed mortgage payment, extra elbow room, and a million other perks that comes from owning your own place.
If I want to knock out a wall, I do it. If I want to plant a garden, I have plenty of dirt to do it in. I pay no pet deposit. I don't hear elephants rampaging on my ceiling at night. I don't hear men beating their wives next door. There hasn't been any crime I'm aware of in my area since I moved here. There are lamas up the road. And horses.
I am hoping this is the last major financial difficulty I have to deal with for the foreseeable future. Both I and the wife have fully functioning organs we can sell if things really get bad. Or, enough Americans will start feeling the pain of trying to survive in a George Bush America and decide there's got to be a better way. Already violence is flaring up across the land at the filling stations. Truckers are starting to go out of business like never before. School budgets are being strained by the cost of fueling school buses. Has it occurred to anyone how much we are paying George Bush to jet around the country in Air Force One telling the mothers of dead soldiers their losses were noble? Well, maybe it will begin to cost the army so much to patrol Baghdad in those gas guzzling death traps that we will start to see a reduction in deaths due to IED's. I still think we need to fly those boys home while we can still afford to.

Things I know about myself, relatively speaking........

1. I am short.
2. I am shorter than Shaq.
3. Short is relative.
4. I am tall.
5. I am taller than most of my coworkers (almost all women).
6. Tall is relative
7. I'm good looking.
8. I'd rather look like me than many people I know (and don't know, personally)
9. Looks are relative.
10. I'm intelligent.
11. George Bush has a degree, I don't.
12. I didn't start a war.
13. Intelligence is relative.
14. I am not a Christian since I started using my brain.
15. I don't stand on sidewalks spitting at people calling them fags who will burn in hell.
16. I believe in Bob.
17. Faith is relative.
18. I write great blogs
19. No one has told me to not to quit my day job......yet.
20. Talent is relative.
21. I love my wife.
22. I am married to the most beautiful thing Bob ever created.
23. Love is..........wonderful!

Cafe Aftermath

I've been living by myself these days
since the war took half my face
the small town that I live in now
is a quiet, peaceful place
There's a diner that I frequent
when I just don't care to cook
the kind folks there are used to me
and not afraid to look
I had a girl, and friends, and such
and I joined the National Guard
life was all American
and life was not that hard
Then I suddenly lost everything
when they sent me off to war
I lost my looks, then lost my girl
what did I lose it for?
Now I'm happy just to be alive
tho I'm not sure really why
I live here in a lonely world
I'm just waiting here to die
But today I head on down the road
to the diner for some lunch
but the waitress that I knew so well
used to make me laugh so much
has been replaced by someone new
but she doesn't seem to stare
she just asks me what I want to eat
"try the burger if you dare."
so I try to look her in the eyes
something hard for me to do
cause I know what they are looking at
and the pity's nothing new
so I keep my head down out of sight
and I tell her what I want
then she freshens up my coffee
and I pay for what I bought
well, this goes on for several days
and I eat there more and more
cause she acts so easily with me
like her heart had once been torn
then we start our conversations
seems we both have had our pain
I tell her that I'm Billy
She tells me she is Jane
now it seems I;m getting used to her
just like she is with me
but you know that where the heart's involved
nothing's ever free
So then one night when it's getting late
she does not let me leave
she closes down the joint
God, I could hear myself breath
she sits down next to me
and stares me in the eye
if there's some reason not to like me
then I want to know why
if scars could convey shock
then shocked I must have appeared
I liked her well enough
as best I could thru fear
well, she said, I like you fine too
and tho you might not think so
you're the finest man I ever knew
you're funny, you're smart
despite all you've been thru
never have I seen you bitter
never have I seen your blue
you treat me like a woman
and not a piece of meat
from what I've known of men
I find that kinda neat
So if I have to ask I will
tired of waiting that I am
could you stand my company
for one good evening
and a home cooked meal?
It takes some effort to smile
and I really have no charm
but something brightened up my face
it couldn't do no harm
so I stood and offered her my arm
and then without a word
we both ventured into the night
to try out a brand new world
My God that girl could cook
and her place was not half bad
a bottle of wine or two
and we both were tipsy a tad
so she pulls me to her bed
and I'm working on her clothes
both working more on feelings
both our eyes half closed
then I come across the foam
that fills one half her brassier
then I find the plastic leg
wondering how that got there
one breast, one leg
you never would have guessed
but what she had was plenty enough
to know I'd been blessed
She loved me fully that night
and then she gave me more
I could have left that morning
If I'd made it to the door
two starving human beings
had finally got their fill
just cause some bitch got fired
from that cafe on the hill
we each gave each other
what our lives had taken away
and now I get to live my life
each and every day

