BirdCheese

2008-02-10T09:50:00.000-05:00

I guess it's been a long year!

2006-12-08T16:05:00.000-05:00

So I'm sitting here at my computer this morning having the last smoke in my pack and debating if it'll be my last smoke period...I need to quit.
I put out the smoke thinking it was the last one.

I don't think much of the cops that just went flying up the street and the volunteer firemen on the way to the station going in the other direction.
A minute or two later I smell some funky smoke so I reach over to the ash tray and start doing a better job of crushing out the butt. But the more I look...the less I think the butt was still smouldering.
So I reach over to the curtain and pull it aside...and I can't see out the window...looks like the view out a plane window when you're going through clouds.
I realize it's not a smouldering butt...so I throw on shoes and coat and head out.
I start walking towards town and can barely see

I turn the corner

Yup...the store in town where I buy my smokes...is ON FIRE!

I wouldn't want this guy's job!

I think they shoulda waited for the guy to climb down the ladder before turning on the BIG hose!

a cool shot (imnsho)

And the rest:

So...was that fates way of telling me I really should quit smoking today?

2006-10-31T09:26:00.000-05:00

Pelican Fly-By

Vacations are good!

2006-05-09T23:45:00.000-05:00

Wow...been a while since we've been here.

Ok...time to quit again.
I'm ready.
Let's do it!

2006-03-09T00:19:00.000-05:00

See ya in ten days :o)

2006-02-14T18:57:00.000-05:00

The quit. Take 3. okay, prolly like 23, but who's counting when it's your last?

So we've moved. New Jersey. Big house, filling up quickly. SOOOOoooo much work to do. But fun stuff. And I plan on enjoying the process as much as possible. Really hate the planning part, I'm much better at figuring things out as I go along, but we do really need to plan out as much as possible ahead of time.

Time.

What do you think the odds are that 2 different households that made the conscious decision to eschew the evil box and put the money & time to better use, would end up with free cable?
Seems as if not only have we inherited an extra tv with this house, but also, cable.

Yikes.

And for those of you who don't know, that's pronounced why-eye-kay-e-ess.

2006-01-27T09:17:00.000-05:00

From an xpn bulletin board post I just left...
Still makes some good points even without the contextual thread...
And we haven't exactly been here a whole lot lately...

Well...at 12/13 I was spending a minimum of 5 hours a day in the pottery studio at my Jr. High school. It has always been my passion and I feel like I've lost a part of myself in the past 10 years as I've moved away from doing anything art-related. Home ownership moved me into computer programming and teaching before I ended up doing home repair/renovation. The current career is the least frustrating probably because I get to work with my hands and the end result is right there for all to see...but it's still not Art.

Like I say in my bio...Jack of All Trades...Master of One. And the one is pottery. I'm good at a lot of things...but I'm a GREAT potter.

What I want to do is open an Art Gallery where I can just make stuff all the time and sell it in my little shop. Pottery, paintings, sculpture...all things Art. I've recently begun to look at all the things I've done in the past ten years as my way of working towards that and not away from it...If I play my cards right, the house my computer programming and teaching jobs bought me should be able to get me that little shop on a big property somewhere out in the middle of Pennsylvania (or wherever) where I can get back to doing what I'm meant to do.
When I was younger and still doing Art and my dad was still alive I kept trying to talk him into being like Rousseau...a postal clerk who became a MAJOR artist beginning in his mid 60's. Little did I know it was going to be me who would have to try to resurrect an Art career (life) when I got older.

As for Ann's workshop thingey...in my life I've done a lot of those adventurous things...joined the Army and saw some of the world...bought a Harley and rode it across the country, etc. I will say this...I do not regret anything I have done in my life...the only regrets I have are centered around the things I haven't done. And the way I figure it...as long as you're still breathing it's never too late to do what you really want to do.

Most of the obstacles we face when thinking about living our dream lives are put there by other people telling us what a hard row to hoe our chosen dream is. The thing age has taught me is that those people have no idea what they are talking about. I could spend an hour typing stories about my folks telling me to get a teaching degree, "So I'd have something to fall back on" rather than switching majors and actually getting a BFA...or about my nephew the musical phenom who played his first gig at a bar behind a drum kit at 4 years old and now at 8 has blown through his piano lessons and has moved on to learning to play guitar and hopefully he will never hear my mother say how hard a career music is like she said to me when we were recently talking about him. I think that's the hardest part of living your dream...sticking to it when people try to squash it. I now know people who chose their life and stuck to it and they are the ones living their dream life. And I watched them...it wasn't hard per-se...they just were the ones that stuck with it where others get frustrated and move on. I recently saw that one of my best friends from college managed to make it on the dream job thing....of the 38 Art Ed students I was with he's the only one I know that is now teaching Art where he went to high school. We all went into it because we had a Great Art teacher somewhere along the line and dreamed of becoming them. Well...the kid who did so poorly in our classes he had to go back through the program again the next year (after the rest of us graduated) before getting his degree is the one that did it. And it was a long road for him through years of Special Ed and Masters degreeS etc. But he kept the goal in mind and made it reality.
And that's the key. Keep the goal in mind and it will become reality. Lose sight of the goal and it'll never happen.

2005-12-31T10:11:00.000-05:00

Happy New Year to All and to All a ...um....a.....uh....A Good New Year! :)

2005-12-28T09:32:00.000-05:00

Way to go dude!
Or should I say Dudes!
:o)

ok...so I thought this was really interesting:
http://50.lycos.com/120705.asp
It's the lycos top 50 most searched terms for the year.
If you can get over the feeling of wanting to hurl when you see that the #1 searched term this year has been........Paris Hilton......UGH!
the rest of the list is sortof interesting.
Well...some of it anyway.
enjoy.

2005-12-28T00:20:00.000-05:00

The Quit, take 2

36 hours in, and already WAY easier than last time. Mostly because I knew what to expect, and I know how to cope with the cravings. But the biggest thing is that my man is quitting with me, and I just want to be there for him. We are ready in every other way, I think, to become parents. I just will not move forward with either of us being addicts. So, I am quitting again, and perhaps I'm going to do it here like I threatened to do last time...

So far I've been mostly tired and lethargic, and eating way too much candy since it's all here from the holiday. Still can't believe my mouth actually waters for a cigarette! Totally disgusting.

2005-12-27T16:47:00.000-05:00

Woo Hoo!!!!

So the mail came this morning when I was going between doors carrying crap down from the apartment project from hell...when I saw the mailman coming up the street. So I ran inside and grabbed ten bucks out of my wallet and when he handed me my mail I handed it to him and said, "Happy Holidays" He seemed kinda surprised at it...he's new on the route as are most of the neighbors...I wonder if most of them stiffed him.

Anyway...Whether it was the ten bucks or not...3 or 4 hours later when I was making another round of trips from the third floor to the basement...he was driving by in his truck and pulled up into my driveway and got out to hand me the package I've been waiting very impatiently for...

I now own both Dick Proeneke videos and the book they culled from his journals (That amazon cut me off on last night because I've 'previewed' too many pages) !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :D :D :D :D

Well...ok....I still haven't opened the envelope...it wasn't addressed to me...and we all know that opening someone else’s mail is a federal offense punishable by something something something. So I guess I'll be waiting for the company and the candles later this evening...but little does she know that means I'll also have company as I sit and watch the video tonight (That we've already seen umpteen times on pbs but this will be longer and uninterrupted by their dang fundraising)...and I might just have to put the other one in after that neither one of us has seen before. And then there are always toothpicks to prop the eyelids open as I sit in bed and read from the gospel according to Dick.

2005-12-27T06:59:00.000-05:00

Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of
arriving safely in an attractive and well-preserved body, but rather to
skid in sideways, chocolate in one hand, martini in the other, body
thoroughly used up, totally worn out and screaming 'WOO HOO' what a
ride!

2005-12-01T17:35:00.000-05:00

Just a quick update as Rej and I are both quite busy these days...
I am working my buns off on my house trying to get the apartment fixed up so I can rent it again.
Rej is under contract on a new home and is working her (and her husbands) buns off trying to get it ready to put on the market Wednesday!

Much craziness!
But it's all good.
Great even!

2005-11-14T10:37:00.000-05:00

WE ARE
PENN STATE!

2005-11-12T11:36:00.000-05:00

Decisions

My guess is that if you had gone to a trade school, you would now be wondering if you shouldn't have gone to college. I think perhaps, the real issue here is anguishing over past decisions. Wondering what would have happened if you took the other fork.

You took the road you did so that you could learn the lesson you needed to learn. Maybe the lesson was "oops, made the wrong decision there". Maybe the lesson was meeting someone that has become part of your life or has taught you something only because you made that decision. Or maybe, if you were lucky, that decision led to knowing more about yourself. I could second guess 10 major decisions I've made in the past, but had I chosen the other path in each case, I wouldn't have ended up here. For me, and maybe for you, the answer was being at peace with the past. Honoring that decision by respecting the lesson that it taught me.

Dad's dying is another thing altogether. We really have no decision to make there, all we can do is miss them, remember them, and honor all they meant to us by using the knowledge they gave us...directly or indirectly. For years I told people that my father dying was the worst thing that ever happened to me, and the best thing that ever happened to me.

2005-11-11T12:01:00.000-05:00

Hmmm....Much to think about there Rej.

