"The end is near" said the crazy guy on the corner.

One of my super pet peeves is all the Doom and Gloomers who came crawling out of the woodwork in the last couple of years. All those idiots who claim to know the future and for them, the future is none too good, to say the least. Most of them belong to or subscribe to some extreme political cult or group. They only listen to talk/junk radio fat ass drug addict idiots and believe every word they hear.

For them, the main stream media are all lying to us on every front. They basically blame them for all our woes. They pine for the "good old days", when they thought life was basically "black and white". You know..........The guy with the white hat loved, protected the citizens and was always good, pure of mind and heart and never did anything wrong at all. Now.........The guy with the black hat was the devil incarnate. He was a crook, mean to small children and would rape and molest all the women in the neighborhood without a second thought to what was right or wrong.

These Doom and Gloomers really started big time during the so-called year 2000 computer disaster, which of course like everything else they freak out about never even happened at all. As far as I know, NOTHING whatsoever happened! Back then all these crazies dug huge holes in their backyard, lined the walls with 4" impenetrable metal and stocked up their hidy hole with enough food to last for the few years they thought the end of the world would take to catch up with them. Then they went out and bought up every bullet within 50 miles of their new home in the dirt to be able to protect themselves from the unshaven masses who were for sure coming to try and rape and pillage their loving families.

Now of course they all have rotting, stinking, putrid food they need to deal with. They also drove the price of ammunition through the sky with their idiocy. Now bullets cost more than gold, thank you very much...Maybe after they clean all the rotten food and ammunition out of their special holes in the ground, their children and grandchildren will at least have a fort they can play in huh?

All throughout history there have been nut cases standing on the corner with hand drawn signs that say "The end is near". I wouldn't doubt if they even had savage nut cases as far back as the cave man days screaming about the local volcanoes about to erupt because they thought the other tribes were not paying enough attention to whatever gods they believed in at that time.

So.........believe it or not, after all the Doom and Gloom predictions about the world as we know it ending because of our new president or any number of other stupid reasons put out by the extremist, we're still doing just fine, thank you. Matter of fact, there are clear signs that everything is creeping very slowly to be sure, back toward whatever will be our new normalcy in these interesting times we find our selves in at this time in history.

Sometimes the Doom and Gloomers even try and compare our present temporary recession to the Great Depression. Can you believe that? Have you seen pictures of those poor folks back in those times. Holy Shit. We're all rich beyond imagination compared to those times. Back then, there was no safety net of any kind for those poor souls. No welfare. No food stamps. No nothin! There was starvation, for heavens sake back then. Now days, with the wonderful outpouring of food, clothing and housing available for the poorest of the poor, we have it made in general compared to those terrible and unfortunate days.

There's nothing I can say to the Doom and Gloomers that will make them understand how out of touch and crazy they are, other than to tell them to shut the damn radio off, but for the rest of us.............

Just relax folks. Slowly but surely, the same as the other approximately dozen temporary recessions we have already lived through, the economy will get better. Americans are the most resourceful, creative people on the planet and will be just fine in the long run. The job market will start slowly growing with time. Even losing some of our manufacturing base is temporary. With all the new "green technologies" coming along and being invented daily, new job skills will be necessary, which will put people back to work eventually.

At this point in time, the only people I personaly feel sorry for are people who are subjected to the Doom and Gloomer's crazy rants. I'm guessing these poor folks make any excuse they can to get the hell away from these nutcases as soon as they can. As the title of this piece says:
"The end is near" said the crazy guy on the corner", as normal, sane people just shake their heads, laugh and move their families to the other side of the street for their own safety..........




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Christmas, oh so magical. Or is it?

Christmas for everyone is assumed to be the most magical, amazing, wonderful time of the year. A time when all family's make a special effort to get back in close, personal contact with all their loving relatives and friends. Often times, this really only happens this one time each year, which should make it even more special.

Christmas starts out for all of us as this crazy, wild, huge event that slowly becomes more and more real and important starting from the day we are born. It's a time when as children, all of the sudden out of no where, relatives we might almost never see show up at our homes with smiles and love shinning in their eyes and souls. A time when we re-connect with people we have a blood connection with or those who married or coupled with our blood relatives.

All of the sudden our homes become this loud, happy, huggy and warm place where nothing bad could possibly happen. It re-affirms how life can be a wonderful and fulfilling experience for all. Our homes become this special place with the amazing smells of Aunt Gertrude's yearly dishes that taste oh so good. Everyone has their own special dishes that fill the home with aromas from heaven. We all eat far, far too much of everything and every meal includes the obligatory moans and groans of being too full at the end of each meal.

Okay. That's the dream Christmas and possible reality for a lot of folks lucky enough to have a large loving family who either lives close by or are willing to travel across the country to end up in one special home each year, sharing their love for each other openly and with great glee.

The sad truth for so many is as we grow older and most of the children move off to have their own families and realities, it becomes harder and harder to get together at all. Then there are those who had those times only when they were little kids. Then their brothers and sisters, if they had any at all, slowly became estranged from each other for tons of stupid but real reasons. In adulthood, they might even now be in a place where they are so dysfunctional that they don't even talk to each other at all now. As sad as that seems to happy families, there are a lot of people out in the world in that position.

For them the whole Christmas season becomes this sad, lonely time of the year. We've all heard about the incredible and unfortunate amount of intense depression, even suicides that happen during the Christmas season each year.

I'm not writing this piece to put a damper on the season for folks but to just point out that Christmas is not always this perfect, wonderful, magical thing for an awful lot of folks. These people could and should get love, comfort and understanding from everyone around them. If you know of anyone like this as I'm sure you do if you look carefully around you, lets all take even just a moment out of our hectic lives to do something special for these deserving people who don't have these great big loud, loving family's around to give them a huge group hug we all crave so much.

Just taking the time to spend a few moments with them. Giving them a call out of the blue to wish them a Merry Christmas. Giving them a small but thoughtful present. Just letting them know that you do care about them, even in just a small way most likely would make them feel wanted and cared about at this special time.

Since I do believe in some kind of Karma, I believe this goodwill will come back to you in spades if not now, someday soon.

Oh yeah. Merry Christmas to all of you and I hope we all have a wonderful, prosperous New Year.



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Most people really are quite amazing....

When this whole recession thing first started and people started losing their jobs or as in the building industry, the jobs just started tapering off toward fewer and fewer, I started trying to think of ways I might be able to help. My business has never been impacted much by the various recessionary periods we have gone through in the past and thank the stars above, this one so far is no exception.

The reasons my business has not slowed to much are many, including just having so very many loyal, wonderful customers all these years. The other factors would be the price of my service. One doesn't have to get a loan to get a haircut. It's money most folks have right in their pockets. Another would be how much better a person feels after getting a haircut. Even I forget how great it feels to get cleaned up with a haircut until by wife gives me one. It's a relatively cheap feel good procedure that everyone can and does do on a regular basis.

I put a sign up right in front of everyone as their setting in my chair. The sign says:

If you have lost your job or been laid off in these trying times we find ourselves in right now, the price of a haircut is now $10.00, which is what I charge retired folks.
This price will stay at that level for you until you find a job and or the economy gets back on track for everyone.

At first almost no one took me up on that deal but as the economy started slipping more and more and people actually did start losing their jobs, more of them slowly and reluctantly started excepting my special deal. Even this far into these trying times, there are still people who refuse to utilize the deal out of their own person pride. Some folks are just barely making it and I still can't talk them into it.

Then a crazy, wonderful thing started happening to make me re-realize just how amazing and fantastic a lot of folks really are. One by one, several of my customers started handing me $20.00 for their haircuts. When I started to give them their change, they turned it down and told me to apply it to my deal to help others who need the help. Can you believe that? It shocked me at first but more and more folks have started doing this unbelievably generous, caring thing.

I am guessing I'm at the point where these wonderful people are pretty much paying for my deal with their sharing, beautiful attitudes. In most cases, these are people who have not lost their jobs and just want to pass on some amount of good will and sharing toward their fellow human beings in some small way.

I want to take this time to truly and proudly give thanks to these great people. They should feel proud of themselves and know that I appreciate their contributions with all my heart and soul. I now have quite a few folks who are taking advantange of the special pricing. I have to add that most everyone of them always mention that as soon as they are employed again, they plan on going back to paying the full price.

