So This Is Supposed To Be Vacation huh?

It isn't exactly how I planned to spend my first evening of my summer vacation. Here is how it was supposed to go...

• 4:30PM - wake up from nap
• 4:32 - pee
• 4:38- tap, shake and head to kitchen
• 4:39- start coffee & let dogs out
• 4:40- pee.... yes, again. (Have to chase out the stragglers)
• 4:42- (shorter) return to kitchen
• 4:43- peer into pantry and refrigerator repeatedly until an idea strikes
• 4:44- see 4:43
• 4:46- scratch and decide on dinner
• 4:49- get ingredients needed ready
• 4:54- remember that I just made fresh coffee
• 4:55- pour cup of fresh coffee
• 4:56- head toward computer and fire it up
• 4:57- check email, facebook, bank account, play pocket tanks
• 5:20- start cooking while jamming to tunes
• 5:35- sit at coffee table and have dinner while watching next episode of House Season 1
• 6:20- bring dogs in and feed all the critters
• 6:31- call drinking buddy
• 6:32- leave message for drinking buddy to call back
• 6:33- give treat and put dogs out again
• 6:34- head into garage for coffee and cigar while playing games on computer
• 7:10- pee
• 7:11- take shower
• 7:23- towel off and check for messages
• 7:27- pick up dog poop in yard and water grass & foliage
• 7:38- scratch
• 7:39- dispose of aforementioned poop and return into house to hear the phone ringing
• 7:40- talk to drinking buddy and make plans for evening
• (if you're still reading this you must really have a sad life)
• 7:41- clean up crockery
• 8:08- wipe sweat from brow
• 8:09- watch next episode of House
• 8:35- answer interrupting phone call and talk with friend
• 9:03- resume House
• 9:04- pause House and go pee
• 9:09- let dogs in and resume House
• 9:24- turn off TV and get dressed
• (you're still reading? You're pathetic)
• 9:32- gather my things and tell dogs not to wait up
• 9:34- head to watering hole
• 9:51- arrive at consumable goods facility
• 9:53- stroll into establishment and look around like I own the place
• 9:54- approach bar as first people notice I'm wearing a skirt
• 9:56- order a beer as I scan the staff
• 9:57- pull out my ID (because I look so young)
• 9:58- chuckle at the compliment and say "I get that a lot."
• 10:00- take my first swig as I hear "MAK!" announced loudly and excitedly behind me
• 10:01- slide off stool and give buddy hug
• 10:02- engage in banter with buddy and accelerate consumption rate
• (Still reading, huh? Now its getting a little better.)
• 11:36- have all the women play rock-paper-scissors to see who gets to share my company
• 11:37- recover from slap in face from friend who caught me day dreaming again
• 12:26- stop drinking etoh and start on water
• 12:27- pee...................... (gonna be a while)
• 12:41- continue laughing as drinking buddy continues with funny anecdotes about our days in the trenches together
• 12:58- pee (the seal is broken now)
• 2:00- close down the bar and wait 20 minutes for buddy to finish talking to people
• 2:21- continue conversation in parking lot
• 2:39- pee (flood gates have been open for a while now)
• 2:44- hug buddy and head for home
• 3:04- arrive home, greet dogs and let them out
• 3:08- pee
• 3:12- get undressed and let dogs in
• 3:17- zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Well, that didn't happen.

Things were going according to plan until 5:35. Then.....

• 5:35- sat down to dinner and noticed TV wasn't working
• 5:37- tinkered with controls
• 5:43- cursed
• 5:44- answered phone call from drinking buddy
• 6:03- got off phone after learning that buddy can't go out due to taking a class in the morning
• 6:04- moved dinner into computer room
• 6:06- browsed through netflix to select movie to watch on computer while having dinner
• 6:07- watched movie and ate
• 6:40- paused movie and fed critters
• 6:56- resumed movie
• 7:50- finished movie and let dogs out
• 7:51- pee
• 7:55- took shower and shaved
• 8:12- checked email, web-sites, etc.
• 9:10- moved laptop to patio and started fire
• 9:16- brought dogs in
• 9:19- started fire in patio and signed in to blogspot
• 9:21- lit Perdomo Maduro Vintage
• 10:36- finishing up blog and cigar as fire is fading

Be well!

What a movie!

I watched a good movie this evening. I was due for another good purging.
So I purged, but not as heavily as thought I might. I guess once I figured out what was happening, the plot didn't hit me so heavily. Nonetheless.... powerful stuff!

I saw Seven Pounds.

