Captains Log

Filler..............

2010-04-12T13:29:00.002-05:00

I'm on another trail break in Hiawassee. Ga. Indoor swimming pool and hot tub. As an added bonus, my old friend Gary Hammond, who facilitated this trip at it's inception, joined me by surprise last night.
The computer here at the hotel won't go to trailjournals for some reason, so there won't be any updates there until I reach my next destination 40 miles up the trail...........in Franklin, N.C.
It's a bit past time for a 30 day summary, but that will have to wait as well.
Yet another bit of the ancient machinery is protesting the abuses I'm heaping on it.........my achilles tendon is a bit tender............so I'm resting it today and giving it spa treatments.
In a few hours I'll feed it some bar-b-que and beer........that oughta fix it.
I was bitten on the toe by some mutant form of carniverous shelter mouse........that coupled with near frostbite laid me out for a few days and forced me back into sandals.
By the time I leave Franklin I should be back to 100%.
In spite of all the setbacks and issues and rain and cold and frustration, I'm hav ing the time of my life........................the walking is, after all, just hard work. It's the time by the campfire, in the company of some of the greatest people I've ever met, under some of the biggest skies I've seen since childhood that make it all worthwhile.
I'll eventually get pics posted.......but they won't do it justice.
With any luck I'll be walking out of Georgia and into North Carolina sometime tomorrow evening...........................one state down, thirteen to go.

Thus endeth the entry..............................

Short and Sweet................

2010-04-08T13:07:00.002-05:00

I'm hiking the Appalachian Trail....................
I'll post more when I can.....................
I am posting most of the day by day stuff here......http://www.trailjournals.com/entry.cfm?trailname=6591
This is a G-rated journal I created so that Grand children could follow along with Papa Cecil's adventures.
Of course it stands to reason that I will have things to say that are not so G-rated.
But if you want to follow along for now.......that's the place.
I'm working on pics and such...............bear with me.

Thus endeth the entry................

The Eve of De truckin'......

2010-03-09T15:13:00.003-06:00

There is a set of yellow footprints with my name on it about 8 miles from where I sit right now.
If you understand that reference.....................Semper Fi!
I'll be hiking by 900am tomorrow..............
It will be a few days before I get to a computer again.
Wish me luck.

Thus endeth the entry.....................

Anticipation

2010-03-08T19:54:00.001-06:00

I just wanted to enter a short post tonight to say that everything is going swimmingly.

Gary and his wife Camille are amazing hosts, and the guest house they put me up in is mind boggling.

Gary and I did a tour of Pickens county today, stopped for some truly competitive ribs, took his Jeep into places I'd seriously be afraid to take a pack mule, and got a flat tire.

We wrestled with it 'til it was did...............though we had the wrong tools...........but we got 'er done.

For a moment, as we struggled with the tire and worked out how to cope with jacking the jeep with a too short jack, on a hillside no less, we stopped being a couple of 60 year old men overexerting ourselves.
We were once again 20 year old jarheads dealing with a situation that had interfered with crazy ass fun. It's so good to see Gary again after all these years.

In short I couldn't ask for a better start to my through hike. Today's exertions made me feel much more confident in my ability to do this.

I will write more tomorrow.............................and I have pics.

Thus endeth the entry..................................

The Adventure Begins..........

2010-03-06T04:12:00.002-06:00

On the nineteenth of February I deadheaded home on Amtrak train #4. On the way home the transmission blew out my old , faithful truckosaurus. Sunday night I marked off on a week of vacation.
On Monday, March 1st at about 5:00 am I marked up from vacation. Shortly thereafter I bumped a turn and sat down at a computer terminal and took my annual rules test, for which I was compensated. On the way out the door at the conclusion of my test, I approached the nearest available Trainmaster and handed him a grocery sack with all my work equipment in it.
Whilst he was still looking at me with a quizzical expression on his face, I handed him my employee I.D, my engineers license, and my lodging card.
After explaining to him that I no longer had any use for those items, I strolled out of the building a retired person.....................a former BNSF employee.
Today, at 2pm is my retirement party..................(at the Cue and Brew).
Tomorrow I fly to Atlanta, Georgia......................to be met at the airport by an old service buddy whom I haven't seen for over 30 years.
On Wednesday, I will begin a through hike of the Appalachian Trail.
I'll post a link to the g-rated trail journal I've set up so my grandchildren will be able to read about Papa Cecil.
Everyone seems to think I'm going to be eaten by a bear.
I'm like a kid at Christmas.
Thus endeth the entry..................................

P.S......................yes Emily dear, I'm back!

Also Spach....................

2010-01-15T15:03:00.003-06:00

If I were God.......................

I would appear to all the world with my hand outstretched. A great voice would boom in every mind, in every language at once.

It would invite everyone who would kill in my name to climb into my hand. (I would know your heart....................hey, I'm God right?...............so, only those would would truly kill for me would make it.)

Once all those who would truly do murder in my name were safely (and, no doubt, smugly) nestled in the palm of my hand....................

I would make a fist.

Thus endeth the entry.....................

Gutz, Glory, and Gunpowder...........

2008-07-04T23:05:00.001-05:00

I haven't slept well lately. By lately, I mean to say that I haven't slept more than 2 to 4 hours a night for about 4 or 5 months. I sleep in increments of around 45 mins to an hour at a stretch, get up take more aspirin, piss, smoke a cigarette and try again. I get up at 5 am, don't sleep during the day and stay up until at least 10 or 1030 pm. I don't know why I have these bouts of sleeplessness....................it just happens.

I turned off the T.V. at 1030 and came out to go to bed. Just as I turned out the light, the lard-ass, peter puffing cretin that lives next door set off a string of firecrackers................15 minutes later, he set off another one. Half the morons in the neighborhood have a truckload of assorted explosive devices and they are going to spend the next several hours setting them off................it sounds like fucking Beirut out there.

So much for sleeping..................

Happy Fourth of July..............
'
Whoop-de-fuck..................

I need more aspirin...............

Do you suppose the British spend the 4th getting drunk and kicking themselves in their collective asses? Think about it................had they not been such short sighted, self serving idiots a couple hundred years ago they'd still amount to something as a country. It goes without saying that George Bush is an embarrassment.................but even he is a couple ticks higher on the scale of human development than that collection of inbred cartoon characters the Brits call royalty.

At least they aren't out in force blowing up their neighborhoods tonight.

Have a jolly fucking fouth......

Thus endeth the entry.............

F is for truck...................

2008-04-02T12:07:00.007-05:00

Progressing apace:

It's a 1981 Chevy Silverado, as clean as it looks. I've had my eye on it since last fall............certain the whole time that someone would surely buy it at the price before I could get in a position to have it myself.

Wheels are the capital "F" in freedom.

Sunday was my birthday. Monday night, Cassie cooked a great supper of chicken enchiladas,and served up cake and ice cream. She and Cheyenne sang the B'day dirge and gifted me with a watch and two sacks of strong dark coffee beans from Starbucks. Now I can be wound up and ONFUCKINGTIME, by God!

An egregious waste of candle wax (a petroleum product after all) except that if we hang on to these for 27 years we can reuse them.

Some part of me will always be a railroader.....................and that means NEEDING to know what fucking time it is, or how long you've been at something, or how much time you have left before you have to be somewhere.............etc. ad infinitum. My old watch shot craps a few months ago and I've seriously tried to adapt to a less time stressed orientation but to no avail. I don't want to wait 'til sunup to get going, I want to be ready to go at sunup..................which means knowing when sunup is and what time it is now in relationship to sunup.

At any rate, this timepiece is a beauty.....................it's got a sheet of instructions the size of a garrison flag and I'm sure it took the brainpower and technical expertise of a major electronics R and D outfit to program it. So far I've figured out how to set it (it only took me two days).

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

Thus endeth the entry.................

98.6..................

2008-03-30T03:44:00.003-05:00

The house is sold........................I look at a truck Monday after a (planned) "Massive, heart-clogging Track Inn breakfast" with my brother.

At precisely 3:30 this morning I turned fifty-eight. On the 26th of April my oldest granddaughter will be eight. (Eight is a funny looking word when you spell it out don't you think?) On the 5th of April, Casey would have been thirty-two..................I think about him often throughout every day.

I plan to leave for southern Indiana after Cheyenne's birthday.

My lawyers sent me a birthday card. There wasn't any money in the envelope though.

I have to come back on May 19th for a settlement conference with the Railroad.

Thus endeth the entry...............

The Iceman Cometh...............

2008-01-11T13:58:00.000-06:00

So.................where I was?

The ghost of Christmas has passed and Lang has gotten Auld and Syned.................

My daughter's computer caught some sort of Cyber-siphylus and had to have brain surgery leaving two computer junkies bereft for a couple of weeks...................

I didn't have a ton to say anyway, but it would have been nice to send a couple of seasonal emails.

The house still hasn't sold, which puts all my plans in limbo .................further deponent sayeth not. (remember the whine factor).

One bright note is that pictures I had taken of my last "gear-testing-and-just-how-bad-does-it-have-to-get-before-I-have-to-rethink-my whole-plan" hike didn't disappear into the ether.

This was taken on the 15th of December during the only event that could seriously be labeled a snow storm we've had so far.

Another occasion to test a sleep system at extreme temps fell apart for want of two sturdy attachment points for my hammock in or around my daughter's yard. Hopefully it will get down below zero again for a couple of nights before the winter is out.

That about does it for now.........................I meet with a realtor Tuesday. So you've got until then to buy a nice house real cheap.

Thus endeth the entry....................

All the news that fits......................

2007-12-07T12:55:00.000-06:00

So........................I've moved. The house I've occupied for the past couple of years went on the auction block on the 18th of Nov. and now I'm camped out at my daughter's.
So far it's working out well for both of us..........................I have all the comforts and she doesn't have to worry about (or pay for) after or before school care or round someone up to be with Cheyenne during her school break.
The house didn't sell. Which is not to say that there were no bidders..................just no reasonable bids. I don't mind someone getting a deal or making a profit..................but the idea of professional speculators hovering around seeking to cash in on someone else's misfortune or hardship in the hopes of making a killing disturbs my sense of propriety. If someone wanted an exceptional deal on a solid house to live in or use as an income producing rental, I'd be willing to give them a hell of a bargain..................................no reasonable offer refused. The key word in all this is reasonable. It was bad enough watching items go for sometimes as low as 1% of their real worth, I had to draw the line at the house.
All of which puts a bit of a crimp in my options for the near future and could well stand to derail some of my most fondly held plans for next year...................but in the meantime I have the rare pleasure of spending time with my adult offspring and my sweetie-pie granddaughter. Things could be a ton worse.
Winter's here.....................and with it the opportunity to test out some of my hiking techniques and theories. My daughter lives a bit over a mile from a nice forested park riddled with hiking trails. I'm not used to hills though. I don't have any worries or troubles with the negotiation of hills......................my legs are strong enough and my lungs can take it but walking hills causes one to step differently with more emphasis on the front of the foot and the toes. Last Saturday came the weather I was waiting for.........................temperatures hovering near or below freezing and rain and sleet and what the weather people now refer to euphemistically as "wintery mix".........................fucking slush.
I spent about two hours walking around outside and when I got back I had Cass come to the back door to snap this picture......................

You can see better if you "embiggen" it (thank you J where ever you are.................sometimes language needs a kick in the ass to keep it pertinent to reality) and yes, that is a skin of ice and those are icicles on the brim of my trusty ol' fedora. Henry Jones Jr. eat your heart out.
My feet were cold enough to be a bit numb so I didn't notice that I had ground through to raw meat in a couple of unlikely places .................so for the past week I've hobbled about waiting to heal enough to head back out again. You don't really expect to blister when barefoot because there is no shoe to rub up against. That being the most common cause of blisters. It makes sense though........a couple of hours of hammering or raking can bring up a blister on your hand, eh? After 4 months of walking unshod over pavement and gravel I thought the soles of my feet were pretty tough................but, as I mentioned above, walking hills is a whole different story.............. It's good to find these things out now and not later. I've got three months to adapt...................(If you don't already know, aren't you just dying to find out what I've got up my sleeve?........buahhahahahahha)
We've had some snow and can expect some more sleet and rain and slush this weekend and I'd like to test trail food and bedding and shelter on an all nighter northward through the woods along the river bluff. I'm short a couple of pieces of gear for a true test, but somehow I think the winter to come is going to render plenty of opportunity once everything is aquired or manufactured. The important thing is to simply leave the coziness and do it. Ya reckon?

There is a point to all this, but at present that is for the cognoscenti.

More to come later........................I had to post something for the benefit of those faithful enough to check in here often and concerned enough to wonder if perhaps I'd died or something worse.........(gotten married maybe? *grins*)
I told my brother I'd post something when I could make a clear distinction between writing and whining. The thin lines of distinction you often hear people refer to when comparing someone else's condemnable behavior to their own proper comportment are in reality only indicators of degree upfield from the big thick motherfucker of a line that both parties crossed yards back.

So Merry Christmas to all if I don't get back here before that occasion

Thus endeth the entry.............................

Veins in my teeth....................

2007-10-26T01:44:00.000-05:00

I have no beef in the house..................................

I want a big chunk of dead cow..............................warmed to the point that it is reduced to whimpering. I want to pick it up in both hands and tear into its flesh with my teeth..............bloody juice running down my chin.

A blowjob would be nice too.

Thus endeth the entry.......................

You can't imagine.....................

2007-09-04T01:56:00.000-05:00

If every one of you lived to be 1000 years old...................................................

Not all of you together could begin to imagine, let alone articulate, how much I love my daughter.

Thus endeth the entry...............................

Milestones........................

2007-08-20T04:46:00.000-05:00

Last Wednesday was my daughter's birthday.........

My little Pookie is 25 years old....................a quarter of a century *gasp*.

Travis cooked a turkey, mashed potatoes and put together a salad that was almost too pretty to eat...................

I dug out some of my frozen cranberry stash and made cranberry salad ala Boze, whupped up a punkin pie and did the gravy.
I will qualify by saying that Cheyenne did nearly all of the "scut" work on the salad and pie whilst I supervised.
Upshot............we had a great time.............................but with two digital cameras in the house (mine met it's demise in the great Southern Indiana car fire in April) do you think anyone thought to get pictures of the event?
Nooooooooooo.
*glum*

I went out for beers with my brother George yesterday...................it was fun.
Pretty bartender, nice view of the river, cold beer.........all capped off with a nice long road trip down very stoney roads. *grin*
At one point (and I will give him credit because it was only one) he fired up a cigarette at the bar.
If, at that point, if he had offered me a cigarette at the same time the bartender offered me a blow job..........I'm pretty sure I'd have asked her to wait until I finished a cigarette.
..........but he didn't (and she didn't) so it's been over a fucking month now.

OOOHHH.......I almost forgot about the ice cream cake from Dairy Queen(see birthaday stuff above)...............................deelarimus.

Thus endeth the entry...............................

S.A.N.S*.......................(bonus entry)

2007-08-05T15:03:00.000-05:00

*(Sitting Around Not Smoking)

Smoking anesthetizes some of the little hairs (cilia) in your lungs that otherwise serve to mobilize foreign particulate matter out of the lungs and into the bronchial tubes where it can be hacked up.
Those cilia it does not anesthetize in the short term, it destroys in the long term.
This is a bad thing..................

However, all is not lost. After a few weeks the sleeping cilia start to wake up and the lungs start to regenerate the dead ones.

On the face of it (and actually) this is a good thing.....................

Here is how that breaks down in practice:

For how some ever many years you have been smoking the solids suspended in the smoke have been building up in your lungs without any effective way of being expelled.......................it builds up and partially dehydrates into a resinous layer that coats the inner surfaces of the lungs entirely.
.........................and then the little cilia start waking up and regrowing.
So, just when you think you have the worst behind you, you start coughing your fucking head off (far worse than you ever did while smoking) and hacking up crusty bits of accumulated cigarette sewage suspended in a sort of pale green goo.

At least I have something to do while I'm sitting-around-not-smoking.........eh?

19 days 1 hour 29 minutes and 47 seconds.................

Thus endeth the entry....................................

Insomnia Veritas....................

2007-08-05T07:25:00.000-05:00

I had about 7 good months of sleeping like a regular person after nearly three years of almost no sleep. I am capable of overstatement for emphasis, regard the judicious use of hyperbole as a valuable tool in the service of articulating an idea, and occasionally employ exaggeration in the way of verbal slapstick..........................
I am engaging none of these devices when I say that, short of suffering the tortures that accompany some horrific, wasting disease, going without sleep for any extended period of time is as close to experiencing a taste of hell on earth as I care to come.
Neither am I embellishing the facts when I say that after said period of sleeplessness the few intervening months of regualr sleep had its equivalence in terms of sheer comfort and relief only in a diet of Mother's milk and a bottomless sack of blowjobs.
So ..............I'm back to not sleeping.
Don't know why..................
I thought perhaps it might be just a minor setback, so I didn't say anything about it...........but now it's official. You read it here.
Twenty eight years working one of the most irregular jobs on the planet and I never had the sleep and fatigue issues that were chronic among my co-workers in the industry.
I'm certain that the problems I've had with it since are accident related but I've yet to find a doctor that isn't more afraid of crossing an H M O than he is of misdiagnosing a patient.
(Hilary, darlin', I'm voting for you even if you wind up giving blow-jobs in the oval office closet.......................................*didja notice how I got blowjobs into this post twice?*)
Last night I was sitting on the couch not sleeping and not smoking..........................miserable and tired and totally incapable of falling asleep.
So I went for a walk.................
Now, the last couple of times I've walked any distance to speak of I've developed some fairly severe blisters on the balls of my feet.....................(not on my balls, I'm not that old!)
So I decided to see how I would fare walking barefoot.
Warning: I am a professional, do not attempt to follow my logic .........(unless of course you are a Jesuit) .......................severe brain injury or death could occur.
I walked nearly 6 miles mostly on paved (rough asphalt) country roads..............
I don't have any blisters to speak of on the balls of my feet.....................
The entire bottom of both heels are covered by giant blisters.......................
I'm still awake.........................
I'm still miserable and tired................
But now I know why........................I'm wound up like an eight day clock, my feet hurt like the dickens and I walked for two hours.
If you know why ......................it's ok.