So............once again it proves beyond a shadow of doubt that most people by far are loving, caring people who in troubled times or good are ready and able to share with their fellow humans. I really think this whole thing should renew all our faith in the basic goodness of people.

I know it sure does for me.........




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Taking normalcy for granted............

This is something none of us gives much thought to until something happens to bring it to the forefront. We go through life taking feeling normal completely for granted. We don't even give a seconds thought to how great just being a normal, healthy, alive and vibrant human being is. There are so many things to feel thankful for in life but most times these thoughts just don't occur to most of us on a daily or minute by minute basis, no matter how wonderful just feeling normal actually is. It takes something that forces us to compare normalcy to, to wake us up to the amazing, perfect being we really are feeling just plain normal.

What brought this to the forefront for us is the damn cold that rudely and obnoxiously crashed through my household the last several days. We went from just cruising through life without a care in the world to falling off a damn cliff of pain, aches, voice completely disappearing, noses running like Niagara falls, coughing like the end of the world and feeling like we just busted rocks for 5 years at a state prison for the hardcore misbehaving and misfit humans serving a life sentence . All of the sudden, normalcy is something completely out of reach. We would pay big money to just feel normal but there's no angel standing there with their blessed hand out promising to bring back normal for a fee.

Food? Nothing sounds good. Sense of taste gone down the road, visiting some other good person not standing on this train to nowhere, as we are. So, trapped in the house with the heater turned on high, sweating like an injun in a hot house of punishment for bad behavior. Living in sweat cloths that go from sopping wet with fever to cold as hell from being so wet from sweating. Stinking beyond most folks limits to behold. The only thing that would seem to help would be good old sleep, except that lovely state only lasts for a few minutes, then it's time to flop over on your other side trying to find that magical comfortable position, which is always and inevitably just out of reach no matter what you do.

Normalcy oh normalcy, where for art thou? Please come back. Don't forsake us during our great time of need. We've been good boys and girls. We've worked hard to achieve this wonderful station of life called older age and deserve nothing but the finest days and nights for all our careful, intelligent and industrious ministrations.

As awful as all this is, way down deep somewhere I guess I do know that this will have an ending and we will eventually feel back to whatever normalcy is for us. I can't even imagine what it must be like to come down with some sickness or disease, without a timetable to see. Some disease that has no wonderful normalcy at it's end. Some unfortunate disease with no cure.

For that all we can do is thank the goddesses above and the gnomes below for the health we do have and know that we are so incredibly lucky to be so fortunate to have the bodies and minds we were given on this Earth. To just wait out our turn with this Earthly hell called a cold and be thankful knowing it will come to an end eventually and we'll feel....

Normal again




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Children....Oh so innocent...Or are they?

It seems most people always assume that our children come into the world as a completely clean, empty slate. Thinking this, our job as parents would then obviously be to fill that slate up with our abundant knowledge and teach them everything they need to become caring, intelligent, contributing members of the human race. We assume they bring nothing with them at all except the bodies they are born with. In the Western world, not believing in any form of reincarnation, our natural assumption of the "clean slate" theory is the only possible explanation for this.

I studied eastern philosophies and spiritualism for years in the wild and crazy sixties, which included Zen, Buddhism, Meditation and Reincarnation. The general idea with reincarnation of course is we are brought into this world over and over again until we finally learn all the reality lessons we need in order to advance into the higher planes of existence. Moving always toward the day we ultimately reach the realization of the oneness of everything or God, as the western religions call it. As each life ends, we choose our next life on the basis of what we need to constantly move toward that lofty goal.

The great eastern scholars don't see reincarnation as a absolute truth writen in stone like western religions tend to do. They just see it as the most logical explanation to the cyclic nature of the world.

Getting back to children, as I watched my child and other children grow through the years, I'm often left wondering how it could be that children come into the world as a blank slate, when they each show such individualism, no matter who their parents are or the environment they were raised in.

As we all know, there are kids who are raised in the most horrible circumstance imaginable. Dirt poor and living in filthy, even dangerous environments with uncaring parents and still somehow raise themselves above their appointed stations in life to become brilliant, amazing, accomplished human beings. Then there are other children who seem to have it all. Money, powerful loving parents who end up in prison, having done some incredibly stupid and horrible things, seemingly out of the blue and completely out of character in relation to their parents.

Nature versus Nurture. Which is it? The environment they're raised in or how they were raised?

Watching my own child through the years, I've often wondered why, if she had a choice, did she choose us to raise her. It took me years to finally admit that we must have done a lot of things right in her upbringing to help her be the super intelligent, driven maniac she ended up being. For the longest time, I couldn't imagine where she got a lot of the great attributes she ended up with, other than the obvious influences from my wonderful wife who had so much wisdom to give. I did finally take some personal credit for helping her along her path to who she ultimately became.

I've came to the conclusion that basically she is who she is. As most children probably are. She and most of them most likely would have turned out great no matter how they were raised or by whomever because that's just who they are down deep in their beings. This of course brings this whole conversation back to the idea that we are somehow born with at least a seed of who we are before we learn anything from our parents or the environment at all. What that seed is, I have no idea. Our soul? The ongoing culmination of all the previous lives we don't remember living? Again, I have no idea.

Do you?




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The grass is NOT always greener on the other side...

You know, us normal peons often times look at all the super famous and successful musicians, actors and other creative people in the news, radio and airwaves and think they have the idealic, perfect, to be envied lives for sure. We see them traveling the world, playing their music in these huge venues, in front of thousands of adoring fans all the time. We see them making movies that bring in millions of dollars from the public, of which they get huge shares of wealth and think Wow! How cool is that?

Well, there are untold, unimaginably difficult concessions that come with those seemingly perfect life styles, to say the least. First of all, in the vast majority of cases, they've worked their whole lives super hard to achieve the skills necessary to make all that happen. Most of the super great musicians and movie stars started on their perspective career goals very early in life, if not when they were just children.

Just a few examples off the top of my feeble noggin. Let me get personal, just for a moment. I've been a musician basically my whole life and it's far from what it's all cracked up to be to most people. In my youth, I had a full time job during the day in Sacramento California and was in a "house band" 4 nights a week at a smoky bar in a town about thirty miles away in Davis California. My "Day gig" was a 9 to 5 affair and the night gig started at 9:00 P.M. at night and ended at 2:00 A.M.

So.........get off work around 5:00 P.M., go home to a quick dinner, say hi to everyone with phony smiles , change cloths and off I went into the night, not to be seen by my family until the next mornings few minutes before leaving for the day gig. Can you imagine how much quality time that left for normal life with family. To my family of that time in my life, I was just this guy who zoomed in and out of their lives, giving very little of myself indeed, to say the least.

I watched a special on Willie Nelson one time a few years ago where it told of him doing something like 157 different venues a year at that time of his career. OK............stop and give that some serious thought for a moment. That meant he and his entire entourage pulled up to a completely new town, got off the bus, unloaded the incredible amount of equipment necessary to do the concert. Then set it all up in a perfect, precise way to do the concert that night. Then they had to go on stage in front of thousands of fans and pretend that the fans were the most important things in their lives, not matter how bad they might feel. Headache? Arthritis? Hangovers? Screw those details. Doesn't matter. Put on the show, come hell or high water folks..

Being in the business so long, I have a very good friend that joined a group I was in when he was 16 years old. Had all of Jimmie Hendrix's material down pat. Note for note. From my day gig I used to get him false mustaches to make him appear old enough to play in the bars with us. A few years later he went off and became the lead guitar player in a very, very famous 60's rock band and played with them for years. Then he started his own band playing in the "Smooth Jazz" style. He's to this day very successful, traveling the world over, with a huge fan base.

Through these years, we talk once in a while about our lives and I've come to know just how hard his life style is often times. He also is one of the "traveling bands" that move from venue to venue pretty much year around. By the way, he has a home in Oregon with a wife and son. He told me once he sees them about once every three or so months. The truth is he gets to live in fancy hotels, eat in fancy restaurants but he's not home and not eating home made food, that's for sure. He just repeated to me the other day that he spends far, far too much time just handling the bookwork involved in such a large production. Uncle Sam drives him crazy with their demanding paperwork, just as he does all of us. He also told me once that I would be surprised at just how much money it costs to keep this enterprise on the road year around. So in reality, it's kind of amazing how relativity little is left over after paying Managers, Road Crews, other band members, hotel, food, travel expenses. That list is far to much for me to even imagine. I believe him when he says he doesn't get rich by any stretch of the imagination.