The hard part is for me to comment on the movie without giving the story away. Even though the audience can pretty well figure out what will happen within the 1st thirty (or so) minutes, its still compelling to watch. It draws you in.
It is about compassion and guilt. Two very powerful emotions that drive this story.
I couldn't help wondering what happened to the Box Jelly. But that is beside the point. :-)

I was reminded of my days in college. In grad school I took a Social Psychology class. There was considerable amount of material and ensuing discourse regarding altruism. There is an undying philosophical question associated with it too..... Is there such a thing as pure altruism? On just about any given day you can hear someone discussing this in the library or hanging out near the Psych classes. My professor and I had a discussion about this too. I never did figure out what his opinion was, but then I suppose that is what made him a good professor. He & I discussed this a couple times and he understood my position well. Well enough to use me as an example in a class discussion. Score 1 nerd point for the guy sitting in the center of the back row. :-)

This argument is (predictably) never really settled. There are strong opinions going either way. Its kind of like arguing over which side of the sausage is its beginning?
But within that argument lies something even more important. Even more important than the motives for altruism is the outcome of it. What does the reason matter if someone did something for someone else. Isn't the outcome what really matters?

I put this movie in the same class as "Life as a House." Amazing!
I'll leave you with a couple trailers from these movies.... Food for thought.

Let me know your thoughts! Enjoy & be well!

Change in plans

Well peeps.... if you didn't notice, I was trying to do this story thing on here. But my lack of consistency to the story I was working on caused other stuff to go by the wayside. So I decided to start another blog page just for my stories. Once I figure out how to do it, I will post a link to it from this page. But for now... the address is http://scrollinggest.blogspot.com/

I copied the 4 parts to the story to the new blog. This way I can continue with the story-telling at my leisure and not leave this blog unattended for such long periods of time. There have been some developments in my life that have been left unblogged. So let's see if I can do a brief bulleted list to get you caught up... (these are in no particular order)

• Our boys & girls wrestling team won districts
• My mother is visiting
• My sister has a new job. Well, same job, new school. She loves it!
• I have grass in my back yard now
• I just returned from a fun-filled weekend in Lake Harmony, PA for a cigar festival
• I have a new skill, shoveling horse s*!t
• I have been working on a new habitat for one of my snakes
• Talbot got a hair cut
• My friend Lilo bought a house
• My friend John rented a house
• My friend Joy moved into a bigger apartment
• I helped all three of them move
• I helped all three of them move
• I helped all three of them move
• My back hurts :-)
• I'm still funny

That ought to about sum it up.

I am planning on returning to the annual VHPA reunion this year. Its in Philadelphia. I haven't finalized the plans yet, but within the next week or so I should have it all figured out.

I'm keeping this one short. I have some more things to do tonight, so I'm gonna call it a blog!

Be sure to check out my other page. I hope it becomes a regular page for you to visit. Hopefully, over time I will have a variety of stories and poems on there. I'll try to hit different genres. My family isn't too big on the fantasy stories, so maybe my next one will be something they will like. We'll see what happens.

Thanks for visiting!

Be well

Yeah, I know. Its been a while. Ok, a loooong while.
Generally saying that I've been busy is just a euphemism for saying that I was too lazy. Honestly, there is truth to both. Don't you just love honesty? :-)
I can't help it. Its a product of my high moral standards. Or is it.......????

How did you like the way I segued into my topic tonight? Pretty cute, eh? :-)
So here I go on honesty... something that I hold sacred. To me, honesty is one of the pillars of ...
well... not humanity. Can I say animality?

You can see where I'm going with this, can't you?

No, I haven't had a recent breach of trust. I didn't get swindled. (unless you know something I don't) My integrity hasn't been scrutinized. So where is this coming from?
Honestly (there I go again) it just popped into my head right after I said there was some truth to being busy and lazy. But right as I started on this topic, the question of the origin of honesty sprang to mind. When did honesty become a moral obligation? Who ever deemed dishonesty as as bad?

I'm shooting from the hip here, folks, so just go with me on this.

In my exploration of this topic I have to consider different applications of honesty and how it is beneficial to the one who commits honesty. Or how about the recipient of honesty. Who really benefits from honesty? As I'm pondering the possible threads to this chain of thinking I realize that people have probably written 200 page dissertations on this stuff. I hope I'm not getting in over my head here. After all, can honesty really be explored objectively?

So, let's dig in. As good a place to start as any is with the origin of the word. At least in its English form. I did a little checking and there are no mysterious origins to honor. According to The Barhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology it is derived from Latin honestus which expectantly means respected, truthful, or fair. No news bulletin there.

Something occurs to me, though. Respected, truthful, and fair are human values. People decide what is fair. Respect is a little less easy to attribute solely to humans, but still workable. And truthful implies an acknowledgement of fact. So does this mean that humans also decide what is honest? If this is true, then honesty can't really be explored objectively.

