Creative Endeavors

Convict Lake Eastern Sierra Nevada's - California

There is a special place, nestled high in the Eastern Sierra’s of California that I just love.  It is Convict Lake, north of Bishop and in the Lone Pine area.  It is quiet and serene, most of the time, but because of its rather close proximity to Los Angeles it can get rather crowded in the summer months.

It is a pristine place, off the beaten path, that time seems to have forgotten.  A lot of the Sierra’s are like that, but it is getting where you really have to hunt for these places if you want to enjoy them.  Civilization is encroaching the mountains too.  If you find yourself there at a good time, during the middle of the week, you can take a break, actually hear the flutter of a birds wings when they fly by and lose yourself briefly …. In the bosom of nature.

In the late1800’s a small band of convicts escaped from the Nevada State Prison and they were chased south thru the Sierra’s by a mounted and heavily armed posse.  At the site of what is today named Convict Lake there was a fierce gun battle and the bandits and the posse hooked it up until most of them lie shot up and some on both sides, lie dead.

This is how the lake got its name.

Some mornings I like to come in here, put on the headphones (Sony noise reduction - block out 80% of all external noise) stare into the picture and let it all hang out.  It might remind one of the movie with Christopher Reeves “Somewhere In Time” which is when he transports himself back in time, about 100 years or so, and then has a romance with a woman who has captured his heart.  His main love interest in the movie was Jane Seymour I believe, Medicine Woman, lately of Dancin’ With The Stars fame.

I can put on those headphones, stare at this screen for a few minutes, or a block of time that has no actual count, and transport myself to a warm granite rock and a cool can of Mountain Dew and escape for a brief moment in time.  This is my screen backdrop on my computer this month.  Same thing works with the NASA site and the pictures of deep space.  I use both of them from time to time, alternating between nature and deep space, and I make some nice trips.

One thing God richly rewarded me with was an over active imagination.

The other day a commercial for National Geo graphic’s or Discovery Channel came on, and it was dealing with Our National Park System.  And they were showing all of these random shots of parks around the country and as I sat there and took it all in (I call it “eye candy” for the soul) the majestic beauty of it all, the raw untamed natural beauty, it made me acutely aware of how fortunate I am in life.

I don’t live in some Mega Rat Hole full of predatory citizens, crack-heads, or dope fiends.  I live in a reasonably sane environment and within the span of minutes, can find myself surrounded by countryside, open space and clean air.

Oklahoma believe it or not, has more cows than residents.

We are basically rural communities, agriculturally based for the most part, we are The Heart Land of America ….. Everyone stand up and take off your ball caps!  Okiehoma where duh wind come roaring across the plains …. Dodedah, dodedah.  What were we talking about here?

Nature.  Yeah.  That was it.

When I sat and watched those commercials and the sites racin’ across the screen, I thought about some guy in New Jersey, New York or Chicago, some big eastern city, who can only dream of visiting one of these beautiful areas of America.  As they rolled by on the screen, one by one, I mentally clicked them off, been there, seen that, done that - got the T-shirt.  Very few if any, were considered a stranger to me.  When in fact, because I am so privileged or fortunate, I have been to most of them at least once, and some of them on frequent occasion, several times.

So in reality, although I am prone to complain much too often, I do have it made.

I live in a rather special corner of life.  I am thankful for this day.  And the next time I find myself sitting on a rock at Convict Lake or any other spectacular location in America, I am going to relish it like a bottle of fine wine. I am going to smile and immerse myself in the moment.  I am going to mentally bottle it up and save it for another day.

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As I am a firm believer that people come to this page to be uplifted, informed, amused and even to some respects, entertained.  I feel it would be doing those faithful readers of this page, a disservice to keep ranting about “my issues with WordPress.com” and I am going to put up something positive.

It does absolutely no good to rant about this, I am not going to keep diggin’ up a dead horse just to see if it smells bad.  If it walks like a duck, and it quacks like a duck, then most people would consider it to be a duck. I am going to keep tagging this stuff the way I want to tag it and hopefully it will be posted somewhere where folks might be able to see it.