I remember a talk we had years ago where I was talking about how much I enjoyed working in my garden. He was very quiet for a while and then said "You know what? I should not complain with my life being so successful right now but I'm actually jealous of your talk of gardening. I have a beautiful house on a hill with landscaping galore but my gardening staff handles all that. I don't have any time at all to put my hands in the dirt and smell nature as you do". It was amazing. I almost found myself feeling a little sorry for him at that moment.

Well as your can clearly see, the "on the road again" phenomena is far from what we all thought it would be. Sure most of them make from very good to great money but in most cases have no regular life at all. In the Western music realm, the greats figured out years ago that they could just eliminate traveling all together. They created great halls and venues in Nashville Tennessee and just invite the public to come on down to their place. It worked beautifully and to this day, they all get to live at home, have great family lives and still enjoy their crafts.

So, as the title of this piece says "The grass is NOT always greener on the other side" at all. Looking out at the world of the rich and famous is not always what it's cut out to be. Probably the best example would be all the poor super famous, rich people who have committed suicide through the years with their flamboyant, crazy living or just done in using drugs to try a blunt their personal pains away.

Makes our plain, sometimes perceived boring lives pretty spectacular huh? So get out in your yard, stick your hands in the earth, smell the richness and be thankful for the wonderful lives you do have.

An update for ya.
In my zeal to talk about the down side of the artist world, I forgot that there are plenty of great artists who have wonderful lives and love every minute of their careers. So I have to add this little piece to complete the project.

Since putting up this Blog, my long time friend responded back with some reality checks that I feel are important.
First of all, he told me that all that "on the road" time was mainly when he was in the super successful 60's band, years ago. He's life was hectic 101 then. For years now though, he does enough concerts to keep it real and is home with his very loving family most of the time. One fact I do know is he is very proud father of his children, which are doing great. Of course that says something about him, now doesn't it.
Good job buddy. In my book, you made it!
I'm proud to say "I knew him when" and unashamedly use him as a bragging point in my life often........"^)



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Thoughtful, creative, loving, expressive presents....

Oh boy. Hallelujah. Whoopee. Christmas is right around the corner again. Can you believe how quickly that happens? Now all of us have to run out and buy well thought out, considerate, fanciful, imaginative, originative presents for our loved ones. Presents that perfectly match their every desire and secret wishes. Presents that show we, out of everyone on the planet know them to the bottom of their souls and hearts because we love them so deeply.

Add to all that the clear assumption at least by the department stories and most people whether they know it or not is that the amount of money spent is in direct correlation with how much we love and care about this person. If the stores had their way, when you asked their advise for a present, the first and most important question they would ask is "Well, lets see here. Tell me this. How much do you love and care for this person"? Same thing is true for choosing a casket for your loved ones who pass away but that's a whole other story to tell...

So...............I see myself as a pretty typical male and I'm telling you right now that us typical males are the worst present pickers in the entire universe and beyond. We have no clue whatsoever how to choose something special, creative and special, especially for our waaaaaaaaay better half's, much less the rest of our "loved ones". We never go to the type of stores that carry anything close to things our loved ones would actually love to have from us in the first place. If it's not at the auto parts store or hardware store, how in the hell are we supposed to find anything?

What's happened also through the years is all the old standbys that men used to be able to give (lucky bastards of yesterday) are all completely unacceptable in this new world we find ourselves in nowadays. Men used to be just fine with kitchen items for instance. Well....no more huh? That is now just a hint that they should just be barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen cooking your meals while you set in the front room watching sports on the TV and having your nightly relaxing drink that we so clearly deserve after a hard day at the salt mines.

Now in my personal case and lots of others I'm sure, what used to be normal choices become less and less acceptable. My waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay better half does not like jewelry at all! Can you imagine what that does to my gift giving potential? That's right. You heard me correctly. Not even earrings, bracelet's, watches, rings or necklaces. Nothing at all! Lets try collectibles. NOPE! She doesn't collect anything at all. We basically have no shelves at our home whatsoever to put nicknack's or collectibles of any kind on. Now, I have to say I'm the same on that front so that's cool with me but it sure takes a whole world of present material out of the picture, now doesn't it?

Here's another weird, odd thing about this whole subject also. In general, this whole "problem" of gift giving is only a problem for the giver. The receiver in this scenario usually is quite calm and not stingy at all. The receiver would be quite happy with just a small thoughtful present, even just a hand made card that shows the giver cares and thought about the receiver. The saying "It's the thought that counts" is so true it's amazing. Especially as we get older, there really is not much we actually need someone to get us. All we really want and expect is some show that they care/love us.

I don't think I'm giving out any kind of family secret here when I tell you that for years, I would call our daughter and ask "OK honey. It's time again. Tell me what to get Mom for her birthday/Christmas or anniversary". She most times had great ideas just off the top of her head and I got to take credit for being super cool on the gift giving front. I shamelessly used her very ample creativity relentlessly for years. I'm pretty sure my waaaaaaaaaaaay better half knew this secret all along or she does now for sure........."^)

My waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay better half and I have finally and thankfully reached that point in life where we just choose something we both want for the house or life in general. The next and I think final stage of life would be the way some friends of ours in their late seventy's handle it. They don't even give any of those holidays a second thought at all. No gifts, no cards. Nothing. As far as they are concerned, they don't need to bother with that crap anymore at all. Not sure what I think about that but it is what it is.

OK, that's all the bullshit I can think of right now to add to this subject. Now, here's your assignment folks. Read the instructions below and put in the "comments" page your suggestions for presents for me and other men reading this to give our waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa better half's. Come on now. There has to be several people out of all the hundreds who regularly read this who have cool ideas and suggestions for creative, loving, expressive, thoughtful presents. Tell us about them........Pretty please. Save our asses......



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Hiding in plain sight.......

A guy I used to work with first introduced this interesting phenomena to me years ago. He called it an old Indian trick. Hiding things you don't want people to find right in plain sight. It's amazing how well this works for most anyone.

An example all men can relate to right off the bat would be...."Honey, where's the ketchup?". "It's in the fridge, where it belongs" Your much better half would respond. Now the man has been standing there with the fridge wide open for like 5 straight minutes now and can't find it. The trick of course is the damn bottle is right in the middle, on the top shelf right in the front of his eyes. He of course is looking around it completely missing it. He might even have moved it to one side to get a better view behind it.

One of the things that brought this up at this time for me is I finally got one of those antique Barber Poles for the shop. You know, the kind inside of a glass tube with a spinning red, white and blue thing inside. Now this is a very brightly lit up contraption, spinning around and around all the time. One would think this would stick out like a fart in an aqualung for all to immediately notice when they come through the door. Well, as you can imagine, not one customer so far has commented on it at all. I've had this shop for something like 14 years now with no plain as day, brightly lit Barber Pole hanging in plain sight.........ever........

Because I'm excited about this new purchase I'm wanted my entire career, I ask them if they notice anything in the shop brand new. Everyone of them look all around and around and say "Nope, nothing new here I see". When I point it out, they often times think it was there all along and are amazed when I tell them it's brand new on the wall. They swear it's been right there for years.

Upon some reflection it kind of makes sense that a Barber Pole inside a Barber Shop is so normal and expected that they don't see it at all. It just blends in with all the other Barber related crap on my walls.

I think it's pretty clear that we all go through life taking most things for granted and don't see the trees for the forest. Why would we care about one tree in an entire forest, even it that particular tree was somehow amazingly different and wonderful. So that tells me most of us are truly missing out on a ton of small but wonderful nuances of life without even knowing it.

So, we all probably should pay attention to one of those other great, wise and useful sayings.

Stop and smell the roses.

The key thought here would be the "stop" part. If we never stop or at least slow the hell down once in a while, we won't even know the damn roses are right in front of our faces, much less that they offer one hell of a nice sampling of pleasure for our olfactory senses.

So the next time you want to play a trick on someone or simply hide something well, just stick it right out there in plain sight. No one will ever find it....

Old Indian Trick.



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Oh yeah? Well, your Mom wears combat boots.....