I do agree that I am pre-disposed to be a thinker. I was that way as a little kid, so college didn't really have anything to do with it. I still wonder though what my thoughts would be like had I gone to tech school and worked in a trade all my life. By the same token I wonder what would be going on in my head had I finished my MFA and gotten a college teaching gig. I think that environments level of mental activity would probably have a positive influence. Go figure.
I do like to understand things. I like to learn. Learn new stuff, try new things.
Since my dad's been gone I'm just totally confused.
The whole actual reality of life thing kinda hit me in the face on that one. It's funny...I've said my life lately has felt surreal. The more I think about it, it seems to me that my life before losing my dad was surreal and that now the reality of it all has come crashing down on me.
I've been talking to Kevin lately about what we're doing with our lives. He's a Photographer and I'm a Potter...and he waits tables and I have to go put in a toilet today. We're both really good at our Art. By not doing it are we cheating ourselves out of our dream lives? Are we cheating the world out of the Art we could be creating? Neither one of us has kids, and from the looks of it neither one of us will. So what will our legacy be? Will the people whose dinner he brought out remember him? Will the person who shits in that toilet know how hard I worked putting it in? Shouldn't I be asking how much joy the owner of one of his photographs gets every time they walk past it hanging in their house? Or of the comfort someone receives every time they wrap their hands around one of my coffee mugs and put the smooth edge up to their lips?
I think this is probably the point of the ‘mid-life crisis’ ...where the thoughts go from all the things I want to do in my life, to, all the things I want to do before it’s too late. There was a guy at the golf driving range the other day (Went with Kevin, first time I’ve hit golf balls since my back operation I think...felt fine...tweaked my shoulder) that must have been about 100 years old. And another old dude (maybe 70) walked by him and said, “Gotta hit ‘em while we still can!” Obviously it got me thinking.

2005-11-08T22:57:00.000-05:00

Ignorance is bliss?
I don't really think you can blame college for thinking too much. I think brains work a certain way. I think people either want to understand things or they don't care how or why. Most people only care about what affects them, or for some reason what the celebrities are doing (I'll never really figure that one out). Fortunately or unfortunately, both of us want to know how and why. Thinking about things isn't the problem. Obsessing over them may be.
J-bird thinks.
That's who he is and I think that is something to cherish.

2005-11-07T18:12:00.000-05:00

With the exception of the friends I made there...

I'm beginning to wonder if going to college was such a great idea for me.

I mean...we all can agree that one of my problems has always been that I tend to think too much. I was thinking this afternoon about the Philosophy classes I took and the questions they led to. The general junk that clouds my brain on a day to day basis...the nature of being type of things. I'm starting to think that's all just societal crap I never should have gotten into trying to wrap my head around in the first place. I wonder if I would have been better off keeping the thoughts in my head simpler. But of course there are parts of life that happen to us that we have no control over that change who we are in an instant. But is thinking about them or worrying about them a good idea? dunno.

Sometimes I really wonder.
What's the point.
And then today I think I finally realized...
There is no point.

2005-10-08T11:16:00.000-05:00

So this is where I come from...well at least a quarter of me. You can't really see it, but the farm where my grandfather was born is on the second hill in the distance. The olive trees and vinyards that my family have used for over a hundred years are dotted all throughout the valley. Standing on this spot, in the walled city on top the hill, Boville, where they would come to trade and buy things they needed, attend festivals, go to the church for mass, religious ceremonies and weddings, and to pay taxes...well, I feel like I know myself more now than I had before, and well, that has just meant more to me than I could have ever imagined.

2005-10-05T14:28:00.000-05:00

The Cheese Woman Returneth.

So tell us oh great woman of cheese...what wisdom doth ye returneth from your motherland with?

What hath Rome and the empire taught you of life and the nature of the universe?

(besides to not travel with large groups of old women)

2005-09-27T20:52:00.000-05:00

The Cheese is in Italy.

I hope she has some good stories to tell when she gets back.
One of these days I'll get my s**t together and start traveling the world again.

On a bright note...Ros and I went out and picked tile for the apartment bathroom tonight. We're going with a mosaic sheet tile for the floor and 4x4 bisque (how funny is that) tile for the tub surround. And we picked a paint color (marshmallow) the night before that actually matches so I'll go pick that up tomorrow and start getting the paint on the walls. I'll probably go get the tile tomorrow too...since the van has to go back to John (my mechanic) on Thursday...it's having radiator issues :(

2005-09-13T18:27:00.000-05:00

Ok...so this is a question.

If you take a piece of metal and heat it...what happens on a molecular level is that all of the little atomic particles get excited and start moving around real fast, right?

Ok...Now my question is this...When the metal cools back down does it return to it’s original atomic state or do the particles remain somewhat excited even after the metal has cooled?

I ask my question based on experience with heating pieces of metal repeatedly while trying in various ways to keep them cool.

One of the things that I believe I have found through experimentation and observation (which is mainly what leads me to this discussion) is that when a piece of metal is heated and then rapidly cooled (at varying speeds using several different means) that piece of metal when heated again (even if I’m starting with a piece that is much colder than what I originally started with) seems to re-heat MUCH faster than it heated up originally. And also faster than a piece allowed to cool naturally over a longer period of time.

Have I done actual recorded scientific experimentation?
No.

But...I am basing this on an incredibly huge library of personal experience so I feel pretty comfortable with the accuracy of my observations.

And just so we’re clear...I’m not talking about large pieces of metal where the core temperature could be substantially higher than the surface temperature. I mean little pieces of metal that are heated from room temperature the first time and from various temperatures thereafter some well below room temperature.

Ok...so once again, my question is this:

When metal is heated and cools back down does it return to it’s original atomic state or do the particles remain somewhat excited even after the metal has physically cooled?

2005-08-24T17:02:00.000-05:00

Off to the Folk Fest :o)

Going alone :o(

I'm actually buying a ticket for the first time in 5 years. Not volunteering this time. After last year, I'm surprised I'm going at all. But I'm glad I am.
Time to go pack.

2005-08-16T20:58:00.000-05:00

"We don't know what causes cancer"

Ros' doctors said that to her. Doctors have been saying that for 30 or 40 years now since they started figuring out what cancer is. I watched a doctor on tv over the weekend who had lived through cancer herself who responded to that with, "Well why the hell not?" She also said, "Honestly, doctors don't know what causes most diseases."
She used aspirin and a headache as an analogy...
When you have a headache you take an aspirin.
The aspirin makes the headache go away.
But what caused the headache in the first place? Was it your body’s lack of aspirin?
I’m glad Ros doesn’t need chemotherapy or radiation...”Did your body develop cancer from a lack of chemotherapy?” the tv doctor asked. She went on, “Radiation. All your life they told you radiation causes cancer and now they are telling you it will cure it?” She kept calling them (radiation and chemo) poison.
And Ros was reading some stuff last week about how she shouldn’t have let them take out her ovaries, “Just to be on the safe side” because that really messes her up hormonally for the rest of her life. Osteoporosis and stuff.
She (the tv Doc.) made 2 main points...
Drink 10 glasses of water a day.
Eat more fruits and veggies and grains and less meats and processed stuff (less meaning none I think).
I’m pretty sure her book also talks about changing your attitude...removing the ridiculous stress from our lives.
She said something else I thought was really interesting. She said there have been studies done to show that diet is like the number one thing for good health. The one she was talking about was about Chinese women who had a low incidence of heart disease and breast cancer (once again, low I believe meaning pretty much none) whose diet consisted of rice, vegetables and some fish. But once those groups of women were exposed to the ‘Western diet’ which I guess is burgers and pizza the get breast cancer etc. at the same rates as everyone else.

So that’s it...we all need to spend our lives doing things that make us happy and eating nuts and berries.
Crunchy.

2005-07-29T22:38:00.000-05:00

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

2005-07-22T08:25:00.000-05:00

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.

2005-07-20T09:34:00.000-05:00

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!
:)

2005-07-15T07:25:00.000-05:00

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.

2005-07-13T22:02:00.000-05:00

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.

2005-07-12T18:14:00.000-05:00

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.

2005-07-11T09:13:00.000-05:00

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.

2005-07-06T06:30:00.000-05:00

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!"

2005-07-02T13:59:00.000-05:00

Well, this seems a silly thing to keep writing about, but I find the irony amazing. The guy who doesn't drive his own car, and is constantly touting the benefits of public transportation, is calling for a flying car. Imagine the idiots on their cell phones, alone in their giant flying Hummer, burning through our fossil fuel reserves, cutting you off, throwing their cigarette butts and soda bottles out their windows and onto our houses, (not to mention the bottles of piss you railed about last year)

How about instead of a flying car, they give us a feasible, safe, completely clean running, renewable energy fueled car? How about for those people who don't really want to drive...you know the ones, always on the phone, or reading, or eating, or putting on makeup when they should be driving...how about we invent the automated car so they can continue to do all the non-driving tasks they need to do and aren't causing accidents and traffic jams for those of us who consider driving worth our attention, and the time spent driving as a blessing we utilize to think or to not think, but just to drive.

Oh, and I don't consider myself a hippie or a weirdo, but I do pay the extra couple of bucks for the wind generated electricity.

also, I should probably explain my post about "Nukular" power because I know you don't watch or read the news... Congress is in the midst of passing Mr. Bush's new Energy Policy, which calls for many more plants to be built, and although we haven't built any since 3- mile island, the rest of the world has, France for instance, has 56 plants built since '73 generating over 76% of their energy. China is building reactors, the middle east is building reactors... and we still don't know what to do with the waste!

on a good note, I heard they (once again) are very close to getting fusion to work...but then again, they've been 10 years from getting it to work for the last 60 years...

2005-06-30T07:28:00.000-05:00

Yes...Flying Cars.

Well...
Yes, honestly...I do think the world would be a better place if we all had flying cars.