As for it being “recent, random, life or whatever” I will allow the God’s to make that decision.  I am going to just keep taggin it the way I see it and the rest of it is now history.  So here you go because you are so special and they are not … two posts at 5:00 PM and Lord knows where they will go after we hit the publish button ……….

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Eight years ago, the 1,500 residents of the Kenyan village of Lwala sold chicken and cattle to raise $900 in airfare so that one their boys, Milton Ochieng, could enter Dartmouth College.  Today Milton is a graduate of Vanderbilt University Medical School and, along with his brother Fred, who followed him to both alma maters, he has repaid the favor by building a clinic in his home village.

People helping people, something you don’t seem to hear about much these days.

The brothers raised $150,000 for the clinic, which in its first year has seen 20,000 patients, most of them for free.  “It makes you feel great to be a doctor,” said Milton.  An amazing feat when you stop to consider that this all occurred in a third world country, not some Mega Super Power.

Fifty four years ago, Jan Zacharda lost her Ludington, Michigan, high school ring in the depths of Lake Micigan.  Last month she got a call from Robert Savage, who had found it with a metal detector.  Savage had actually discovered the ring some 12 years ago, but couldn’t locate its owner; though Zacharda’s class year, 1955, was clearly stamped on the ring.

Along with the initials “J.P.” for Jan Pedersen her maiden name.

But Savage recently got hold of the Ludington yearbook for the class of ‘55 and found only one name with the right initials.  He then began calling all the are Pedersen’s until he found one who knew Jan.  Kind of nice to know that there are still some honest people out there.

Not so smart file:  A sense of privilege, after a first-class passenger on a Delta Airline flight from New York became so angry that economy passengers were let off the plane ahead of him, that he opened an emergency hatch and slid down the chute!  The indignant passenger was promptly arrested.

The absolute best one that has come to my attention this week is the California woman who whipped out her .44 caliber Magnum and began firing at mice scurrying across the floor of her trailer.  A .44 Magnum, man, talk about “overkill” that is kind of unreal right there.

But wait … It gets better.

She drops the gun (more than likely reaching for another beer) and it fires a bullet that pieces her knee, bounces off a friends keychain, and grazes his groin before coming to rest in his coin pocket.  And people wonder what type of person lives in a Mobile home?

But wait, it gets even worse.  A diabetic Illinois woman is recovering after he dog chewed off her big toe!  (I am not making this up).  The 56 year old woman who suffers with numbness in her lower extremities says she dozed off in the afternoon (not an uncommon occurrence with diabetics) and her 1 year old miniature dachshund, Roscoe, (again I am not making this up), snuggled at her feet, starts gnawing on her foot.

When she awoke from the nap, and looked down, and saw Roscoe dining at the big toe buffet, she screamed!  At that time, her daughter ran into the room and discovered the dog munching away.  I believe her exact quote was:  “I didn’t think when I went in there I was going to see that..  It is hard to take in when you walk into a room and there’s a dog eating your Mom.”

Duh  — You think so?

It has been a somewhat interesting week, I could tell you about Hugh Hefner’s new book and how he describes choking on a sex toy and one of his well-endowed scantily clad roomies saving him.  But I cannot figure out an appropriate tag for something like that, so I am letting it slide for now.

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THOUGHT FOR THE DAY: “Regardless of the vibe you think you’re getting from your dentist, you should never, ever, lick her finger.”

Arizona: Officers dispatched to what they thought was a domestic disturbance Monday night discovered a lone Mesa man fighting with himself. Though the original call reported a verbal argument between a man and a woman, police said they found the 21-year-old man arguing with himself, changing the pitch of his voice as he acted out each part.

The man was also destroying the inside of the apartment, officers said. He broke the front window as officers tried to calm him down and coax him out of the home, according to authorities.

Now let’s see. If you are crazy, they take you off to someplace like this guy, and shut you in a room by yourself. If you write a blog, you go off, shut yourself in a room by yourself and write. Hmmmm … Kind of like people who write in blogs everyday.

Denver, Colorado - Good news and bad news. First the good news, if you win over $1200 at anything, they are going to check to see if you are behind of child support or other pressing items, and divert the winnings to the mother and the kids that need it. This is great. Some help for all those girls struggling to make it on their own these days. It only took “five attempts” to pass this legislation, that is kind of sad isn’t it.