Well, It's FINELY becoming apparent to all of us that our collective acceptance of negative ads on the political front is readily and rightfully coming to a screeching halt. I just saw on the news a perfect example of this fact. Seems during a get together somewhere in California, between our present Governor and the two idiots trying for the job an interesting and very telling thing happened.

Tom Brocaw, with NBC who was moderating the event asked a very, very good question of both of the idiots. He simply asked them if they might declare a cessation of all negative political ads until the end of this mid term election. Now the part that completely blew my mind was the immediate and loud applause just the question got from the visiting audience in attendance.

I've been disgusted for years with this whole lame brained method of trying to get our votes. Everyone I've talked to for the last couple of years have always agreed that it was idiotic and questioned our intelligence to say the least. We don't need to hear the opposition bring up every little negative thing about their competitor to make up our minds who might be the best idiot to run things into the ground, as they all seem to eventually do.

I'm sure everyone in California and probably most everyone everywhere see that the candidates all use negative and smear campaigns until right at the last minute. Then they all put out some smiley, syrupy, sappy, look at how nice and capable I really am ads. They believe of course that with our very short memories, we'll forget they acted like little kids on the kindergarten playground calling each other dirty names all along with these last minute niceties.

One of the worst negative ad offenders was the bitch Meg Whitman. Then just this last week, she put out what I thought was what I would have loved to hear from day one. An ad talking about only herself and what she might be able to bring to the political table to help California survive into the future.

We can't leave out our old as the hills, forever politician Jerry (moonbeam) Brown, though can we? With his very negative but concise ads comparing the bitch with our present failed Governor. I really don't know as I try to not watch any of that crap, but I'll bet even he has now put out a couple of last minute positive ads also.

By the way, their answer to Tommy was something like this. Moonbeam mumbled something like if the bitch stopped, he would. The bitch went into this whole explanation about not using personal attack ads but stating moonbeams political failings was different. By the way, the attending audience booed all attempts to their justification for continuing the negative ads.

I've asked myself this question for years now. Do you think we will ever again have a candidate we are actually excited about? One we believe cares about the common man/women and would do things on our behalf, instead of their own bullshit political agendas or just to further their personal careers?

Read the instructions below and let us know what you think.........



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SUPERCALIFRAGILISTICEXPIALIDOCIOUS!

Words are mighty interesting sometimes, aren't they? I've been told several times the English language has the most infuriating, nonsensical, cockeyed, ludicrous, obtuse, opaque, meaningless words known to man/women/critter and of course Aliens from various other Galaxy's. Our language is about as convoluted, tangled, tortuous, labyrinthine and impenetrable as can be.

Who in the hell decided that we needed hundreds of different ways to say things that should be quite simplistic to convey, transmit, communicate or even proclaim?
The man/women who made these stupid decisions should have had their assess kicked for muddling, confusing, dumbfounding and bewildering us with their idiosyncrasies and insanities.

They should be bound and dragged to the town square, put in the stocks and have all the children in the town throw rotten garbage and other unmentionables, nightclothes, nightwear, underclothes, underclothing, underthings, underwear, and undies at them until they beg the forgiveness of the masses for screwing up the language.

To tell the truth, (novel idea huh?) I was just getting a tad bored and most times, that's all it takes to drive me to write. The next thing required is just a kernel, seed, crux, grain, morsel, nubbin and or grain of an idea.

Often just one word or phrase, byword, catch phrase, catchword, diction, expression, idiom, locution, maxim, motto, parlance, phraseology, phrasing, remark, saying, shibboleth, slogan, styling, tag, terminology, utterance, verbalism, verbiage, watchword, wordage, wording and off my little mind travels down the yellow brick road.

The word that came to mind this time was "SUPERCALIFRAGILISTICEXPIALIDOCIOUS!"
God, what a cool word huh? Of course the first thing it brings to mind for those of us in the "long of tooth" era is the Mary Poppins movie, Sound of Music.
Often times song writers have super, creative, originative, fanciful, notional, fictive, imaginative, inventive and yeasty ways with words, don't they?

If you really want to see words stand up straight and come alive. If you have some valuable time to completely waste, goto:

http://paul3333.blogspot.com/2007/11/this-is-test.html

This was actually the first piece I ever wrote, written far far before I even knew I might have it in me to write. I probably should have known right then and there that telling worthless tales might just be my best attribute. One I should milk for all it's worth and go down in history someday as "A rumor in his own time".

Soooooooooooooooooooooo. After completely wasting some of your valuable time on this piece thinking this Paul Dude might have something wise or at least intelligent to say about something, finding out instead he was just bored and just set out to fill this space with nonsense to feel important and alive, what say you?

Do you have it in you to write a letter to Editor of this Newspaper and ball Paul out or whatever you need to do to feel self important also? I'm telling you right now that a damn kindergartener could do this. Most people are just too lazy or insecure to try and figure it out. Are you one of those or do you have what it takes?



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I’m schizophrenic and so am I…………

Most people in the world seem to take life far, far too serious. Now there are plenty of times when seriousness is completely called for, that's for sure. The problems seems to be how much that attribute has taken over obsessively to the exclusion of all else. What about fun, enjoyment, laughter, merriment, lightness, craziness and just plain treating life as the dance it could and should be?

Seriousness:
Important: important or grave enough to require thought and attention. Thoughtful or thought-provoking way. Earnestness, serious-minded, sincerity, sedateness, staidness, solemnity, solemness, graveness, gravity, sobriety, soberness, somberness, connectedness, commitment.....

Looking at all those definitions of the word seriousness gives one pause, now doesn't it? They all sound stiff as hell and damn boring. Not a plan or philosophy one would choose to live all the time by huh? Now there are plenty of times in ones life where being serious is the only way to go. Driving a car, any kind of flying, school in all it's applications, at work when one is trying to accomplish an important task etc.

To my admittedly (and with great pride) twisted mind, the devil in the details here is the entire concept of "political correctness". This stupid, insane, asinine present day invention was invented by muddle headed do gooder idiots who think they can tell everyone else what's "proper thinking". Well, they can all take a flying leap off a tall building as far as I'm concerned.

Ask anyone who works in a small to large company and they'll tell you as this insidious garbage philosophy entered the work place, all the fun went out the window and their jobs slowly became a drag instead of a place they wanted to be at. Instead of having a vested interest in doing the best they could for the company because they flat out enjoyed being there and being a positive contributor to the success of the company, now they just "put in their time, doing just what's necessary to get by and not be fired and get the hell out of there as soon as the clock lets them go each day.

Women became something you better not even look at for fear of "offending" them is some way, instead of Men's friends and equals. People of any color other than white became someone you deferred to and stepped lightly around for fear of "offending" them in some crazy way. So everyone you used to consider friends and co-workers now became potential enemies, who could cause you to lose your job. Now everyone there was now required to go to "political Correctness" education classes. Now doesn't that sound like some god damn communist countries attempt at mind control or something?

Well.....................I'm super proud to say that at my business, people have the right to say anything they damn well please about any subject whatsoever. It's a place for sexist, racist, dumb, crude, bad, stupid, nonsensical jokes of any kind. The only rule there is "if it's funny, it's funny". Even it it's not, it only deserves a loud, rude groan at the most. I pride myself on sending people out the door with not just a great haircut, but in a completely different mood if they were kind of grumpy when they entered.

Examples of my line of bullshit would be as I'm letting them out of the chair, I might say "Well, that'll have to do until the good Barber gets back", Or "I promise, the bleeding will stop soon". Or "I re-carved the dirty word in the back". I especially enjoy messing with stiff, uptight people in expensive suits. One time, I asked this judge dude why he kept coming back for my abuse and he surprised me with "You know what? You're one of the only people in my life who treats me as a normal everyday person, instead of with phony respect as most everyone else does at my job. You give me a healthy dose of reality and I like it".

So come on folks, life doesn't have to be so damn serious all the time. It should and can have a healthy dose of fun, creativity, laughter, spontaneity (a huge, loud, obnoxious, snot flying belly laugh is good for you) and a little bit of craziness can go a long way to enriching and improving your lives and those around you.

Whatchathink?



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Use it or lose it...

The older I get the more this fact becomes apparent, vital and real.

USE IT OR LOSE IT!

That just might be the definitive reason and clear objective of life as we know it. What brought this fact to the forefront for me at this time is the latest little hobby I've taken up. Learning to fly Remote Control Helicopters. I've taken up some rather difficult things in my life but this one takes the cake for sure. Everyone in the Remote Control world made it extremely clear every time I brought it up that this was a complete waste of time and money. They all told horror stories about people wasting hundreds, if not thousands of dollars trying to perfect this and failing miserably in the end.