I think the problem is that we have lost sight of that type of invention. Like I said...building better bombs and missiles has become the thing. And other things like what to do with nuclear waste have been pushed aside or literally buried rather than being dealt with. Especially since Three Mile Island happened and there hasn’t been a new nuclear power plant built in this country since.
It’s only the hippies and weirdos like me that are willing to toss green mountain energy a few extra bucks every month because they use a lot of wind and solar and hydro power. And as you and I get older we will see more and more of the aging nuclear power plants being shut down and hopefully things like solar energy becoming more prevalent. I met a guy once who made his living installing solar panels on peoples roofs...for ten grand he’d put a system up there that would pretty much take you off the grid. So not only does it pay for it’s self in like 5 years...but it means you are no longer requiring nuclear power plants to be operated. Although a very small portion of our electricity comes from nuclear power...more of it comes from the burning of oil and coal than from nukes. And those are great too...imported oil or strip mined coal being burned and polluting the planet.

But we don’t care anymore. We are like ostriches with our heads in the sand.
And that is what I think has been lost.
In stead of science working towards making the planet better and getting us to other planets...it has become an industry bent on making better killing machines and penis pills (I’m sure there’s a funny joke in there somewhere about ‘make love not war’).

So yes...I was hoping (when I was a small child) that by now (a 38 year old child) we’d be living in a more star trek like reality where everyone on the planet realized we are all on the same little life boat here and we’d all just be working together and being good people.
I just saw the movie The Last Samurai and there was a line in it that really struck me talking about a turn of the century (19th to 20th , 1800’s-1900’s) Japanese mountain village...it was something like this..

From the moment they wake up to the moment they go to sleep these people devote their entire life to the perfection of whatever it is they chose to do.

And that’s the thing...

Just doing what it is we do for the sake of doing it well. Not for the paycheck. Being a potter for the love of the clay and not for the money the pots will bring. It cheapens them.
Tiling a bathroom because I love putting in tile.

I think we have made ourselves completely insane.
And we’re all gonna be standing there playing the fiddle this time.

2005-06-26T11:26:00.000-05:00

Renee's catch up post

answer: well at least my answer...
embrace your history, and your future. I dont' think one precludes the other. I am Italian, which actually means that probably I am Greek, Moorish, Anglo, Arab...on & on. I am also American.

I guess the real point here is culture, (like everything else), is mutable not static. It evolves, as we evolve.

Damn. we hadn't been talking about stuff like that... because we hadn't been talking, period.

Flying Cars: honestly, do you think the world would be a better place if we had flying cars, etc? personally, I think all that may be the problem. I know that many wonderful things come from invention, but maybe we should get what we know right, before we move on to what we don't know. Example- nuclear power- I can't help but think we need to figure out what to do with the waste before we continue to make more of it.

Bad News.
Bad news sucks (understatement), but if your idea of friendship is sharing good news, and keeping the bad to yourself...well then, you need to rethink your definition of friendship, and of family.

"One thing about lifes little reminders that it doesn't last forever...It sure does get you thinking about what the hell you are doing with the time you do have."
I couldn't have said it better myself.

I love you. But you need to let me love you.

2005-06-24T22:28:00.000-05:00

One thing about lifes little reminders that it doesn't last forever...
It sure does get you thinking about what the hell you are doing with the time you do have.

2005-06-24T15:14:00.000-05:00

and then there's the bad news.
and who the hell really needs more bad news in their life, right?
so I avoid everyone I know.

2005-06-20T09:54:00.000-05:00

Flying Cars!

So I was watching the Discovery channel last night...
And although I missed the part of the show actually about it...
I saw enough to hear the teaser where they said it would take a year to arrive and cost a million dollars...but if you want one you can now buy yourself a "Flying Car"
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
:o)

So I guess that funny tv comercial with the guy from DS9 isn't quite as relevant anymore.

All I will say is this...

Just think about what kind of futuristic world we would already be living in if for the past 60 years everyone in the world was working on cool space shit and flying cars and medicines...in stead of building a better bomb or a stronger version of anthrax.

Like Aimee Mann Said...

Fifty years after the fair
The picture i have is so clear
Underneath the clouds in the air
Rose the tyrlon and the perisphere
And that for me was the finest of scenes
That perfect world across the river in queens
Fifty years after the fair
I drink from a different cup
But it does no good to compare
'cause nothing ever measures up
I guess just for a second we thought
That all good things would rise to the top

But how beautiful it was - 'tomorrow'

We'll never have a day of sorrow
We got through the '30's, but our belts were tight
We conceived of a future with no hope in sight
We've got decades ahead of us to get it right
I swear - fifty years after the fair

Fifty years after the fair
I live in tomorrow town
Even on a wing and a prayer
The future never came around
It hurts to even think of those days
The damage we do
By the hopes that we raise

But how beautiful it was - 'tomorrow'
We'll never have a day of sorrow
We got through the '30's, but our belts were tight
We conceived of a future with no hope in sight
We've got decades ahead of us to get it right
I swear - fifty years after the fair

2005-06-14T21:03:00.000-05:00

Damn...what ever happened to talking about stuff like this?

I guess we still are.
But man has my theory about time changed.

2005-06-14T16:38:00.000-05:00

question

So is our history (ethnicity) something to embrace? Or shed in favor of the milado?

2005-06-13T08:29:00.000-05:00

FEAR. Revisited (or Revised?)

(Re: FEAR.)

So I'm sitting her thinking about the nature of the universe like I always have...
And I'm thinking more and more as I get older that I really didn't have the slightest understanding about the true nature of things in my youth. I know...none of us do. But I remember the points in my life when I thought I did. They always centered around my understanding of my lack of understanding. I laugh now when I think of the little aches and pains from my teens and twenties that used to make me say things like, "I'm so old" or "I feel old." I laugh now as I struggle to hold a cup of coffee in my arthritic hand after a couple of weeks of painting and the prior construction work.
But more than just that stuff, now I'm thinking about the bigger picture in a whole different way. It makes me feel like such a dumbass I can't even tell you. The things I have done and not done because of my lack of understanding. The things I have spent my life giving a shit about are often completely ridiculous and my priorities have often been so completely screwed up that I don't know how anything could have been making sense to me. And now I am stuck living with the consequences of those years. And there are days when that just crushes me.
But...

Now there are days when in stead of crushing me...it all kinda makes sense and I am more relaxed than ... well, more than I can remember feeling in a long time.
Like yesterday, for example, while I was upstairs painting I got into such a clear minded Zen place I realized I was actually hearing the words to all of the songs on the radio! Which is good because we really do need to talk sometime soon about the ridiculousness currently going on adding to the need for best friends and Zen moments. Not gonna tell ya here first though. (I hear that whole Eddie Izzard routine in my head every time I use one of those ‘ough’ words. :o)
I’m beginning to realize that 2 of the most important lessons in life are A. Don’t sweat the small stuff. And 2. Don’t give a shit what other people think.
For example, I was talking to my sister Saturday (when you were in the shower) and I was talking about making part of my living as a potter and doing like half a dozen craft shows a year and she started saying all the bullshit things I used to say and I started laughing at what a joke it was. And then I went off about what bullshit they fed us in grad school when they said to a class of like 30 something fine arts majors that only 2 of us were going to make a career of it so what were the other 28 doing there? And I think being told stuff like that so often is why only 2 stick with it. Because that’s the key...it’s not that the other 28 try and don’t make it. It’s that they just go on and do something else. The allure of the $50,000 a year paycheck a computer programmer brings home certainly got me for a few years there! I hate Excuses. And I think a lot of the people saying those things have never had to go out and get a real job so how the hell would they know. I’ve done lots of different jobs and none of them come as easily to me as throwing pots. Or to put it another way...making a living as a potter is easy compared to having to do it ‘in the real world’

So to bring both conversational threads together...

We all have the ‘poser’ syndrome when it comes to being found out as a fraud in our career whether it’s a tv director or a computer programmer or a school teacher or an office setup technician or a potter or even as an art student. We all take our jobs and especially our Art very personally so it’s difficult to hear criticism of the work because it’s criticism of our person. Why do we give a shit? I mean that in all seriousness. Is life about our work or about our friends and family and being happy?
So how I ever could have said something like, “It’s hard to put my pottery out there at craft shows and have people not like it (and have to pack it all up again at the end)”
Ok...first of all...DUH...stop taking the crappy pots that never sell to the shows...make more of the things that do sell...play to the audience. I’m not doing craft shows to make high art, I’m doing them to make money.
Rock with me...
Give the
People
What they
Want!
And secondly, who the fuck cares what the people at craft shows that don’t buy my pots think? It’s the one thing in my entire life that I honestly know I’m great at. Like the title of one of my photoblog sites used to say, “Jack of all trades, master of one”
I’m sure the rust would come off quickly.

Ok...well...this got really long. I’m not even going to read it over to see if it makes any sense because I have painting that needs to be done before it gets too hot to deal.
I’m going to try your cell but unfortunately I think you’re on a plane.

2005-06-03T08:27:00.000-05:00

Take the good when you can get it...because the bad finds you on it's own.

2005-05-29T07:53:00.000-05:00

Sorry dude...but there is now f-in way I'm going and getting on that new roller coaster in New Jersey. No Way!
Was thinking about it yesterday in similar terms to what you wrote...
No Way.
And I am writing this on the 19th anniversary of the morning a van showed up at my patents house and started me on my summer of adventure in New Jersey (although not spent at Great Adventure (I did actually go there in August of that same year...which coincidentally is the first last and only time I have ever gone on a roller coaster (she sure was pretty...)))

Yep...so here we are 19 years later. That makes the summer I spent in Basic Training half my life ago. The larger aspects of that concept are beginning to sink in with me these days.
"What the hell am I doing with my life?"
Been hearing that one in my head a lot lately.