You cannot exercise your right to Free Speech at the Convention in Denver, they are going to erect a fence to keep you out. That kind of sucks huh? Getting where all this “I live in America, I can say what I want about anything” is no longer applicable. By the way, it was a ruling from a “Federal Court” that paved the way for this.

In a related item, half way around the world.

SYDNEY, Australia — New regulations making it a crime to annoy or inconvenience people gathering in Sydney during Pope Benedict XVI’s visit later this month were criticized Tuesday as a heavy-handed blow to free speech.

The laws will apply in dozens of areas of downtown Sydney — including the city’s landmark opera house, train stations and city parks — that are designated venues for World Youth Day, a Catholic evangelical festival at which the pontiff will conduct mass and lead prayer meetings.

The regulations give police and emergency services workers power to order anyone to stop behavior that “causes annoyance or inconvenience to participants in a World Youth Day event,” according to a New South Wales state government gazette. Anyone who does not comply faces a 5,500 Australian dollar (US$5,300) fine.

It costs big bucks down under to tell some to “piss off.”

Two young ladies (much too young to drive) in Salt Lake City are protesting the high price of gasoline. Their mother had to cut cable TV in order to purchase high priced gas and they are incensed at the idea of losing their cartoons and favorite shows. So they took some old political signs and lettered ‘em up and are walking the streets in Salt Lake protesting.

Sad note, when children have to show the adults what needs to be done.

California’s administration of the death penalty is “close to collapse” and would require massive new state spending or changes in sentencing laws to end decades of delay and dysfunction, a state commission reported Monday. The average death row stay is now 20 years with appeals. Here in Oklahoma, we have a guard dress up in a clown suit, run thru the door and hit them in the face with a poison pie. Not very cool, but it saves a lot of money!

Where is the happiest place in the world to live?  Denmark, with its democracy, social equality and peaceful atmosphere, is the happiest country in the world, researchers said on Monday. Zimbabwe, torn by political and social strife, is the least happy, while the world’s richest nation, the United States, ranks 16th.

Overall, the world is getting happier, according to the U.S. government-funded World Values Survey, done regularly by a global network of social scientists. It found increased happiness from 1981 to 2007 in 45 of 52 countries analyzed.

They allow you to smoke pot in Denmark or is that Norway?

Speaking of pot (nice blend huh) California is trying to place an initiative on the ballot to legalize smoke (pot). Best get your investment portfolio updated to include Doritos’s and Hostess Cup Cakes. This thing passes and the sales of “Munchies” are going to go thru the roof.

The New West Coast Gold Rush.

And last but not least. Sioux Falls, South Dakota was picked as the safest city in the U.S. to drive. It won out over other cities “who were not included in the survey” (I am not making this up). When our mayor was informed of this development he was overheard saying to his staff ……. “Hey? Sioux Falls, South Dakota, has cars!”

Now go shut yourself in a room and write something funny for me to read. There isn’t a dog-gone thing on U-Tube today.

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The U.S. Supreme Court just ruled that it’s unconstitutional for Louisiana to impose the death penalty on prisoners who have been convicted of raping children. What is this all about? I guess this is the last domino in the chain to fall; now even children are not held in high regards by the courts in this country.

Which might be why I don’t personally hold judges of any type in high regard either.

Just this week in Los Angeles, California, a porn case was dismissed because the presiding judge was found to have porn on his personal website. Tucked away in a folder, accessible to the public, containing images of masturbation, public sex, and other graphic sexual acts. The judge said that he thought the folder was shielded from public view by a password.

It was …. “Don’t touch my Pee-pee … Vote For Me”

It appears that those “who sit in judgment on us, are basically just as nasty as the rest of us.” Which in some legal circles can be translated to: “I just read it for the articles.” Where is Denny Crane when you really need him?

Washington, D.C. — A report by U.S. intelligence agencies warns about the national security implications of global warming. The report says climate change is likely to increase illegal immigration, create humanitarian disasters and destabilize precarious governments in political hot spots, all of which could affect U.S. national security.

Now it might pay to remember that this report was generated by these very same people that said that there were WMD’s in Iraq. Those people who I now understand are now working as 7-11 clerks deep in Southern Texas.