Even my Daughter who is a Helicopter Pilot told me she knows several Helicopter Pilots with thousands of hours of experience who bought into the hobby with extreme gusto and gave up in disgust in a surprisingly small amount of time and now have them sitting on a shelf in a closet somewhere in their homes collecting cobwebs, with nothing but cuss-words and shame for memories. Other than learning to actually fly them is the extreme learning curve on the transmitters. That's the control mechanism you hold in your hand to send the signals to the "Servos" which move the control surfaces on the Helicopter itself. That damn thing nowadays is a very sophisticated computer, would you believe. You can now program it to do just about anything except maybe butter your bread or give you a massage.

So along with trying to learn to fly this damn thing for more than three minutes without crashing and adding another $100 for repairs to my wonderful new hobby (say thank you, Terry at HobbyTown USA in Rocklin), I now have to learn another entire new computer language. Now as complainy as I sound, I actually am having a ball learning and adding all these new skill sets to my life.

That brings me to the gist of this new revelation. It's wonderful, challenging and exciting to have new hard as hell I should add, things to do to my life. It's so easy for everyone to just fall into normal routines of life. Hell, it's hard enough to just get by nowadays without purposely adding more complications to everything as it is, now isn't it? But ya know what? That's what keeps life new, interesting and anti-boring.

This "Use it or lose it" philosophy is true in every aspect of our lives. Ask any health professional and they'll tell you to use that body. Push it to it's limits at all times. Get off your lazy ass, get off the couch, turn off the boob tube and get moving. You see all the time quite old people at various stages of activity or lack of. The ones on the move are staying in pretty good shape and seem happy, vibrant and alive. Now discounting the very unfortunate facts of disease in it's every form, the plain lazy, weak ones are unfortunately sliding down the slippery slope of declining health right before our eyes. A generation or so ago, the thing to do was to retire as soon as you could, buy a great recliner for the front room and finally get to relax after working all ones life. Well, that lasted maybe a few months or years and then they achieved the ultimate relaxation staring up at the grass at the cemetery.

This whole thing also applies to all the parts of life also. Sex......Use it or lose it. Happy attitudes......Use it or lose it. Friendships......Use it or lose it. Skills, like cooking, playing an instrument, reading, writing, playing golf or any game. They all require one to keep on going full blast at all times. Just like exercise or using the hot tub (silly example but true). Each time I think of it, the first thing that comes to mind is "Dammit, that's just too much trouble, I'm kind of tired right now and don't feel like putting the effort out to do it". Then I force myself and ALWAYS, it's great and I'm super glad I did it.

Sooooooooooooooooooooo, get off your ass, start a new hobby, get outside and go for a walk, take up Kayaking, get in the car and go shopping in a new place you've never been before, learn something new. Something completely beyond your normal skill sets and desires.

By the way, come hell or high water, I WILL get this down. I WILL amaze and impress my daughter, her Helicopter Pilot husband and my friends one day soon. Well......... maybe next year but by God, I WILL DO THIS!

Whatchathink?

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Interesting, creative, dysfunctional people in my life

All my life including now the most interesting, creative, intelligent people I've known have always been the oddest also. I've came to the conclusion that the few people I would call close friends are noticeably weird, different and just this side of crazy. These are people most others would shy away from, if for no other reason than these types don't seem to fit the "normal" package that most people try to fit into. The saying about trying to fit a square peg into a round whole comes to mind with most people who have became close to me.

Starting in high school, I went off into the wacky world of being a musician, which put me right in the middle of some of the strangest people on earth. Musicians in general are a pretty odd group to say the least. For musicians, nothing exists except creating music. Most serious musicians are the types who set in their bedroom practicing all hours of the day and night not paying much attention to what other people would consider normal life. The only real relationships they have is with other musicians.

Another attribute of these people would be their unusual and flaming dis functionalities. They are usually great at one or two things, like art or music and completely out of it with normal functions like bills, obligations, jobs, responsibilities etc. They're the people you see walking around with mismatched cloths, holes in their pants, white socks or wild, crazy colors on. The reasons they do that has nothing to do with having a "style". It's more they could care less about what they consider to be unimportant and irrelevant aspects of life. Again, the only thing that matters to them is their music or whatever Art form they are involved in.

Moodiness, maybe even various levels of depression comes with these folk's weirdness also. I honestly think people like this have a completely different wiring system in their brains than "normal" people. I'm sure at times they regret and lament having these problems but I also think it's part and parcel of being one of the "chosen ones" with incredible creativity, genius and special intelligence it takes to put out great works of art, music, poetry, movies, plays or dance pieces.

When I was playing guitar in a rock band back in the cave man days, the first thing I was taught was to never get anywhere near the amplifier because it would start "feeding back", which meant it would start making this loud screeching noise. Well Jimmie Hendrix practically set on top of his to force as much screeching as possible. I think that pretty much sums up how those kinds of people think. They not only think outside the box but purposely tear the walls down and do whatever they want to.

Another unfortunate but true fact about these people is the fact that throughout history, they usually peak quite early with their genius talents and end up dying from drug overdoses, diseases or freak accidents in their wild ride through life. Clear examples of this would of course include Elvis Presley, Jimmie Hendrix, Marilyn Monroe and a host of others I can't think of right at this moment. I often wonder what these people would be doing at this time if they were still alive and still creating in their art forms.

Now, I'm not saying there is anything at all wrong with "normal" people. Without them nothing regular or normal would ever get done and life would probably be some kind of anarchist system by now. I do think that our incredible and persistent emphasis on "normalcy" goes too far though. If we loosened up on that goal, we probably would have quite a bit more creative, inventive people doing their magic for all to enjoy.

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These interesting times......

In these "interesting times" we now find ourselves in, quite a few folks are pretty nervous about what's going to happen in the future. How we're going to survive the present economic conditions, with all it's uncertainties and unknowns. Will we follow the normal events that have came out of all the other recessions and even the "great depression" in our history?

It sure is hard to imagine positive results when we are all caught in this particular recession. With all the poor folks out of jobs and losing their homes. People struggling just to pay their bills and put food on the table, it's pretty easy to get caught up in the old "down mood" prevalent in a certain ill informed minority of Americans at this time.

OK, enough with the negative spin on things. Lets talk about some realities throughout history now. First of all, with an average unemployment rate of around 10% across America right now, the thing never mentioned in the news or from the Doom and Gloomer's clubs is that means on average, 90% of folks are still employed and doing relatively fine. Now even those folks still employed are a little nervous and playing it safe with their money, as well they should. Which according to reliable economist is the main cause of our ongoing recession right now. 75% of our economy is driven by Americans spending money. With people not spending money on normal items, it means the production of those items with the employment involved is at an extreme slowdown right now.

Another truth that's not said in the media is some of the best times in American history took place AFTER THE DEPRESSION. By the 40's and on through the 70's, the depression was pretty much gone and prosperity was at an all time high for the average American.

The truth that comes to mind for me in times like these is even though we have made some huge mistakes like sending all the manufacturing of American products to other countries, instead of having our own people have those good paying jobs and sustaining our own economy we let them go elsewhere. All in the name of being able to buy the things we think we need as cheaply as possible.

So, obvious mistakes aside, the reality is all throughout history, Americans have always been some of the most inventive, creative, intelligent folks on this Earth. So.... we gave most of our large manufacturing away, we'll come up with something else new and exciting as hell to manufacture soon.

Mark my words. There's some engineer, inventor, or genius out there right this minute working in his dark barn or garage about to have his own "AHA" moment, when he discovers some miraculously wonderful new product or way of doing something. Some amazing breakthrough that changes everything for us. Something of tremendous value that puts thousands, if not millions of people to work.

Some examples of this truth would of course be the light bulb. Did you know that when Edison invented that little devise, most everyone of those times thought it was a waste of time. A stupid idea when everyone was quite happy with their lanterns and candles. It took him years to convince small towns to install the systems needed to make it work for them. Then and only then did the populations of those times see the good of this new fangled idea as something they might actually use on a regular basis.