2005-05-28T11:26:00.000-05:00

FEAR.

you just have to decide to embrace your fear. Realize, and it's sounds as if you are, that when you find yourself afraid of doing something...
it's definately worth doing.
The lessons you learn from "taking the road less traveled", from venturing into territory that you don't know, these are the lessons you NEED to learn. These are the lessons that tell you who you really are.

I remember when they asked me to be a director. I was petrified. Even after doing it for a few weeks, I wouldn't sleep the nights before a really big show. But, I remember telling myself that if I was afraid, then it was definately something I wanted to do. And I was ALWAYS right.

On a totally other note... did you see the news report about the "naked zorro" running around Doylestown? Did you have the same ytidun thought that I did? naked on top of a dumpster is all I can think of.

2005-05-27T20:05:00.000-05:00

??

Just finished a pretty tiring week at work. Spent most of it re-pointing brick walls in the basement.
So here is my question.
Why is it that I pretty much dread tasks before I start them but once I'm into it everything is fine?
They look so daunting when set before me I cower at the sheer magnitude of the undertaking.
I procrastinate.
But eventually I start and just have my usual great time working on it.

So why. Why do I look at the basement and try to find other things to do while subtly trying to talk the boss into going an easier route?

And you know we're not just talking about the brick wall here...

2005-05-26T08:09:00.000-05:00

Took me a while but I found where I wrote that.
http://birdcheese.blogspot.com/2004_06_01_birdcheese_archive.html#108782867402305946

I think about it a lot too.
I loathe the doing nothing.
I really love the busy time.
I like the idea of being neighbors. And with all of your 'moving right along's happening...you need to figure out where your goin so I can look there since my options are somewhat more open...and before I get to the breaking point with this house and decide I just need to get outa here and can't wait anymore.

So what the hell is it about smoking cigarettes that makes it ok somehow to just sit and do nothing so much of the time? I am finding it much more dificult to do things like watch tv or even sit here at the computer. My welder has gotten more use in the past week than it has since I bought it. Mostly just getting in some practice with it playing around. Chris and I have been talking about fabricating an iron fence for the back yard...so it would help if I got a little better with the welder before working on something that's gonna have to look good and hold together.

So speaking of which...time to step away from the computer and get ready to hop the train to work...And I can't even tell you how much I like that whole scene...taking the train in stead of being a bad gas mileage vehicle commuter...makes me smile every time I think about it. And the ride's kinda fun too.
Was it you or some npr or tv person that was talking about how we screwed up societaly putting all of our transportation money into highways rather than better public transportation screwing us energy-wise as well as furthering the anti-social nature of our culture?

ok...gotta roll.

2005-05-25T18:43:00.000-05:00

You wrote it probably a year ago... "lengthened his days"
It affected me.
It made me realize how I had spent everyday for years & years just doing nothing,
amazingly,
day after day,
actually doing nothing
but loathing myself
wishing I was the type of person that enjoyed work, liked herself, took care of her body physically & mentally, became part of a group, went to the museum, returned a phone call...
thank you.

Now we just need to figure out how to be busy, like our lives, and still manage to have time to spend together.

2005-05-24T21:35:00.000-05:00

Being productive is it's own reward.

It doesn't even have to be actual accomplish something on some great to-do list...it can just be working on a project for pure fun regardless of the final outcome. Add that to a productive day at work and it's just a happy satisfied feeling.
It runs completely counter to the doing nothing lazy shit bored depressed way of life. We have so many ways in our modern society to placate the boredom. So much easier to just get up and do something.

Extending ones days....

2005-05-23T11:04:00.000-05:00

Past the 1 week point on the not smoking.
Still haven't had a single one.
It never really is just one though, is it. And there-in lies the problem. If I was one of those people who could do it here and there once in a while when I feel like it and not give a rats ass about it the rest of the time that would be great. But I've never really understood those people anyway.

So here we are at a week.
Yes, I'm still thinking about it sometimes. But I don't think I think about it as much as most people seem to when they first quit. It just doesn't pop into my head that often. Especially if I can keep my mind and body occupied. I think last week was the first week I went to work every day and was even there really early a few times. And I got a shitload done between the longer hours and the not having to stop to smoke half a pack of cigarettes throughout the day. Not to mention the almost immediate lung recovery not having to stop nearly as often because the mask is sucking onto my face from breathing so hard and being soaked when running 100 pound bags of demolition trash up and down the stairs and in and out of the van.

There are still times I think about it. Still times I'm tempted. But like Kevin (who is a day behind me and Roz oddly enough) said last night...that feeling is only there for a few seconds before I remember how much they suck.

So I guess I took today off to deal with the biggest of the stresses. The van is still a problem to be dealt with. Last week it was hidden from at work. Went to work as soon as I woke up...stayed until I knew I could do nothing but go home and go to bed. Worked out good for the wallet...bad for the resolution of the main stress issue. So today I took what I guess was my next step. We'll see what happens now.

But through it all, really I'm just not thinking about smoking.

And we should have a discussion about that cure for boredom thing. Because that's been really funny. Without cigarettes to keep me company on the couch in front of the tv or the computer...I just haven't sat there (or here) much. I'm getting all sorts of little things done...and some big things...and not all chore type things, some fun stuff too.

Anyway...I feel like I've been sitting here too long already...

2005-05-17T07:08:00.000-05:00

ok...Day 2 no smoking.
Day 1 I was a bear.
Worked all day...came home and slept. Was not very nice in-between.
Day 2 hopefully will be better.
Bad timing in stressland...but isn't it always bad timing in stress land.
Just makes me think I want to leave stress land...and once again the solution that comes to mind is the freedom derived from having an estate auction and house sale and then just take the money and run. Leave all this shit behind. Go back to making art and feeling like there is a purpose to my life. Get out of this screw or be screwed bullshit society.

2005-04-23T15:24:00.000-05:00

So here we are again.
Yup...I can put this back on my list of things to look at regularly :o)

So...Ani on Monday :o)

2005-03-31T14:43:00.000-05:00

So apparently I can post here, but I can't look at my personal e-mail. Maybe we should set this up as a place we could all stay in touch easily...post pics, and plan setback tournaments? what'ya think?

2005-02-05T16:17:00.000-05:00

this is not a test.
or maybe it is.
Well, I did quit smoking, although not here like I threatened.
I have become a born-again nonsmoker, hated by smokers for preaching "the way" and acting so superior. Honestly, I just really can't believe I did it. I'm not sure I was ever convinced that I could.
And therefore, if I can,
anyone can.

2005-01-19T11:01:00.000-05:00

This is a test.
This is only a test.
This is a test of the blog add a photograph system.
This is only a test.
Were this an actual sunset...

uh....

2004-09-21T20:50:00.000-05:00

"The world expects too much in a year...and not enough in ten."
Quote from a PBS show tonight on Video Games.

2004-09-16T21:05:00.000-05:00

WHY

I want to be healthier
I want to run
money
I want to have a kid
I want to live a long healthy life with my family and friends
I hate the smell of my clothes, hands, breath
I want to be a good role model for the other smokers in my life
I want to keep from being bored by actually doing things instead of smoking them
I want more control over my body & my mind

Pretty good list

And although the health benefits are amazing motivators, I think perhaps, the last two reasons could be the most compelling. "Lengthened his days" eh Jamey? Sounds wonderful to me.

2004-09-13T22:39:00.000-05:00

Well, here we are...

Okay...I certainly haven't been here in a while. Actually, that statement works on many levels. Haven't been here on the blog for a long time, everything is different...I like it. Also, haven't been "here", in this particular mind set in an even longer time.

Things are changing, or I have changed....probably both.

Last night I picked up The Fountainhead for the first time since a friend gave it to me 10 years ago. Always seemed too daunting. If you've never seen the book...IT'S HUGE!!
But not it's not just that it's a big book(I am the person who read Steven King's It, in 2 days...all 1400 pages of it after all), but that it's a philosophy book that's really big. But last night I scanned our bookshelves and grabbed it. In the middle of the introduction that Ayn Rand wrote 25 years after she wrote the book, I realized that10 years ago I couldn't read it because I was not yet ready to read it.
Q, my friend, wrote inside the cover "I know that this is long; however, it is important reading. It is about Integrity"...capitalized integrity and everything!

I'm going to quit smoking, or rather, I'm going to be a non-smoker. And I'm going to use this space to do it.
Hang in there folks....this could get ugly.

2004-09-06T08:58:00.000-05:00

Funny...I posted on Memorial Day...only fitting I’m here again on Labor Day.
Where has the summer gone?
I should be at the beach by now dammit!

Hmmm...no star trek reality suddenly happened since May. Nothing in fact other than more disappointment, disillusionment, depression and death.
Maybe now I am ready to go back to doing Art...if I was fueled by teen angst and rebellious youth in the past and then stopped because I seemed to have lost whatever it was inside that was driving me...I have certainly had enough pain dropped into my life lately to rekindle the artistic fire if such things really are the artists fuel.
Whatever it may be...I just need to find something to make it better.
I don’t want to feel like this all the time anymore.
Funny...the Neil Young song Helpless just came on the radio. Dunno who is singing it.
It’s weird when a song I’ve heard thousands of times...heck, I’ve probably even played Helpless more than a thousand times... and sing along with it every time... It’s funny how sometimes I suddenly hear the words to the song.
And on that note (xpn just told me it was K.D. Lang) ...I think I’m gonna go sit and cry a while.