Thus endeth the entry.......................

.......it tasks me!

2007-07-30T09:37:00.000-05:00

Amongst the otherwise uncategorized clutter on what serves me as a coffee table is one of those plastic pens.................you know the kind, white cylindrical barrel, black tapered point and black, plug type cap.
At a casual glance it looks like a cigarette.........................every fucking time.

Thus endeth the entry......................................

The sweetest thing..........

2007-07-27T17:40:00.000-05:00

Male readers will understand the heady, almost overwhelming mix of arousal, passion and love that is coursing through my breast as I write this:

I got the fall 2007 Cabela Master Catalog in the mail.........................and I'm going to read it as I dine on hamburger cassarole (with green beans and french onions) accompanied by an ice cold beer.

Thus endeth the entry.............

Keeping up with the Jones's

2007-07-23T18:54:00.000-05:00

It's been 6 days, 5 hours, 14 minutes and 11 seconds..........................

If a drop dead gorgeous teenaged girl showed up at my door and offered me a choice between a pack of Pall Mall non-filters and a blow job I'm not certain what my choice would be.

Apropos of nothing: I was looking up the word occident (don't ask me why.................oh, I had a reason for looking it up, but I'm not going to fucking tell you).

At any rate one of the entries came from "The Devil's Dictionary" which was written by Ambrose Bierce.......................(a recommended read BTW).
To wit:

occident n.
The part of the world lying west (or east) of the Orient. It is largely inhabited by Christians, a powerful subtribe of the Hypocrites, whose principal industries are murder and cheating, which they are pleased to call "war" and "commerce." These, also, are the principal industries of the Orient.

Forewarned is forearmed........................(fourarmed would be weird...............interesting, but weird):

If you are not so closely related to me and so beloved by me as to absolutely preclude the idea of me murdering you for a cigarette.....(or murdering you because you showed up without one on you...................................or murdering you because you showed up with one on you when I'm this close to actually quitting) or:
If you are not prepared to offer me sex ( take note: age and gender are important considerations here......................I'm crazed, not desperate).

........then perhaps you should postpone that visit for a week or so, eh?

Thus endeth the entry.............................

Mortis Interruptus................

2007-07-20T00:23:00.000-05:00

There are a number of changes that take place when you quit smoking...........some within minutes, some within hours and days.
For instance:
Within 20 minutes of your last cigarette your pulse and heart-rate return to normal and circualtion improves.
After only 8 hours the level of carbon monoxide in your blood lowers to normal and the level of oxygen increases to normal levels.
After only 24 hours your chance of a heart attack decreases and after 48 hours damaged nerve endings start to regrow and the last of the nicotine leaves your body.
Within 72 hours your bronchial tubes relax and lung capacity increases.

Of course all these things (and more) can be found on line, if you are really interested.

What you won't find online is that the first 24 hours after you've had your last cigarette last in the neighborhood of 17 or 18 weeks. The only period of real time that lasts longer is the evening you hand the car keys to your teenager for the first time.

What you won't find online is what defines a smoker and makes him different from a non-smoker.
For instance:
A non-smoker can do all sorts of things with his time......................he can even sit around doing nothing.
A smoker is either smoking or he is not smoking. A smoker can never just sit around doing nothing.......................he is either sitting around smoking or he is sitting around not smoking.
A non-smoker will never really be a smoker........even if he or she fires up a cigarette from time to time (for whatever reason)....................
however, on the other hand, a smoker will never be a non-smoker no matter how many years it has been since he has had a cigarette.
Therefore, a smoker who has quit smoking cigarettes will, for the rest of his life, even when by every appearance entirely idle, be strenuously engaged in the act of not smoking.

Sleeping a lot helps..........................it makes the days and weeks contained in every hour go faster.
People who claim that it's hard to quit because they have nothing to do with their hands are making excuses. I don't care what you do with your hands; knit, masturbate, pick your nose...........you're still going to want to smoke. Smoking hasn't got anything to do with your hands.
On well.......you get the point.
I'm going to go sit on the couch and not smoke............................

Thus endeth the entry...............

Disambiguation............

2007-06-23T22:20:00.000-05:00

My televison viewing informs me that there is a new program up and coming about the advertising industry of the 60's.
Among the blurb's I've caught in the hyping of this show:

"These are the people who convinced us that smoking was good for us."

"Your idea of love was created by the advertising industry to sell pantyhose."

O.K.....................it's a given that advertising has created and sustained falsehoods to serve in the stead of truth. That the general capacity of the public to buy into these falsehoods has had devastating effects on health, economy, foriegn policy......you name it.
So what?.................... For the most part stupid people deserve what they get.

However, I saw an ad tonight that just went too fucking far. It stated: "Nothing says love to a man like "high definition".................Nothing."

Ladies...........let there be no confusion or equivocation on this point.

To a man................love is, always has been, and always will be best defined and demonstrated by..............frequent, gratutious, and unsolicited blow jobs.

......and don't forget to swallow.

Thus endeth the entry..............

Bygones..........

2007-06-08T00:00:00.000-05:00

I hoofed it down to the theater tonight to watch the 3rd installment of "Pirates of the Caribbean"...........I loved it. I've enjoyed all of them actually, though I know those that didn't think too much of one or the other or both of them. I think the secret is to not view them too critically.........and to be old enough to have been impressed with Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean" ride at Disneyland. I was eighteen when I first saw it.....but I was tripping my tits off so I suppose you could say that I entered into it with a rather child-like perspective.
After the movie I wended my way back home from bar to bar.......
a beer at Marge's, a beer and a shot at Crazy Charlies and a beer at River City.
I cut through the cemetary (as is my usual habit)........cemetaries are peaceful places at night, I don't find them at all creepy or scary. It will probably happen that I will wind up spending a long time in one some day so I figure I might as well get used to it, ya reckon?
When I first hired out on the railroad, there were those of the soon-to-be-retired "old heads" that treated the young guys with a degree of decency in spite of our long hair, wild ways and total lack of conventional regard for our elders. I liked those guys....they took the time to pass along the things they knew and I'm certain that my body and perhaps my life was spared grievous harm on more than one occasion as a result of their patience and guidance. I cherish the memory of those men........most of whom have since passed away.
On the other hand, there were those who figured that,since they had been severly fucked with by the old heads when they were new to the job, now that they were in a position of petty authority it was only fair that they pass along to us the torture that they had suffered in their youth. I didn't begrudge them, this being a common enough trait of humans everywhere in every time...railroading was and is a demanding and dangerous job. Perhaps it was right to bring pressure to bear on the newhire so as to weed out quickly those who truly couldn't cut it. My response to this was simply to steer clear of these piss-ant despots as much as possible.
However, there were two men who were just plain mean to me. they went out of their way to make my life miserable and looked for opportunities to subject me to company discipline.......they tried to get me fired. This I couldn't overlook..............the welfare of my family depended on that job and these men threatened that. They had no cause beside that of just not liking me. In short they were assholes.
I hated them...seriously. When they died I had as regret only that they hadn't suffered longer and that I wasn't there to witness it.
Tonight as I made my way through the cemetary, I happened to spot one of those men's graves. I stopped for a while looking down at the stone and the mound, reflecting on the visceral hatred I had once borne this man and I realized that time had taken much of the fire out of my feelings for him. I couldn't seem to summon hatred for him any more.
Now, this doesn't mean that I had forgiven him, or forgotten his offenses ....but I had certainly mellowed.
In fact, I decided as I stood there that I could even be generous...............
So I shared a couple of beers with him.

I wonder where the other fucker is buried.

Thus endeth the entry...............

Eye Candy............

2007-05-27T16:06:00.000-05:00

Note the sidebar..........

Under the bold heading Erotica I have added a new link........to "I Feel Myself".

"I Feel Myself" is similiar in theme to Beautiful Agony only more explicit. Take the free tour, it's well worth it.

I recently was awarded a free month's subscription to Beautiful Agony because two of my readers had purchased subscriptions through the link on this page. The same deal applies to I Feel Myself..........................so PLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEZE get a subscription.

I think that Agony is the most erotic non-nude site I have ever visited and I am delighted to have won a subscription......................I think that "Feel Myself" flat fucking smokes Agony.

I'm not sure if I ever really pointed out the Google ads at the bottom of the left sidebar..........every time one of you clicks on one of those ads I get a nickle. So click the dog-fuck out of them people.............whether you want to buy anything or not. I could use an income, eh?

So I have successfully combined public service with pitiable begging.

Not bad for not having anything really to say.

Memorial Day............how apropos.

The Hippies invaded this weekend for the annual three day music fest at Three Sister's Park just outside town.
Delicious little girls in gauzy retro dresses with nothing underneath..............

Like flowers.

Thus endeth the entry.................

PS: I added a sample trailer to the "I Feel Myself" link.

Cereal Killer..................

2007-05-12T09:04:00.000-05:00

You know.....................

it takes a whole gallon of milk to eat a 27 oz. box of Cheerios.

Thus endeth the entry...........

Happy Birthday...........

2007-04-27T12:31:00.000-05:00

Yesterday was Cheyenne's Birthday.

She is seven years old now.

We had strawberry cake and pineapple upside down cake.

I can't begin to list all the stuff she got.........between the assorted grandparents, the friends that attended her party last saturday and her Mom and Travis.

I got her a guitar.

She's such a sweety...............growing up so fast.

I love her to pieces.

Happy Birthday Cheyenne.

Thus endeth the entry................

One Door Closes...................

2007-04-23T01:43:00.000-05:00

.........and another one opens.

Or so I've heard.

It's what I need to believe right now. Otherwise I'd be spiraling into an abyssal depression.

My latest trip to Southern Indiana didn't exactly go as planned. Maybe it will be funny someday.

Odin plucked out his eye for a drink from the well of wisdom.

I'd give one of my testicles for an ice cold beer.......................either that or a buck and a half.

Thus endeth the entry.............

Thoughts on an empty stomach..................

2007-04-06T23:46:00.000-05:00

I wonder how many bachelors choke to death each year because there is no one to give them the heimlich maneuver.

Thus endeth the entry...............

Over my shoulder................

2007-03-12T23:51:00.000-05:00

Youth is a mental illness......

Thus endeth the entry..........

The shame..................

2007-03-07T17:48:00.000-06:00

Star Trek Voyager runs from 3 to 5 pm on weekdays....................followed by CSI.

A couple of days ago I watched an episode of CSI .........not really out of curiosity or interest, more rather out of apathy. I really didn't much care what was on, I was on the couch thinking some things out and the TV was on.......not an unusual happenstance in my world.

I started watching it. The next day I watched it again. Today I watched it again and was a little over 40 mins into the program before I realised what was going on with me.

I am embarrassed................

I switched the channel to "Operation Dumbo Drop".

Thus endeth the entry...........

"I Crave Your Mouth......."

2007-03-03T12:48:00.000-06:00

I think I'm in love with Scarlett Johansson........

Thus endeth the entry.............

For Whom the Bell Tolls...........

2007-02-20T08:00:00.000-06:00

Yesterday was one of those days that started out with a certain determined ambition bred from necessity.........and thereafter turned itself into a sort of trek/quest ordeal.

I've been meaning to purchase a flourescent tube for the right side of the mirror over my basin for some time...............but I kept forgetting it on my trips to the grocery store. So, yesterday, I decided to hike downtown (about two miles) stop in to visit Super Bee at Marge's, lunch on beer and popcorn, and stop by the hardware store on the way home. In addition to the light fixture I also needed a nine foot length of 1/2" nylon rope, a 1" dowel rod three feet in length, and a new alarm clock. (I can almost hear the minds splashing into the gutter as they contemplate that list.)

Among the great discoveries that furthered the progress of humankind, that of fire and the wheel would have to rank very near the top. However on the grand scale of things, oral sex and popcorn just about smokes everything else............with the possible exception of hot wings.

While at Marge's I found out that Castaway's had 15 cent wings on Monday night.........

I've been trying to get myself up at 5:00 am on a fairly consistent basis. The little travel alarm that I use is pretty weak kneed when it comes to making a loud enough and irritating enough noise to wake me up if I am sound asleep. Thus the new alarm clock. I found one of those old fashioned wind up bell and hammer jobs that is a scaled down version of what you may find on the wall of a fire station............................one that sounds not a mere alarm, but a tocsin the like of which you might expect to signal the crack of doom. It worked like a charm this morning..................hangover and all.

But I digress.............

When I got home, I found that my flourescent tube was the wrong size. I had decided to stroll to Castaway's for wings anyway so I hiked back to the hardware store traded in the bulb and continued on to the bar about a mile further.

I'm here to tell you that the wings at Castaway's are well worth the trip...................the atomic sauce is tolerably warm and at 15 cents a bargain.
I love chicken wings..............................when you think about it, what possible other purpose does a chicken wing serve except as a food stuff. They are like tits on a boar. ............but when you toss them in a sauce made from a pepper too hot for even cockroaches to eat they become one of the planet's most delightful culinary experiences. More proof that there is a God.............whose mysterious plan is beyond the realm of human imagining.

At any rate, suitably beered, popcorned and winged, I left Castaway's detoured by Marge's for a night cap and then walked home.

I think I covered about 10 miles in all yesterday.................and today I have a couple of blisters to prove it. I've had this pair of Red Wings for nearly 5 years now(I bought them for the Ireland trip in 2002) and have tried every way conceivable to adapt them to distance walking. I am forced to conclude that the "comfort force" sole is great for standing around on a concrete floor but not worth a fiddler's fuck for walking. Stout pair of boots though........just can't walk over three miles in them.

.................... I can actually see to trim the sideburns on my right side now.

Walking makes you smart......................

................makes sense. More blood, more oxygen, more brain power, right?

I watched "Ultraviolet" a couple of nights ago. Not really my cup of tea as movies go, but it's got Milla Jovovich in it. I loved her in "The Fifth Element" and "The Messenger".
Face of an angel, model's body, itty bitty titties (a true six on my personal Budweiser scale: i.e. the number of Clydesdales it would take to drag her off my face)..................... and she flat kicks ass..............gorrillamydreams. It doesn't get much better than that.

A Kiss is just a Kiss..............

I like kissing. Real kissing.......................not the facial cannibalism depicted in movies and television. Spare me an oral attack by a woman who learned to kiss from movies..........and thinks she knows all there is to know about it.

I happened on a show whilst surfing a few months ago........................it was one of those "top 100 (insert something here)" deals. I think it was the 100 worst photos or something like that.
Somewhere around 40 or 50 on the list was a picture of Angelina Jolie kissing her brother.............at a glance it appeared to be a pretty "hot" kiss for a sibling.

.......but give the girl a break. Dayum, when you've got lips like Angelina it can't be helped. I mean.............her lips are a cliche. A picture of her kissing the Pope's ring would be considered pornographic and banned in most of the more backwards cultures of the world. (Like Cleveland for instance.)
A peck on the cheek from a girl with lips like that would have the erotic force of a blow job.
If she were to strip naked and stroll past 100 men (or women for that matter)..................99 of them would turn to each other and say: "Did you see the lips on that babe?"
One guy might comment on her tits or the fact that she was naked....................the rest wouldn't be able to swear that she was undressed or even that she had tits.

All I want.......redux

To wit:

Tall, slender,pretty. Smart enough to hold my attention for more than 15 minutes without touching me below the waist. Itty bitty titties, lips like a blowfish.......................and doesn't consider kissing a practice session for dining with sharks...........................or some kind of half assed lingual fellation.

..................and a pint of Godiva Belgian Dark Chocolate Ice Cream.

Thus endeth the entry..................

Another Sunday on the Wane............

2007-02-11T19:55:00.000-06:00

There is a leg of lamb roasting in the oven.........slowly basting its succulent self to an internal temperature of 140 degrees.
It will be consumed in part with a combination of green beans and diced tomatoes seasoned with oregano, olive oil and cinnamon...........(yes, I said cinnamon. Try it! The addition of cinnamon to tomato products produces a wonderful aroma and flavor.)

In easy reach are a 12 string and a 6 string guitar and a violin................I pick up the violin 4 or 5 times a day and play a song by ear. As anxious as I am to make some real progress with it, I don't want to irretrievably imprint bad habits. I need some sort of basic dvd based intructional material and a couple of electronic devices to give myself the sort of feedback that would otherwise be provided by an instructor. I've been refreshing my knowledge of music reading and using internet tools to familiarise myself with the finger positions and hand positions.
The guitar is a little easier to work with....for ther first time I am memorizing the notes on the fretboard and matching them with notes on a staff, reading about chord theory and using the "wax on, wax off" principle of training my right hand to employ new pick styles etc.
In the course of a day I generally play one or the other of the guitars as much as 2 to 3 hours.....running through old songs, remembering and relearning chords and building the stamina in my wrists and the speed, strength and precision of my left hand fingers.
Over the course of the past two weeks I've broken off all the fingernails on my right hand.........(I'm basicly a finger-picker) , the fingertips of my left hand are sore and grooved but callous is starting to develope, and there is a small blister forming at the corner of the nail on my right thumb. On the plus side, I finally found two of the roughly 150 picks that are around here somewhere.
Each time I come back to my guitars, I have to relearn barre chords all over again.............as though I had never seen one before. This time nothing will be allowed to distract me from that progress.
I have a half read book on the night stand.........................the subject is interesting to me but the book is so poorly written that I can only tackle a few pages at a time.
Over the course of the past three years I have collected over 250 books...........most of the sleep issues that prevented me from reading are laid to rest (an unwittingly appropriate phrasing).
I have a new direction of interest involving woodworking that I will be exploring in the next few months...................the plans I prepared for this spring ran afoul of inescapable realities of time and circumstance. They will be postponed only................not abandoned. Some of you know what I am referring to. To those who do not...................sorry about that, this ain't true confessions.
I need more books in about 4 different areas of interest...further deponent sayeth not.
No more talking about what I'm going to do.

I'll wait and tell you what I did.

Thus endeth the entry............

Hallelujah.........(it just keeps getting better)

2007-02-08T20:50:00.000-06:00

"Star Trek Enterprise" is running on the Sci Fi channel at 6 pm weeknights.........right after "Voyager".

Now, Jeri Ryan (Seven of Nine) is certainly the Six feet tall stuff of wet dreams for the 12 year old dairy farmer in every man.......