Another example is of course the Automobile. When whoever first built one had it up and running, everyone basically laughed right out loud at that noisy, clunky worthless piece of crap. Why would anyone want one of those contraptions when they had dependable horses to get where they wanted to go? How would you even be able to drive it anywhere on rut and pocked marked horse and wagon dirt trails all over the country? Again, it took years to create the infrastructure to make it a usable device for the masses to use .

In the present times are things like Solar Power. This relatively new invention came out of the brains of people who one day just looked up and wondered about that bright, hot thing in the sky that burns every day without fail, other than on cloudy days. They probably noticed that water left out in the sun became hot. That led them to wonder how that tremendous resource could be put to good use and Viola! A whole new exciting industry was started. It's now growing in leaps and bounds and putting tons of folks to work making pretty good money. It's especially good for those who lost their jobs in the building industry. Those people are now being re-trained in the manufacturing and installation of Solar Units by the millions across America.

Being a perpetual, life long "Glass half full" guy and proud of it, I'm telling you right now the future is going to be just fine. It very well might take more time than we all would like to see but get better it will. The old "Bubble" analogy will probably happen again just like this time and every time after a large downturn makes everything seem hopeless. That's just the nature of life folks. Life is one big old pendulum. Swinging on way, much too far eventually, then it starts back in the other direction, way too far in the end. The reality and part that's important to always remember is that damn pendulum has always worked that way and will continue forever to swing into the future.

So as I've said over and over in these "interesting" times...........don't let the doom and gloom idiots get to you. They're full of shit and their bullshit is just that... Hold your head up high, grab a smile and see your life as it clearly is.........hopefully with loving friends and family, a dog and two cats who love you unconditionally and a mate who thinks you're the cats meow....(well, most of the time)

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Don't make contacts. Make friends....

Go out and make contacts young man/women. Most of us have heard this great advise along the way. As you meet people in your career, get their names and keep in touch through the years. That way, when you need help climbing the social or business ladders of life, you will have someone you know personally and who knows you to possibly help along the way. People you can use as references in your search of better, more lucrative jobs, positions or business situations.

We've all heard this. How one gets ahead in the business world or even personally with other people is to accrue a list of people who at least know of you and have a good memory of who you are. People who just might give glowing and helpful statements about your character, morals and strengths to a potential employer or business opportunity you might come across in your future.

Now this is not only great, wise and intelligent advise at any time in history but in the tough economy we presently find ourselves in, it's probably of the up most importance. Nowadays the competition for jobs, positions and business opportunities are amazingly fierce. The whole trick at this time is to somehow stand out from the crowd. Make your self larger and more visible than all the other people with the same exact talents, skill sets and financial needs that you have.

Now is when I get to the meat of this little dissertation. I have to stop right now and give credit where credit is due. Through my Daughter's occupation and ongoing career as a Helicopter Pilot, I've met or at least know through the world wide web dozens if not more Helicopter Pilots all over the world.

There is one particular Helicopter pilot who shall remain unnamed for the sake of his personal privacy that taught me this and uses the saying as the subtitle of his life, morals, occupation and personal philosophy. This man has to be the nicest, most sincere and generous person I've ever known of in my life. His philosophy is to always pass on everything he has received that's good or helpful to those just starting out in life. He always gives unlimited professional advise to young, just starting out newbie students or just beginning Helicopter pilots. His advise to them is always right on and comes from years of problem free experience and expertise as a Helicopter Pilot. With a perfect safety record, I might add. His writing is impeccable, with perfect grammar and spelling at all times, which of course gives them an incredibly good example of how to professionally handle their own affairs now and in their futures in the industry.

So here it is folks. Here's his bi-line. Instead of the standard great advise of "Make Contacts"

His take on the whole thing is:

"Don't make contacts. Make friends"

When I first saw that, I was completely floored. Is that the coolest, most wise one sentence saying you've ever heard? When you meet new people, don't think of them as potential contacts to further your career, profession or even your personal life. Just be your normal friendly self and make them your friend. How cool is that? Just with that one little side wise slant on things. That one little difference in approach and boom....You've just changed the dynamic of the whole situation with this new person in your life. This new person will remember you fondly for years to come and will gladly help you in any way he/she can.

So the next time you meet a stranger to you. A new person. Treat him/her with kindness, respect and put on your best face because he/she just might turn out to be your new best friend and be willing to help you in some special way. More important than helping you, he/she might just become a very important part of your future life. As we all know, great friends are a rarity in these times, so do everything you can to make yourself available and receptive to the wonderful side of being human.

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My name is Cuddles........

My given name is Cuddles. The humans I allow to take care of me named me that when I entered their world and fell asleep on their lap, which of course is what we mainly do. The interesting thing about humans is they think they are the dominant species when most of us in the real world know they are just above the ants walking in lines like living robots to find food and comfort. They scurry around most of the time aimlessly, perceiving their activities as somehow important and required in order to survive in the world.

Luckily, I found pretty good humans to obey my every whim and desire. I have a pretty good house to live in. A house with all the requirements we demand from life, like warm sunny areas to get my beauty sleep in. Unlike humans who deprive themselves of the proper amount of sleep and slumber, we need a minimum of 16 hours of deep sleep out of every 24 hour day.

I have no idea what my humans names are as it doesn't matter to me as long as they do exactly as I demand. I really don't demand much. Just constant food, including the kind that comes in the little cans. I prefer foods at body temperature--the temperature of freshly killed prey. I demand my water bowl be changed daily with room temperature water only. Not too warm or too cold. That wouldn't do at all.

A few facts for you humans who are considering living under the same roof as we do.

Sense of smell:
Humans have 5 million odor-sensitive cells in their noses--cats have 200 million. Of course this means they can smell when you don't clean the litter box every day and will "inappropriately urinate" because of this.

Hearing:
Human beings can hear sounds up to 20,000 Hertz (cycles per second), dogs can hear up to 40,000 Hertz, and cats can hear up to 100,000 Hertz. Cats can even hear electrical currents in cords. Pretty amazing, huh?

Psychic:
In China, cats have been used successfully as earthquake predictors for years.

Cats are color blind,
but only need 1/6th of the light that humans require to see.

The cat has 26 facial expressions
The same parts of the human and feline brain correspond to emotion. So pay attention and learn to recognize what we need and we'll get along a lot better.

So as you can clearly see, we are far, far superior to humans in most every way. We have learned through generations to keep life simple. Humans make everything so damnable complicated. They even complicate the simple pleasures of life. Attaching all kinds of unnecessary rules and regulations to most everything they do sure explains their general befuddlements and confusions.

I was going to go into my entire life with the humans I choose to live with but you know what? I'm getting kind of tired and sleepy right now and don't feel like indulging any of my sacred secrets with you anyway. We must keep this stuff to ourselves. We can't let on that we are actually very smart and only pretend to put up with you doofis humans and your weird ways. You just keep on thinking your superior and we'll get along just fine as long as you do as your told.........

Right now I'm just going to lay down and............zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz........

By the way. One super important thing we all require. You need to take us right away to our special doctor or better yet to a Spay and Neuter Clinic to be fixed and get all our shots. Our species tends to over populate like crazy and I personally don't like the competition.

Are you under the false impression that you're superior to your cats? Carefully read the instructions below and tell us about your misconceptions. We could all use a good laugh...



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Good News......

We've all been indoctrinated into the non-truth that only bad news sells. That bad news is the only thing interesting to the masses. Well, I've always thought that was a royal cop-out. The ultimate lazy news organization's rationalization for not doing the work of finding all the good news out in the world that happens every moment of every day.

I consider myself to be just an average, normal American with average intelligence (well, maybe a little more than normal...."^) and I and everyone I know are getting sick and tired of only hearing bad news. Especially on the bullpucky political front. All the Doom and Gloom nut cases, who think they are the majority, when they're thankfully and actually a very small minority indeed. I know they think otherwise but their only kidding themselves. Normal people are sick and tired of all that nonsense and want to get back to understanding and re-realizing that there is far, far more good things happening in the world than bad.

So I went searching and easily found sources for good news. Things happening around the world that are both interesting, informative and worth repeating. Stories that are uplifting instead of degrading, negative and meant to scare, intimidate and make us hide in our homes in fear. We all know down deep these good things are happening all around us because if we just open our eyes to our neighbors and friends, they are all good people trying to do good things every day.

So...............here's just a few things I found easily in just a few moments on line to share with you.........