A Better Place to Be

Something that is becoming more rare these days in the world of music is the singer-songwriter. We baby-boomers were fortunate to have had access to the efforts of many talented individuals who flourished in the eclectic world of the old FM music scene before the media corporations got there claws into radio and ruined it for us. Nowadays, short of perhaps the "oldies" stations, every station serves an extremely narrow niche or genre, and only those who obey the dictates of what the marketing people claim is "hot" will get airtime. Isn't it a pity? Isn't it a shame?
Old FM brought us such underground wonders as ZZ Top, Pink Floyd, Iggy Pop, Grand Funk Railroad, and probably many others even I never got around to hearing on my little Japanese transistor radio beneath the sheets late at night. And alongside these guys we also got to enjoy John Denver, Barbara Striesand, Jim Croche, and my all time favorite from a long lost era, Harry Chapin.
It almost brings a tear to my eye to think that my readers half my age or younger probably have no idea who Harry Chapin was. I'm sure the two songs he is most famous for would probably sound familiar to everyone, such as Cat's in the Cradle, and Taxi. Ah, but the man produced a treasure trove of well written, soul grabbing songs that never got alot of airplay even back then, now heard only on his albums. And the saddest fact of all is that Harry left us at a relative early age, dying in an auto accident. They say that only the good die young. Well, then death was stalking Harry since he was born, because aside from songs that said things people needed to hear as well as enjoy, Harry poured his heart into efforts to end world hunger.
Harry's songs were such that corporate america today would have absolutely no use for them, and I can assure you he would never have gotten much attention today, as he played by HIS rules, not being a slave to music fashion.
The older I get, the more I miss Harry. Every once in awhile I have to pull up his music on the computer and listen to hours of his stuff just to re-center myself, to have a heartstring pulled, to suffer some righteous guilt, to laugh. Thanks to him and his contemporaries I am able to appreciate the few souls who today have managed to skirt the many sandbars of modern media and give us the food our souls so desperately need, such as John Prine, and even Yanni. I am going to close out this post today with the lyrics to a song I'm sure my younger audience probably never heard, but I'm sure that even they can appreciate, and might want to listen to by investing in one of Harry Chapin's many albums. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do every time I hear it.


A Better Place to be

by Harry Chapin



It was an early morning bar room,
And the place just opened up.
And the little man come in so fast and
Started at his cup.
And the broad who served the whisky
She was a big old friendly girl.
And she tried to fight her empty nights
By smilin' at the world.

And she said "Hey Bub, It's been awhile
Since you been around.
Where the hell you been hidin' ?
And why you look so down ?"

But the little man just sat there like he'd never heard a sound.

The waitress she gave out with a cough,
And acting not the least put off,
She spoke once again.

She said, "I don't want to bother you,
Consider it's understood.
I know I'm not no beauty queen,
But I sure can listen good."

And the little man took his drink in his hand
And he raised it to his lips.
He took a couple of sips.
And he told the waitress this story.

"I am the midnight watchman down at Miller's Tool and Die.
And I watch the metal rusting, and I watch the time go by.
A week ago at the diner I stopped to get a bite.
And this here lovely lady she sat two seats from my right.
And Lord, Lord, Lord she was alright.

"Oh she was so damned beautiful that she'd warm a winter's frost.
But she was long past lonely, and well nigh unto lost.
Now I'm not much of a mover, or a pick-em-up easy guy,
But I decided to glide on over, and give her one good try.
And Lord, Lord, Lord she was worth a try.

"Tongued-tied like a school boy, I stammered out some words.
But it did not really matter much, 'cause I don't think she heard.
She just looked clear on through me to a space back in my head.
And it shamed me into silence, as quietly she said,
'If you want me to come with you, then that's all right with me.
Cause I know I'm going nowhere, and anywhere's a better place to be.
Anywhere's a better place to be.'

"I drove her to my boarding house, and I took her up to my room.
And I went to turn on the only light to brighten up the gloom.
But she said, 'Please leave the light off, Oh I don't mind the dark.'
And as her clothes all tumbled 'round her, I could hear my heart.
The moonlight shown upon her as she lay back in my bed.
It was the kind of scene I only had imagined in my head.
I just could not believe it, to think that she was real.
And as I tried to tell her she said 'Shhh.. I know just how you feel.
And if you want to come here with me, then that's all right with me.
'Cause I've been oh so lonely, lovin' someone is a better way to be.
anywhere's a better way to be.'

"The morning come so swiftly as I held her in my arms.
But she slept like a baby, snug and safe from harm.
I did not want to share her with the world or break the mood,
So before she woke I went out and brought us both some food.

"I came back with my paper bag, to find out she was gone.
She'd left a six word letter saying 'It's time that I moved on.'"