.....But Jolene Blalok (T'Pol) is hot beyond the realms of fantasy. If for one moment I could believe that she would be waiting for me naked at the gates of paradise with a smoldering bowl of hashish in her hand, I would embrace Islam. Then I would immolate myself in the act of blowing up an infidel public toilet or some such thing whilst mumbling one of the nine billion names of God.............thereby assuring myself of an eternity of stoned bliss with her and 71 of her twin sisters.

Hey ..........beats the fuck out of starving to death under a Banyan tree while snails suck the blood out of your scalp.

Not to mention a religion that requires a person to check in his or her genitalia at the pearly gates.

Which brings up a question I've wondered about since I was very young.......: Do women get to keep their titties in heaven?

But I digress..........(how unusual)

Thus endeth the entry.........

Shoes and ships..........

2007-02-07T17:55:00.000-06:00

There is a God and He Loves Me.....

"Star Trek Voyager" is back on from 5 to 6 pm.........(Seven of Nine.....*drool*).

.....but he's got a mean streak sometimes.

My movie channels don't seem to play anything but movies I've seen so many times I can lip synch them.
The Hysterical Channel is trotting the best of it's old standards, e.g. : Modern Marvels.....Watching Paint Dry!
Almost enough to make you miss Josh the Jewish pretty boy pretending to be an archeologist.

How's the Weatha.....?

Near zero, snow all over the place, flat tire (I'm a little hazy on the events following my departure from Marge's last Wednesday....though I vaguely remember Messaging Emily)...............and I have things to see, places to go and people to do. Fuck a buncha winter.
It's 40 degrees in Cremona.

Losing Face

The previous post disappeared. There must be a time limit on the images you post from that outfit. Fun stuff though.

Dylan is a Wise Man

"Nobody has to guess
Baby can't be blessed
'Til she finds out
That she's like all the rest."

All I Want.........

A pint of Godiva Belgian Dark Chocolate Ice Cream would be pretty good right about now.

Peace has a Price

I haven't had a phone since before Christmas.........I get my service (or lack of it) from MediaCom. Yesterday I recieved a letter from them telling me that they had tried numerous times to contact me by phone to set up a service call to take care of my problem. I guess you don't have to be a physicist to work for MediaCom.
Take my advice...............if you have MediaCom for your internet service provider and are considering internet phone service:Don't go to Mediacom for phone service..they will fuck you up and play games with you........go to Vonage or anywhere else except Mediacom

The Power of the Internet

Now.........for the next three hundred years, anyone who types "Mediacom" or "internet phone service" into a search engine will get a link to my page and this entry.

Fuck you Mediacom.

Thus endeth the entry......

Ashokan..................sorta

2007-01-12T14:15:00.000-06:00

.....a bit painful, but forgiveably so considering it's been 44 years.

Thus endeth the entry.............

Happy New Year...........

2007-01-03T16:36:00.000-06:00

False Images

I look in the mirror.

I pause and blink

as I realise it reflects

nothing of who I am.

The image staring back

looks nothing of how I feel.

Yet strangely

there are those who judge

merely by the superficial package

that only contains that of which truly is.

And the truth,

well it remains well hidden.

No one is interested in the truth.

Truth is confusing,

too hard,

too honest.

Leave yourself at the door,

Only the mask is welcome here

Thus endeth the entry............

Ho, Ho,..............etc..

2006-12-25T21:25:00.000-06:00

I was browsing through the selections at the local video store the other night in preparation for yet another exciting Friday evening in the basement. There was a couple there with a small boy. He was probably around 2 years old, cute as a button, into everything, and running off at the head like a physic woodpecker.
At one point, I heard him say; (in that sotto voce that passes as a whisper for the very young and can be heard a city block away) "Hey Daddy, is that guy Santa Claus?"
We were the only customers in the store at the time, so I knew he was referring to me, and I answered him; "No, Kiddo, I'm his younger brother Cecil Claus. People get us mixed up all the time" The little guy's eyes got real big and his Dad was grinning, so i added; "You know, I was talking to my brother just last night and he told me that you had been a really good boy this year."
I smiled, wished them both a Merry Christmas and left the store.
So I leave it to you.................be honest now, do I look like Santa Claus to you?
Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!

Thus endeth the entry

Nadir...........

2006-12-21T22:53:00.000-06:00

Solstice............

The shortest day of the year......

I miss my son.

Thus endeth the entry

Burnt weinie sandwich............

2006-12-13T22:31:00.000-06:00

I tried to drink all the beer in Mauckport, Indiana last night......I think I might have made a pretty good dent in the supply.

After an afternoon of holding forth with Uncle Clayton and cousin Loren I found myself, at around 10:00 pm, the last man standing. It being no fun at all to drink alone, I headed back into Corydon. I had eaten a sizable cow sandwich and fries earlier in the evening, but by the time I got back to Corydon I had a world class case of the beer munchies.
Nothing was open..............except the (shudder) White Castle.
I had been to a White Castle before.........I think it was sometime in 1965 when my Grandfather was in the V.A. hospital in Indianapolis. I remember remarking at the time that the grease on them was so thick they had the texture of a cheese burger.........without the cheese.
Time has a way of softening the memory of just how bad things really were.........and making the good times seem even better (which explains why people get back together with exes).
So I pulled in to the drive up and ordered a "sack o' sliders".........(no shit, that is what it said on the menu board) 10 bite sized little grease boogers for about five bucks. I knew I was in trouble as soon as I had them in the car and rolled up the window...........they smelled like shit. I can't really describe or quite put my finger on just what they smelled like except that it was strongly sulphurous.........and altogether fucking nasty.
I got a 20 oz coke at the hotel and ate every god-damned one of them.......'cuz I was God's own drunk, and a fearless man.
I didn't really have a hangover the next morning but I did have a generally unpleasant queaziness. Kind of a gastronomic equivalent of waking up next to an ugly naked fat chick..........an "Oh fuck, what did I eat last night?" sort of feeling.
I know now why it has been four decades since I'd last eaten at a White Castle......the full horrid force of the memory of that long ago dining trauma came back to haunt me with vivid ferocity.
I'll never get that hungry again......there are bound to be stray cats or dumpsters or roadkill that I could turn to first.

Thus endeth the entry.......

Snow Days..............or: The Best Laid Plans etc

2006-12-02T09:53:00.000-06:00

I woke up yesterday morning at 4:30 with ambitious plans for a long and productive day. The upper respitory crap-itis that had plagued the previous three days and nights was mostly at bay and I have at least two or three car loads of sundry "stuff, assorted, not otherwise indicated by name", ready to go to Goodwill and/or my storage locker.
Of course, the world as far as the eye could see was buried under two or three feet of drifted white fuck you flakes.
I would love to post a picture of it, but I think I killed my camera at Joe's house on Thanksgiving. I was invited there to share a marvelous dinner with him and his family. On the way into the house from the car, I caught my foot on a railroad tie edging the drive and did an ungraceful, old-guy swan dive off a three foot retaining wall into the front yard........but I digress.
At any rate, I rethought my plans and decided that I would repair to "Da Greeks'" with mobile library and office in hand, breakfast on biscuits and gravy, hold forth for a while with the usual suspects, catch up on some correspondence, review and revise some lists and tentative schedules, and knock off a chunk of "The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt". (more on that when I am in a literary reviewing mode)
Generally speaking, I belong to the "Bull-through-for-now-and-let-solar-power-work-for-you" school of snow removal..........it didn't work. A one foot run is not enough to blow through a three foot drift in a rear wheel drive Lincoln Mark VIII...........a glaringly obvious design flaw peculiar to that particular model with which I was unfamiliar.
I looked for my snow shovel, but I believe it is in the shed in the back yard......which is itself half buried in snow.
I made biscuits and gravy at home................
Insofar as the solar gain aspect of my system is concerned, the ambient temperatures stubbornly remain below freezing and, though the sun is bright and strong this morning, the snows' unbroken pure albedo is reflecting enough free radiant heat to smelt several tons of iron ore uselessly back into space.
For those of you inclined to fret over my well being, I really could stay snow bound for about a month..........I have enough in the way of staples, with the exception of milk (and in a pinch I could reconstitute some evaporated milk if I needed it for cooking or cereal), I have what I need to make bread for sandwiches, there are at least a hundred books here that I haven't read yet, I have enough tobacco and papers for about 200 cigarettes, two cans of coffee, about fourteen beers, a bottle of Jamesons, and fifteen hundred hits of aspirin.
I'm good...........
I was fascinated with the idea of being the live in caretaker of a place like the "Overlook" when the novel "The Shining" first came out.........without all the spooky devil shit of course.
It would really be kind of nice to be snowbound for a season..........I could handle it by myself. I actually scoured the internet for just such a job a couple of months ago when I was making a rough plan for the immediate future. It goes without saying that it would be better with a truly compatable friend...........by which I mean someone who knew when to leave me the fuck alone and find their own corner to play in for a while.
'Twould be even better with a truly compatable "intimate" friend....*grins*
..........even better in a cozy wood heated cabin instead of a honkin' big-assed hotel.
In the midst of civilization, however, it isn't long before some energetic young capitalist is pecking at your door offering to shovel you out of your sweet isolation in exchange for filthy lucre.............I should be freed from my crystaline Walden by the time the sun goes down..........for the bargain price of thirty bucks.

In the meantime, I have enough to keep me occupied along any one of at least a dozen equally necessary avenues of endeavor.

*sigh*

Thus endeth the entry..........

Appropo...................

2006-11-23T13:46:00.000-06:00

I don't really have time to invest in a truly complete and coherent entry.....but I thought it appropriate to take the time at least to offer Thanksgiving wishes to all who happen here.
(I also think it's appropriate that an animal possessed of no more capacity for expressing itself than to run around saying "gobble, gobble, gobble", that has been commercially bred to such a preponderance of breast that it can no longer walk and whose most distinctive feature is an ugly head should be fated to be decapitated and gobbled to the point of gluttony by a grateful nation.)
This will be the first Thanksgiving in nearly 30 years that I have no cooking to do whatsoever...........show up and eat.
There are other transistions inherent in the toll that this year has taken on my family that are more impactful or profound...........things that will manifest themselves in small and large ways as yet unforseeable. Yet, to me, this is the one that is the most difficult to focus on........to incorporate into my grasp of "inescapable is-ness". Perhaps because of what it symbolizes for me.
I know how cryptic all this must sound...........but that is how it still looks to me............cryptic, undefined, ambiguous.
(In a totally unrelated aside; upon reflection, the whole concept of "ambiguous knowledge" has got to be one of the stupidest loads of psuedo-intellectual horse shit I've ever encountered.)
Men and women my age have solid futures laid upon their past (for good or for ill).
My future is loosely woven in varying degrees of probability and speculation.......with but a few cords left to cut, I will be unmoored for the first time since I was a very young man and the world was new.
You wouldn't think one could ever forget how brassy the taste of adrenaline.........or how terrific (the root of which excellant and mostly mis-spoken word is terror) the factors that call it into prominence in the chemistry of our lives. I don't believe I would be too far out of line to suggest that all other intoxicants serve as either a desperate attempt to suppress the memory of it altogether or to call forth in some controlled way a feeble emulation of it.

At any rate..........Happy Thanksgiving.

At its worst........life is good.

Thus endeth the entry.

Happy Birthday..........

2006-11-17T08:27:00.000-06:00

Today is Emily's Birthday.........

Emily was among my very first readers....

She has been my most faithful reader and commenter..........

We've traded little things back and forth in the mail.........

We've corresponded, off and on, and caught each other in passing for a bit of conversation in messenger.............

I've talked her ear off on the phone........

She's been as sweet a friend to me as any one ever has...........

We've never met.........

Not yet.........

Click here and wish her a Happy Day.

Thus endeth the entry...........

Happy Birthday..........

2006-11-10T03:11:00.000-06:00

Today is the 231st Birthday of the United States Marine Corps. I've borrowed a clip to post here that I think sums up the nature of the "Esprit" that defines the brotherhood of all Marines.
This clip was never intended to be circulated widely but this is the age of the internet and it was............and it caused a stir.
Just a bunch of "jar-heads", placed in murderous conflict by the people of the country they would sacrifice their lives to preserve and protect, blowing off some steam, engaging in some gallows humor at the expense of their enemy........just doing what Marines do when they've done what Marines are sent to do.

....but some poor, sensitive, gaggle of politically correct assholes got offended by it.

and some ball rubbing functionary of the G. W. Halliburton administration decided that it didn't reflect well on the Navy Dept.

And, what someone labeled (appropriately enough) "some nutless star-chaser" at the pentagon decided to force the singer/composer, Corporal Josh Belile, to apologize publically.

Hell.............he should have had his picture on the cover of "Newsweek".
He should be doing tours of late night talk shows...........
You ought to be able to buy this on a DVD.
It should be on EM TEE fucking VEE....
He ought to be a household name..........like S/Sgt. Barry Sadler was with "The Ballad of the Green Berets" (fucking weinie)......

.....but then, what do I know.....I'm just an old "jar head".

Some of these lads aren't going to come home............and they know it.
....and I know it wasn't that little piss-ant in the White House that sent them to Iraq.
It was us.

A US Marine blowing off steam off duty and causing a media uproar because he's singing about shooting Iraqi civilians in self defense.

"Dirka Dirka Mohamed Jihad" is out of Team America World Police

Hadji Girl
(the lyrics)

I was out in the sands of Iraq
And we were under attack
And I, well I didn't know where to go
Then the first thing that I could see
Was everybody's favorite Burger King
So I threw open the door and I hit the floor

Then suddenly to my surprise
I looked up and I saw her eyes
And I knew it was love at first sight
And she said 'Dirka dirka Mohammed jihad, sherpa sherpa baklava'
Haji girl, I can't understand what you're saying
And she said 'Dirka dirka Mohammed jihad, sherpa sherpa baklava'
Haji girl, I love you anyway

Then she said she wanted me to see
Wanted me to go meet her family
But I, Well I couldn't figure out how to say no
Cuz I don't speak Arabic, so

She took me down an old dirt trail
And she pulled up to a sod shanty
She threw open the door and I hit the floor
Cuz her brother and her father shouted:
'Dirka dirka Mohammed jihad, sherpa sherpa baklava'
They pulled out their AK's so I could see

And they said
'Dirka dirka Mohammed jihad, sherpa sherpa baklava'
So I grabbed her little sister
And I pulled her in front of me
As the bullets began to fly
The blood sprayed from between her eyes
And then I laughed maniacally

Then I hid behind the tv
And I locked and loaded my M-16
I blew those little fuckers to eternity
And I said:
'Dirka dirka Mohammed jihad, sherpa sherpa baklava'
They shoulda known they were fuckin' with a Marine

Three men were seated side by side on a long plane ride. After takeoff, the guy in the window seat turned to the other two and said,by way of introduction: "General, United States Army, retired.......married, two sons, both surgeons."
At that,the guy on the aisle seat speaks up: "General, United States Air Force, retired......married, two sons, both Judges."
Without missing a beat, the guy in the center seat says, in a powerful parade ground voice: "Master Gunnery Sergeant, United States Marine Corps, retired......never married, two sons, both Generals."......(taken from this month's "Chilli Chatter")

Happy Birthday Guys................Semper Fi.

Thus endeth the entry................

DWMISO.............

2006-11-06T06:18:00.000-06:00

I've been exposed to a number of things since joining the computer age nearly five years ago. Things I would otherwise not have experienced. By and large, it has been rewarding, it has expanded me, opened up the world for me, taken me places and presented opportunities, introduced me to people...........I could go on forever about it.
I could not be satisfied with the tiny little chunk of the world I lived and functioned in prior to owning a computer.
Blogging is a perfect example. It is something I wouldn't have considered......knew nothing about actually. Now it is something I couldn't imagine not participating in.
If for no other reason but that it leaves a legacy of my thoughts and insights into my character for those who will come after me.
It has even occurred to me that when the time comes to settle in to a relationship again, I could do much worse than to turn to the internet. Why should I narrow my options and be content with the-best-I-could-do out of the desperate Friday night herd down at the local drinking gourd? There are potentially hundreds of possible companions and partners within a reasonable distance who share my interests and match my energies and complement my strengths and weaknesses.
It was in that light I decided to take out a personal ad. I decided in order for it to have a chance to work it would have to be honest, forthright, and in tune with the current realities of my life. I'm not really ready to settle down yet, but it would be nice to start meeting some people that I could at least spend some time with in a mutually satisfying way.

So, I posted the following:

Overweight, unemployed, fifty-something, divorced, white male seeks tiny bisexual redheaded twins with no pubic hair for long term, frequent, casual sex.

No one has answered it..................yet, *grins*

Thus endeth the entry...........

Koan..........

2006-11-03T05:35:00.000-06:00

If a man is alone in a forest............

and there is no woman to hear him.

Is he still wrong?

Thus endeth the entry.......

Tales of the Macabre...............

2006-10-31T06:59:00.000-06:00

Draculoaf

Some time in early January of this year, I bought a loaf of bread. A commonplace enough occurance so as to go completely unheralded here or anywhere for that matter were it not for the fact that this was no commonplace loaf of bread.
It didn't look different than any other loaf of bread..........just your average, ordinary 2 pound loaf of multi-grain. Under normal circumstances, I would have consumed it in far less time than it would take it to develope mold or go stale. I like sandwiches and soup for lunch and eat them frequently.
As it turned out, I was spending afternoons at my daughter's at the time. I would meet my granddaughter at the bus stop and spend the evening with her while her Mom worked 2nd shift. More often than not, I made some sort of lunch out of the leftovers in Cassie's fridge.........while, at home, my bread went uneaten.
After a couple of weeks, it was obvious that I wasn't going to go through the bread at my usual pace, so after checking for mold and staleness I chucked it in the refrigerator..........and kind of forgot about it for a while. This was about mid-February.
Around the third week of March, I took notice of it while making a list of items to get at the grocery store, thinking surely that it would be getting stale or moldy by now and would need to be replaced. This loaf of bread is now 8 weeks old but still showing no signs of mold or staleness. I left it out on the counter, thinking that I would replace it with a fresh loaf and dry the old one out for use in stuffing........I had frozen some cranberries at Christmas and was planning a holiday style turkey dinner for a family get together somewhere in the midst of the welter of birthdays that fall between mid-March and the end of April.
Again........after a couple of weeks I went to open the bread and lay it out on the oven racks for drying. This is about the time I started to get pretty intrigued (nay, downright amazed) by the fact that there still was no sign of staleness or mold in this stuff.
The bread has now been opened, and either stored in my fridge or on the counter for 12 weeks since I bought it.
I decided to make a sandwich with it to see how it would taste..........
it was fine.
Somewhere in here, my idea for a turkey dinner got postponed, so I decided to see just how long that loaf of bread would last without molding or getting stale. I wasn't going to let it go to waste, mind you. I would either eat it (as long as I could) or dry it out for stuffing.
I made the last sandwich with that bread near the end of May.........over 4 months after I bought it.
True story........but you have only my word for its veracity.