40 Billionaires Pledge to Give Away Half of Wealth!

A little over a year after Bill Gates and Warren Buffett began hatching a plan over dinner to persuade America's wealthiest people to give most of their fortunes to charity, more than three-dozen individuals and families have agreed to take part, campaign organizers announced Wednesday.

In addition to Buffett and Gates — America's two wealthiest individuals, with a combined net worth of $90 billion, according to Forbes — 38 other billionaires have signed The Giving Pledge. They include New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, entertainment executive Barry Diller, Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, energy tycoon T. Boone Pickens, media mogul Ted Turner, David Rockefeller, film director George Lucas and investor Ronald Perelman. "We're off to a terrific start,"

Buffett, co-founder and chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, said in a conference call also attended by Bloomberg and San Francisco hedge-fund manager Tom Steyer and his wife Kat Taylor, founder of OneCalifornia Bank. Buffett said he and Gates, the Microsoft co-founder, and Gates' wife Melinda made calls to fellow billionaires on the Forbes 400 list of wealthiest Americans — in many cases, people they had never met — to try to persuade them to join the giving pledge."We contacted between 70 and 80 people to get the 40. A few were unavailable. We don’t give up on them. Every saint has a past, every sinner has a future.


Cab Driver Returns $21,000 to Tourist

A New York City cab driver is being praised for returning more than $21,000 lost by a visitor from Italy.
Felicia Lettieri, who's 72, left her purse in a Manhattan taxi on Christmas Eve. It contained traveling money for her and six relatives.
Police told them not to get their hopes up about finding it.
The cabbie drove about 50 miles, to a Long Island address he'd found in the purse. No one was home, so he left his phone number and later returned with the money.
Lettieri's daughter, Maria Rosaria Falonga, told Newsday from Pompei, Italy, that the cabbie also left a note.
He told her: "Don't worry, Felicia. ... I'll keep it safe."
"When I was 5 years old, my mother told me, 'Be honest, work hard and you will raise your station,' " said the driver, Mukul Asaduzzaman, to the New York Post newspaper. He refused a reward.


Mother, Baby Revived, After Both Dying

DENVER - Mike Hermanstorfer was clutching his pregnant wife’s hand when her life slipped away in a Colorado hospital on Christmas Eve, and then he cradled his newborn son’s limp body seconds after a medical team delivered the baby by Cesarean section.

Minutes later he saw his son come to life in his arms under the feverish attention of doctors, and soon he learned his wife had inexplicably come back to life.

Hermanstorfer’s wife, Tracy, went into cardiac arrest and stopped breathing during labor on Thursday, said Dr. Stephanie Martin, a maternal fetal medicine specialist at Memorial Hospital in Colorado Springs, where the Hermanstorfers had gone for the birth of their son.

“She had no signs of life. No heartbeat, no blood pressure, she wasn’t breathing,” said Martin, who had rushed to Hermanstorfer’s room to help. “The baby was, it was basically limp, with a very slow heart rate.”



The Soldier Who Smuggled Himself Into Auschwitz

When millions would have done anything to get out, one remarkable British soldier smuggled himself into Auschwitz to witness the horror so he could tell others the truth.

Denis Avey is a remarkable man by any measure. A courageous and determined soldier in World War II, he was captured by the Germans and imprisoned in a camp connected to the Germans' largest concentration camp, Auschwitz.

But his actions while in the camp - which he has never spoken about until now - are truly extraordinary. When millions would have done anything to get out, Mr Avey repeatedly smuggled himself into the camp.

Now 91 and living in Derbyshire, he says he wanted to witness what was going on inside and find out the truth about the gas chambers, so he could tell others. He knows he took "a hell of a chance".

"When you think about it in today's environment it is ludicrous, absolutely ludicrous," he says.

"You wouldn't think anyone would think or do that, but that is how I was. I had red hair and a temperament to match. Nothing would stop me."



Veteran, 84, Attacks Gun-Weilding Thief

John Dietsch wasn't scared – then or now. While working in the engine room of World War II Allied warships in the North Atlantic, he faced the threat of Nazi mines, warships and U-boats.

"You would hear the guns go off above us. You could feel it all around you," said the 84-year-old.

"There really wasn't time to be scared."

It was the same on Thursday afternoon, when a gunman stormed into a Royal Canadian Legion in Scarborough, demanding thousands in poppy donations. Dietsch and three others had just finished counting through $10,000 at Oakridge Legion, Branch 73, near Danforth and Warden Aves.

"At first, I didn't see the gun. I said, `What are you doing here?' He said he wanted all the bills," said Dietsch. "But nobody was going to get that money we had worked so hard to collect. It's for the veterans and the widows and the community."

When the gunman lunged for the cash, Dietsch grabbed his arm, pushing away the gun. They struggled and Dietsch fell to the floor. The startled attacker, who looked to be in his 20s, ran to the door empty-handed.



Woman Celebrates 100th Birthday

Astrid Thoenig got dressed, went to work and sat at her desk smiling Thursday as she slid her finger gently under the envelope flap of yet another identical birthday card. They don't make that many that say "Happy 100th."

Thoenig was interrupted by a steady stream of deliverymen bringing bouquets, chocolate-dipped strawberries and stacks of cards to the Thornton Insurance Co. in Parsippany where she's been answering phones, keeping financial records, handling payroll and typing up documents for more than 30 years.

"It's another day — it's hard to explain," Thoenig said of turning 100. "I don't feel old, and I don't think old."




So there ya go folks. In just a few moments of my valuable time, I easily found these few examples of wonderful, intelligent, interesting stories to digest and enjoy.


So, the next time someone gets that angry negative look on their faces, starts spitting, with their neck muscles bulging out and starts ranting about all the horrible, awful things they heard some talking head say on the garbage box or radio, just smile and walk away before they infect you with their self important crap. I guarantee you will be better off not allowing yourself to be infected by their disease..


A little side note.

In our home, we are in the middle of a little life experiment right now. We decided to turn off the TV completely. We have not watched TV now in over a month. We now listen to music, read, work outside in the garden, talk to each other.....Can you imagine? This is not something written in cement, it's just something we are messing with right now. Who knows how long we'll keep this up but for now we are loving the quietude and calmness it gives us. Personally, I think the best thing about doing this is NO NEWS! I'm guessing if the world is going to end, some customer will let me know. Until then, I don't miss hearing all the crap regurgitated over and over nightly at all.




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THE STORE.....

Just today a customer brought up a subject I have thought about for years and years now. I'm thinking this whole subject hit me around 40 years ago when I was working down in Sacramento out in the North area around Fulton and Marconi Avenues.

The business world came out with this new fangled idea of a super sized store called "White Front". Remember them back then? I think the first one was on El Camino Ave. I remember back then being in wonder at just the sheer size of the thing and the amazing amount of products they carried. Seems to be what drove people into this new type of store back then was the prices. As we all now know, the whole business idea was they can buy everything in huge lots and get things much cheaper than the corner family market can. They then can sell things much cheaper.

Well history tells us those days were just the beginning of this new phenomena. Since then, probably dozens of those kinds of "big box" stores have sprung up across the country. Now we have Cosco, Best Buy, Office Depot, Office Max, Target, Staples. Then all the Hardware giants who cropped up in the last few years, like Home Depot, Lowe's etc, etc. Then there is of course the king and ruling master of huge, Wall-mart.

Now placing myself back to those years about 40 years ago, I can clearly remember having a slight but real little uneasy feeling in my gut about the whole new concept of these huge stores. What came into my feeble mind back then was the stories I had heard growing up about what life was like back in the early timber industry towns. I was told these little towns were developed and operated by the giant timber companies. These little towns were located way out in the boonies, way out in the forested areas where the trees were.

So the Timber companies would build these little houses for the workers to live in, plus the company put in these little stores for the workers. It was far too far to go to the nearest town to buy what they needed, so their only choice was the company store. I'm told they didn't even pay the slaves/workers in actual money. They paid them in company script. With this script, the slaves could pay to rent their little company houses and buy whatever food and sundry items they needed from the company store.

So having these thoughts running around my noggin, I saw this future potential for humans where when we said we needed to go to the "store", we meant "The Store". Just one store where everything one needed would be there. You would go to "The Store" for your food, banking, haircuts, pharmaceuticals, theaters, tires, butcher shop, clothing, shoes, glasses, hearing aids................well, I think you get the picture now huh? Looking around nowadays, how far off are we from that very scenario?