The waitress took a bar rag, and she wiped it across her eyes.
And as she spoke her voice came out as something like a sigh.
She said "I wish that I was beautiful, or that you were halfway blind.
And I wish I weren't so dog-gone fat, I wish that you were mine.
And I wish that you'd come with me, when I leave for home.
For we both know all about loneliness, and livin' all alone."

And the little man,
Looked at the empty glass in his hand.
And he smiled a crooked grin,
He said, " I guess I'm out of gin.
And I know that we both have been so lonely.
And if you want me to come with you, then that's all right with me.
'Cause I know I'm goin' nowhere and anywhere's a better place to be

Thou art......

Oh, thou art vex
each breath I take an effort these aged years
when labor doth I undertake in the name of progress
progress, indeed, I mutter beneath said breath
as the world about me falls
to entropy
Oh, thou are challenge
each morn that greets me with pain anew
to pry myself from the embrace of warm water
reminiscent of some womb
I could only wish to remember
in a safe and sane time before birth
Oh, thou art mine grievance
the peace thou rob of me
as I grasp and grapple with some escape
of the consequences of failures long awaiting me
born of the nurturing of avoidance
come home to greet me
Oh, thou art TRIUMPH
as the clock winds once more
about the face of my life
circular, never ending
no beginning, no conclusion
just a trip around a dial that marks my days
able to draw a breath and say
I love you

Homestead Malfunction number Two......

OK, the air-conditioner is running like a champ and I won't have to sell a kidney to pay for it. However, there must still be a karmic balance due because now the septic tank pump has decided not to pump. This might not have showed up as a problem right now when I least need more problems if the idiot who installed the system had not left the damn tank alarm switch on "silent". So, I have no idea how long ago the this started happening. Wait, the septic guy is here........
20 minutes later, the diagnosis is that the pump is running fine, but that the main tank where all the crap goes is probably chock full of...you know....that stuff. So, all I need do is scrap off some dirt, pull the hatch, make sure the float valve is not hung up or something, and, eventually, I have to have this tank pumped out. It should have been pumped out already, but out of sight is out of mind. So, it's a slow burning fire I can put out when I can afford the water to douse it with.
I am keeping a sharp eye on the dishwasher, clothes washer and dryer and refrigerator now. Money sucking emergencies come in threes, so any one of those could go at any moment. Then again, I have two cars........

A Beautiful Mind

One thing I am regularly faced with in my job is the face of madness. We get regular visits by attempted suicides, and most of those are not so much attempted as practiced.....they know exactly how much of what to take to get a free ticket to the Critical Care Unit via the Rescue Express, without to much chance of actually dying. Quite a few we call our "frequent flyers", and they tend to be the nastiest personality wise. While in the throws of their drug-induced delirium, they bite, they kick, they spit, they scream obscenities, you name it, it's the best of Inappropriate Behavior, the mini-series. We pump their stomaches, fill their guts with liquified charcoal to absorb the bad stuff, shove a tube down their throats to get them breathing, then tie them down with restraints and enjoy their pleasant company for a few days. You might consider it a cry for help, but with these girls, and it's mostly girls, it's a profession, one they have gotten good at, at least so far. The odds are they are going to screw up and pass out before they dial 911, or they manage the wrong combination of drugs and then no amount of rescue can help them. Aside from the cost that the hospital must swallow to save these rebels without a clue, they tend not to realize the damaging effect some of these drugs can have on their organs, even though we manage to stabilize them, they end up becoming candidates for an organ transplant they have no hope of getting, due to their habit of bodily abuse. We don't give precious organs to people who will only turn around and keep drinking or taking drugs.
You might imagine by now that I and my fellow care givers are cold, heartless people to be discounting people so easily. Nothing could be further from the truth. Yes, in many cases an emotional trauma or mental illness has a role in these unfortunate events, in which case we truly hope they can get the help they need to get their lives back. If they have loving, caring spouses or families, AND they have decent insurance, chances are they will get the help they need. Problem is, many more are outcasts for one reason or another, no support systems, no insurance, no one to truly care what happens to them. These people are by now totally embittered to society as a whole, and the resources available to them are pathetic to say the least. Many would require the toughest of love, if it was even available to them, to straighten them out, to provide some sense of purpose and belonging to them, as well as a sense of responsibility to themselves and the people around them. They are damaged goods, a product of a society that cares more about shoving democracy down the throats of strangers thousands of miles away than the well being of it's own citizens.
Can we as caregivers do much more than we already do, bringing them back from deaths' door and sending them back to the world that encouraged them to behave so? You tell me. I dodge their swings, I ignore their curses, I clean their butts when they crap their beds, I feed them when I have to keep their hands tied down, and I never take it personally. Sometimes when they laugh and brag about how they are going to take another stab at it as soon as the county mental health clinic cuts them loose, I just smile and keep my mouth shut. Because I know they are right. The so called shrinks there will ask them if they intend to do it again, they will smile most angelic and insist they never would, and the ass hole will sign them out and let them go, because they need the bed for the next one on their way. There's no funding for long term, legally enforced psychiatric care, because the money is better spent by us good citizens on football stadiums and other much needed social programs. The kindest thing we could do for them is to hand them a pamphlet entitled "How to do it right, the proper way to commit suicide". But, we can't do that, that would be crass and heartless. But at least it would be honest.
I do not fear death. I fear madness. I fear despair. I fear a stroke or some other debilitating occurrence which would place me at the good mercies of a health care system that tends to bottom line rather than any quality of life it might could retrieve for me in the hour of my greatest need. But, in the meantime, if you come to me, and do not attempt to bite me or hit me or sicken me with your lame brand of kill yourself humor, I will hold your hand, I will talk with you, I will do everything a man in my position can do to make you comfortable and help get you well again, and if nothing else, I will care about you. Because you, but for the grace of Bob, are I. And a beautiful mind is a terrible thing to waste.