Oh, I tried to document the story photographically..........
but then, everybody knows you can't take pictures of "the unbread".

The Mummy

I saw my first "Mummy" movie when I was about 5 years old.......it scared the living shit out of me. Of all the monsters, that was the scariest.
That fear passed with childhood.
I still like Mummy movies .........the new ones with Brendan Faser are good actioners..............the old ones are classic horror.
Let's face it though..........the idea that the dried up husk of a long-dead man could somehow be reanimated after thousands of years, stalk the earth preying upon innocent, beautiful young women, searching always for the reincarnation of his ancient true love is pretty hokey stuff.

Yep..........pretty fantastic.

Or is it...........?

They are out there

Quite a number of years ago the Viking fly by of Mars picked up an image on the red planet's surface that ignited a firestorm of speculation and reignited the belief that an ancient race of highly advanced beings had once populated our neighbor in space. That image is now famous..........

As much as I sincerely believe that we humans are not alone in this universe, I also highly doubted that the image was any more than a coincidence of light and shadow and perspective on a perfectly natural feature of topography..........

However, the other night as I passed the laundry room, that certainty was shaken to its core.
I leave it to you to conclude, as I have, that there now exists clear photographic evidence.
The face on Mars was real.......
They have been here before......
and they are still among us.

Happy Halloween.............

Thus endeth the entry............

Playing a ketchup game............or, not without a condiment.

2006-10-29T15:28:00.000-06:00

Ketchup offends me. I don't know why. I don't regard it as declasse nor do I particularly dislike it's flavor. I use it in cooking, stock it as a staple and provide it for guests at home. I just don't want it on my table or near me on the counter when I am dining alone in public.

If I am eating with someone who uses it I don't have a problem with it.......there is ketchup on the table because they want it there and I am fine with that.

When dining alone and the wait-person puts it in front of me without asking I will ask that it be taken away. If it is not removed I will hide it on the chair next to me or put it on the floor......................or slide it far away from me if I am at a counter.

I don't feel or behave that way toward any other condiment.

Thus endeth the entry..........

From pillow to post.........

2006-10-26T07:44:00.000-05:00

At some point in the past few weeks, it seems my body may have finally gotten the hint that I wasn't going to cave on the sleep thing............
I don't think the trip had any causal effect per se. It could be that a wee break coupled with the gradual lessening of some of the stress issues may have been contributory though.

In keeping with my one-step-at-a-time plan, I've had some success with reading lately as well.

To put it in perspective, in the first 5 months of 2004, I read somewhere in the neighborhood of 35 books. (To use the common definition of the word "book" as: a written or printed work on sheets bound together.) It was somewhere in here that I fell into the whole insomnia, narcolepsy thing. It took me most of 2005 to read "Huckleberry Finn"...........though I've read it nearly 25 times (honestly).

Earlier this year, I spent over two months re-reading "Another Roadside Attraction".........in the meantime, I keep acquiring books to read.

Apparently the body and the gel-pak are trading information and coming to grips with the inevitable, to wit: I will have back sovereignty over my own mechanicals.

Over the past three and a half weeks, I've finished 6 books. I also stayed awake through all 9 parts of Ken Burns' PBS "Civil War" documentary (to be fair, it was one episode a night). I'll grant you I wasn't struggling with "great works" or anything..............two of the most recently released "Dune" prequels written by Frank Herbert's son Brian with Kevin Anderson (Frank's brain is in the story, but his soul and mind are sadly lacking from the writing.......still must-reads for the "Dune" fan), two histories; "1776" by McCullough and "The Guns of August" by Barbara Tuchman, "Illusions" by Richard Bach, and a book about National Parks in the Appalachian Mountains.

In the summer of my second grade year, I took to reading the "classics" that Mom had accumulated........."Moby Dick", "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea", "Lorna Doone", "Jane Eyre", "Treasure Island", "Tom Sawyer", "Huckleberry Finn".........you get the idea. Most days would find me perched on a limb about 15 feet off the ground in the Norway maple tree in the front yard...........rainy days in the back seat of the car.........with a book, an apple or two to sustain me, and after a few trips up and down I finally started lugging the 20 lb. dictionary up in the tree with me. I think I got my own dictionary as a Christmas present that year, albeit a smaller and more wieldy version.......(this isn't a digression, it really is going somewhere).

Back to school that fall, I read the kids books (60 pages, huge lettering, every other page an illustration) to some extent, but I'd gotten an appetite for more.
The problem arose when it came time to recognize the "readers" in the class with certificates for the number of books read, passed out in awards ceremonies held at regular intervals, some of which were attended by parents and the public. Here I was, at nine, reading Hugo, Dumas, Welles, Stevenson, Bronte...etc. and turning in reports on ten or fifteen books a month and getting smoked by kids who were reading "Suzie Creamcheese Stubs her Toe" and "Triple Trouble for Rupert" to the tune of a hundred books a month..........some of the stuff they read wouldn't have amounted to a respectable comic book.

So, I complained. I reasoned that something like "The Count of Monte Cristo" at 1100 plus pages, small print, and no pictures ought to count as the equivalent of at least 25 or maybe even thirty of the kiddie books. To give them credit, my teacher and the principal acknowledged the soundness of my reasoning, but said that any attempt to establish an equivalency would be arbitrary, and difficult to implement. In short; "You're absolutely right, but that's not the way we're going to do it."

It wasn't fair. In essence I was being told to read shorter books. This was one of those seminal moments of clarity and insight in my life.....perhaps even the very first....... that eventually added up to the radicalizing of my way of looking at and thinking about things. There were to be many more.

Which brings us back to books..........

I was careful to indicate before that I would, for now, abide by the common definition of the word "book".

Here is the "Bozean" breakdown:

Book.....between 800 and 1100 pages
Booklet..between 500 and 800 pages
Magazine....between 350 and 500 pages
Short story, essay.....between 200 and 350 pages
Article or anecdote....between 100 and 200 pages
Tracts, brochures, pamphlets, and fliers....anything less than 100 pages

So..........strictly speaking, I read two booklets, a magazine, an essay, an anecdote and an article...........still not bad.

It must be clearly understood that these are not assessments of the worth or value of a written work. It goes without saying that some authors can pack more into a single sentence than some others can in whole volumes of assembled verbiage.

.......and what, you may ask, lies above that 1100 page threshold?

That, would be a "work".........an "opus".......a "volume"......a "tome"..........a "real read"!

Thus endeth the entry.........

Take Me Home............

2006-10-23T07:33:00.000-05:00

It has always been difficult to impress on people just how "country" the area of Southern Indiana where my Mother grew up really is.
When we visited there in my childhood I would come back with tales of kerosene lamps and outhouses and wood cookstoves...........of chopping wood and carrying water back to the house from "Uncle John's Spring" (I never did quite figure out whose Uncle, exactly, he was), of tobacco drying in the barn and coonskins and ginseng drying in the fur shed.
I'm not so sure the kids in my class didn't picture me as having spent two weeks at New Salem or someplace like that.
As I went through the pictures I took and mulled over what I was going to write, I understand that nothing is going to impact the mind with that sense of having stepped out of time short of going there and seeing for yourself.

Most of the roads are paved now,

but you still have to take it easy on the curves and hills and keep to your side of the road......and it is still like driving through a green tunnel most of the year.

..........and yes, there be some hills here. Most of the uphill portions of the road level off around mid-hill for about 20 ft or so and then continue upward. That is so you can give the horses a break before taking on the rest of the hill.

Wesley Chapel looks much the same.........

but it has a lady Pastor, indoor plumbing and central heat now.

New Amsterdam has a new town hall and a general store (where the cognoscenti gather for strong coffee in the morning) in the old Odd Fellows Lodge (seen here sporting the new paint job and looking quite spry for a century and a half........)

Grandma's house sits empty and Grandpa's fur shed is immortalized..............

The view down to the river from the side yard is pretty much unchanged.

As I drove into and around and by and through these familiar places, two songs came unbidden to my mind and echoed off and on through most of my stay. One was (irritatingly enough) John Denver's "Country Roads".......more oddly, the other was an old hymn that I probably haven't heard since I was a kid; "This is My Father's World". (These were joined by the fourth movement of Beethoven's Third Symphony and "I Was Kaiser Bill's Batman" by Whistlin' Jack Smith.......but that is not so odd.) I am a slightly less than enthusiastic, "pick and choose" Denver fan and in no circumstances inclined to be churchy ..........but the two songs seemed to fit appropriately enough so I let them serve as my background "score".

Of all the Bus Stations....

A few days before I left for my trip, I stopped by the Mall for something or other (either gummi worms or flying spaghetti monsters.........don't ask) and spotted this......
(if you spot a flaw in pretty Ingrid's chin, it is my reflection in the glass getting a photo to post....this measures about 12 x 18)

Did I absolutely have to have it or what, eh?

Yeah...........I thought so too.

Thus endeth the entry............

The Woods are Lovely.........

2006-10-02T04:22:00.000-05:00

I went to bed at 10:30 pm.........and for once went nearly immediately to sleep.

I woke at 1:30 am the first time........which, again, is pretty good. The first installment of sleep is usually only 1 hour and 15 or 20 minutes.

I dozed off for another hour (2:30 am) got up and took two more aspirin, shuffled about for a bit and then laid back down.........expecting to sleep for another hour and a half or two hours.

By 3:00 am I knew it wasn't going to happen............I am on tenter hooks. I had planned to leave for Southern Indiana at 5:00 am. It's the first time I've actually "gone someplace" since 2002.

I'm not going to leave earlier, but I do have some time now to take my ease about getting out of Dodge.

I can't wait to be there. Such a nice, quiet, cherished, "not here" place to be. It is my "Muhlenberg County", ('cept Mr. Peabody's Coal Train didn't haul it away, thank God)...... if you know what I mean. See John Prine if you don't.
The way I feel right now tells me how badly I need to be "not here" for a while.
I can only spare a couple of days.......this time.

......."I have promises to keep.
and miles to go before I sleep."

Thus endeth the entry........

Awwww.............

2006-09-17T22:52:00.000-05:00

I watched part of a movie last night. Jodie Foster was playing the part of a Mommy.

It seems like only yesterday she was playing the part of a cute little 12 year old prostitute.

Thus endeth the entry.........

Progress, pilgrim................

2006-09-10T00:56:00.000-05:00

Thursday and Friday night I got 6 hours of uninterrupted sleep.........

That's about the 5th or 6th time since my first success at resetting my "clock" in August, 2005 ..........the first time it's occurred two nights in a row.
I started working on it in February, 2004.

Saturday, my brother and his mower dropped by and we did some mowing.............
tonight is a different story.

Two steps forward .......one back. That's 66% efficiency......I can live with that for starters.

Insomnia isn't so bad, once you get used to it...........

There is a peace, a palpable serenity when everyone for miles around you is deeply asleep........
and think of all the wonderful sunrises I'd have missed.

Thus endeth the entry...........

Redux.........

2006-09-03T06:35:00.000-05:00

OK........so the Giant Plastic Head Guy was bizarre. So I thought I was seeing some sort of cultural nadir. So I reacted to it the way a Baptist reacts to homosexuality; sort of disgusted, sort of alarmed...... possessed of a "root-of-my-ball-sack" feeling that I have got to either get out of there or kill something and way the fuck creeped out all at the very same time.

........and then it gets worse. There is a commercial............ the little guy from one of those abysmally stupid Mike Myers spy flicks is on a stage with this horrendous fat grotesquerie who screams out: "YOU LOOK LIKE A BABY! I THINK I'M GOING TO EAT YA!"
Whereupon, the little guy says: "This guy is crazy.".........and then he starts running off at the head about something.
I never have quite caught what the little guy is talking about because, in the meantime, the fat guy starts mumbling and kind of doing a little happy dance and singing to himself about babybacks.......and then screams: "GET IN MY BELLY!"

At least with the Giant Plastic Head Guy, I knew they were pimping for Booger King...........

I have seen this commercial at least half a dozen times and I have no clue what they are selling. Now, peepul.........commercials in prime time aren't just thrown together little video sessions with the family that owns the local hardware store or the witty fellows at the nearest Chevy dealership.
They spend a few million dollars on these things. They run "samples", they target their market and do the statistical math down to the gnat's ass. They run it by shrinks, lawyers and bean counters to who laid the chunk. Before a major advertising campaign is launched they have a pretty good idea whether it is going to work or backfire, whether some special interest group is going to take offense and sue them for it and, if they do can they win the lawsuit or settle out of court and for how much.............in short, will all the possible anticipatible expenses of the ad campaign turn them a profit.
The very fact that it is still running is testimony to the fact that it is working...........that it is appealing to people, that people are paying attention, that it is influencing people to buy whatever the fuck it is they are peddling.
All I can say is that you fucking people are sick..........for the first time in my life I am seriously considering moving to a state that allows its residents to carry concealed weapons. This is scary shit......... scarier even than living next door to a guy who works for cash in the roofing industry and believes professional wrestling is real.

Be afraid.........

Thus endeth the entry........

Future history..........

2006-08-31T08:26:00.000-05:00

Most of what I see as new and wondrous today comes as no real surprise. In the 50's and 60's, those dawn times of the computer and space ages, active imaginations created speculations and predictions that comprised to a great extent, remarkably accurate images of many of today's realities.

What not I, nor anybody else back then, would ever have believed in a thousand years was that, in the near future, people would pay as much for a bottle of fucking tap water as they would a bottle of soda.

Thus endeth the entry......

"..........when skies are grey."

2006-08-17T20:49:00.000-05:00

Twenty four years ago, give or take a few hours, I understood how two completely unique and separate things could occupy the same space.

The Physics of the heart.

Casey's death empties me like a husk...........My Daughter fills me entirely.

The Physics of the heart.

My Daughter's birthday was Tuesday, August 15th. I made her a pumpkin pie. (She doesn't like cake.) I remember the first time I saw her as though it were happening in the here and now.I can feel how full to bursting my heart became at that moment, how fiercely certain I was that I wanted no other thing in life but to be her Daddy. No less so than I was Casey's Daddy.

The Physics of the heart.

I wrote on her card............"I love you so much."
Infinity packed in a tiny sentence..........
E=MCsquared indeed.

The Physics of the heart.

"You'll never know, Dear,
How much I love you....."

The Heisenberg principle of the heart.

Happy Birthday Cassie......

With all my heart....

Daddy

Thus endeth the entry.........

A gift,.....

2006-08-08T07:32:00.000-05:00

....by definition, may neither entail, in the giving, an obligation nor instill in the recipient a sense of obligation (aside from the customary courtesies).

Should it do either, it is no longer a gift. It becomes, in the former case, a business transaction; in the latter, a burden.

Thus endeth the entry.........

Of microbes and men......

2006-07-25T05:31:00.000-05:00

A microbe has a better chance of grasping the nature of a human than said human does of grasping the nature of God.
A microbe, in fact, has more in common with a human than a human has with God.
The only real difference between microbes and humans is pretty insignificant when you think about it......
Humans can write poetry about fucking, and eating, and either running away from or killing anything that appears threatening to us.

Thus endeth the entry.........

Bozean Dictionary........#2

2006-07-17T06:07:00.000-05:00

Addiction: You know it is killing you (or some part of you) but you feel like you are going to die if you don't have it. Not by definition or effect confined or limited to drugs and alcohol.......it can involve almost any activity or indulgence; sex, food, people, religion, recreation....ad infinitum. Percieved of as a dire need, it is often confused with love. However, as a percieved need, it necessarily initiates a program of behavior designed to gain control or power over its' source.......which precludes love. Inherently dishonest, it may not be trusted, further precluding the possibility of love. It may be accompanied with or marked by lust, which is likewise confused with passion but is in fact only a form of greed. It can be presented in such a way as to appear quite normal and may create a temporary state resembling happiness. However, it destroys freedom and thereby precludes happiness.
See also.
True passion arises only from love.
Passion doesn't come at the expense of another's freedom or happiness.
Love doesn't cause pain.
Love gives back more than it takes away.
Love and passion don't exhaust and spend; they energize and recharge.
Love may be freely given a figurative or literal martyrdom or sacrifice.........love never requires a martyrdom or sacrifice.
Love and trust are so intricately intertwined as to be functionally synonymous one with the other.
Love and trust don't frighten; they inspire.

Thus endeth the entry............

A word is worth a thousand pictures.........

2006-07-10T20:15:00.000-05:00

Most of my younger correspondants on the internet use one of the various dictionary services to look up words.....(those who bother to look up words at all that is).

I do so myself from time to time..........but I always find something lacking in the experience and always return to the lifelong habit of using a real dictionary.

I have, in fact, a dictionary within easy reach of my desk...it weighs, easily, in the neighborhood of 20 pounds and contains 135,000 entries. It is well worn, which should come as no great shock to those who know me. The much loved dictionary we had at home when I was a kid comprised over 200,000 entries.

I have suffered much in the way of good natured taunts and jibes from young friends....... I've been labeled dinosaur, fossil, Thesaurus Rex......etc. You can imagine....and maybe I deserve it. It does seem an arcane and inefficient practice to turn from a computer that you are working at to muddle through an unweildy and enormous tome ("as I pondered weak and weary over many an ancient volume of forgotten lore") in search of a word you can have at the click of a button without even having to have the beginnings of a clue as to how to spell.

I've given it some thought lately...but today, something happened that clearly illustrates the value of (and perhaps even the reason behind) my peculiar preference. Certainly it explains the feeling of being less than satisfied by the practice of looking up words on-line.