2004-06-21T09:37:00.000-05:00

I believe that for me...some of what you are saying is the impetus behind me moving to the beach. The rest of it has come from losing my father and now my great uncle. Hearing the things people said about them at their respective funerals has changed the way I look at life. People all spoke of the amazing things they could do with their hands and how freely they shared the things they could do. They spoke of how well they both lived.
“Lengthened his days.” The Rabbi said in my great uncles eulogy.
I’m tired of shortening mine.
He spoke of life not in terms of longevity (My great uncle was 84) but in terms of activity. Quality.
I’m wasting WAY too much of my life sitting home with the weight of the larger questions crushing me to incapacity. I carry many burdens with me. Many I’ll be casting off over the next few months. No one person should be able to fill 9 of the big U-Haul vans. So between yard sales and trash and giving stuff away I will soon remove the burden of shit from my life perhaps in the process learning to let go of the past to be able to live in the present and keep moving into the future. The packrat lifestyle does not please me so I think I’m ready to try something else.
I have also finally learned for real that the things society thinks are important (money) are really and truly unimportant to me. Last night I was watching tv and stopped on a channel talking about some super yacht that I’m sure all the billionaires have and rather than feeling that little pang of jealousy (why am I not a billionaire?) or envy I thought it was silly and realized as Cheese has often told me...I’d hate that lifestyle. So I am finally ready to move on to the life I actually want to have. I’m moving to the beach. I have decided to work with my hands...it’s the only work that has ever made me happy. Pottery, carpentry, landscaping, whatever! I like having to wash the dirt off at the end of the day. I like seeing something I made. Something that came from my hands.
The things that are important to me are comfort and family. Family including the few people I have met throughout my life that I consider my friends. And the rest of the world can do what they want to do and think what they want to think. I’m going to be happy. Actually...I already am :o) I feel like a huge weight has been lifted off me. When I realized I’d hate the yacht lifestyle I actually began to feel like I was floating (It was kinda weird!). The comfort will be removing myself from the debit game when I sell my house and move. I’ll feel a lot more career freedom when I don’t have a mortgage to pay anymore. It has always really bothered me that the root of the wort mortgage is mort or death. Just noticed there is a gag in there too. And that’s it...having a mortgage to pay chokes the life outa ya!
I’m absolutely sure that this move will have a lot more of my family and friends coming to visit me...other than my mom and my sister no other member of my family has been to my house since I bought it 5 years ago. It’ll be nice to see them!

Ok...I should get on with the cleaning out...dag, did I even respond to any of what you wrote like I originally intended or did I just go off on my own little thing?
:o)

2004-06-20T22:36:00.000-05:00

THE WISDOM OF FRIENDS AND WHERE IT LEADS

okay, point taken. But I still think I'm "meant to do" something else with my life. Not "meant to do" in a predisposed, fate, or destiny way...but "meant to do" in the doing it will make me happy way. Sometimes I'm filled with such sorrow over the career path I've taken. the radio salesman, the bartender, the horserace director, the bartender, the secretary...
Sure, I have benefits now...and that's something. But I need something else. A real sense of accomplishment. Making the world a little better, and thus making my world a lot better.

but my friend is right, and I do put too much pressure on myself. And it's this pressure that makes me paralyzed. or should I say it's this pressure that I use as an excuse to be paralyzed, an excuse to self-medicate with smoke and coffee, and an excuse to isolate myself from people.

I let these evil "larger questions" build up so it's so big that there's no possible way i can do anything about them. Adding to the stress of my career (or lack of it), i pile on all of these other things I want to change. Making the pile huge and immovable. somthing i have no control over. but really only the career is something perhaps unmoveable, but only because I don't know where I want to move it to.

the rest of those stupid questions are things i can change. and perhaps while I'm doing the things I love doing, taking the stress away and thus the pressure with it... centered...I will finally hear my own voice telling me what to do with my life.

2004-06-11T19:55:00.000-05:00

CHANGE, or just more of the same...

J's movin to the beach. And R got married. How's that for change? And yet, I sit here on my first night that I don't have to set an alarm or have a million things to do, and I find myself wondering why everytime I have nothing to do, I end up obsessing over the larger questions?
Those damn questions.
What am I doing with my life?
Why aren't I more physically active?
Why haven't I quit smoking?
And to top it all off, I have a credit card balance again! (Damn stupid weddings.)
I found him though. my guy. or he found me.
either way, it's the best decision i've ever made.

but, back to the nagging in my head. should i teach? what would I teach? should I be a gardener or should I be an artist? Isn't that the same thing? Can I do both, and paint flowers on j's pots?
Why aren't I volunteering? when will I make that dentist appointment? why is our place so dirty? How did I manage to get poison ivy down there? sorry a bit off topic.
why aren't I meditating? why don't I call my friends more? in fact i'm going to call one now. actually...i'm sure if i just sign on to IM he'll be there....

2004-06-01T08:24:00.000-05:00

Beach Music
Just think of how cool it would be if all the people whose job it is to design and build things like guns and bombs were designing better gardening tools or an ice cream scoop that will make a perfectly round blop of ice cream and actually release it from the scoop.
No...but seriously...lets put all the people to work all over the planet and give them jobs that help everyone have a better life.
I’m bored with this more more more me me me thing we seem to be stuck in.
I can’t even watch the bbc news at this point because even they are nothing more than murder death murder death weather sports.
So I’m moving to the beach.

2004-05-31T21:43:00.000-05:00

Memorial Day Wish

I want to live in a Star Trek reality where we have figured out how dumb we are and how much better off we ALL could be if we were just nicer to eachother on a planetary scale. A world where people are more important than money. A world where Honesty really is the best policy.

2004-04-26T21:06:00.000-05:00

so here we are. why?
why not?
i sometimes think that it doesn't really matter
why?
only
how.

2004-04-26T12:42:00.000-05:00

Causality.

Once again...from Dictionary.com
cau•sal•i•ty (kô-zal'i-te) n. pl. cau•sal•i•ties
1. The principle of or relationship between cause and effect.
2. A causal agency, force, or quality.

So let’s look at this in light of the Celestine Prophecy and the idea of causing the coincidences. For example; do the streetlights go out over my head and I notice them or does my looking out for streetlights going out actually cause them to go out in the first place? Is it that I am drawing my energy from ‘the source’ and I draw too hard on the system and take the lights energy of the light over my head?

Is this why we like the movies and books that we do...Celestine Prophecy, Star Wars, The Matrix...a belief in the underlying ‘Force’ of the universe.

Has Star Wars really become our modern day religion?
I wonder if that’s what Lucas had in mind?

2004-04-10T19:02:00.000-05:00

I just read your Big Lebowski quote.
Hahahaha!! Lolololol!

A good point to be sure.

I know not what I believe in.
I only know that I know so little.

2004-04-08T19:59:00.000-05:00

For Rej aka Eddie

from dictionary.com

Easter celebrates the Resurrection of Jesus. That morning, according to the Gospel of Luke, Mary Magdalene and some companions visited the cave where He was buried, but they found the tomb empty. An Angel of the Lord appeared and told them that Jesus had risen. In the following days, Jesus appeared to His disciples and explained the meaning of His death (for the sins of mankind) and His victory over death, which offered the promise of rebirth for those who believe in Him. The word Easter may come from Eostre, the Anglo-Saxon name of a Teutonic goddess of Spring and fertility, whose festival was celebrated at the vernal equinox.

2004-04-07T21:20:00.000-05:00

"even those of us who believe in nothing"....

"nihilists, fuck. I mean, say what you will about the tenents of national socialism, but at least it's an ethos."

2004-04-07T16:03:00.000-05:00

Read what the kid wrote...

http://www.collegian.psu.edu/archive/2004/04/04-07-04tdc/04-07-04dops-column-01.asp

but here’s the blurb...

Why is it that the battle between the religious right and the secularists is still raging so hard? This conflict between militant opponents has the potential to completely tear apart the social cohesion of this nation. Each side is so convinced of its intellectual superiority that even the slightest provocation sets off baseless accusations and mudslinging.

he's right....we all think our beliefs are sooo superior, even those of us who believe in nothing.

2004-04-02T00:16:00.000-05:00

Everything and Nothing

Rej asked me yesterday about the infinity concept and I said I was beginning to grasp it. I articulated it to myself quite well in the shower this morning, however my new soap crayons that my girlfriend bought me in California only function on dry walls and the shower had already begun so I of course forgot what I had said when I sat down after the shower to write it out.

Essentially I think what I am beginning to see is that everything and nothing are the same. To understand infinity is to understand the concept of nothing and vice versa. When I die I will truly become nothing as far as I will be aware. That is the scary difficult one for me to be grasping as I loose my father. It is the one I think you grasped early on with the loss of yours.
I still picture that infinite line in space from math class when they first introduced the concept to us. A white line that fades off into the distance of space the same way train tracks fade away. But that doesn’t really represent infinity because I can’t see the whole line at one time. I think for that it needs to be removed from the realm of the visual, don’t try to picture the line as an entity but rather as a concept. Just say to yourself, “I know this line never ends” without picturing the line but in stead knowing the line.
However, I think basically it is easier to grasp the nothing concept especially if the theorists are right and the universe is 5 billion years old and all the stars will burn out in another 5 billion and everything will go black and end. Numbers like that, although huge are finite. And with computers and gigabytes and terabytes the concept of large numbers like that has become far easier to grasp. So if ten billion years is all the universe gets after the big bang and then it all goes dark and cold (shit)
I was gonna say then there is nothing, which is what the scientists would say...but it’s not nothing, it’s what was there before, just frozen and dark but the matter, the mass is still there.

It really was perfect this morning...like 3 or 4 sentences that said it exactly.
All is nothing and vice versa.

Although the think I read like 50 times that Socrates said at his trial is that he would not presume to know what happens when we die. We all have our beliefs...Socrates was a firm believer in the, “I don’t know.”

Ok...I’ll try this again another time...