Today Oil reached a peak of $5,500 a barrel, and our current president, a three-year old mixed-breed German Shepherd announced that cats will now be allowed to vote …… See how easy it is, anyone can do it.

The United Nations is now saying that “because of U.S. Corn production being converted over to Ethanol production that we are now responsible for the world food shortage and high food prices.” Not exactly true. Production was shifted in 2007, but it only amounted to 20% of the total corn crop and the U.S. Government paid out subsidies to farmers in the amount of some $3 billion dollars.

If you took every morsel, every kernel, each and every ear of corn produced in this country and devoted it specifically to ethanol production it would only meet 11% of the energy needs of this country. I am getting tired of everyone taking a cheap shot at this country.

America is like a big dog in a small room, every time the dog turns around, it is knocking over a table or some piece of furniture. We are dammed if we do and dammed if we don’t.

And when we do help out, those countries on the receiving end walk on the tab, no one ever pays us back, no one ever has a nice thing to say about us. When some inventive American comes up with a genuine plan or scientific process to distillate gasoline from weeds, we will be attacked for pulling all the weeds in the world.

There is so much good in the worst of us

And so much bad in the best of us

That it hardly becomes any of us

To talk about the rest of us

The United Nations ought to go back to minding its own business, which is essentially, doing nothing.

And the beat goes on …

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Well there it is again. “Oil is cheaper than other liquids. How the price of a barrel of oil, $124.31 compares with a similar amount of other liquids.” I don’t know about you, but did you ever notice they always choose a liquid standard that is mostly useless.

Milk $147.00 per gallon — Tropicana Orange Juice $226.00 per gallon — Bud Lite $302.00 — Louisiana brand hot sauce $520.00 — Jack Daniels Whiskey $3,568.00 — Chanel #5 perfume $102,144.00

Realistically speaking about the only thing up there that you actually “need” would be milk. And that is it.

So it is basically useless information, drinking a gallon a day of beer, you are a hopeless alcoholic and you should not be driving anywhere, anytime. One gallon of Orange Juice has enough sugar, acid, vitamin C in it to put enough hives on you to make you look like the face of the moon.

All of this is misdirection. It is by design, going to make you think of something “other than the high price of fuel” and nothing more.

No one in their right mind, not even a gator wrestlin’ country bumpkin from the deep south, would drink a gallon of hot sauce, Jack Daniels the same (but on the other hand if you are inclined to wrestle gators on the weekend, a little Jack Daniels might be a good idea), and anyone that uses a gallon of perfume, should not even be out in public. If she does, she is probably a “Workin’ Gal” and that is another post altogether.

The point being, this is ludicrous, unrealistic, and just plain dumb.

Might as well be a gallon of Bat Guano from Carlsbad, New Mexico, a gallon of goats milk from Afghanistan, hot peppers from Central America, moonshine from the piney-woods outside Ft. Smith Arkansas, or Foo-Foo water from Cannes, France.

It would make about as much sense as that does.

Driving by the 7-11 today I notice the price of the stuff (gas) is UP again (big surprise there, no?) and although the numbers show a definite decrease and a positive change in the driving habits of American’s nationwide, we continue to be raped by Big Oil.

General Motors must have sold a bunch of Hummers this week, that is the only thing I could see that would be driving it up in price. Americans are not expecting any relief at the gas pump. Indeed, 86% say they expect it to exceed $4 a gallon and to eventually top out at over $5 that is up too, only 26% of them thought that last year. Americans are paying $1.6 billion a day for gasoline, that is three times what they paid for it 2002.

As I am in a generous mood this day, have not been attacked or mauled lately, my mailbox is no longer smoking. I will pass on to you, two things you can do to beat this.

First, you can make your own fuel at home, start up capital is a little steep, about $10 grand, but you can make your own ethanol.

Or solution #2 … You can buy a fuel efficient automobile made by the Japanese. Honda unveiled its latest big MPG product this week in Los Angeles. A hybrid that gets an estimated 74 mpg and runs on Hydrogen. Only one drawback … in all of California there are just a handful of hydrogen fuel stations, they have been slow to catch on in the Golden State.