As I "honed in on" a word I was looking up, I realized I was casually taking note of the words that caught my eye along the way. Occasionally I would stop and read the definition of a word I was unfamiliar with as I neared the particular word I had gone in search of.

I can't, off-hand remember what I had started to look up....but in addition to having found my word, I learned a whole new useful word.

Ladies and gentlemen.........I give you:

grangerize. To illustrate, as a book, with additional prints or engravings taken from other books; to mutilate by cutting out photographs and illustrations.

Remember that the next time you have to spend an hour in a doctor's waiting room with nothing to do except browse through a stack of outdated, grangerized copies of Outdoor Life and Better Homes and Gardens.

*grins*

Thus endeth the entry............

"List, list, O, list!"

2006-07-08T06:54:00.000-05:00

After a brief respite through the month of March, I'm back to a sleeping pattern of short naps interrupted by aspirin snacks and cigarette breaks. I'm roused to some degree of wakefulness just short of a full cycle and driven, stumbling, from bed to walk off the worst of the discomfort and give the aspirin time to take the edge off the rest......smoking a cigarette and doing a quick tour of e-mails and blogs helps to occupy and ease me. After all of which, I can settle in for another chunk of sleep.
I don't dream much......I think that is the part of the cycle that gets cut short....but lately I've been roused to wakefulness (or something like it)by a dream bit.
Of the three I remember:

one was nightmarish........a Randall Flagg type of face appeared at the back door in the middle of the night.
He said:" This is what it means to piss off a killer."
Whereupon he shot me in the forehead.
I remember thinking, before I slipped into blackness: "......but I've got children."

One involved a couple of naked, Suzy Creamcheese types (I think they might have been sisters), an old house and oral sex.

....and one involved someone who may or may not be pleased or comfortable knowing that she is the subject of even an unconcious erotic imagery on my part (.....but she has great lips and the kissing was really nice).

In the case of the latter two, I was sorry to find myself awake.

I get up pretty early in the morning........Friday I was up and making coffee and rolling my first cigarette of the day at around 430am. I drafted a bit of a lengthy e-mail, drank coffee, and visited the pot garden to check the babies.

I spent a part of the afternoon with Cheyenne and then came home.

Last night was one of those ridiculous, Hobson's choice, merry-go-round situations wherein which...

if I tried to read, write or watch T.V. I started to slip into a semi-coma.

If I had succumbed, even briefly, to a nap I'd have been condemned later to an exhausted wakefulness until 3 or 4 in the morning........the end result of course being to further fuck any hope of restoring a reasonable pattern of sleep into a cocked hat.

In effect I spent last night fighting sleep until 1000pm, incapable of doing anything constructive to keep me awake, so that I could, maybe, get a little bit of sleep.

I usually find myself up and wandering around wrapped in a camo blanket about an hour after I first lay down........after that, it's normally some combination of the 12 o'clocks, 2 o'clocks and 4 o'clocks........skipping the odd hours for some reason.

Last nite I was up at 340 am.........so maybe I've just been assigned a split shift or something and just don't know it.

Like the ghost of Hamlet's father..........

"Doom'd for a certain term to walk the night."

I appreciate those who comment, e-mail or post late at night or in the middle of the night........it gives me something to look forward to.

Thus endeth the entry..........

Perspective..........

2006-07-04T15:03:00.000-05:00

I remember how much fun it was to play with sparklers when I was a kid.

Running around in the yard like little apeshit comets.........with tails a million miles long. Twirling them in the air, spinning around with them, dropping the spent ones in the yard, and racing back to a bottomless sack for another and another and another. The only token nod to reasonable caution being that we had to let a grown-up light them........

Last night I cringed as I watched my granddaughter running around with a piece of stiff steel wire in her hand........coated with a substance burning hot enough to weld with. The whole while holding my breath and praying that she didn't set herself on fire, or give herself a 3rd degree burn, or trip and run the fucking thing 6 inches into her head through her eyesocket...........and wondering to myself what kind of numbskull could possibly think something like that was a suitable or safe toy for a child under any concievable circumstance.

Have a Happy Independence Day.

Thus endeth the entry...........

Life after death.........

2006-07-02T16:07:00.000-05:00

[A note: I wrote this, after yet another sleepless night, in the form of an e-mail. It occurred to me that it wasn't a bad place to start by way of a return to regular entries. Erasements and obscurations have been substituted for names and references by way of confounding knowledge of the identity of the recipient.]

Dear ***,

Little bits...

Among other things, I finally got most of my veggies
potted ........a cucumber, two peppers, and two
tomatoes. I need more dirt to fill pots for two more
tomato plants. I need to plan a "dirt raid"......you
wouldn't think it would be that hard to acquire dirt
in the middle of umpteen bazillion square miles of
corn field.........or make you feel like
Jesse-fucking-James to go get some.
At any rate, when done, I'll get to refer to my pot
garden with a wink and a twinkle.......whilst doing my
best old hippie impression.
I watched "Napoleon Dynamite" the other night. Cute
movie......everybody's ice cream dreams came true.
In an odd twist of casting irony, some day when you
think of it watch "Real Genius" (1985..Val
Kilmer)..........check out the part played by Jon
Gries (Uncle Rico) in that movie.
As I watched Napoleon, I kept wondering where I'd seen
"Deb" before.
It finally occurred to me that she was the 10 year old
girl in "Water World" (one of the Costner epics that,
like "The Postman", no-one except me liked) that had
the map to dryland tatooed on her back.

I asked about the messenger thing because I'm always
logged into Yahoo Instant Messenger.......whilst
linking about in your pages a day or so ago I came
across a reference to a yahoo screen name for you and
left a message there.......S** just
about broke me of any desire I may have of sitting and
typing to someone for any length of time....though I
have since enjoyed a lengthy cam and voice session or
two with various of my internet
acquaintances........at least you get to hear and see
(albeit in diluted form) some sensory informational
input.
All things considered, however,I still like face to
face best for any kind of in depth exchange insofar as
it allows all the brain's devices for gathering data
to bring to bear on the situation. What a marvelous
mechanism.....how marvelously adapted and
adaptable.....how marvelously automatic in its
infinitively intricate function.
I don't think I told you but I really liked the "igloo
of books" remark........
Papa Cecil would like to hear from you even if
Cheyenne wasn't here to say Hi to as well..and I'm
pretty sure I'll be here all day Sunday.....(unless
I'm off on a dirt raid).
Seriously, kiddo...........you can literally call
anytime.
I'm sorry your ** are bothering you.......
I hope you'll forgive me for refusing to believe that
God had anything to do with it (outside of perhaps
allowing it and observing the choices you make in the
light of that as a reality in your life.)
Even now, Dear ***, with the ashes of the only son
I'll ever have still cooling in their urn, alone most
of the time except for pain like a toothache somewhere
on me 24/7, sleepless, cut off from resource,
uncertain of where tomorrow will take me or what new
monstrosity it will introduce to me.......there is
still you and Cheyenne, and.......well lots of little
and big things......and most of all.......I'm still
alive and can breathe and eat and drink and fuck and
laugh and dance and sing.
No vision of the life after death of any religion I've
ever encountered as a study or a practice, has ever
held enough appeal for me to consider for a moment
that I would prefer it to the one I'm living
now...........not even the Moslem paradise of a
bottomless sack of primo hashish and a never-ending
stream of hot and cold virgin whores.
.......but that is a rant and I really need to end
this and decide whether to send its particles into
oblivion or send it to you..........can I trust you?
I really need to get back to blogging
Be well, Sweetheart.......

Yours always,

Cecil

Thus endeth the entry........

1:47 am.....

2006-05-30T03:47:00.000-05:00

That was when the biggest heart I ever knew stopped beating.

My son is dead.

Thus endeth the entry..........

Please.........

2006-05-28T02:29:00.000-05:00

Pray for my son.......

thank you

Thus endeth the entry......

It wasn't my fault......I heard voices....Jesus made me do it......It was the one-armed man!

2006-05-14T06:44:00.000-05:00

Every once in a while, the diverse elements that comprise the bizarre world of the religious right make common cause. Typically, it is in opposition of a perceived challenge to the firm grip they have on the starboard testicle of whatever political system under the protection of which they are operating , or in support of something that will tighten it. Sometimes, it is for or against something that either threatens to lessen or promises to enhance the flow of lucre pouring in from the open pit pillage of the pockets and purses of the poor and the pious. (Don't you just love alliteration......fuck you Spiro, wherever you are!) Throughout history this has given us some really nifty stuff.........the dark ages, inquisitions, the crusades, anti-semitism, racial persecution, witch hunts, superstition, poverty, disease, ignorance, the re-election of George Bush (were those last two redundant?).....and all in the name of gentle Jesus and for the glory of a loving God.
In any event, the cathoholics and the prostitutes, the fundamental-cases and the sundry odd sectarians and branch nut groups of every stripe all get naked and pile into bed together for a righteous group slap and tickle just to show the world what good buddies they really all are . It makes for a nice break from their traditional Sunday morning pursuits of condemning heathens, heretics, homosexuals, jews, ay-rabs, liberals and each other to eternal torment and damnation by the hundreds of millions.
This was the case when most of the non-christian world found something to be offended by in Mel Gibson's "Passion of the Christ"..(Mad Jesus, beyond Thunderdome!)
Every pulpit in christendom echoed with a single voice that this movie was the best thing since sliced bread and oral sex, and whole congregations deserted their sanctuaries en masse to reconvene Sunday evening services in local movie houses. (Amen and pass the buttered popcorn.)
Currently, the christian community seems to be circling the wagons over the looming double threat of the recently translated "Gospel of Judas" and the soon-to-appear-in-a-theater-near-you movie version of "The DaVinci Code".
So.........let's see if I have this straight. Poor ol' Judas wasn't the money-grubbing pissant who sold out God for thirty bucks like we were taught in sunday school after all. Instead he was a courageous and clever double agent and Jesus just let him take the fall. Hell, He could have cleared the whole thing up on Easter morning when He dropped by to visit with the boys before jetting off to paradise.
("Nice talking with ya again guys.........hell of a weekend, eh? My arms are still sore. Damn shame about Judas....sure had Me fooled. Well, I gotta get going, Dad's expecting Me home for supper. I'll be back.")
...........and the Holy Grail? That's just too rich. For howsomever many centuries armor clad thugs sirred into nobility by a self-annointed Holy mafiosi of over-fed, jewel crusted, silk clad, woman hating, gay pedophiles raped, looted, ravaged and murdered their way through Europe and the near east under the pretext of searching for the sacred beer mug of Christ. Now, it would seem, there is an an odds on chance that somewhere along the way they might very well have snagged one or more of His teenaged great, great, great, great, great........granddaughters, gang fucked and sodomized her, and left her in a hay stack despoiled, weeping, pregnant and bleeding from every orifice of her body. ("Shit, guys, this isn't it...........Hey barkeep, gimme a clean glass and, by the way, you got any daughters or nieces hanging around?")
Is that irony? I've read the definition a thousand times and sometimes I'm not sure. What can I say? Sometimes real life is more amusing (in retrospect) than the History Channel.
While I've got a good rant momentum rolling here, I might as well add that I never really understood the whole christians hating the jews thing. They ought to be kissing and hugging on them and buying them dinner every chance they get. After all, if the jews hadn't killed Christ we christians would't even have a religion. We'd still be worshipping rocks and trees and giant carved stiffies and little statues of naked fat chicks with droopy tits instead of a dead guy on a stick.
Out with the old symbol, in with the new......right J.?

I feel much better now.

In closing............Happy Mother's Day to all you mommies out there, young and old alike.
Keep in mind that kindly old Uncle Cecil thinks pregnant ladies are really sexy....and I've got a package of hot dogs, a sack of salt and vinegar potato chips, the starz channels, a web cam and no plans for the evening.
Dinner and a movie anyone?

*grins*

Thus endeth the entry...........

Stay tuned for these announcements.........

2006-05-12T12:50:00.000-05:00

The temperature in the Bahamas is currently the mid to high 80's under partly cloudy skies. There is a chance of scattered thunderstorm activity.

Which means there is a possibility that Casey and Diane, my son and my daughter-in-law, might have to forego the beach for a time this afternoon or evening and retire to their room. Not the worst turn of events for a newly wed couple on their honeymoon I would venture to opine.

You did read that correctly..........on Tuesday Casey and Diane were married.

Casey is one of the most solid and ingenuous people I know. He's the guy you want at your back, the true friend. My children are not perfect, but they are good folk. In that legacy, my crimes, if not pardoned, are at least somewhat mitigated.

Diane has a day brightening smile and a sunny disposition. She has strength and character and speaks her mind. One of the first occasions I had the opportunity to be around her was at a holiday gathering of the clan that included ten or eleven adults and an assortment of mini-screamers. I had turned a ten pound bag of spuds into mashed potatoes. She took a look at the bowl and said (with a twinkle in her eye): "You didn't make enough mashed potatoes." I knew in an instant that here was a woman with the appetites and joy of life to match my son's.........and in that instant I knew that I would love her like my own. Time hasn't shaken that insight one whit.
I hope she understands how sincerely I welcome her.
I hope they both know how happy I am for them as I write this.

Congratulations to you both.

A long and prosperous and happy life together is not this father's wish for you...

It is my constant fervent prayer.

Thus endeth the entry..........

Turn the page..........

2006-03-30T01:20:00.000-06:00

At 330 this morning the 56th year of my existence will quietly end and the 57th will just as quietly commence.
A number of things have happened over the course of the past year. Some of them were covered in a previous update. Many are still noted on various bits of scrap paper scattered over the top of my computer desk, the kitchen table, the passenger seat of the car, and in the pockets of two or three shirts waiting their turn in the washing queue......ultimately these will find their way to posting. Some things won't be mentioned or addressed until they have passed into memory as having been lived through, adapted to,or coped with.......to do otherwise would be to whine.
I don't have the energy or inclination to make a "that was the year that was" entry out of this.
Tuesday night Cheyenne and I went to visit Casey and family....
Dianne made a wonderful lasagna and Casey made me a birthday cake.
Cheyenne has been out of school all this week for spring break. We have foregone the usual routines and spent most of our evenings doing something besides school work.
Last night as we lay on the floor coloring together, she made me a birthday picture.

I got a birthday card from the law firm that is handling my injury case, and a couple of days later got a check from the railroad for an unpaid vacation day dating back to at least early 2004. The irony inherent in either of these occurances is rich........but it goes beyond exquisite in their coincidental juxtaposition. Of course, if you are less than thoroughly familiar with the back story, the irony is lost.

So, if you are reading this, feel free to leave a birthday greeting...........cash is always appreciated, but I also like books and blow jobs.

I am going to go to bed now and go to sleep.......just because I can.

Thus endeth the entry.........

May those who love me, love me.

2006-03-17T08:53:00.000-06:00

May God turn the ankles of those who don't love me so that I may know them by their limping.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!!!!!!!!!!

Thus endeth the entry.........

Fries with that?

2006-03-04T00:22:00.000-06:00

Is there anyone else out there who finds the giant plastic head guy in the Burger King commercials.......disturbing?
It's fucking bizarre. It's like some medieval nightmare, induced by the accidental ingestion of an ergot fungus alkaloid.

It makes me want to turn loose a pathologically vicious carnivore, inbred to the point of homicidal insanity (like a doberman or a pit bull), to patrol the grounds around the house.
It makes me want to install locks on the outside of my closet doors.
It makes me want to keep a stout cudgel and a three foot knife within easy reach of my bed (ok.......so I already do that, but that is beside the point).

It does not, I repeat, does not make me want to run right out and scarf a double Whopper with cheese.

Please tell me it isn't just me..........

Thus endeth the entry.........

Sounds good in theory............

2006-02-25T14:28:00.000-06:00

"If you love something, set it free.............if it is truly yours it will come back to you."

Yeah.........right!

I almost lost my fucking mind that way once.

Thus endeth the entry

Evening in Munchkinland............

2006-02-05T17:13:00.000-06:00

I spend four nights a week with my oldest granddaughter.....(I finally looked it up, it's one word....no hyphen).

That being said, it's deserving of a word or two of expansion.

My daughter is currently working second shift at an out-patient clinic, so I meet Cheyenne at the bus stop, have supper with her, help her with her homework, and put her to bed Monday through Thursday. Fridays she is picked up by one or another of the assorted grandmothers and I have the day off. There are, of course, occasional variations, but that is the general scheme of things. We have developed some routines that take us sailing through the week without getting into a tedious rut but that still preserve a structure. Some are, I think, worthy of note.

The classrooms I attended as a school-kid usually had one wall that was nothing but windows. Designed before air conditioning and in the dawn years of wide scale electrification, this let in natural light on even the gloomiest of days and fresh air on the most stifling.....made sense. One wall was dominated by the chalkboard and usually was the wall most often occupied by the teacher. The other two walls were generally covered with educational materials of every imaginable stripe and variety. If a kids attention wandered, he had a two out of three shot at still being exposed to some type of education..........the teacher's job was made easier in that he or she only had to monitor one wall to catch the irredeemable day-dreamer.

It is in this spirit that I handle the subject of the television. I put it on the history channel and there it stays.......if it is on at all. It goes off at dinner time, during homework time and during reading time, all of which are nightly occurances. The exception being Thursday night. Thursday is library day. After we leave the library, we eat at McDonalds or Taco Bell and come home and watch a movie together.
We always eat at the dinner table and I cook actual meals. We have one pizza night a week. Every other Tuesday, we go to see Uncle Casey, Aunt Diane, Hallie Bear and Baby Colton, and eat supper there.
As I mentioned, the television goes off at mealtimes......and we take turns choosing "dinner music". As you can well imagine we get a pretty eclectic mix of music. To my relief, Cheyenne likes the Beatles really well, is starting to turn into a Grateful Dead fan, and likes Eric Clapton. Every once in a while I have to listen to the "hokey pokey" and such like......but not so often as to drive me postal or anything.
Beyonce is about as treacly as it gets otherwise.
...........But, you know, Disney's "Princess" Album isn't a bad choice of dinner music as it turns out.