Being the chosen ones, let's go screw with somebody

The Florida Christian Coalition, being the fine upstanding God-fearing Americans that they are, have decided we need protection from those evil homo sex u wals that dare want to share their love within the bonds of matrimony. They are busy gathering signatures to put on the ballot an amendment to the State constitution to define marriage as strictly between a man and a woman. Bob knows there are plenty enough homophobes in this state to accomplish such an initiative. To bad we don't have an equal number of warophobes, povertyphobes, or homelessphobes.
Now, me, personally, you will never find stirring a drink with an umbrella in a gay bar. The flaming ones, the ones who put on such a grand show it's embarrassing to witness, piss me off, if only for the effect they have on their own cause. And please, make one pass at me and I will let you off with a friendly warning....twice....well.
Other than that, no problem. Love who you want. I think it's wonderful. I'm all for a person walking the path that Bob laid down for them. No sane person in their right mind would expose themselves to such abuse, so no, don't EVEN suggest to me that it's a choice. Not unless you want that "You are really a clueless, stupid, and mean human being" look I am rather good at giving someone.
Those good Christians, the ones who have not been rushing to the orphanages and state homes to adopt all these foster kids, also would not want our poor parent-less kids to suffer the terrible consequences of being adopted by two loving, caring people of the same sex. In retrospect, I would have been thrilled to have been adopted by two sasquaches who actually wanted to provide me a stable home, a good upbringing, and yes, gasp, love. However, it was deemed necessary to keep my moving around from home to good christian home rather than expose me to the ills of homosexuality, which certainly would have infected me with the gay virus.
So, when they bring you the petition and ask you to sign it, go right on ahead, because Bob knows we all need to be protected from the hordes of married gays that will be stalking our Walmarts and Publix's, infecting us all with the vibes such couples would be sending out all around them. God forbid!

It could have been worse.......

The air-conditioner repair man could have been a serial killer. Either he wasn't, or he needed the money. Anyway, for those of you who have been waiting with bated breath as to the outcome of my heat stress woes, here's the straight skinny.
Guy shows up at a reasonable time, and we discuss the problem. He says let's check the gas pressure and he does and sure enough, I'm down by a couple of pounds. He thinks it probably was a very slow leak, and if it hasn't gotten worse in the interim, the pressure should hold for awhile. If not, the gas will leak back out before the summer is over and THEN we know we have a much more expensive problem.
I like this guy. He didn't make any effort to try and sell me a new unit, at least not for now, and he didn't go looking for some expensive part to replace. He just charged me the basic service charge plus the cost of the freon, so I got off at less than a hundred bucks, when I was expecting to shell out twice that at least. I do see a new unit in the future, but that's gonna have to be in that future when The Michael somehow comes up with a chunk of change.
Now, about that wet, lush patch of grass growing right over the septic tank that the goats have been avoiding........