To twist this thought a little, lets look at this more philosophically. Was there honor before man? This reminds me of something Nietzsche pondered... "Did God create man or did man create God? I'm not well versed enough with Nietzsche to know if he ever proffered an answer to his own query, but I think the application of the question fits.

In order to explore this I have to view this matter from a more biological angle. More specifically, evolution. This ties back into my earlier question about who benefits from honesty.
I'm certainly not the first to pose this question. Robert Wright, who authored The Moral Animal: Pantheon Books 1994, discusses Charles Darwin and evolution in a number of places. He wrote, "Truth and honesty are never favored by natural selection in and of themselves. Natural selection neither 'prefers' honesty nor 'prefers' dishonesty. It just doesn't care."
So does honesty really matter when survival is at stake? What about altruism? Can someone do something dishonest in order to procure a greater justice? Robin Hood would say "Absolutely!"

But I'm not going to get into the parameters of honesty here. Or honor for that matter. Honor has become so twisted these days its almost impossible to convince someone that defending their perception of honor is misplaced. See what I mean.... there is that man-made concept again.... perception.

When a person's honor and integrity is threatened, they are likely to lose objectivity and act on a moral imperative to act on their perceived threat. The key, once again, being the perception of a threat.

Any person engaging in a discourse on honor would be remiss to omit discussing the religious implications here. People live in the constant fear of being cast into eternal damnation if they so much as even conceive dishonest thought, let alone act dishonestly. So how is honor served when your instinct and biological imperative are in conflict with your religious imperative?
That, my friends, is what we call a dilemma.

Suppose you are lost in the desert. Its been two days since you had any water. You are already suffering the effects of dehydration. You encounter a well equipped stranger setting up camp. You ask for water and he refuses to share any and he tells you to keep going and not to bother him. Later he falls asleep and he has water all over the place. Knowing there is no risk of being caught, do you steal some water?

Of course this scenario is highly unlikely and unreasonable. It is supposed to be. It illustrates a conflict. It pits a biological imperative against a moral imperative. My first thought would be to take some water. My justification is that morality does me no good if I'm dead. Of course there are those that will argue about tainting of the soul and it was a test that I failed therefore I'm damned. So there never will be an answer acceptable to everyone.

This brings me to my concluding point. Despite some clear universal ideas of honor, there will always be varying perceptions because people simply have different value systems.
I think George Carlin did a great job of boiling the 10 commandments down to 2 basic commandments....

"Thou shalt always be honest and faithful to the provider of thy nookie & Thou shalt try real hard not to kill anyone, unless of course they pray to a different invisible man than you."

All of the other commandments address honor in one form or another anyway. So why not keep it simple? Keep it honest. Here he is....
Enjoy!

Life Is Precious

That seems to be a message that is all too easily forgotten, despite the frequent reminders in our pop culture. There are many opportunities to be reminded of this.... every day.

Do you ever find yourself just watching people? Not even deliberately. You just catch yourself staring. Do you ever ask yourself why? Do you answer? I do. Frequently. I try to find connections between me and everyone else. I observe... I listen... I watch... and sometimes I stare. I'm the weird seclusive bald guy down the street that kids are warned to avoid. hehe
Almost everything about me is unconventional... at least for where I live. Don't get me wrong...
I love my neighborhood. I have good neighbors. But I'm the odd one out. I'm not married with kids. I live with a bunch of animals (and no I don't live in a frat house). I'm Pagan. I like to run around the house naked. I smoke pipes and cigars. I listen to weird music. I have weird books. There is really nothing obvious about me. By looking at me you can't discern my origin. By listening to me you can't tell where I was raised. By talking with me you might not be able to guess if I'm educated. You can't tell if I'm a sports fan. I have a ubiquitous look about me. I blend well. Either that or I have about 18 brothers that look like me. (Poor bastards) :-)
In short, I'm an anomaly.

So what does all this have to do with the title of this post? Well, my friends, I'll tell you...
Let's see if I can make sense of my train of thought so that I don't sound like some babbling fool stuck on the 7th floor somewhere:

One of my most prominent missions in life is to decipher the mystery of being. That is to figure out what motivates people to be who they are. Oh yeah, this gets deep. So hold on. (Feel free to bail out at any time) It is for this reason that I am so observant. That is why I study people's behavior, their mannerisms, their attire, etc. I try to figure them out in hopes of figuring out what the hell we (as a people) are doing here. I want to know. My mantra is "Seek knowledge. Wisdom follows."

