So much for the bright outlook...
This is terrifying.

Better Days.
(Thanks Boss.)

So...this may sound funny what with all that’s going on around here bad lately (like my fiancé going into surgery to have all the cancer parts removed next week)... But I think my outlook on life is actually brightening up a bit.
I’ve been missing my dad a whole lot lately...it would have been his birthday on Tuesday. I woke up and cried for a while. But I’ve been talking to my mom about life lately and I think I’m finally starting to figure some things out. So this week I realized that my father would not want me to be sad and unhappy when I think about him. No matter how much we missed out on when we stopped getting along during my teen years and never quite recovered from that...I think he’d want me to remember him and be happy. We had some great times together. He taught me a great many things. I wish I had said thank you to him other than when he was in the nursing home where I saw him shortly before he died.
The hardest part has been realizing how much I am like him. And not being able to laugh about that with him. There are so many questions about life I would have liked to have been able to ask him...but I didn’t even know the questions until recently. In some ways it’s like I’m figuring out for the first time what it really means to be alive. That the here and now is what it is...that history and the future really are just that. They don’t exist in the here and now.
I just need to get back to being myself. I used to be a really happy guy who was a lot of fun to be around. I knew how to enjoy myself. And then somewhere along the line it’s like I got lost. There was a dark cloud over everything.
Well....if this is the only life I get...that’s no way to live it.
And I believe it’s changing for me.
More relaxed.
Happier.
Calm.

I miss my dad more than I could have ever imagined would be possible.

Ecologically inappropriate.

So...with all my talk of making the world a better place...
Last night I, for the third time in the last ten years...second time this year, purchased a Ford truck from the 1980's. My second 250 and second van. Lets hope this van works out better than the last one did. I already made my appointment with John (my mechanic) for next wednesday to have it looked over and get whatever needs it fixed plus change all the fluids and stuff. I may do those myself and maybe a tune up before I take it over there...we'll see, I kinda have a lot on my plate right now.
So this one is a 1989 Econoline 250 with about 250,000 miles on it. It's from one of Roz's neighbors. He bought himself a new Sprinter. It's grey and white...but we all know that's going to change. I'm thinking this will be the one I finally make into an Art Car.
And I was smart this time....it's 2 years newer than the last one...and even if I have to put a new motor in this one...it still wouldn't cost as much as the other one did :)
I think I did ok.
Plus the guy wants to hire me for his contracting business when he needs help on bigger corporate jobs. That would be pretty funny...2 or 3 days working for him and I'd probably make back what I paid him for the van.

Anyway...it's parked in the driveway with the rest of the cement board for the floor and the new bathtub sitting in it....so I need to go get to work busting up the old tub.
I'm taking a thermometer with me...I'd swear on a day like today with the sun beating down on the roof that it will easily get up to about 115 up there. Next trip to Lowe's I'm picking up a digital thermostat for the heater...that'll tell me exactly how hot it is.

ok...babble babble babble ....
Get to work!
:)

Flying Cars spotted over the Nile River!

Denial is not just a river in Egypt.

I have taken myself out of the loop. I stopped watching the news. I don`t know the current issues.

I feel lighter somehow.The ideology of my youth expected a hell of a lot more out of us as a planet by this point.
Flying cars would be nice...but how about cars that don`t pollute and people who don`t kill other people.
The Sun is right there every day. For $10,000 (and the price would go down if more of us were doing it) you can put a solar collector pannel on your roof and then the electric company will send YOU a check every month for the extra you are putting back into the grid.
Wind power...there are actually polital fights going on in this country right now because people are fighting having the giant windmills put in their neck of the woods because they are ughly. Here's a great solution...lets tell them that's fine we'll put the windmills somewhere else so you don't have to look at them...and oh by the way we'll be building this nuclear waste dump in your back yard but you shouldn't have a problem with that because it's completely underground so you won't have to look at it.