Anticipation versus Dread

Well, the air conditioner miraculously worked just fine all day yesterday, however, the desperate call to the repair man has already been made. So today I get to wait around the house for up to four hours for the man to show up and scratch his head and ask "What did you say was wrong with it?" and "That'll be 70 bucks please."
I think maybe I had never fully defrosted that damn coil all along until night before last when I left for work around 6:25, leaving the blower fan running so that any trace of ice would have melted off before the wife turned the thermostat back to auto and cool, and since the kids left to return home, the interior heat and humidity load was reduced, allowing the unit, even in it's compromised condition, to stay ahead of any icing on the coil. That's my theory, at least. I'm sure the repair man will hook up his specialized equipment, chant some ancient spells, and with the wisdom that comes from knowledge, totally blow my theory right out of the water. Whatever, I just want him to fix the damn thing, not tell me it will cost half as much to do so as just replace the thing, neither of which I can really afford. If he simply tells me that I somehow overcame a temporary quirk these things are known to have, and only charges me the 70 bucks to crown me an accidental genius, I will have to be happy about it. Bob, I wish I knew more about just a couple of things rather than a little bit about just about everything. The former could actually be worth something.
OK, This is just the prequel to "The Great Air-conditioning Caper". I shall report back the fiasco that is sure to occur once the villain, or hero, depending on the outcome, comes on the scene and does the voodoo that he do so well.......

Heat

I returned from work to the homestead to find three very unhappy campers. The crux of their unhappiness rested with the fact that without my constant, expert intervention, the air-conditioner was doing an excellent job of making a block of ice on the coils, but a piss poor job of cooling the mansion. Alas, it seems as tho the coolant leak has only gotten worse, and the machine is barely able to keep 2 degrees ahead of the outside temperatures, which are in the mid nineties now. I can understand their angst.
I dug out the phone book at work and did some how-much-is-this-gonna-hurt reconnoissance. The gist of it is that you have to pay a just-showing-up charge of around 80 bucks. Plus fuel surcharge (you have to pay THEM for their gas getting to you). Plus parts. Plus labor. Plus coolant, so much by the pound. This stuff, a gas mind you, comes in POUNDS? Yea, right. I thought they taught me in high school that gases are measured in cubic units, but maybe I missed something somewhere. One shop quoted me lower prices for everything all around, but BOB knows they are probably low balling me just to get started on my wallet. Whatever, they have me by my hot, sweaty......well, you know.
Looks like I'm gonna have to short Peter to pay Paul this payday. Could I suffer the remainder of the summer without the air? Probably, albeit miserably. But the furniture and computer and anything else that can suck up the humidity and warp would probably differ with that opinion. I know the wife would be giving me those I'm-trying-desperately-to-think-you-actuallly-care-about-me eyes until those cool breezes return sometime next year. Around Christmas. Loaded with humidity.
These are the joys of home-ownership. Instead of outrageous rent increases, you get costly breakdowns in essential life support systems. I could easily refinance this loan and repair everything, except that our credit has suffered the effects of occasional breakdowns that ate on time payments on other things. It's a vicious circle. However, we shall prevail. We always do. Somehow. Someway. Anyone interested in a spare kidney?

Bob I wish I had something to post today!

Well, it's another hot day here at the Fabulous Goat Ranch and Sandlot Estate. The evil twin and her boyfriend drove up last night for a visit. She and her sister just turned 32, and they have the same stay young and hot genes that makes their mother the pearl of my filthy eye. I think her boyfriend is younger than her, and, of course, he acts like it. Whatever, seems the women in our family prefer their studs on the young side. I guess they think we are easier to manipulate....hehe.
The three of them left to visit the grand matriarch who refuses to give up after hip fractures, strokes, you name it, this old gal puts the ever-ready bunny to shame. She'll meet her maker when she's damn good and ready. When I first met the old battle-axe, she was not impressed, thinking her daughter would have done better by the svelte cuban she had been dating. That cuban even got out of his car at an intersection in a stalker type effort to discuss the mutual object of our desires one day, and I thought I was going to have to get out of the car and tazer the SOB, but luckily the light turned green, and I left him dashing back to his car amongst the horns of alot of angry drivers stuck behind him. Whatever, unethenic little old me won the prize, and it was little old me who helped care for the mean old woman after she was disabled by the symptoms of old age, including using my medical expertise to keep her out of the emergency room whenever possible. She's now in a nursing home, far outstripping anybody's ability to take care of her. And I think she actually got around to liking me. Imagine that.
Luckily, we just got three fresh movies from Netflix, so the evening shouldn't be a total bore. They are out driving around right now in the car I just did the brake job on, so I have so many fingers crossed right now I can barely type. Tomorrow I have to go back to work, another 12 hour shift trying to keep 8 nurses happy and helping to keep 16 very sick people alive.
Hopefully, the ones that need to die will do so despite our efforts to the contrary. And hopefully, those that do survive will do so with some quality of life afterwards. The real perks of my job sometimes seem to be few and far between, but those I do have are magnificent, in the great scheme of things. I just hate getting in Bobs' way, ya know?
If you came looking today for a well written, in depth look into the mysterious, the unknown, or the truly side splitting, I am so sorry that I disappointed you. However, if you just stick with me, who knows, there might be a meteor headed this way with my name written all over it, and if I don't zip when I should have zagged, the story that follows should be worth the visit!