At meals, I almost always lay out a plate of fresh veggies........cauliflower, broccoli, green pepper, baby carrots, and tomatoes (in season).
Cheyenne is a picky eater, to a degree, but in my experience a five year old will eat almost anything dipped in either ketchup or ranch dressing (or both).
This kind of put me in a quandary, insofar as pounding a gob of fat-filled salad dressing is probably not the healthiest of choices to offer a child night after night.

So, I trotted out something I picked up from one of Graham Kerr's cooking shows...........(after he became a born again advocate of healthy eating).

Empty about a pint of plain yogurt into a medium sized tea strainer lined with a coffee filter...........set the strainer on a container deep enough so that the bottom won't touch the liquid that drains off. Use a yogurt that has active cultures and no gelatin added to keep it from separating.
Like so...............

Put the whole affair in the fridge and let it drain at least overnight........(ideally for 24 hours).
What is left in the strainer has a spreadable consistency somewhere between cream cheese and sour cream and can be used as a no fat substitute for both of those products in many recipes. Some clever-dick who was obviously pitiably under qualified to write for Hallmark named it "Yocheese"..(Yo, cheese,wuzzup?).....but that is one of those things that is just too stupid sounding to actually say in a public forum.
Mix in a package of ranch dip mix (or any kind of instant soup mix) put it in an airtight container and refrigerate for four or more hours to blend the flavors and reconstitute any solids....(like bits of dried onion and what have you).
You now have a zero fat, high protein dip that is great for veggies, chips, pizza, fried foods or those nasty, amorphous, breaded, soy bean/petro-chemical, mystery meat-like things you heat up in the microwave. Mix in some pickle relish and you've got a tartar sauce........spice it up with some dried pepper flakes..........use your imagination (and the internet). Now the health benefits of the veggies and the baked chips are not negated by the salad dressing............and the psuedo-food washed down with diet soda makes a little more sense.
Mix in fruit or a nice marmalade or jam and you have a bagel spread or crepe filler.
To make a bigger batch, so as to make it more economically, or make different things from it or simply to keep it on hand, simply use a bigger strainer and line with cheese cloth or a square cut out of a old, white cotton tee-shirt or wife-beater (laundered in an unscented detergent, bleached and dried without a fabric softener).

You can discard the cup or so of liquid (whey) that drained from the yogurt......but you know me better than to think that I would suggest such a shameful waste. The whey is a source of protein and other nutrients. It can be frozen and added to soup stock, gravy, simmering liquids, broth that you simmer or parboil meat roasts in or make stews from.

In addition, my sources inform me that these things can be ingested without suffering by the lactose intolerant..........but if you are one of those unfortunates, let discretion and your own experience be your guide.

Having done my bit for the betterment of the human race and the planet we live on, I'll cut this off for now....there is an inexhaustable store of drivel where that came from.

Thus endeth the entry...........

Sailing a verbal ship upon a paper ocean........

2006-01-28T20:34:00.000-06:00

Odd thoughts and bits of entry occur to me from time to time and get hastily noted on random bits of scrap paper, cocktail napkins, receipts, 3 by 5 cards.....or whatever else is at hand. Actually turning any or all of it into a post or posts is often a matter of just opening the car window and grabbing at some of the debris that goes flying about in the wind, or cleaning out shirt pockets to do laundry.
Those who know me, know that I am rarely without something to say or a story to tell...............my lack of enthusiasm for posting lately is more a matter of being still locked into a "catch-up" mode of thinking.....relegating the whole exercise to job status.

So this is going to be a ramble....(which may or may not define my writing anyway).....a potpourri gleaned from past months.

On Guys

My daughter recently acquired the full set of dvd recordings of "Sex in the City". I generally stick around for a bit after she comes home from work, to report on the evening with Cheyenne or to simply drink a beer with her and talk for a little or a long while depending on how we feel or how tired we are.
From the guy perspective, it's not a bad show.......the episodes aren't too long, and at some point or another, one or more of the women get naked (or nearly so)....leaving plenty of time to take a leak, grab another beer or make a sandwich. As a fantasy, the idea of four attractive ladies screwing their way through the male (and female) population of Manhattan Island is a nice throwback to the pre-virulent, incurable and deadly disease days of the sexual revolution......but after half a dozen or so hook-ups with someone they know almost nothing about except name, address and phone number, the idea of running into one of them (or someone like them)in the real world is pretty scary.
However, if my daughter's comments are a sample of how and why a majority of women relate to the program, then it is a pretty accurate reflection of how women behave when together and a reasonably realistic picture of life for a group of female friends.
So, it occurred to me, if we have a show that lends some insight into the thinking and behavior of a group of women then it would be only fair that I spend a bit of time shedding some light on men and their nature, for the edification of my female readers, illustrated (in a left handed but pertinent sort of way)by a picture or two that I took for entirely unrelated reasons. Of course, this involves casting aside some popular but mistaken notions and beliefs and destroying a fond myth or two.......but then,embracing the truth (however unsavory) is always preferable to clinging to a fiction (however comforting).

All of which leads me to:

Guy myth number one...men are obsessed with women and sex

One of the things that struck me about "Sex in the City" was that whenever the ladies gathered they talked about men and sex.
Generally speaking, when men gather they tend to talk about .............not women and sex..........in fact, almost anything except women and sex. Oh sure, we may spend a little time bitching about women or telling a joke or two, but after a couple of hundred thousand years of pretty much agreeing with one another on the subject, there really isn't much left to say that wouldn't amount to tediously beating a dead horse.
What you can count on is that given a chance to work up a sweat, break out a beer or two and just chill out with the guys,we are as happy as clams. The last thing on our minds is women. Which is why we can be late for dinner, take two hours to get home from work, come reeling in at odd hours of the morning and honestly wonder why our significant others are so upset. Guys, now you know.........women are upset by this behavior because they assume that we are as obsessed by women and sex as they are about men and sex.....and they get suspicious and jealous.

Guy myth number two.....men are all alike

I engaged in an extended series of late night conversations with a young woman a couple of years ago. We had gotten comfortable enough with one another so as allow us to speak pretty freely about our sexual encounters and experiences. In the course of one such conversation, she complained about the mediocre sex she had had with that night's date and told how the previous night's date had failed to get off when she went to give him a blow job. The blow job failure she chalked up to some bad masturbatory habit or sexual issue she wasn't sure she wanted to deal with even though she had declared this person "boyfriend material" (worth "working to love"....HUH?...errrr, pardon me, how was that again?)
The mediocre nature of the current night's encounter she laid pretty much entirely at the feet of the date. (I have since gathered that "boyfriend material" is someone made to pony up for at least three dates so he can harbor the illusion of being with and develop feelings for a girl who doesn't exist....one who doesn't fuck on the first date. The one-nighter is a guy about whom the decision was made sometime early in the date, that she doesn't really like him, isn't really interested in him, doesn't want to be with him and doesn't care what he thinks of her or if she ever sees him again, but still considers attractive enough to fuck). The really ironic part of all this is that the guys were pretty much harvested from the same internet dating service, were pretty much clones of each other and went through pretty much the same brief interview/weeding process before the initial date. The men in both "categories" were pretty much total strangers when she bedded them the first time. However, the guy she dimissed with a masturbatory fuck after half a date was allowed an honest insight into who she really was......and, given that he could accept that aspect of her character, had at least a shot at having a real relationship with her simply because she was honest with him from the beginning. On the other hand, the relationship potential with the guy that she thought she might actually want to have something long term with was almost certainly doomed from the outset by presenting herself as something that she was not, thereby founding it on a false pretense from the beginning.
When I suggested that perhaps she needed to adjust her technique to better suit the responses of the guy she was with, to get to know what arouses him, she responded with something like: "What's to get to know? You provide a warm wet place to put it and a guy gets off."
Ladies, we are as individual in our preferences as you are, at least as picky and possibly more scrupulous and honest not only with you but ourselves as well. If you are not ready to put aside what you think you know and learn something about us as individuals, to be as attentive and as focused on us as you expect us to be with you......then you are not worth the cost of a date.....even if we do "get lucky" (all that's worth is a couple of beers...mixed drinks if you are really hot...maybe). It's not enough to go through the motions taught to you by someone else, we are not him. If you can't forget what you think you know based on your experiences with someone else and be there with us, then: a) you don't really know anything about sex; b)you aren't being very scrupulous in being there with us. In other words, you've got to give a shit enough and take the time to learn something about a guy to expect good sex. If an act of intimacy can be reduced to something absolutely devoid of any meaning or feeling whatsoever....it almost guarantees mediocrity. You get back out of a thing what you put into it. If you start off conning some poor schlepp into believing you are Suzie Creamcheese, girl next door, when you are squeezing him in between sad little encounters with total strangers, then you can't really expect anyone to feel sorry for you when the poor bastard finally wises up and moves on.....or when you inevitibly turn into some humanoid reptile from the strain of trying to keep the illusion of being the actual girlfriend or wife that you need him to believe you are. If you are waiting (or are on some ravenous man-hunt) for the guy who is going to come along and blow your doors off then you'd be better off converting the spare room into battery storage.

...........And that was two parts entry and eight parts rant....I feel much better now....and that was just the tip of the iceberg.

Guy myth number three..........guys like blow jobs

Guys don't like blow jobs...........guys like sacks of blow jobs. Pallets piled with sacks of blow jobs...........warehouses crammed with pallets piled high with sacks of blow jobs.......get it? A guy doesn't want to be accommodated, or given an anniversary blow job, or "some pussy".....like it's some kind of doggy treat for not pissing on the couch for a whole month. He doesn't want to have to ask for it, let alone beg for it or be made to feel like he is asking you to soil or demean or strain youself somehow to provide it with enthusiasm........anymore than you would if the shoe were on the other foot. We can concede the point about the week a month...........but for a person to go from someone who couldn't get enough of it to someone who feels sorry for us and does us a favor once in a blue moon suggests one of two things...............we were being lied to then or we are being cheated on now.

Okay...........now you know a few facts about guys. Which is not the same as saying that you are any closer to understanding shit about guys.
My last illustration was not originally intended to fit in with all or any of the above....but as I looked at it, it just seemed to say so much and fit so well that I had to find a way to include it.

A guy will take all your little quirks and pecadilloes in stride and suffer them. He will devote himself to you all his days and be faithful to you. He will work for you, bleed for you, die for you if need be if you can grasp this one thing. He needs to know that you can make him feel something, take him somewhere. Not all the time.....just when he needs it. That you are willing to learn to know when he needs it, that he can trust you to hold it for him and keep it safe and provide it without making him feel weak for taking comfort in it....or, God forbid, that you ever seek to wield it as a source of power over him. It is the most delicate thing he knows, yet it is the source of all his manly strength.
I have to say again, for emphasis, it's not all the time, that would be weak.........it's every once in a while.

This is how he needs you to make him feel ........and why.

Thus endeth the entry..........

Inspirations in a library..............

2006-01-13T19:00:00.000-06:00

Juliska

I've always loved books, and I think I can honestly say that I've read thousands of them...............but I'd never been much of a library person. When I wanted a book, I bought it.
However, when circumstances forced me off the internet at home in December of 2004, I wound up using the computers in our new public library. I became familiar to some of the people there as a regular and when they started up a Thursday night story hour, for kids in the three to six year old age range, I thought that would be a good activity for my granddaughter.

.........and thus it came to pass that I made the acquaintance of Juliska.

Anyone who has read me regularly knows that, however much taken with the female form in it's endless and delightful variety that I may be, I am particularly attracted to the slender and lithe, the gracious, the Degas ballerina or the Art Deco statuette. Delicate, almost dainty of feature....this describes Juliska.

Insofar as she is young,(very young) I was polite and discreet....if for no other reason than to preserve my own dignity. I found out....

That she graduated High School at least a year early......

That she plays violin and piano and possibly another instrument as well.....

That she is a student of martial arts and doesn't quail at the odd bump and bruise begot from honest physical activity........thus belying that delicacy suggested by her outward appearance.

That she keeps not one but several web sites (somewhat compulsively) that range with neural abandon at electric speeds over a wildly eclectic variety of subjects.
She's got God trapped in a corner with an empty glass, a finger poking Him in the chest, and firing questions at a rate that's got the poor old guy taking notes just to keep apace.

On one occasion, I had gleaned an armload of ambitious tomes from the used book rack. When I went to pay for them, she remarked that I had bought up the books she had donated. People, this was not lightweight fare that I had picked up.

I think she knows that she is nice looking.........I don't think she has a clue how timelessly, classically, breathtakingly pretty she is.
I think she knows that she is smart enough and talented enough to distinguish her from lesser lights...........I don't think she has a clue how intensely smart and talented she really is.

What a marvelous life she has in store for her....How fortunate I am to be allowed to witness a bit of it unfold.

I've added links to at least five of her websites.......Delphic_Trope, That's Enough, My Alien Eyes, Stick Activity and (the latest) Readmewrite. They are all worth a more than casual examination.............I highly recommend "the Timmy Book"........and leave you to explore to your delight, confusion, consternation and, perhaps, frustration, as you scurry about in her world scrambling after the thoughts and observations that she leaves in her wake.

Cheyenne's World

Cheyenne is an outgoing child and tends to "take over" what ever environment she finds herself in. She makes friends and digs right in, making a home for herself.

The library has been no different than anyplace she has made herself at home. She adores the ladies at the library and wants to help them. I try to let her satisfy her curiosity and express a boldness whenever possible or permissable. At the same time, I try to keep her occupied at least to the point where she is not "pesky".....interfering with the work that they have to do. I am not sure how successful I am at the latter, but the ladies are tolerant and patient and gracious about it.

Even after Story Hour ended (before the holidays) I thought it would be a good idea to keep Library night as a going part of our weekdays together. As she advanced in the accumulation of "sight words" to the point that she could begin to construct simple sentences, I began to formulate the idea of her writing a story. After all, one of the Dr. Suess books comprises only 220 words and at this point, Cheyenne has about fifty words that she can recognize, read and (for the most part) spell.

I am not sure when exactly the idea came to me to spend 15 or so minutes a night working up a weekly diary entry using, as much as possible, the simple words that she knows and helping her post them to a website....but over the course of the past couple of weeks, this has come to fruition. Dear readers, it gives me great pleasure to introduce you to Cheyenne's World.

On Monday night, we make up an "idea' card...........she writes down some of the things that she would like to write about.

On Tuesday night we make a rough draft of the entry. She does all the writing for all of these things and I help her with spelling out the words that she doesn't know yet, and editing the text down to a level where she can mostly read her own entry without help.

On Wednesday night she copies the rough draft onto the special "three line paper" they use in kindergarten and first grade. She has to write it out as neatly as though she were going to hand it in to the teacher. It is here that we make any changes to the text.

On Thursday night she posts her entry on the library computers. She does all the writing and all the typing.........I post the pictures and see to the template and such like.

I encourage everyone who reads this to visit her(the site has been added to my links list) and leave a comment. She is thrilled by the idea that people from all over the world may be reading what she has to say, and would be delighted to hear from you.
The comments are "moderated" by me..........so they won't be posted immediately. They will come to me by email and post upon approval.
Take note that even non-blogger users can now sign a name and leave a link to their url by choosing the "other" radio button over the comments box.

It's time to scrounge up something to eat for supper.........so I'll let this stand as the entry of the hour for the nonce. Regaining the momentum of entry that I maintained before my forced dormancy is further complicated by the fact that each delay spent in catch-up mode creates a new catch-up point..which makes the whole effort a Jay-Oh-fucking-Bee as opposed to a pleasurable excercise in unfettered Bozean expressionism.......but as in all things, this too shall pass and before you know it I'll be back to figuratively staggering in from some mental bender, bouncing off the walls of the blog-o-verse,and kneeling before the cybernetic equivalent of the porcelain altar.

Thus endeth the entry............

Auld Lang Syne...............

2006-01-01T16:25:00.000-06:00

.........means "Old Long Since" in some obscure tongue or argot or another. It doesn't make much sense in English either.

I heard a story once about some prince or another that sent for all his wise men and counselors. He asked of them to say one thing to him that would make him happy when he was sad and sad when he was happy..... (don't ask me why ....some princely balance thing or another I suppose).
Of course that thing was: "This too shall pass."

As the dark nadir of the solstice passed in 1998, and I reflected my way to a New Year that I knew would bring on a welter of cascading changes in my life.........(I had no clue how many or how profound)....I thought about this little story. It was in that vein that I coined what has since become a signature New Year's Greeting for me.
One that, at the very same time, would bless the worthy and pierce the heart of the guilty.

......Thus,dear readers and friends......

"May everyone get what they deserve in 2006!"

Thus endeth the entry...........

Boze's Dictionary..........#1

2005-12-21T09:43:00.000-06:00

Friend...........someone who regards you as worthwhile in spite of the fact that he or she has seen who and what you really are. As opposed to someone that likes who and what you need him or her to believe you are.

Thus endeth the entry......

Suzie can't spell............

2005-12-19T11:59:00.000-06:00

...........little Johnnie can't read, and, apparently, neither one can count to twenty with their shoes on.

As I've indicated in a recent post, since the beginning of the school year, I've spent evenings with my five year old grand-daughter while my daughter works second shift at a medical facility in nearby Peoria.

Cheyenne is in kindergarten and is learning to read. At last count she can read and spell 44 words and knows the difference between a period and an exclamation point. We practice her "sight words" (on flash cards that she makes out) and read for at least a little while every night. We rarely watch television. Thursday night of every week is our library night. From there we go to McDonald's and then home to watch a movie that she has selected from the library.

I have jokingly remarked, that based on what I've seen on the internet, Cheyenne's level of skill with the english language is now on a par with many college students.
I've seriously considered helping her set up an on line journal using the library computers.

As I've scanned through the morning papers in the past week, I've gleaned the following tidbits:
Last year, the federal government spent $35 billion to assist higher education.
(and on the same page)
The pentagon is asking for $100 billion more to finance its current war-making efforts......bringing the total since the invasion of Afghanistan (remember that one?) to nearly half a trillion dollars.

These items were the seminal inspirations for this post....having given rise to the immediate thought: "Well, gee golly, I feel much safer now."

......But what really clinched it was an article found in Friday's paper,under the headline; "Study shows 11 million adults are illiterate" (the full text of which may be read here.)

What struck me most was paragraph five which reads:

"So even as more people get a formal education, the literacy rate is not rising. Federal officials say this trend is puzzling and worthy of research."