No small wonder … Hydrogen is a byproduct of “water” and we all know there isn’t any PROFIT in that, don’t we.

Iceland, a small country at the top of the world, runs all of their cars, trucks and buses on hydrogen. The only oil that they import or use is for lubrication purposes (grease etc) and that is it. But I don’t suppose anyone in Washington, DC every noted this fact. You can write Mr. Bush about it, but I understand he isn’t all that big on reading, might put it inside a copy of the latest video game, better chance of him finding it there, something like Grand Theft Auto II or something like that.

Might as well run this one up the flagpole and see if I can find someone to salute it. And then I am outta here.

One thing I have noticed here of late is the word “Jihad” casually being tossed around by our elected morons. Correct me if I am wrong, but we are “supposed to be at war with Al Qaeda and other Islamic fanatics,” and we are constantly showering them with compliments?

When you refer to an Islamist extremist as a jihadi” or “Jihadist.” You are commenting on them in a positive fashion, you are portraying them in a positive light, not the terrorists thugs, bloody cowards that they are.

As I understand this, in Arabic, the word jihad has only positive connotations; it refers to either a quest to find one’s fate or an external fight for justice. So when we refer to Islamic suicide bombers as jihads, we essentially are calling our enemies “holy warriors.”

Someone needs to fix this or at least point it out to our resident MBA C average dudes.

The people who seem devoted to using this phrase in the wrong fashion are the very same people who told us that “mushroom clouds” over American Cities were a reality, that certain knowledge was indicative to this nuke-uleer holocaust on our shores. That was just before some 4,000 Americans were sent overseas to die, along with some 85,000 Iraqis, not to be confused as resident Jihads or political candidates.

I guess the bumper stickers were right after all.

Language is a funny thing, for example, “The president of Mexico, refers to “illegals” as National Hero’s. Certainly wrong, but that is the way it goes ….. First your money and then your clothes … Or … as Bo Diddley used to say, “Don’t trust anyone but your mama, and look at her real good.”

So that is it in a nutshell. The air in America isn’t the only thing that seems to be polluted these days, lot of television broadcasting is the same.

Now if you excuse me, I have a number three washtub of Craw Daddies and a gallon of Louisiana Hot Sauce to work thru … Should take me most of the weekend.

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Back in 1849 there was a big push to make it out to the coast that was fueled by an urge to be rich, the lure of Gold in the Sierra Nevada’s brought a lot of men to California.  Now days it is just the opposite, a lot of men going to California, bringing the gold (bands) and getting married.

Mass. Quickly jumped on the bandwagon, and Washington State recently passed same-sex legislation and now the Golden State has announced “that it is all right” this from the Governator Arnold Schawartzen-whatever who not long ago was calling his legislators “Girly Men.”

Today quite a few media news sites had “Gay Marriage” as the search engines most popular item.  Everyone it seems is in a hurry to get out to the coast and get “legally married” as they put it.  I guess all these people are sick of being single and finishing their own sentences or something?

California has become known as the friendly destination for gay travelers and it appears that they are really rolling out the welcome mat.  Some states will do anything for the tourist dollar.  California websites (there are four of them) are showcasing gay marriage sites and helping with reservations.  There is an address but you will not be getting it from me.  I am strictly boy-girl-boy-girl-boy-girl, I don’t believe in this at all.

An old cowboy leaned back in his rickety chair, up against the wall, and stared off into the horizon.  There he spotted, far away, a small singular speck in the distance.  Gradually as time went on the spec grew in size, and after awhile, he recognized it as a man on horseback.

Time in the west Texas sun quickly passed, and the lone character on the horizon a man on a horse, eventually rode up to the front porch of this Texan’s place.  He stopped, smiled broadly and then announced, “I am your neighbor, I have been riding over here to invite you to a party at my place tomorrow night.”

The Texan in the chair said, “Yes, I have been noticing you riding here for quite sometime, glad you stopped by.  What kind of party is this at your place?”

The rider replied, “Well, there’s gonna be some music, and some whiskey and drinking, and some more music, and some whiskey and some drinking, and I suppose some dancin’ … and then there’s gonna be some sex!”