Captains Log: Mydate 15082005 EST

As the wife set about cleaning the house, I ventured out into the morning heat to inspect the brakes on the Focus. The wheels came off easily enough, and a quick visual revealed that the brake pads were indeed on their last legs. After studying the complex mechanism that secured the pads to the thingamajig to the rotor, I decided that short of some secret lying in wait for me to discover buried beneath the black grease, I could do this. It's a guy thing. If it's not electronic, it CAN be done.
Then I discover that the bolts mounting the brake assembly to the wheel is a covered hex pin, and as is always the case in situations like this, I had every hex there was just short of the size needed. Well, what the hell, good excuse as any to add yet another tool to my arsenal. So I hop into the goat-mobile and dash down to the auto parts store hoping like hell they have the hex wrench as well as the pads, and that I could afford both. The guy at the parts desk was very helpful, retrieving a new said hex pin to see if the socket hex I had discovered in the tools aisle was the correct size. It was, and the cheapest set of pads were in the budget as well. which is not to say I could actually afford these things, just that something else was going to have to wait it's turn to get paid. One of the rotors was getting pretty badly gouged out and I could not afford to let it go any longer.
Back at ranch, I proceeded to try out my theory that these hex pins were the key to disassembly of the brakes, and much to my relief, they were. After prying apart the pads with a screwdriver, there was plenty of play to pull the caliper off the wheel, revealing the true extent of pad wear. By this time the sweat is really pouring off of me, into my eyes, so I had to take a break to grab a sweat band and grab something to drink. Then it was back to the task, figuring out exactly how the pads were attached to the assembly and prying them loose. The spring clips were alot more complicated than the Escorts brakes, and it took some study to figure out how to manipulate them to get the new pads onto their mounts. But, being the incredibly brilliant and foolhardy do-it-yourselfer that I am, I got them all installed exactly the way I had found them.
The whole thing slid onto the rotor nicely and the hex bolts lined up easily, and within no time, I had the right side completed. Then, it was back on with the tire, jack down the right side, and head over to the left, to repeat the whole procedure, after a smoke break and a drink and sopping some of the sweat off me with a towel. By now my t-shirt beneath my coveralls was soaking wet, and my hands blacker than a republicans' heart. In about two-thirds the time it took me to do the right side I had the left side completed and the tire back on. All that was left to do was test drive it, and after pumping the brake puddle back up, I took a very short trip up the road to listen for the grinding, which was now gone, mission accomplished. When I got back I checked the tires since they appeared to be kind of squat, and sure enough, the pressure in all of them was terribly low, so I spent another 15 minutes with my trusty little air pump bringing them back to their optimum 32 lbs of pressure. Now I had a pretty good idea why the mileage i had gotten during the trip yesterday wasn't as good as I thought it should be.......stupid me should have checked the pressure BEFORE we left....DUH!
I would have planned the much needed oil change for tomorrow, but that's gonna have to wait till payday, which means it won't get done till next week maybe. At least I got the paper trash burned today, another task out of the way, and the house really looks nice after my wife had her shot at it. She even bathed the dog, and brushed out enough hair to make another, albeit smaller, dog out it, which we might fashion into the likeness of a yorkshire terrier and sell to someone for $500. We'll just assure them it's a VERY well trained dog that needs little maintenance, and will never bark.
Oh, and the debauchery turned out quite well, thank you. Since neither me or the wife had to work all THAT hard today and nothing really hurts, we might turn in a repeat performance. Debauchery is fun and economical, and will not impact the budget any more than it has been already. We will have to keep the volume down, however, as the evil twin and her boyfriend will be visiting tonight. We wouldn't want to scald their young, impressionable ears, now would we? He he.

This summer of my discontent.....