2004-04-01T23:50:00.000-05:00

Cow Faces Revisited
Let me add at this point to a much earlier posing...I realized after 2 months of horror at the thought of having eaten cow face in my McDonalds burgers that it was, "Cow fEEces" not, "Cow fAces" that were in the burger. I was actually relieved to find out it was poop and not face I was eating.
I still went about 2 months without a trip to McDonalds...until last week when I was out walking and stopped in for a burger because I was starving. I had explosive diarrhea for 2 1/2 days after that. Not going to McDonalds again I don't think. So sad...it was my favorite when I was a little kid. Well...most of my life, except the years I try to avoid the place.

2004-03-30T07:13:00.000-05:00

Here's one my sister just sent me.
I thought the comparison numbers in the middle were shocking.

This is not the world I want to live in.

Israel's statement at the UN
by Ambassador Dan Gillerman

"There cannot be peace and terror. There cannot be peace and Hamas."

23 March 2004

Mr. President,

In three and a half years of Palestinian terrorist attacks that have murdered hundreds of innocent Israeli civilians and wounded thousands more, this Council has not met even once to express condemnation of a single attack. Not one resolution, not one presidential statement has been adopted by this Council to specifically denounce the deliberate massacre of our innocent civilians. Not two months ago when 11 Israeli citizens were murdered in a horrific homicide bomb attack on a bus in central Jerusalem on 29 January. In the wake of our anguish, our efforts to elicit some response from the Council were not met with even a presidential statement.

And yet today, following a sad and familiar pattern, the Council convenes. Why? Not to condemn the terrorism, not to honor the memory of the hundreds murdered by it, but to come to the defense of one of its prime perpetrators, a godfather of terrorism. This is not a message of which the Council can be proud. Frankly, it is an outrage.

As long as we pretend that the response to terrorism is more serious than the terrorism itself, we only invite more of it. If we want to give the peace process a chance -- the kind of terror that Sheikh Ahmed Yassin directed and perpetrated, and which he swore to continue relentlessly, cannot be appeased or assuaged, it must be defeated. It must be defeated not just for our sake but for the sake of the whole free world.

Mr. President,

Although the Security Council has never met to discuss the attacks for which Sheikh Yassin is responsible, the list is gruesome and shocking. To characterize him as a "spiritual leader" is to attempt to characterize Osama bin Laden as a Mother Therese. Underneath his supposed clerical garb, Sheikh Yassin is a true pioneer in the ruthless murder of innocents. Under his direct leadership, inspiration, and instruction, Hamas -- an organization recognized around the world for its brutal terrorism - has perpetrated over 425 attacks that have killed 377 Israelis and wounded 2076 in less than three and a half years of violence. He has stood at the head of a command and control structure dedicated to the destruction of Israel. If Sheikh Yassin was not an arch-terrorist, there is no such thing.

In my hands I hold 187 pages documenting the horrific scope and extent of Hamas terrorism that has wreaked unspeakable anguish on the lives of the citizens of Israel. Among 425 attacks perpetrated by Hamas since September 2000, the organization has perpetrated no less than 52 separate suicide attacks, in which 288 Israelis were murdered and 1,646 were wounded. I will mention only a few of them, to give you an idea of the evil this man represented and the horror the organization he headed has inflicted, while he proudly claimed responsibility.

Time and again, while Israeli mothers were in excruciating pain, burying their babies and widows mourning their husbands, Sheikh Yassin's gloating face appeared on every TV screen, exalting the murderers as martyrs. What follows is just a short list of his bloody and gruesome record.

· The June 1, 2001 suicide bombing of the Dolphinarium discotheque in Tel Aviv, in which 21 people were murdered and 120 were wounded, when a Hamas terrorist blew himself up while standing in a large group of teenagers waiting to enter the club;

The August 9, 2001 suicide bombing of a Jerusalem restaurant, in which 15 people were murdered and 130 were wounded;
The December 1, 2001 double suicide bombing on the Ben Yehuda Street pedestrian mall in Jerusalem, in which 11 people were murdered and 188 were wounded;
The December 2, 2001 suicide bombing of a #16 bus in Haifa, in which 15 people were murdered and 40 were wounded;
The March 9, 2002 suicide bombing of a Jerusalem cafe, in which 11 people were murdered and 54 were wounded;
The March 27, 2002 suicide bombing in the dining room of the Park Hotel in the coastal city of Netanya on the first night of Passover, in which 30 people were murdered and 140 were wounded;
The June 18, 2002 suicide bombing of the #32A commuter bus in Jerusalem, in which 19 people were murdered and 74 were wounded. The bus, which was completely destroyed, was carrying many students on their way to school.
The August 4, 2002 suicide bombing of #361 bus at Meron junction, in which nine people were murdered and 50 were wounded;
The November 21, 2002 suicide bombing of a #20 bus in Jerusalem, in which 11 people were murdered and 50 were wounded;
The March 5, 2003 suicide bombing of a #37 bus in Haifa, in which 17 people were murdered and 53 were wounded;
The May 18, 2003 suicide bombing of a #6 bus in Jerusalem, in which seven people were murdered and 20 wounded;
The June 11, 2003 suicide bombing of #14A bus in Jerusalem, in which 11 people were murdered and over 100 were wounded;
The August 19, 2003 suicide bombing of a #2 bus in Jerusalem, in which 23 people were murdered and over 130 were wounded;
The September 9, 2003 suicide bombing of a hitchhiking post near the IDF base at Tzrifin, in which nine soldiers were murdered and 10 were wounded;
The September 9, 2003 suicide bombing of a Jerusalem cafe, in which seven people were murdered and 70 were wounded;
The January 29, 2004 suicide bombing of a #19 bus in Jerusalem, in which 11 people were murdered and 44 were wounded;
And just last week, on March 14, 2004 at the Ashdod port, in which 10 people were murdered and 16 were wounded.
His hands were steeped in the blood of the innocent. Sheik Yassin personally instigated and specifically authorized homicide attacks, encouraged individual men and women to become suicide bombers, ordered the firing of Qassam missiles attacks against Israeli communities, coordinated joint activities with other terrorist organizations and collected funds for terrorist activity, campaigning throughout the Arab world to raise millions of dollars to improve Hamas' terrorist capabilities.

Through his words he spawned an ideology of hatred, incitement and murder, glorified as martyrdom. In numerous public appearances, Sheik Yassin called repeatedly for the intensification of the "armed struggle" against Israelis and Jews "everywhere." Just one day before the twin homicide attacks at Cafe Hillel in Jerusalem and the bus stop near Tzrifin on 8 September 2003, that claimed 17 lives, Sheik Yassin called on Hamas to attack Israeli civilians without restraint, saying "We will not limit the military command, battalions or factions." Indeed, he knew no limit.

Sheik Yassin's murderous reach extended not only to the streets of Tel Aviv and Jerusalem but to our global streets. He was an arch terrorist with international aims and international ties. He called for suicide attacks against American and British forces in Iraq and praised Osama Bin Laden, wishing that Allah grant him the possibility to continue his fight against the United States.

This is the man that the Council is asked to defend. His victims were denied the attention of this Council. Will you now give that attention to the person who bears direct responsibility for their murder?

Mr. President, Members of the Council,

In comparative terms, the number of innocents deliberately murdered by Palestinian terrorists as of March 2004, is equivalent to 22,499 Russian citizens; 43,136 citizens of the United States, or 58,963 citizens of the EU. Can there be any doubt as to what your countries would do - or in some cases have already done - in the face of terrorism of this scale and magnitude? I ask those that join us today for this debate: could you sit quietly and wait for the next homicide bomber to appear on your doorstep?

By any reasonable standard of international law, Israel has a legitimate right, in fact a duty, to defend itself against those illegal combatants and their commanders who are committed to murder as many of its civilians as possible. The Palestinian leadership has proved beyond any doubt that it has no intention of taking a single measure to fight terrorism, as it is legally and morally obliged to do. This mass murderer, Shiekh Yassin, lived and operated for years not just in freedom, but under the protective authority and safe haven of the Palestinian Authority in violation of the most basic international norms. What would you have us do? Stand idly by as Yassin and the Palestinian leadership co-sign the death warrants of more innocent civilians?

It is the basic obligation of the Government of Israel -- like any other government -- to protect the lives of its citizens from the threat of terrorism. Unlike the terrorists we confront, we make every effort under excruciatingly difficult conditions to minimize harm to civilians. We recognize that we have responsibilities. But we will not negotiate by day and bury our dead by night. By removing Sheikh Yassin from the international stage, we send a very strong message to the terrorists: when you kill our civilians, you are not immune.

Mr. President,

Yesterday's operation constitutes an important stride forward in our march against fundamentalist terrorism in our region, enabling a return to the peace process. Sheikh Yassin was one of the greatest obstacles to the cessation of hostilities and the renewal of negotiations: a road block on the road map to peace. Since he founded Hamas from the ranks of the Muslim Brotherhood organization in 1987, the organization has opposed peace talks with Israel, and attempted to thwart every single peace initiative. So the question shouldn't be "why now?" The question should be "why not before?"

There cannot be peace and terror. There cannot be peace and Hamas. The Road Map explicitly requires the elimination of Hamas and other terrorist organizations, it calls for an end to funding and support for their efforts, it recognizes that peace is impossible while these messengers of death are allowed to flourish.

Israel remains committed to peace. We will persevere in the hope that a partner for peace will emerge so that we can arrive at a political solution based upon the implementation of the Road Map. In the meantime, Prime Minister Sharon has announced plans for bold measures of disengagement that hold the potential for reenergizing the process.