Hey............the feds are on it.......not a problem.

Thus endeth the entry...........

Thanksgiving.......

2005-12-15T08:08:00.000-06:00

The passing of the Torch

I cooked my first Thanksgiving turkey in 1975. I had recently acquired a Weber kettle, was anxious to try it out in the "indirect" mode, so I volunteered to cook the bird for that years' family meal. It turned out so much more moist and tender than any turkey that I'd ever tasted.....(my apologies to my mother, who really was a good cook) that I became hooked.

When my Dad retired my folks moved to southern Indiana ,near where my Mother grew up. This was in 1981. They came back to visit every Christmas and I held our family get togethers and dinners at my place.........thus it was that the task of holiday cooking came to be primarily my responsibility.

As a railroader, I had no holidays........period. There were 6 paid holidays in each year, but all that meant was that if you worked on those days you got an extra days pay...you didn't arbitrarily get the day off.....class one railroads don't shut down for anything except natural disasters and accidents. If you wanted a day off, you had to "mark off" and eat the loss of pay. Insofar as Christmas is a kind of "one-shot" deal.....particularly with children (how do you tell a child that Santa Claus doesn't come to railroaders' houses until the day after Christmas?), I always took time off for that event. In the event of Thanksgiving and birthday celebrations, however, we scheduled meals and parties for the next convenient day after the arbitrary date for everyone to get together and for me to cook.

This coupled with new realities that have evolved over the course of the past two or three years have wrought some significant changes in the way our family deals with holiday meals and get-togethers in general.

Thus it has come to pass that we have been gathering at Casey's outpost for most of these events......as chronicled here and in Cooking With Gutz.

I didn't know what was going to transpire for Thanksgiving this year.........and I was preparing myself for the prospect of having it just kind of fade out. I assumed that Casey and his family would gather with his fiancee's family and that Cassie and Cheyenne would hold forth at her Mother's.

So, it was a pleasant surprise when Casey called, shortly before Thanksgiving, and told me that he was planning to have a meal at his house on the Saturday following the holiday and that he was going to do the cooking. All he needed were some recipes, a little help with the grocery list, and some technical/how-to advice on things like the ingredients, timing, equipment and preparation for the stuffing and the cranberry salad.

We worked out a plan, Casey laid in the supplies and did some of the advance work (like laying out the bread to dry and defrosting the bird) and I showed up at a comfortable hour on the appointed day with a few items that we would need and a couple of salads that I threw together the night before in a bit less than 2 hrs. Cassie and Cheyenne arrived later in the day and pitched in with some of the, intermediate clean up and last minute chores like potato mashing. Diane had prepared nibblers and munchies and dips to keep up our strength. It being a first time effort, there were some clashes in style, a bit of mis-timing, and other minor glitches............there was a time or two that Casey and I must have looked like Stan and Ollie as we worked around each other, but all in all it went swimmingly. Everyone got to take an occasional break, we all took turns with aspects of kid-tending and herding and we all sat down to a gorgeous groaning board that would have done the pilgrims proud within a tolerable margin of the target hour.

My only real regret is the lack of pictures of the event to post here....my camera got put in a kid safe place in the unpacking process and I assumed that I had just forgotten to bring it. By the time I found it, the meal was over and we were half way through the clean up. No one thought to get a picture of the loaded table before we lit into it. This was Casey and Diane's first Boze holiday table....primarily hosted and provided by them as a couple.......and it's a shame that there is no picture of it.These words and all our memories are going to have to suffice as a rememberance.

The significance of this is that the "torch has been passed" in our family. I've got a way to go before full "retirement", but things are changing into what they will be and it pleases me that my son and daughter are stepping into the roles that I have held for so many years......They are not "kids" any more.

We are starting to talk about Christmas, orchestrating where we all need to be and what we can do to contribute. Again, Casey and Diane are going to be host and hostess and chief cooks and bottle washers. Cassie and I will do what we can to help and contribute and distribute the load of effort so as to allow everyone time to enjoy family before during and after the meal. It really is a big adjustment for me to relax and let someone else handle it, .........but I think I'm up to the challenge.......*grins*.

A big, proud, Captn Dad's thank you and well done to Casey and Diane.....

In other news.....

Cooking With Gutz has come out of its hiatus (coma)with a new posting......hopefully to be followed with some recipes and tips that you can use for the upcoming Holiday season. Enjoy!

Thus endeth the entry......

1.......2.......3............

2005-12-09T11:49:00.000-06:00

"For of all sad words of tongue or pen,
The saddest are these: "It might have been!"

from Maud Muller by John Greenleaf Whittier

I posted the following in June of last year......

"The regret is in wishing that you had......and knowing that it's too late and you never will.

I know that need drives you, darlin...........but don't wonder what my hands feel like forever."

You have made a good first step....and I acknowledge and appreciate it if, indeed, that is what it was intended to be and honestly was.

If you believe that I am as good as can be found........then don't risk losing me for fear of taking a second or a third step.....or however many it takes.

I can't tell you how to proceed from here (if that is what you decide to do) and even if I could, you have to know that it wouldn't be in either of our interests for me to do so.

I can say that my feelings were genuine and remain so.

I can say that I never went anywhere.....I'm still here.

I can give you this.......if the situation were reversed, what would you need to say and ask and hear? What would it take to make you as ecstatically happy to finally meet me as you would have been .....and I, you?

I really don't know how else to respond.......or if I should. It's been a long time....a little longer shouldn't change anything.

By the way.....where exactly is that tatoo? *grins*

Thus endeth the entry..........

The Mother of All Updates.......or, How I Spent My Summer Vacation

2005-12-03T18:16:00.000-06:00

I'm not going to beleaguer the denizens of the Blogoverse with the whys and wherefores of my long absence from and negligence of this website......what I am willing to put some effort into is bringing you up to speed on some of the better aspects of the past several months and move on from there.

Prologue

Years ago, Kodak ran a series of TV spots featuring a singer in the background doing this weepy sort of ballad about how it seems one just "turns around" and one's children are all grown up........the point of it all being to sell film, of course, and I actually believe it was rather effective. In any event, I've had a number of these "turn around" moments these past several months and I'm going to share them with you.

Turn around.....Cassie

On July 15, my daughter graduated with an associates degree in Applied Science as a licensed Radiographer. On Aug 1st she started full time work at an outpatient clinic run by a local
hospital. These, in and of themselves, are flat and succint enough statements of fact from which to derive a sense of achievement on her part and a sense of pride on mine......but that doesn't begin to give it the real weight and import that it deserves. Just how to write and describe those aspects, of this and other of the vignettes I planned to include here, have delayed the posting of this entry for over two months. Each time I sat down with my "mental notepad" and started to compose, I've run squarely into how far back some of these things go in regard to both my children.......and how intimately personal are some of the details necessary to understanding the path they had to tread to get to where they are. Time and again I've come squarely against the realization that some of these details are too personal, on the one hand, and not mine, on the other, to tell.

What is mine to say about this and some of the other moments reported here is that, when in public, I used the camera to hide brimming eyes behind as much as I did to record the event. Perhaps if I knew you really well (and I trusted you very much) I could begin to impart how proud of her I am or how huge an accomplishment this is for her,and why. For the here and now, let me simply say that metaphor and hyperbole aren't enough.....that language alone doesn't possess the power or device adequate to the task of wrapping it in a large enough package.

Turn around .......Cheyenne

On August 17th my oldest grandchild, Cheyenne, started school. She was up bright and early, dressed in pink (her favorite color) and bearing "squeaky" new supplies in an immaculate new pink Barbie bookbag. It was another of those times that the camera served a dual purpose for PaPa as she waited for and boarded the bus. Her mother's employment is on second shift, and since she began that service, I have had the privelege of being there when Cheyenne gets off the bus and spending the evening with her. As such I've gotten to share with her the excitement of learning to read and discover books, helping her with her homework, and sharing in shaping her environment in a way that wouldn't have been possible if I were working.... (did someone say "silver lining" or "close one door and open another"?)
We make flash cards for her sight words (as she learned her alphabet, she insisted on making her own flash cards for the new words she gets every week), and as we read nightly I stop at each incidence of these words in the text of what we are reading, she reads the word and we continue. The real excitement came when she got enough sight words to make simple sentences and we have spent whole nights with all her cards laid out on the floor and her finding the words and arranging them into the sentences we make.
The public library held a series of reading nights for her age group on Thursday of each week until just before Thanksgiving (which will resume in February), but when those ended we continued to make Thursday our library night.
She will pick out words and spell them for me and ask me what they are (incessantly)and write out sentences and make cards, asking me how to spell each word that she wants to include...........and if you ever wanted to define patience for yourself, have someone do that to you for one or two hours a night for a couple of weeks!
She will pick up one of my books and look for the pictures and make up stories or ask questions ........"PaPa, why do they have pom-pom trees on this boat?" (about a depiction of an ancient Nile pleasure barge....ok, I never said my tastes or interests were either normal or ordinary) and she seems to have a keen interest in maps and a pretty fair idea of what they represent, which is pretty remarkable at her age.

Turn Around......Hallie

My second grandchild, Hallie, turned two years old on August 26th. Due to scheduling of other events we celebrated her birthday at a party on August 13th. Which later sequed quite nicely into an adult, kids-are-in-bed-grilled-food-and-beer, celebration of Cassie's birthday (the 15th).
Hallie is of course walking (and running) and starting to talk up a storm at this point, and adores her older cousin. She spent the day stuck to her side like glue, following her from room to room and saying "Shine, Shine, Shine....(Cheyenne in Hallie-ese)" over and over.
She calls me "Pop-Pop"...which I think is pretty cool, way cool as a matter of fact. The circumstances of my situation and Casey's distant residence have conspired to diminish the time I've been able to spend around Hallie. This is something that I have been trying to remedy by making a pilgrimage every other Tuesday with Cheyenne and cooking up as many excuses for weekend get togethers as I can. Shy of me at first, Hallie has begun to get used to me and the last time I went over (at Thanksgiving) I got the best reward that a grandpa can have......she ran to me when she saw me at the door, shouted Pop Pop,threw herself into my arms.....and when I scooped her up, she gave me a big ol' hug and kiss. (Insert image of the Captn with a big dopey grin on his face here......)!

Turn Around......Casey

I wasn't there, of course, to record the event on film, but it still counts as a milestone in Casey's life and one of those unmanly, "misty moments" for me to contemplate. Again, considering the example that was set and the
experiences that have shaped his perspectives, (the part I played, for good and ill, and the knowlege I have of these things) I find myself more deeply moved by the fact that it happened at all.
On August 6th, Casey and Diane took a trip to Chicago whch included dinner in the posh surrounds of the Signature Room on the 95th floor of the Hancock building on Chicago's lakefront.
There, my son....the man my little boy turned into...proposed to the mother of his children and the woman that he loves and wants no more than to share the rest of his life with.

Announcing......Colton

On September 23, 2005, at 1243pm, weighing in at 8 lbs 9.75 oz and 20 inches in length ...... Colton Osiris Boze was born. Ladies and gentlemen, friends and neighbors, Citizens of the Blog-o-verse. I present to you my third grandchild and my first grandson ......! Counting from 1892, the fourth C.O. Boze in five generations and the third in a line starting with me. (I was named after my grandfather.....he having named his first-born Cecil Clare Boze).

Afterword

There is more I want to post about my "lost months, but these are the most monumental events that occurred in those times and deserve to be a stand alone post for a few days, to be read and digested and savored before I move along to other things.
I want to revive Cooking With Gutz with a post, featuring a guest assistant chef (zut alores......who can it be????), and be timely in here with a post about Thanksgiving. Which, in its own right, took on a more than ritual significance in our family as a sort of point of separation of what was from what will be. These followed by posts of holiday recipes in Cooking, and some tidying up bits and pieces from the "lost months". At that point I should be caught up suffiently to follow along with a typical running stream of monologue, diatribe, rant, musings and observation.

It's good to be back......

Thus endeth the entry.......

Buffalo Plaid Won't You Come Out Tonight............

2005-11-24T20:20:00.000-06:00

As the old poet noted..........

"Spring has sprung,
Fall is fell...
Winter's here.....
And it's colder than usual!

The winds are picking up and we here in the central part of Illinois are promised temperatures in the teens tonight........

It's time to break out my favorite shirt, dig the Carhartt Siberian Parka out of storage, and make sure there is enough Captain Morgan and Hot Cocoa in the pantry.

I took Cheyenne to the library last night (Wednesday night) insofar as our usual night (Thursday) fell on Thanksgiving. It so happened they were having a blood drive and , being a charitable soul, I allowed them to drain a pint of my essence into a plastic baggie on the eve of the coldest fucking night of the year...(thus far, anyway)!

It's been a number of years since I've donated blood.........I'm not sure why I stopped the practice, but from the time I was first eligible to the time I quit I gave nearly two gallons. (This is no exaggeration for the sake of sarcasm.....I had one "gallon pin" and was hard at work on the second.)
At that time, just about every junkie in creation was selling blood at least once a week for the price of a fix and the only real obstacle anyone faced in giving blood was perhaps not having drawn a living breath for greater than 24 hours before donating.
Now, of course, you have to go through a battery of personal questions (among which, I'm sure I was asked if I had ever had a prostate examination from a doctor who picked his nose and whether I enjoyed it or not), and samples of the blood are taken to test for everything from blueballs to xenophobia.

All of which brings us to tonight........and the spectacle of me on the back porch, clad in flannel, peeking out from beneath the snorkle hood of a serious parka, shivering at a rate of somewhere between 350 to 400 hertz, hovering over a Weber kettle, and grilling one pound plus of reasonably dead cow just to the point that it stopped squirming around on the grill, quit mooing about the heat (I wasn't in a sympathetic mood), and didn't scream when I stabbed it with the fork to turn it over.
We're talking a dedicated effort to rebuild the red blood cells here.

So, now I am fed, re-warmed, and ready to put on one of Kevin Costner's self financed comedies....(Robin Hood.....*snicker*)to tide me over until bedtime.
I've had a nice respite from the usual pursuits today.........slept in until almost 700 am and didn't actually do much of anything. I will get together with my Son and Daughter and Grandkids Saturday and will spend much of tomorrow getting ready for that.

I bet you thought I was setting you up for some pathetic, feel-sorry-for-the-lonesome-guy-on-Thanksgiving thing here, didn't you?

What the fuck...........are you a first time reader or what?

Have a Happy Holiday, and don't take anything so seriously that it leaves you feeling fucked up.............(unless, of course, you really are fucked up, in which case either quit whining and do something to fix it or exercise a responsible Darwinism in a fashion that is not public, messy, or dangerous to others)........be kind to yourselves.

Thus endeth the entry..........

Remembrance.............

2005-11-22T14:15:00.000-06:00

There are days in history that divide in one instant what was from what will be.

Days like 9-11 and Dec. 7 1941.

Days that signal the end of one distinct era and define the new one.

Forty-two years ago today.......at about this time of day, was one of those days.

Ask someone near or over 50 exactly what he or she was doing that day......they may not be able to tell you what they had for breakfast this morning, but they will be able to tell you what that day looked like and smelled like and felt like.
I've spoken to people who were as young as 3 and 4 years old on that day.........it may be a hazy memory,but it is their first real memory.

In the years to follow that day, cities would be torn apart by riot, 53,000 young men would be cut down in the prime of their years, and a President would resign in disgrace, his hands soiled by the criminal abuse of the power of his office.

In the years to follow that day, we would land a man on the moon, make the first of many attempts to address 300 years of bigotry and heinous racial injustice, and set our government and social apparatus on a course to bring to bear the resources of the richest nation on earth in an effort to level the field for those born into poverty and ignorance............to give those most in need the opportunity to share in the American Dream.

All of it somehow connected with that defining moment.

It goes without saying that the best and most well-intended efforts haven't always been a rousing success. It goes likewise without saying that there have been mistakes made.........that at times the consequence of what was intended to be a cure ushered in a worse situation than existed before it......

........but don't let yourself be gulled by someone's half-baked, self-delusional nostalgia about the good ol' days.

Beware those who would take us back. Wrap a tea towel around Pat Robertson's head and listen to what he has to say.Our right wing fanatics would shroud women in the same veils and condemn mankind to the same pestilential, medieval, hell on earth that their right wing fanatics would......and do it with the same joyous, snake-eyed, and brutal enthuasiasm.

We live in a better nation and a better world than we did then.It is not enough to honor the martyr by remembering them. We honor them best by remembering why we remember them.

"Don't let it be forgot,
That once there was a spot,
For one brief, shining moment......
that was known as Camelot"

Thus endeth the entry.......

Happy Birthday Dear Emily......

2005-11-16T13:46:00.000-06:00

Tommorrow (Nov. 17) is Emily's Birthday.......

I ran an entry at this time last year, that, as I review it, I realize that I can't really add to, subtract from or otherwise tweak or improve except to add another year to the timeframes specified in that entry. Therefore, it is not out of a sense of laziness or indifference that I offer it to you to read or reread here.

The past year, I am certain, has lent itself to the strengthening of those fine qualities I know she possesses.........I hope it has given her the happiness and prosperity she deserves. I further hope that the coming year sees the fruition of her best hopes and allows her a satisfied reflection.

After nearly a year of neglect of this website, I do not have near the readership to call upon to visit her and leave a Birthday greeting that I had at that time.....but to the faithful few who are still with me, I hope that you will take the time to wish her well.

I still haven't had the fortune to meet her in person, but I look forward to the time and circumstance that will allow that privelege with no diminished anticipation.

So, Happy Birthday, Dear Emily......

With warmest regards,

The Captn

Thus endeth the entry.............

Two Things You Wouldn't Know If........

2005-11-10T09:21:00.000-06:00

You don't know a Marine

Today is the 230th Birthday of the United States Marine Corps.

So,........drink too much; say "fuck" a lot; kill, maim or destroy something in a particularly spectacular fashion; and, Ladies, "kiss" as many Marines as you can...............OOORAH!!!!!!

You don't listen to Gordon Lightfoot

Thirty years ago today the ore freighter "Edmond Fitzgerald" went down in a storm on Lake Superior with all hands......29 men. Have a beer, listen to the song, observe a moment of silence..............and then lighten the fuck up, for Christ's sake, and go find some Marines to party with......it's our birthday!