So far, I've learned that there is wisdom in simplicity. There are so many movies and songs and stories that remind us to enjoy life. But we don't always live the way those stories tell us. In fact, in our western culture, we go out of our way to prove to ourselves, and those around us, that we are somehow more special... more deserving than everything else. We have forgotten that life, in of itself, is precious.
After teaching middle school science I learned a thing or two about just how fragile life is. If everyone had an inkling on an idea of how narrowly we survive... it is by a thread of the universe's web that we cling to life. And yet we thrive. As a result of this, we try to live in opulence to prove to ourselves that we belong. Its as though there is some unconscious drive to maintain our constant state of denial.
Its the simple things that make life possible in the first place. And hence, we take these simple things for granted. Just ask the farmer that hasn't seen rain in two years. Ask the fisherman whose lake dried up. Ask the Inuit who can't feed his family because the caribou left. You get the point.
This thread by which we live weaves and turns through the universe. And no one knows when this thread will break. But it will. So we ought to live as though we know this. We ought to live as though we are thankful. We ought to live as though we are fortunate, not deserving. This thread goes by many names. For people to make sense of the worlds around and within us we have to apply terms to them. This thread is known by many names: God, Allah, Goddess, Yahweh, Luck, Providence, Brahma, Elohim, Jehovah, Gaea, Verdandi, Great Spirit, and many others, I'm sure. Call it what you will, but we all live by a hairs breath.
And what a rich breath it is. It is fantastic. It is miraculous. It is fortuitous. It is beautiful. It is terrible. It is grand. It is awe-inspiring. It is what I call life.

We ought to live by the golden rule which is predominate in all belief systems. We ought to make the world a better place while we are here. This message is everywhere. We need to choose to hear it. In this age of communication and entertainment this message is delivered. These messages are delivered to us through modern day bards. People write stories and tell them in many forms. Through movies and song. Through books and stories. Someone wrote these. Someone sings these. Someone reads these. These are the bards and minstrels of today.
But they are easily dismissed as entertainers. They are more than that... (with some exceptions I'm sure.) But the message remains true. Some have delivered this message in celebrated fashion such as great books. Take the time to look a little deeper. Listen a little closer. You can hear it.

Life is precious. Live as though you know this.

Be well.

If There Is Such A Thing As Luck...

... then I've experienced it.
I came home yesterday. I was in NC for Xmas and then spent a few days in Atlanta with my sister and her daughter. It was a good trip. We all had a good time. We went to the Georgia Aquarium and Stone Mountain. We zipped through the Atlanta Underground and Centennial Olympic Park.
I'll provide more detail on these in another post, but I just wanted to share the brief story of the luck that I experienced.
When I came home, I was very happy to see my critters... the dogs, the cat, the fish, the hermit crab, and of course my ..... 2(?) snakes....??? Wait a minute....
I double checked my blog to be sure that I didn't dream about the new snake.
I was no dream. And now Hiberna was gone.
What the hell....????
Apparently I didn't do a good job of securing the cover to the little enclosure I had and she got out. I don't know if I was more pissed off or sad. I called my friends (those that watched the house and kids) to ask if they knew anything or if they ever opened the enclosure. They didn't.
So I came to terms with the loss of a little young snake. For a snake as small as she is, there are a million places she could hide. I pretty much precluded any thoughts of even searching for fear of even greater disappointment. After about an hour I settled down a bit and got to thinking... it isn't likely that she went far. So if she was still here, then it would be close. It isn't as though she would make a bee line for the nearest exit. As far as she knows, this is a new and potentially dangerous world. So she would be careful and meticulously slow in her exploration. Ok, so a littler glimmer of hope was restored.
I proceeded to start at the place where her enclosure was and started looking under cushions and behind stuff. Then I thought she would likely stay in dark places. That would likely mean near edges of stuff. I worked my way behind the couch over toward the closet. Why not, its dark in there. So I opened the closet door and wouldn't you know it.... there she was. In plain sight right at eye level no less! Literally hanging around amidst a collection of unused clothes hangers.
That has to rank at the top of my list of pleasant surprises! So I put this question to you....
Is there luck? Is there karma? Or is there just circumstance? hmmm...
So my year ended on a very positive note. I've said before that 2008 was a good year for me. My 40th year on Earth was probably the best one. And since I turned 41 a couple weeks ago, my luck, as it were, seems to continue to be good. :-)
Maybe I should start playing the lotto!
Nah, why do anything differently now? I'm just happy that Hiberna wasn't lost forever. I happy that my household is filled with happy dogs, a content cat, a few well fed snakes and a hermit crab that probably could use a couple friends. Oh yeah.... and a happy master of the home that has friends and family that care about him. I'm getting all fuzzy inside!
My home truly is my castle. And my subjects are well!

May the new year bring you as much good fortune and happiness as it did for me last year.

Be well