The Palestinian leadership has a choice. It can continue to get into bed with terrorists and tyrants. It can continue its morally depraved strategy of murder and terror and, in so doing, continue to bring suffering and despair on the Israeli and Palestinian peoples. But it can also choose a different path. It can prove to the world that it is ready to assume responsibilities, not just assume privileges. It can show that it is ready to establish a democratic society that will respect the rights of its people, and the rights of its neighbors, and not another terrorist dictatorship in the heart of the Middle East. Israel is ready, as always, to be a partner to such a leadership.

The Security Council has a choice too. It does not have to continue to send a message that puts the response to terrorism on trial, instead of the terrorism itself. It does not have to pander to initiatives that defend the terrorist rather than his victims. In the legacy of resolutions 242, 338 and 1373, the Council can also send another message: one of hope and of peace. One that does not pretend that this is a conflict in which one side has a monopoly on rights and on victimhood. One that rejects terror without compromise.

Which message will you send today, to our region, and to the rest of the world?

Thank you, Mr. President

Author Biography:
Ambassador Dan Gillerman is the permanent representative of Israel to the United Nations.

2004-03-29T15:14:00.000-05:00

Here's one I just found and had to reprint.
You should check out the picture it was with...

RESUME - GEORGE W. BUSH

EDUCATION AND EXPERIENCE

COLLEGE:
I graduated from Yale University with a low C average.
I was a cheerleader.

LAW ENFORCEMENT:
I was arrested in Kennebunkport, Maine, in 1976 for driving under the influence of alcohol. I pled guilty, paid a fine, and had my driver`s license suspended for 30 days.
My Texas driving record has been "lost" and is not available.

MILITARY:
I joined the Texas Air National Guard and went AWOL. I refused to take a drug test or answer any questions about my drug use. By joining the Texas Air National Guard, I was able to avoid combat duty in Vietnam.

PAST WORK EXPERIENCE:
I ran for U.S. Congress and lost.

I began my career in the oil business in Midland, Texas, in 1975. I bought an oil company, but couldn`t find any oil in Texas. The company went bankrupt shortly after I sold all my stock.

I bought the Texas Rangers baseball team in a sweetheart deal that took land using taxpayer money.

With the help of my father and our right-wing friends in the oil industry (including Enron CEO Ken Lay), I was elected governor of Texas.

ACCOMPLISHMENTS AS GOVERNOR OF TEXAS:
-I changed Texas pollution laws to favor power and oil companies, making Texas the most polluted state in the Union.
-During my tenure, Houston replaced Los Angeles as the most smog-ridden city in America.
-I cut taxes and bankrupted the Texas treasury to the tune of billions in borrowed money.
-I set the record for the most executions by any governor in American history.
-With the help of my brother, the governor of Florida, and my father`s appointments to the Supreme Court, I became president after losing by over 500,000 votes.

ACCOMPLISHMENTS AS PRESIDENT:
- I am the first President in U.S. history to enter office with a criminal record.
- I invaded and occupied two countries at a continuing cost of over one billion dollars per week.
- I spent the U.S. surplus and effectively bankrupted the U.S. Treasury.
- I shattered the record for the largest annual deficit in U.S. history.
- I set an economic record for most private bankruptcies filed in any 12-month period.
- I set the all-time record for most foreclosures in a 12-month period.
- I set the all-time record for the biggest drop in the history of the U.S. stock market.
- In my first year in office, over 2 million Americans lost their jobs and that trend continues every month.
- I`m proud that the members of my cabinet are the richest of any administration in U.S. history. My "poorest millionaire," Condoleeza Rice, has a Chevron oil tanker named after her.
- I set the record for most campaign fundraising trips by a U.S. President.
- I am the all-time U.S. and world record-holder for receiving the most corporate campaign donations.

2004-03-29T09:56:00.000-05:00

This is the email I just sent my mom in response to this email she forwarded me.
The forward is after my response...

Sorry...but we’re Americans and we really don’t care.
Do you see anyone still avoiding or talking about anything to do with France and the war boycotts? C’mon...it was only a year ago (exactly a year...as the wars anniversary just passed). How about the exxon mobil boycott email that is currently circulating the States? Personally I haven’t used Exxon since the Valdeez so adding mobil to the list for me isn’t a big deal (they are apparently the same company now) so this is one I’m doing and have no problem with.
However...I buy domestic cheese and have never really noticed a product from Norway.
Not to mention I don’t know if any of the supposed facts of this email are true. I really have no problem with their labels...at least they have a national ant-killing conscience. It’s not 1941

p.s. Yay Israel for blowing up that dude.
Boo a planet that still thinks it ok to blow people up!

The following is the email my mother sent me.

Subject: Norway

Bennett M. Epstein is a criminal defense lawyer practicing in New York City.
He is a former prosecutor and professor of criminal justice.

Why I won't be seeing the fjords this summer
By Bennett M. Epstein

On the heels of Mr. Roed-Larsen's now infamous remark that Israel "ceded all
"moral ground" in Jenin, comes word from his home country of Norway that
some supermarket chains have decided to place special identification
stickers on products from Israel.

Other Scandinavian countries may follow suit.

The Norwegians say the stickers do not constitute a "boycott" of Israel;
they just want their customers, who are overwhelmingly pro Palestinian, to
pay attention to where these products are produced.

Maybe the rest of us should run down to our local supermarkets with a pad of
yellow "post-it" notes so that consumers of Norwegian salmon or Jarlsberg
cheese can also pay attention to where those are produced. Stick them on
the packages with a note: these products come from a place with a shameful
past that continues to operate as a European free zone for Neo-Nazis and
other right wing extremists.

Those asking the question of whether Europeans are anti-Israel because of
Israel's actions in fighting terror, or because of their own latent
anti-Semitism, should study the example of Norway. Behind the current
disclaimer of a boycott you will find that Norwegians are quite experienced
at boycotting Israel. Norwegian labour unions have recently refused to
off-load Israeli farm produce..

Last year, a Norwegian "labor youth movement" organized a demonstration
against Israeli singers from the Eurovision song contest.

Another Norwegian group has been boycotting Israeli oranges since the early
90s.

This group, "Boikott Israel l," rejuvenated by the latest "Intifada" to
include a boycott of all Israeli commerce, denies on its website that it is
anti-Semitic but states its goal is the end Israel's "50 year occupation"
of, and the return of refugees to a "free Palestine."

Not anti-Semitic? In 1941, the graffiti on Jewish businesses in Oslo read:
"Jews, go to Palestine."

To campaign now in Norway to get the Jews out of "Palestine" seems
anti-Semitic to me, if only by process of elimination. Indeed, the roots
of Norwegian boycotts of Israel run deep. Anti-Semitism has held a unique
place in Norwegian politics since the 1930s when Vidkun Quisling, later the
leader of a Nazi puppet government in Norway, formed the National Union
Party.

While many Norwegians fought with the Resistance, many became eager
collaborators of the Nazis, including some 60,000 members of the National
Union.

Under its auspices, Norway formed its own branch of the SS and established
academies sending hundreds of officers the rings of like-minded groups from
Sweden and with little fear of official interference.

More significantly, according to a report published by the Stephen Roth
Institute of Tel Aviv University, the extreme right wing Progress Party is
the second largest party in Norway with 25 out of 160 seats in the
Parliament. Among other racist and anti-immigration views, this party
advocates banning male circumcision.

Schechita, kosher stickers on Israeli goods are the modern-day equivalent of
painting "Joden" on the Jewish-owned businesses of Oslo and Trondheim in
1941.

We needn't be reminded that after that, all of Norway's remaining Jews were
deported to Auschwitz.

Fewer than 30 (THIRTY!) survived the Holocaust.

I'm not the sort that usually pays attention to boycotts and
counter-boycotts, because often you don't know who you are really hurting.
But there is a good reason why I won't be buying Norwegian products any time
soon, or cruising on the Norwegian Line.

Their stickers have caught my attention.

Pass this on to others who might want to read this information.

2004-03-28T16:35:00.000-05:00

Rej....you'll love this.
I just sent this to WIP.
So much for Philly Sports Radio while in the garden this summer.

I just called into the local radio station...ended up sending this as my comment on their website.

I would just like to thank you guys for my first and last call in experience today with Steve Fredericks & Reuben Frank. First of all you are morons. You should really know your facts better for people who have a sports talk radio show you say, “Uh” and, “I think it was some year, I don’t remember” way too much. I know girls who have a better handle on sports facts than you do. You are also rude, I do not appreciate being hung up on after being on hold for half an hour.

And now for the points you missed by not listening.

You were looking for devastating loss to a community.

I gave you the largest stadium in the state with 106,000 people who instantly went from rabid screaming to dead silence. The whole way out to the parking lot nobody spoke. I have never seen the air come out of a place like that.

People who had already made their reservations for the Sugar Bowl because we knew Joe would win and probably retire after.

Yes...a frenzied drive ended on a tipped ball and the perfect season was no more.
Joe has had more loosing seasons in the 4 years since that game than he had his whole career up to that point.

That game changed the course of Penn State Football.
And I know you don’t understand, because you were mumbling something about it when I turned my radio back on after you hung up on me, what being a part of the Penn State Community is. There is a reason we say, “We Are Penn State”
It makes me smile to know that is something you do not now nor will you ever understand.

You had a shot at making a new listener this afternoon. You could have agreed or disagreed with me or argued your point and I would have been onboard for sure. But you were rude and stupid so I’ll go back to WXPN on my radio and I’ll turn on my friends radio stations when I want to listen to sports...she listens to the New York sports stations...Now those talk show folks really know what they are talking about! Too bad I hate the Yankees.

2004-03-25T17:16:00.000-05:00

VHEMT
I haven't finished reading yet....but it's interesting so far!