Thus endeth the entry.........

Quotable............

2005-05-16T11:41:00.000-05:00

A letter to the editor from this morning's Peoria Journal Star...

"If the people who feel that if homosexuals prayed very hard they would be cured of their homosexuality would pray very hard themselves, perhaps God would change their hearts and turn them into Christians."
Robert J. Beaumont

A tip of the Captn's hat...........

Thus endeth the entry.......

Some Oyster Crackers with that, Ma'am?

2005-04-18T14:03:00.000-05:00

There have been a number of references in the various news media recently regarding the finding of a human finger in a bowl of fast food Chilli.

One reporter went so far as to remark that such a thing might be an incentive to embrace vegetarianism.

Be that as it may, the whole flap did rather call to my mind some speculative thought I once gave to creating a palatable vegetarian chilli recipe of my own devising.

I gave up the effort when I came to the conclusion (after much study) that I was unlikely to find a vegetarian with enough meat on his (or her) bones to make a respectable pot of Chilli.

See, folks..........not dead, not even really subdued.......

Just temporarily hamstrung!

Thus endeth the entry...........

It be winter..................

2005-01-18T16:15:00.000-06:00

The temperature is in the single digits and the flag at the public library is blowing as straight out from the flagpole as a wedding night prick.

The wind is sweeping across nearly two miles of unbroken cornfield here and carrying with it those lethal wind-chill factors that make believers of the uninitiated.

It's the sort of night that makes rail-roading a manly adventure........that generates stories, told in seedy bars, that rank up there with tales of whaling from wooden ships in the North Atlantic, or engaging in mortal, single combat with edged weapons against naked berserkers painted blue.

It's the sort of night that makes me miss rail-roading......

Thus endeth the entry.

Hot chocolate, Anyone?

2004-12-19T15:39:00.000-06:00

The paper this morning informs me that sub-zero temps are headed our way.........

not sub-freezing, but sub-fucking-zero!!

Time to stock up on firewood, break out the heavy sweaters, and maybe bring up the subject of that threesome you've always been curious about but never had the nerve to actually try.

Hey..........any port in a storm, eh?

At any rate, here's a hot chocolate recipe for those who might be entertaining over the holidays..........

Three boxes Hersheys Cocoa
1 five pound bag of sugar
5 gal. whole milk
2 gal half and half
1/2 gal. heavy cream
2 two oz. bottles pure vanilla extract

(the ratios of milk to half and half to cream are kind of arbitrary...........the more cream you use the smoother and richer this stuff is going to be......
you can also substitute a strong coffee for, I'd say, up to a gallon of the milk for a nice little caffeine boost and a rich aroma and flavor)

follow directions on cocoa box for mixing
be careful not to scorch

serve with little marshmallows or curls of shaved milk, white and dark chocolate or dollops of whipped cream or any garnish your heart desires

makes about 150 servings

This might rightfully belong in "Cooking with Gutz", but I thought I'd throw it in here so as to share it with as many people as possible.

Merry Christmas...........

Thus endeth the entry..........

Reflections in a Cave Man's Campfire...........

2004-12-16T16:38:00.000-06:00

I have recently been divest of my internet connection at home.....

This is probably a temporary set-back.....still it is an inconvenience.
I copied, to a CD, all the pictures I wanted to post to this blog and to Cooking with Gutz only to find that the tool I use to post pictures to both blogs is not available on the public access computers I have been using.

Grrrrr.....

The upshot of which is, that the holiday entries I wanted to make are going to have to go begging for a while......which of course serves to set me behind at just the moment that I was beginning to catch up a bit.

I'll continue to make timely commentary in here, as I see fit......although, without my favorites list, I can't network some of the blogs that I had been visiting on a regular basis.

Both computer centers that I utilize have some odd restrictions on access to various sites which makes it impossible to visit some of my friends, or to leave comments, or some other such arbitrary idiocy.
For example: there is a site blocked as pornographic (a blog) that I have never seen so much as a "darn it" written in, however both centers allow access to "Beautiful Agony".
Not that I regard "Agony" as pornographic, but go figger.

Please, bear with me.......

When the going gets tough.......the tough get weird.

This, too, shall pass.

......and other such cliche nonsense.

Have a Merry Christmas.......and may all get what they deserve in the coming year.

Thus endeth the entry.........

Cobweb revelations in the wee hours........or Pop Goes the Weasel?

2004-12-08T11:11:00.000-06:00

Another night of insane trudging from bed to sofa and back.
Cigarettes and aspirin.............
Tomblike silence broken only by the ticking of a digital clock that isn't there.

I have long since weaned myself of the internet escapism that,if it didn't create this whole bizarre struggle to re-establish a sane and productive sleep schedule, may have at least imprinted it onto my brain chemistry like the words on Moses' tablets.

If there are people in the world who are as desperate for sex as I am a single night's deep and unbroken sleep it rather explains the sodomizing of domesticated animals.

Thus endeth the entry..........

In the eye of the beholder.................behold!!

2004-12-04T11:03:00.000-06:00

While you are waiting for something of substance from me......(which may be awhile, due to circumstances beyond my control at the moment)........

check this out!!

though I'd feel better if my "twin" were a little more discriminating about the company he keeps.

Thank you, Grace..........you're a darlin' for sure.

Thus endeth the entry...........

Glory..........

2004-11-29T05:13:00.000-06:00

In all the history of Mankind, there has existed only one great thing for a person to discover, create, conquer, or control.........himself.

Having done that, by comparison, whatever else he may accomplish is mere past-time.

Thus endeth the entry..........

Giorgio Armani...........eat your fucking heart out!

2004-11-27T08:48:00.000-06:00

What did I tell you?

Manly sartorial splendor, or what?

Ladies, I have no real use (at this time) for addresses, phone numbers or used panties...........but flattery and cash are always welcome, and, as proposed a few entries back, I will post pictures of your breasts without judgement, commentary or comparison.

Stay tuned for pics of the family Thanksgiving............. Shylar Ann's (new Grand-niece) first appearance here........

.....And, Turkey gets the once over, stuffing magic, and a salad that will change your mind about cranberries in "Cooking with Gutz".

Should, of course, the spirit move me this weekend........

Thus endeth the entry..........

"Don't let it be forgot............."

2004-11-22T17:13:00.000-06:00

It was about this time of night.

The sky was roiling with thick clouds, cast in a macabre light by the fading sun. It was the gloomiest November night I can recall.

A stinging mix of ice and rain, given force by a bitter wind, lashed my face and brought new tears to eyes already wet.

I trudged from house to house weighed down by the heaviest bag of papers I ever carried.

I laid bad news on doorstep after doorstep.

Banner headlines screamed:

"JFK SLAIN BY SNIPER IN DALLAS"

Forty-one years ago today, November 22, 1963.

"Don't let it be forgot,
That once there was a spot,
For one brief, shining moment......
that was known as Camelot"

Thus endeth the entry............

G. Q.........................

2004-11-18T21:49:00.000-06:00

Throughout most of the year, I'm comfortably, and simply clad in jeans, colored t-shirt and a pair of Dexter Navigators.

In fall, however, when the weather gets crisp, I turn into a regular clothes horse.........adding a leather jacket, an Akubra fur-felt fedora, a pair of 6 inch Red-Wing hikers, the occasional pair of pleated front khakis (both light and dark tan), turtle neck shirts, henley style shirts, and a variety of long sleeved flannel shirts.

An on line acquaintance once asked me, by way of small talk, if I had a favorite shirt.

I replied that there were several shirts that I wore often and liked, but I wasn't sure if any one of them really qualified as a "favorite shirt".

That was right at a year ago and since then I've given thought to the question from time to time............(odd, how meaningless little things like that will just keep cropping up in your head, isn't it?)

Well, I've got it narrowed down to the four shirts that I like the best........

........but I still can't decide which one is my favorite.

Thus endeth the entry...........

Happy Birthday Emily...........

2004-11-16T16:10:00.000-06:00

Tomorrow.......that is to say Nov. 17........is Emily's 21st Birthday.

Emily writes the delightful Les Aventures de Fille Chaude.........

.......from the time I post this, until at least Midnight on the 17th, I would like everyone who reads this (whether friend or stranger) to navigate to Emily's site and leave a Happy Birthday note in her comments.

I've never actually met Emily nor have we ever actually spoken......and yet we have an ongoing correspondence and a mutual regard and esteem.

We were introduced nearly two years ago..........through a series of the sort of serendipities that seem to be grist for the internet mill.
For nearly a year now, we have exchanged the occasional e-mail and chatted in the wee hours of the morning from time to time on instant messenger.

She is quick and lively and fun,and witty and smart and pretty...........
She has an admirable integrity and character.....
She has, I believe, the determination and strength and courage to define herself on her own terms......and make of her life what she wants it to be.
Her life is full to bursting with the things that consume people of that age; school, work, boyfriends, family, self, good times and bad, doubts, worries and questions,
.....and sometimes make them wonder why people my age insist that "these are the best years of your life".

She has never been compeled by any obligation to include me in her thoughts.......I am not a part of her family, or culture, or social circle.........just an old guy who stumbled into her path more by accident than design.
Yet, she has been consistently kind and considerate........
From the time I began this online diary, she has been a faithful reader and a consistent and supportive commenter......
Though at times beset, to the point of being overwhelmed, by the troubles and difficulties that are bound to arise in any young life, she has sweetly concerned herself with the things that devil me.........

Aside from my children and grandchildren........she has been a rare "bright spot" during one of the most trying years of my life.

Along with my children and grandchildren, she helps me to believe that the "Sun will come out tomorrow"........complete with dimples and an orchestra.

She strengthens my faith.........

In short, she is a sweetheart who has shown me more kindness and consideration and thoughtfulness, and decency than mere courtesy requires..............
and I wish I could send her a pick-up truck load of fresh mountain flowers.

Instead, I'm going to ask the frequenters of my little corner of the blog-o-verse to help me wish her a Happy Birthday.........she deserves that and so much more.

So, please..........leave Emily a Happy Birthday.

*Bisses* sweety.........Happy Birthday!

Thus endeth the entry............

Waiter, there's a tempest in my teacup............

2004-11-15T20:08:00.000-06:00

Comments, questions, and speculations about my last post (both on and off the record.......i.e. email included), call for their own "observations".

I believe I'd stated, in some past entry, that I'd read,and studied blogs for about a year before I decided to publish my own.

In that time I came to some conclusions as to how I would govern myself in regards to comments............
I was certain that I would get the usual "right ons" (write ons?) and bon mots from friends and well wishers.......perhaps a gentle criticism or two.

Given that I am opinionated and a bit sarcastic at times, I was equally certain that, as I inevitably networked into the world of "those-who-know-me-not-at-all, I would also attract an occasional detractor or even a *gasp* "flamer".

Like all bloggers, I love comment........it is the one sure sign that one is being read.
Like all people, I love the nice comments people leave.........

.......but really, folks, where is the fun in saying controversial things if no one gets in your face about it a little bit? I enjoy a good difference of opinion with someone who can actually spare two neurons to rub together to start an intelligent and pertinent verbal fire..........I look forward to it. The possibility of trading barbs and witticisms with strangers and friends was one of the incentives of starting a blog........the anticipation of dialogue and contest as I slowly build up a network of readers, is among the things that make it worth the time and effort of continuing.

Among the blunders (or what I regarded to be blunders) that I saw other bloggers get drawn into, were "knee-jerk" reactions........allowing the detractor, essentially, to take over the blog, set the tone, choose the topic, and direct the debate.....in short, bait the blogger. Thereby giving them way too much credence,their words an undeserved weight and an unearned podium (my personal blog).........and power, and becoming their willing stooge or foil.
It always seemed to me the best response to such, is no response at all.

Likewise, the deletion..........
Deletion also gives the critic credence.........once people have seen the criticism you can't really erase it or pretend it never existed.

So, I determined that I would never either debate with an idiotic detractor, as though he or she were actually someone that I cared about, or regarded as worthy of being taken seriously, or delete their words.

The best way to expose an idiot, is to let their words stand and let others see that they are an idiot and tell them so.........in the same forum they have chosen to display their stupidity.

To do otherwise would be to give them importance, credibility......to let them, and anyone else who saw the criticism, know that they had gotten to you. They win!

To delete a serious and well thought out criticism, on the other hand, or to ignore it, or to attack them in a personal way such as calling them names or refusing them a podium (or both), is to show the world that you can "dish it out", but you can't take it.........that you don't have the courage of your convictions or the intelligence or the strength to back up the things you have pronounced. They win!

To become a "name caller", to resort to the argument "ad hominem"......is, in the case of the idiot, to reduce yourself to their level........
In the case of the honest critic, it is to become, yourself, the idiot...........
In either case, it is the worst response imaginable. They win!

If I deserve a slap, or have done an unintentional hurt or injustice, tell me........I'll be the first to acknowledge it, or apologize for it, if it is called for.
So, I'll always respond to a serious question raised about the opinions that I put forth here..........to a point. It is my blog, and part of its function is to serve as an outlet for my thoughts and points of view. Some things,of course, even if begun publically, are personal........and should be retired from the public arena and handled as such.

I'll never respond to a moron or a flamer...........my readers have, for the most part, proven themselves discerning, and intelligent, and articulate,.............I'll let them have their fun with him/her until he/she retires from the field bleeding.

In that context, I'll never delete a comment.........

If I am that thin skinned, I should just keep my mouth shut in public altogether.
If there is something I simply must say "out loud".......I should just get a paper diary and never, ever, under any circumstances,let anyone else see it, lest *horror of horrors, gasp*, they disagree with me.

So, sorry to disappoint all those who came to the door to see what all the commotion was about but it was a false alarm. You can relax.........

We will now resume our regular programming.........

Thus endeth the entry.........

An observation..........

2004-11-14T17:07:00.000-06:00

Have you ever noticed how often it turns out that those quickest, and loudest, and most vociferous, and public about offering up their criticism of others (however undeserved, unfounded, uninformed, asinine, or contradictory to the obvious) are those least tolerant of any criticism, or question whatsoever (however justified or deserved) of themselves??

.....and how often they will foolishly expose themselves and prove the point?

.....and how deliciously amusing it is when they do so?

Thus endeth the entry (lesson?)............

A Little Reminder...........

2004-11-14T00:54:00.000-06:00

I am stumbling about the warm comforts of my hovel after the usual, semi-productive, exercise in futility. Further, deponent sayeth not. Re-fortified with cheap analgesics, I am about to toddle back off to bed, what dreams may come, and the likelihood of losing yet another round in the nightly struggle for a few scraps of sleep.

Before I go, I'd like to remind regular readers (and irregular ones, for that matter) that I have been striving right mightily on Cooking With Gutz lo these many days.

I have now finished entries on: a rather unique turkey salad (that I am right proud of), monster apple pies that compare favorably with sex in terms of pure indulgence,(and are reason enough alone to kick yourself should you pass it up entire), and a simple, quick and tasty turkey dinner entry (in which I begin to unravel and expose arcane secrets of gravy making passed down to me by the ancients themselves).....and there is more already waiting in picture and outline form.

As when I first launched that effort, I've got a ton of ideas to feed it.......I believe I can sustain it at this point.

Insofar as my cooking blog has been dormant since late July, I feel I can honestly refer to these occasional announcements as "reminders" for at least a couple more weeks. After that, it would cross the line into undignified begging for readership.

I'm not really sure what compels people to whom I'm not related to read what I write .......but you must be getting some strange (and pleasurable) kick out of it or you wouldn't do it. If "Cooking........" didn't offer up another forum for the same kind of madness, I wouldn't bother you with it.

I have even moved the sidebar link to "Cooking....." from its bottom of the list obscurity, to a more obvious place adjacent and to the left of the most current entry. So, please, bear with me until I feel you've had the chance to get in the habit, once again, of checking there for a new entry when you visit here.

I promise to stop before I lose all semblance of manly integrity.

Macbeth doth go to murder sleep..........

Thus endeth the entry........

From the Halls of Montezuma...............

2004-11-10T14:10:00.000-06:00

When Viagra was first introduced there was some speculation as to whether its ability to facilitate stimulation and improve circulation in certain parts of the male body might have other beneficial effects. For instance, might it not be possible that it would also heighten mental acuity and physical stamina.

This, naturally, was of great interest to the defense department, so they decided to initiate a 30 day trial and study the results.

They chose 100 men from each branch of the armed services, Army, Airforce, Navy, and Marine Corps, so as to achieve the broadest possible sampling, and gave each man a pill a day for 30 days. At the beginning and the end of the trial, they ran the men through a battery of physical and mental tasks to see if there were any changes and measure them.

Sure enough, at the end of the thirty days, the men of the Army, Airforce and Navy all had shown a significant improvement in mental acuity and physical stamina as a direct result of having taken the Viagra.

The Marines just got taller..........

Happy 229th Birthday to all my Marine brothers. For those in harms way, may God grant you a safe return home...... if not, may you take a hundred of those sons-of-bitches with you, march them to hell in chains, crying like babies for mercy and their Mothers all the way, and take their place for all eternity in a warrior's paradise, claiming all their virgins as a righteous victor's prize...........Ooooorahh......Semper Fi!

Thus endeth the entry...........

Someone's In the Kitchen with Dinah...................

2004-11-09T21:22:00.000-06:00

At long last, another entry in Cooking With Gutz.

I started around 2:30 this afternoon, and by the time I'd gone back and forth and proof read and edited and tweaked 'til I was satisfied with it, it was nearly 9:00pm.

I'd forgotten how much work it is to post a picture blog .........I'd also forgotten how much fun it is.

I should get another post up tomorrow and one a couple of days after that.

Then perhaps I can settle into a schedule of sorts that my faithful readers here can begin to anticipate and count on.

So, come on back to the kitchen..........I'll tell you stories, I'll pontificate, I'll rhapsodize, ...........I may bore you or piss you off.

........but I'll wind up feeding you........body, mind and soul.

For those of you that have encouraged me to return to it........I thank you.

To those of you who have waited, and waited and waited.........I apologize for the delays and thank you for your patience and forbearance.

So, come on it to the kitchen...........somethings cookin'

Enjoy........

Thus endeth the entry...........