I really hope we just have a skewed perspective here in the modern day Holy Roman Empire and that people in the other modernized nations of the world don't think like we do. Well...the "royal we" ... lets hope they do think more like me and cheesey.

ok...I guess I could explain that last post a bit.
When I was a kid in the 70's it seemed like everything we learned was about how we need to take care of the planet. recycle, conserve...that sortof thing. From my perspective, here we are 30 years later and it doesn't seem like those things are quite as important (although we all have recycle bins now whereas we didn't back then). However...I am wondering if it's really a societal view that has changed or if I just don't notice it anymore. Are school kids still being inundated with recycling messages? Or do we not care anymore?
It's been interesting seeing the turnover in my neighborhood in the past couple of years where all of the couples with children becoming teenagers sold their houses and moved away and all of the people moving in are first having babies. Ever since I moved in I had been the only person on this end of the street putting out a recycle bin...now there is one in front of every house every week.
Is there a correlation between that and the fact that all the people who moved out are blue collar and all the ones moving in are white collar? I wonder how that goes along with me being white collar when I moved in and blue collar now.
It's all just changing times I guess...life just moving along.

The Wisdom of Age...

Just because we no longer live in the realms we traveled during our youth...doesn't mean they no longer exist in the real world.

Vacation!

I just got back from spending a couple of days with two of my friends from the Folk Fest somewhere in central New Jersey. Alice bought a condemned house last year and since Dan moved in with her they are getting really close to being able to live in the house legally. They are working their way through the reconstruction and getting all the inspections and stuff. Won't be long before they don't have to live in a tent hidden off in the back woods anymore.

As for the back woods...HOLY SHIT!
Along with the tiny broken down old house (that is really looking cute now that it has a roof and stuff) for her $73,000 she got about 8 acres of beautiful land in the middle of nowhere. She can't build on it because it's some kind of wildlife preserve or something. Which is the coolest thing ever in my book. It's really incredible all the plants and animals and stuff that are running around in the largest room in her house. Someone told her this is some rare wetlands plant that she shouldn't really touch. What an amazing flower!

Anyway, the point was about taking a mental vacation. Letting the world fall away for a little while.
And how that rarely happens for me where I live now. And I know that whole thing about being happy where you are and changes like that not fixing things...but I would tend to disagree. I used to spend a lot of time in the woods and I remember those days as being a lot more creative and in many ways less stressful that life as it is here. Even when it was having to walk to a giant park the years I didn't live right in the woods I still spent a lot of time with mother nature. I don't do that here. There is one park I can walk to about 15 minutes away but it's pretty small and the road to get there is treacherous, sharp curves with stone walls in stead of shoulders and everyone drives way too fast.
There is just something to be said for the effect being off in the woods has on one's brain. Being around trees and plants in stead of cars and buildings.
I'm already planning my next trip back there...next time I'm not setting my tent up on the back lawn...I'm taking the lawnmower into the woods and carving out a good spot for myself tucked back off the paths (that my crazy friends mow every week or two) that are carved through the property.
It was funny watching all of us city folk arrive with wide-eyed amazement and by the second day genuinely trying to figure out how we could take the rottweiler they are dog sitting home with us and how we could keep bantam chickens in our yards.
It's time to move. There's a better life waiting out there somewhere. And it's about time to let my present and my past carry me into that future.

And lets not (yet) even talk about the most recent revelation that I'm actually lucky as hell to have done all the different things I have done in my lifetime...especially if we only get one. So what if I'm unemployable! I have gotten to do such a wide variety of things and meet such diverse groups of people. The other part of the key I think I latched onto while my mind was clearing it's self out in the woods is that I realized how lucky I am to have moved around as much as I did getting to see all those different places and ways of life...maybe that's why I know what I really want as far as where I want to live for my next house....my home. Or home base...from which the world exploration will happen.

Yup...time spent outside enjoying the world and one's surroundings.
Nothing like it.

FREEDOM.

"They hate us for our freedom"

Heard that before. Well...last night my esteemed colleague updated that little gem and made it a lot more accurate I think...

"They don't hate us for our Freedom...they hate us for our GREED!"