2004-03-25T16:25:00.000-05:00

2004-03-24T12:07:00.000-05:00

Street Light Outage Patrol
Last night Roz noticed one went out on the side of a building as we drove past just before midnight on our way home from dinner at Rej's house.
Funny...I just remembered I thought about it happening on the way over there. I stared at one while we were at a red light to see if I could get it to happen. no dice. Maybe I was early?

2004-03-23T13:28:00.000-05:00

In the midst of having a Deja-vu I just realized something…I can change what is going to happen.

2004-03-22T23:06:00.000-05:00

Chair

Because Rej will smile when she clicks on it.

2004-03-22T22:14:00.000-05:00

How am I ever going to reach enlightenment if I don't follow the path when it presents it's self to me??

2004-03-22T19:19:00.000-05:00

Maybe it’s not that nothing matters Rej…Maybe it’s just that nothing that society has engrained into our heads is what’s important…matters.

2004-03-22T12:08:00.000-05:00

They just said in a news blurb on wxpn (The public radio station I listen to all the time) that they are going to have to start putting warning labels on anti-depressants that the people need to be closely monitored now especially at the beginning because apparently soon after people start taking things like zoloft or prozac or whatever….they commit suicide.
Yup…when you’re dead I guess you’re not depressed any more.

See what I meant about not trusting humans (scientists and doctors) to know what they are doing well enough to let them fuck with my brain chemistry?

2004-03-18T12:07:00.000-05:00

mmmmmmm Doughnuts

2004-03-17T19:35:00.000-05:00

SOOOOOO!!!!
how's this for coincidence?!

"Celestine Prophecy destined for big screen
Tue 16 March, 2004 13:31

By Ian Mohr

NEW YORK (Hollywood Reporter) - Thomas Kretschmann, star of "The Pianist", has signed on to star with Sarah Wayne Callies and Matthew Settle in the big-screen adaptation of James Redfield's best-selling New Age novel "The Celestine Prophecy."

He will play Will, an outdoorsman and guide who also is a mystic. The film follows a spiritual search in a Peruvian rain forest for a long-lost manuscript containing insights into the nature of human existence. Also joining "Celestine" are Hector Elizondo, Jurgen Prochnow and Joaquim de Almeida.

Armand Mastroianni ("Touched by an Angel") is directing the indie project from a script adapted by Redfield with Barnet Bain. "Celestine" begins shooting next month."

2004-03-17T19:27:00.000-05:00

9 insights of the Celestine Prophecy

1. A Critical Mass

A new spiritual awakening is occurring in human culture, an awakening brought about by a critical mass of individuals who experience their lives as a spiritual unfolding, a journey in which we are led forward by mysterious coincidences.

2. The Longer Now

This awakening represents the creation of a new, more complete worldview, which replaces a five-hundred-year-old preoccupation with secular survival and comfort. While this technological preoccupation was an important step, our awakening to life's coincidences is opening us up to the real purpose of human life on this planet, and the real nature of our universe.

3. A Matter Of Energy

We now experience that we live not in a material universe, but in a universe of dynamic energy. Everything extant is a field of sacred energy that we can sense and intuit. Moreover, we humans can project our energy by focusing our attention in the desired direction...where attention goes, energy flows...influencing other energy systems and increasing the pace of coincidences in our lives.

4. The Struggle For Power

Too often humans cut themselves off from the greater source of this energy and so feel weak and insecure. To gain energy we tend to manipulate or force others to give us attention and thus energy. When we successfully dominate others in this way, we feel more powerful, but they are left weakened and often fight back. Competition for scarce, human energy is the cause of all conflict between people.

5. The Message Of The Mystics

Insecurity and violence ends when we experience an inner connection with divine energy within, a connection described by mystics of all traditions. A sense of lightness - buoyancy - along with the constant sensation of love are measures of this connection. If these measures are present, the connection is real. If not, it is only pretended.

6. Clearing The Past

The more we stay connected, the more we are acutely aware of those times when we lose connection, usually when we are under stress. In these times, we can see our own particular way of stealing energy from others. Once our manipulations are brought to personal awareness, our connection becomes more constant and we can discover our own growth path in life, and our spiritual mission - the personal way we can contribute to the world.

7. Engaging The Flow

Knowing our personal mission further enhances the flow of mysterious coincidences as we are guided toward our destinies. First we have a question; then dreams, daydreams, and intuitions lead us towards the answers, which usually are synchronistically provided by the wisdom of another human being.

8. The Interpersonal Ethic

We can increase the frequency of guiding coincidences by uplifting every person that comes into our lives. Care must be taken not to lose our inner connection in romantic relationships. Uplifting others is especially effective in groups where each member can feel energy of all the others. With children it is extremely important for their early security and growth. By seeing the beauty in every face, we lift others into their wisest self, and increase the chances of hearing a synchronistic message.

9. The Emerging Culture

As we all evolve toward the best completion of our spiritual missions, the technological means of survival will be fully automated as humans focus instead on synchronistic growth. Such growth will move humans into higher energy states, ultimately transforming our bodies into spiritual form and uniting this dimension of existence with the after-life dimension, ending the cycle of birth and death.

2004-03-16T12:19:00.000-05:00

I have another update for the Streetlight Outage Patrol…

Not exactly a streetlight…but while at the Philadelphia Flower Show last Wednesday one of the big overhead lights went out right above me. A quick survey of the room didn’t find any others out.

An odd form of Insight #6 Rej?

2004-03-16T00:03:00.000-05:00

Happy Birthday to me
Happy Birthday to me
Happy Birthday Happy Birthday...
Happy Birthday to me!!

2004-03-11T23:15:00.000-05:00

Holy Map Batman

I saw this on a West Wing episode.
I had no idea the map of the world in my head was wrong.
Just goes to reaffirm my basic premise...Everything I ever thought or believed is wrong.
Extrapolation...We as humans are still really fucking dumb.
we think we're so smart because we know the world isn't flat.
Take a look at the map and tell me how smart we are.

No picture but mentions West Wing...better info

2004-03-09T22:20:00.000-05:00

The Eagles just traded linebackers (by signing eachothers free agent) with the Giants. Stupid. Free agency like that is stupid.
And the cheeses team just got my teams runningback...pretty funny on that one.

2004-03-09T22:19:00.000-05:00

I feel more and more like I don't belong here.
Maybe I need to go to Europe and find out who my family is.

2004-03-09T21:25:00.000-05:00

Aha!!

2004-03-04T11:37:00.000-05:00

Dutch Masters
Perhaps there is something to the whole Amish thing of having your picture taken stealing your soul...and maybe the eyes are the windows to the soul...and maybe there was something weird going on and those windows needed to be closed.
I recently saw an exhibit of The Dutch Masters at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam where first of all I learned why they are called that (pictures in books and the minor works I have seen in the US had me thinking it was cigar box art). I was so completely blown away by the scale and detail of the works. At one point I actually thought I saw one of the people in the painting laugh. So maybe that’s where the Amish (Pennsylvania Dutch) get their fear from….Maybe the Dutch Masters were stealing their souls and putting them into their paintings.

2004-03-03T16:33:00.000-05:00

Mark this moment down…4:25 3.3.4
I just willingly, although somewhat begrudgingly, put on a watch for the first time in I don’t know how long. Many many years.
I have said as long as I can remember, “I don’t believe in time as a concept in and of it’s self.” And now I realize the true nature of the universe…time is all we have. Not stuff. Time. How ironic…I have collected one and ignored the other…and all this time I had it backwards. Whoda thunk it.

2004-03-03T12:23:00.000-05:00

Do something you love and you will never work another day in your life.
There was a paper printout sign with pink lettering on the wall at the nursing home where my dad is that said that.

2004-03-01T15:20:00.000-05:00

I’m watching yesterdays Democratic … uh … I don’t want to say Debate … Press Conference maybe?
The democrats and the television news have already anointed John Kerry the Democratic nominee and they are all sitting there trying to get him elected.
It seems almost scripted as far as who is answering what question.
They are deflecting the issues from Kerry.
And I’m pretty sure John Edwards is going to be the nominee for Vice President.

2004-02-29T23:09:00.000-05:00

How can something be the best thing and the worst thing in the world at the same time?
I just got home from seeing my father, and my mom and sister and some other relatives as well.
My dad has been in a nursing home for a few weeks now…he was in assisted living for a year but they recently gave my mom 30 days to get him out.
The last time I saw my father he was sleeping all the time, incontinent and barely communicating. Now in the nursing home he no longer speaks, he makes faces that scare the hell out of me and the only time he seemed like my dad was when he was asleep. He snored and for the first time in my life the sound that used to drive me more crazy than anything else was the most comforting sound I have ever heard.
I feel sad and most likely always will because I probably told my father I love him more in the past week when it seems like he has the mental capacity of an infant than I did in my whole life prior…my adult life at least.
This has changed my life.
I now know I need to be glad for what I had. Glad for what I have. And take better advantage of the time I have left.

How’s that for a start?

2004-02-28T12:06:00.000-05:00

"If the plane doesn't crash..."?????
who thinks like that?
and you haven't written...so are we to assume the plane crashed?

"well, if i don't die in a car accident, I'll have groceries when I get back"

"If i make it out of the shower without falling and breaking my head open, I'll be clean"

"If I don't get struck by lightning on my walk...If I don't choke to death at dinner...if i don't have a heart attack in my sleep..."

2004-02-21T02:13:00.000-05:00

I'm getting on a plane in 16 hours to go see my father for what will most likely be the last time.
If the plane doesn't crash I'll probably post something from the ride or at least while I'm there.
I'm sure I'll be full of new insights when I get back.

J-Bird Out.

2004-02-18T09:38:00.000-05:00

Washington Post Blog Article

I thought this was interesting....the Dr. Seuss version of Lord of the Rings is worth the read alone!