I and the wife are lazing around the house today, listening to Prairie Home Companion, while the air conditioner struggles to keep the temperature below eighty and dry, while it's 94 and muggy as a sponge outside. The goats managed to trim down some of the front "yard" before the heat got to them and I returned them to the coolness of their pen area beneath the oaks. Every once in awhile I have to turn the thermostat to FAN and let the outside coils shed their ice build-up. I'm sure the unit is low on freon, but I'm just dealing with the hassle until some extra cash manifests itself to offer up to the air-conditioner repair God, who I am sure will demand a hefty sacrifice.
We took a little trip, if you can call a whole tanks worth of gas little, to a small town down south called Cassadega. It's a nondescript little place that is home to a community of spiritualists and mediums. The wife has really gotten into this stuff, so it was a pilgrimage of sorts for her. The two twins, the kid, and the new son-in-law met us down there. We toured the several shops selling pendents, stones, and other magical paraphernalia, but didn't have the money, nor I the inclination, to splurge for a reading from one of the many "certified" mediums that offer their services for a price. We did restock our sage supply and purchased a few stones, which are purported to enhance certain aspects of dealing with life. We had a nice little pik-nik under an aging gazebo down by the lake, while I went around with the camera and camcorder capturing the flavor of the place and perhaps a few ghost images. Since it was a hazy day, there were no lens flares or reflections intruding on my optics, so there were no globes or ghostly images to delight the wife. I try.
Today is our 13th wedding anniversary. Thirteen happens to be my lucky number, however, unfortunately, my luck never did extend itself to money. So no night on the town, no gifts other than what we already got yesterday, just a nice dinner and relaxation at home, which I hope will devolve into pure, raw debauchery. One thing I and the wife have always enjoyed when we aren't exhausted or something hurts is our debauchery. Of course, it's a milder form of debauchery than it used to be, but it's still working for us. We try.
Tomorrow I have to experiment with removing the tires from our newer car and investigating the grinding noise from the brakes. I am hoping like hell that the front brake pads are just thinner than they appear from outside inspection, and that replacing the pads on anti-lock brakes is not more complicated than on standard ones, which I figured out how to do with the older car years ago. If not, then it's another sacrifice to the brake-job god, who yes, demands more than I have in cash on hand.
What is really burning me is the ever increasing price of gas. The price of this commodity has nothing to do whatsoever with how much it costs to produce. We are simply at the mercy of speculators who figure out every excuse they can come up with to declare that a barrel of oil costs X amount. Now, if there was REALLY a reason that that barrel of oil cost so much more today than it did yesterday, then the oil companies would not be making that much more in profit. However, as the price of oil goes up, so does the record and obscene profits the oil companies rake in. And we, the sheep of the world, with no one in authority with the balls to put a stop to it, just have to suck up and pay it. We have no choice. We have to get to work, and our brilliant government has made no effort whatsoever to provide us with alternate methods of getting around.
Yes, you guys in New York and Chicago have your subways, we guys down south here have nothing but asphalt ribbons. Those of us who have had the good fortune to be so well off we can buy a hulking tank of a vehicle that costs as much as my home, and gets 6 inches per gallon of gas, are just now discovering that they might have to cut back on their daily cups at star-bucks. The rest of us are feeling our budgets squeezed like never before. My boss is not rushing to raise my pay to deal with this spiraling out of control increase in my cost of living. So, the ordinary bills of living are becoming ominous things that lie in wait in the mailbox to burn your fingertips when you touch them. Our leaders in Washington could care less. The economy is humming along, they say. That's news to me, and to alot of people living on the edge. Well, this is capitalism.
Them that's got get more and more while us that don't just don't. Whatever, it's never going to change. The two fold increase in the homeless population here locally hasn't passed that threshold where enough of us are threatened by it. I know that as a good American, I have to realize that my station in life has totally been my responsibility and is my failure.
Well, fine, I will scale back my desire to just be comfortable and get used to the idea that I haven't worked hard enough to deserve it. But, in the meantime, I will rail against the machine, cause I really am a good American.......one pissed off man with a loud mouth, an opinion, and the audacity to express it.

How to lose a fight and influence people........