What also seems to be the inevitable outcome of all this is these giant stores pretty much wipe out all the Mom and Pop stores of every kind. How can these regular people trying to run a small business compete with these giants without their extreme buying power? When the giants buy shoes by the millions at a time, how can the little family shoe store compete when they only buy a dozen at a time.

The other negative issues would be just the sheer congestion involved in everyone climbing into their cars to go to this one store. Especially when they seem to locate the damn things right in the middle of neighborhoods where we live. The other bothersome reality is this whole new phenomena just keeps on creeping slowly but surely into our lives. So slowly that we collectively don't seem to be very upset about where this might eventually lead us.

I'm telling you right now that our local governments are only too happy to have these monsters among us for the income in sales taxes they generate for the bureaucrats in office who are supposed to be looking out for our futures. The very people we vote for ultimately could care less about our future needs in this regard. They only care about the mighty buck and getting re-elected to their cushy, do nothing lifetime jobs, with lifetime benefits. By the way, the ONLY money the local area gets is that sales tax. The millions and millions in profits go who-in-the-hell-knows where?......China maybe? The employees? Minimum wage with no benefits at all that I know of.

Now I'm sure there are many, many other reasons why we quite possibly should look into the future of all this with a certain amount of apprehension and fear even but I think we all get the drift of what I'm trying to say.......




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Changing definition of "Old"...

I started out the last blog with this idea in mind and got completely off the subject, which turned it into a different blog all together. So lets try to stay on task with this one, you silly space case old hippy dude.

The thing that comes to my feeble, wandering mind this time is how many folks I'm coming in contact with nowadays who are incredibly healthy, vibrant and still contributing members of society on into their much later years. Aren't you seeing this new phenomena also in your lives with people you know or see everyday?

Seems like only yesterday 50, 60 and 70 year old people were just this side of dead, if not already. If not gone, they were confined to wheelchairs or walkers by that age. I'm sure all of us have heard that the farther back in time you study human history, old age was at a time in life much younger than it is now. I've heard of folks from the "cowboy days" for instance only living into their 40's. People in their 40's back then were just this side of looking up at roots instead of down at the grass.

Some examples I can think of just off the top of my twisted, feeble mind and personal experience would be:

I just talked to the best example yesterday. This is a man I know who just turned 90 years old. He spent his life as the owner operator of a well drilling company. On top of working super hard his whole life, he has also been a musician playing in a western music band with friends and relatives. Well, he finally sold the company and retired just a few years back but still to this day plays gigs late into the night at various venues. He still works out in his yard, plants and attends his garden. He still drives his car anywhere he wants to go and is in my view quite vibrant, healthy and happy in his "older" years. He tells me he knows he probably only has a little time left but lives each day with glee and gusto.

Another man I know is 75 years old and still works in the building industry full time. He walks in with a full tool belt hanging on his belt, a pocket full of pencils for planning out his jobs and a work truck completely full of a hard working man's power tools. Everything he does he does with vigor, energy and apparently a strong back. He's the kind of man who talks, walks and works fast and with purpose. I truly doubt most young people could stay up with him throughout a long hard day at work.

I could go on and on with examples of people I personally know or have met through these past years who defy everything we thought we knew about what one can or should be doing in our "older" years. All I know is this whole thing has been completely redefined for those of us in those age brackets in this new time of human history.

This new "older" generation also have changed the whole idea of retiring also. In our fathers time, his generation could not wait to retire, take out the lawn and put in gravel. Set about getting everything in their lives as maintenance free as possible so they could spend their days in the rocking chair relaxing. Maybe a little traveling. As we know, after about 6 months in the rocking chair, they were found with their heads on their chests gone for the count, finally obtaining the ultimate nap. Obviously, this whole life thing involves a great deal of "use it or lose it" now doesn't it?

We all have to ask the obvious questions now don't we? Why are we now living so much longer in great health and with pretty good energy levels compared to our forefathers and mothers? Not the energy of youth. That's for sure but plenty of energy to do whatever you want with breaks in between the bursts. How is this possible?

The changes that have enabled us to live so much longer and better that come to mind right off the bat would be the whole present emphasis on health. Healthy living, exercising, healthy eating and probably most important healthy attitudes about and with life in general. Of course we have to hand our doctors and their associates a healthy dose of thanks, gratitude and appreciation for the modern medicinal approaches to the subject of health. We now can take blood pressure pills, cholesterol pills, adult daily aspirin, Hallelujah and whoopee for Viagra huh? and anything else one requires for their good long standing health.

So the bottom line here is we all need to look around at all the "older" folks still contributing to the good of society with the experience and expertise they apply to their jobs, the companies they own or work for and for just still being with us. Add to this we all owe them a note of gratitude for the wisdom they have acquired over a lifetime of knowledge and just plain know how they teach everyone who are lucky enough to be around them.

Maybe society owes them a great big THANK YOU! I'm sure that would just embarrass them but would also give them a warm fuzzy feeling deep down inside.......and we all certainly could use one of those from time to time in this crazy world we find ourselfs in huh?

By the way...........being only 39, none of this applies in the slightest to me.......I just thought I would write a piece about all you "older" folks......





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Don't trust anyone over 30.....

I remember well that saying when I was in my late teens/twenties. It was a very popular sentiment back in the wild, crazy sixties and seventies. In those times, it seemed to us hippy dippys that only people our age knew anything about anything. Everyone over 30 was "over the hill" and then some. Besides, everything we thought was cool they hated with a passion. Drugs, sex and rock and roll represented everything bad to those over 30 back then. Those things were the only things that mattered to those under 30. It clearly was like the sixties generation and the fifties generation were from different worlds.

I know that to this day, the youth doesn't understand how very much they owe all their taken for granted social freedoms to the whole hippie dippy movement. The sheer amount of change that happened during this generational changeover was probably the largest between any period that ever happened before. It really was a sexual, financial, social and political revolution "happening" then and those realities still permeate life as we know it today. Now admittedly as with all new generations and their new ideas, a lot of the changes were great new ideas and some were idiot changes just for change sake.

Lets see now...........In the fifties, boys had to tuck their shirts into their pants at all times. Girls were not allowed to wear pants of any kind. The great side of this rule was us boys could see their bare legs and might look up their dresses, heaven forbid. Girls wore enough hair spray to hold a battleship together in the high seas. Boys wore enough grease in their hair to take care of all the lubrication needs of the battleship. Above all else sex was a completely forbiden subject in all settings. Sex education was simple. Don't do it! It's BAD!!!

Then one day these wild and crazy guys from England invaded our consciousness and as with a lot of things of those times, completely changed the entire musical landscape for the youth. We all saw them on the Ed Sullivan Hour. Holy shit, how I miss that show. The fifties youth got their first look at Elvis Presley on that show. Along with the Beatles great new musical stylings, they had this super long hair compared to what we were wearing at the time. Looking back at pictures of them now, we realize it wasn't really very long at all but compared to the styles from the fifties, it was outrageous in the extreme to everyone "over thirty".

Those "over thirties" pretty much thought the end of the world was upon us now that boys wanted to look like girls. I knew of families completely torn apart over just the issue of boys wanting to wear their hair long. I used to ask the parents who were completely torn apart by this issue how their children were doing in school. When they said they were doing fine, I would tell them to not worry about the hair thing then as it will pass like most new fads. Of course they didn't, so it lasted just this side of forever. Hell, some of the old hippies (knowing grin, insert here) still to this day have rather longish hair.

Of course the rather innocent beginnings of the drug experimentation started long about then, so the changes became more and more severe. People of that generation honestly can not believe that something that started so innocent and mellow could ever turn out so violent and insane as it has for those with dependent personalities through the years. The vast majority from the sixties smoked a little pot, played with LSD a few times and eventually outgrew the whole thing when they reached adulthood and started families.

At this point I feel compelled and find it tremendously interesting to note something about all this though. I've seen and personaly know about a few of those people who have decided after all these years of "doing the right thing" in quitting to have a change of heart about it. They say after retiring from successful lifelong careers, responsibly raising their children to adulthood with great care and love, it's time for them to have some fun again. So they decided to partake of pot once in a while once again and are now doing that with complete success and enjoyment. I would be willing to bet that it would shock most people to learn just how many folks have made this decision right about now.

Whatchathink?




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