I was 15 years old, and had been placed with a wonderful family in Pascagoula, Mississippi. Ed was a butcher at the local supermarket, and he got me my very first job there as a bag-boy. Let me tell you, there's nothing more exciting to a "welfare" kid then to resemble a "regular" kid and enjoy such wonders as earning your own spending money and getting to know people outside of home and school. I quickly established the mechanics of loading those paper bags just right to fit everything evenly without squishing stuff in the minimum number of bags without making any one to heavy. It rained alot that summer and I would come home with water-swollen feet and a smile on my face. Ed promised me that if I kept up the good work, he would buy me a motorbike and I'd pay him back. My last family hadn't even bothered to get me a bicycle.
Now, by then I was nearing the end of what little growing I was going to accomplish, which to my horror was no where near where it was supposed to be. Most kids my age had long passed me by in the height department. Well, when you find yourself in those circumstances, the best thing you can do is just keep your head down. My only problem was my mouth. It had a mind of it's own. It didn't care if the kid calling me a punk or some other stupid thing was a full foot taller than me. It just answered back. I also wore glasses, which only added to their repertoire of insults. Such was life. My tendency to give back as good as I got in the verbal arena almost insured I was going to force my tormentors to carry it to the next level. So telling them to go fuck themselves was probably not the most brilliant strategy for avoiding conflict, but I just couldn't help it. THEY were bothering ME, not vice versa, so, yea, they could go fuck themselves, dammit!
Well, one guy working at the supermarket decided he didn't like me, and started informing me of that fact shortly after I started working there. I had never once looked at him funny or said anything derogatory to him, but I guess some people feel it is their mission in life to have someone fear them. Problem was, I wasn't fearing him. He'd tell me how ugly I was, or stupid, or short, or some other brilliant observation, and I'd disagree with him. He'd get in my face, I'd stare him back down. He didn't like that. And I didn't care. He was smart enough not to get violent with me while on the job, but he'd quietly threaten me in the parking lot every chance he got. My rolling my eyes at him or just ignoring his threats really got him boiling. It was soon to boil over.
That summer was the first time I'd been allowed to pretty much go where I wished, as long as my foster family knew where I was. I always went where I asked to go, and got back when promised. These people had given me the first respect and trust I had ever experienced, and I wasn't about to let them down. So, this day I was walking into town to a photo shop that carried a certain kind of film I needed for this Agfa camera someone had given me. Well, I'm almost to the store, and had my head down as I walked, when I heard off to my right, "Hey, you little fucker, I'm gonna kick your ass!"
I glanced right, and straight at me was walking my protagonist, his face full of hatred, and he closed the distance before I could even register what was about to happen to me. Now, this was not the first fight I had ever been in. I had done my share of bobbing and weaving, even getting in a few shots, but that was years ago when most of my bullies were not that much bigger than me. This guy was something like five feet seven or eight, and I was barely clearing five period. Well, my fight or flight computer quickly calculated the odds, and the damn thing came up with a fantastic reflex strategy that to this day will go down in my personal history as FUBAR. Ask someone what FUBAR stands for.
Just as his fist slammed into the side of my face, I dropped. Not from the impact, mind you, but from my legs just folding up under me. I went down fairly hard, seeing stars from his blow, and incredible reflex strategy instructed my about to be battered body to just curl up in a ball. Now, I know he might have been able to outrun me, but my smarter self would have gone with that option had my instinct been allowed to run the show. I saw no shame whatsoever in prey animals running like hell from cheetahs, which is what this scenario most closely resembled. But NOOOOO. Here I was on the ground, with this pissed-off bad boy kicking me like a deflated football. Somehow, I managed to cover my vital organs and ribcage, but he pretty much made hamburger out of every other exposed surface. He finally got tired, and probably a bit discouraged at me not fighting back, and just spit on me and stomped off, cursing. I uncovered and looked around thru my one good eye, trying not to cry or scream out from the pain, and looking up I saw what must have been a friend of his leaning against his bike, shaking his head. He looked at me with this rather pained look, and asked. "Why didn't you at least try and fight back? Maybe you wouldn't be so messed up right now?" I didn't have anything to say to him, cause things had happened way to fast and I had no idea why I reacted the way I did. All I knew was I had suffered one hell of a beating, and I just wanted to limp home. "You gonna be OK, kid?" Mouth once again, never learning it's lesson, simply responded...."A little fucking late to be asking that, asshole." I said that as I was walking away, so he either didn't hear me or didn't care. Thank god.
Well, I got home and everybody was shocked to see this messed up, bleeding, black and blue and swollen everywhere kid stumbling into the living room. I explained how I'd been jumped, and by who, trying not to include any details to add to my shame. Ed didn't say anything. He didn't give me that "you little pussy" look I was expected from a father figure. His wife tended my wounds and expressed her outrage. But I went back to work the next day, a bit tenderly, not about to wimp out.
When my shocked coworkers and manager asked me what had happened, I had no problems whatsoever telling them the truth. Their reactions were those of people not surprised, but still angry. Either bully boy hadn't been scheduled to work that day or he was too afraid to come to work, all I know is he didn't have a job anymore, at least at that supermarket. He came in the next day, when I was off, and was surprised to be handed his walking papers. He was also warned never to go near me again if he didn't want to look like a certain beat up little kid. Ed was a quiet man, but more than capable of making his feelings known. Needless to say I never saw this creep again, and kept my job till the welfare people intervened in my new life and screwed it up again.
I'm truly sorry if any man reading this feels I let the gender down. I'm truly sorry that you have this insane idea that the measure of a man is carried in his fists. I will not apologize for standing up for myself when verbally abused, or running when avoidance is the better part of valor. I am alive, in one piece, and that guy ended up in prison, where the measure of a man is how many bitches he has. It could have been worse. I could have had this insane idea that I could get ahold of a gun and shoot those (censored) who assaulted me without provocation, which is happening now in this crazy age of ours. So if you are one of those dads encouraging your sons to be bad-asses, then you truly have my pity. The odds have shifted.