The old rancher smiled real big and said, “What is it you think I should wear?” And the neighbor replied, “Don’t make much difference, it is just gonna be me and you.”

The west is a changin’ Buckaroo’s (never thought I would use that word in a sentence).  Broke Back Mountain and now this.  Gives new meaning to every western I have ever seen or will see I guess.

I am gonna pump you full of lead.  Give me a stiff one barkeep.  Don’t fret, I have been in tight spots before.  Howdy Partner  You stay here while I sneak around from behind.  Saddle sore.  Hold it right there!  Now move your hand, reeeal slow-like.  Let’s mount up.  Nice spread you got here.  Ride ‘em Cowboy!

I always had my doubts about those boys on the Ponderosa.  Always figured that Ben was okay, but I worried about the boys quite a lot.  They never could hold down a lady for any amount of time, and the women in that show always kind of got “killed off every week.”  Made me curious every Sunday Night about Seven P.M.  I always wondered about them and maybe Hop Sing .. you know.

There is no doubt that same-sex marriages and vacations in California are gonna take off this summer, and it will to some extent be good for the local economy.  As for me, a chair and a glass of sweet tea on the front porch is good enough for me.

Perhaps I am just plain stooopid or something, but I just don’t get it.

BACK DOOR COWBOY

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Man you just got to love the state of California.  What a wondrous, amazing place.  It is no small wonder that Michael Jackson chose California for his “Never-Never-Land Ranch.”  It is like a Granola bar, what aint fruits is nuts.  They just passed a resolution in that state that a “dog can no longer be a co-pilot in an automobile.” 

Please take a moment now, to sit back and think about this, and just try and imagine how the average tax-payer in California feels about his/her highly paid elected representative when he finds out about this.  Not much would be my first guess.  Not allowing dogs to be co-pilots?  How absurd is that? 

Oh well, back to MY reality, Oklahoma. 

Not long ago, police found a body, wrapped and bound in chains, hanging from a tree.  They said that “they suspected foul play.”  Do you think so?  These people are out there, and they walk amongst us (some are even procreating, if that don’t give you a shiver up your spine, nothing will).

One other thing, if an Oklahoma Highway Trooper stops you on the Turner Turnpike and asks you, “Do you know why I stopped you?”  Don’t under any circumstances reply with:  “Uh, I dunno.  Don’t have any coffee or do-nuts.”  That will cost you $130 … Speed cop Smokey-Bear public safety enforcement officers in Oklahoma apparently don’t seem to have a sense of humor at least not on the turnpike between Tulsa and Stroud.

Moving swiftly along. 

My daddy used to say, “Don’t take no knife to a gunfight.”  Naw, I believe the exact quote was “You are so stupid, YOU would take a knife to a gunfight.”  I always considered this one of those archaic statements that fathers were prone to say.  Much like when your mother said to you, “Because I am your mother, that’s why!”  Stuff like that. 

For years (or at least until I was twelve or thirteen) I always thought it was kind of corny but this week I read about a guy in Montana that did this very thing.  He and another guy were “goofing around” when this bozo took out a knife and said he was going to “shave his buddy.” 

Evidently his buddy had some kind of terrible fear of being shaved by drunken known acquaintances or something.  He pulled out a gun and shot the guy with the knife, effectively ending his rather short barbering career on the spot!

The guy died and now the friend is on trial for negligent homicide.

Viagra, lost fortunes and cheap gas continue to be the top spam attractors in the nation.  The latest promises to save you .70 cents per gallon!  Of course the “details” on this amazing item, were a tad bit sketchy, so you had to click on the link. 

Here is something else:  If Bill Gates has all the money in the known free world, how come there isn’t a short-cut key for the “cents” symbol.  Just thinking outside the box.  I guess it all evens out in the end.  Cheap gas, pirated copies of Windows, and lost Nigerian fortunes on the list of things people want, and I don’t have any cents.

Every other car in Oklahoma City has some dummy talking on a cell phone these days.  First we had D.U.I (Driving Under the Influence), then D.W.I (Driving While Intoxicated), and now D.W.Y. (Driving While Yakking). 

A pilot on a flight from Dallas to Austin recently asked a passenger repeatedly to stop talking on his cellphone.  No soap.  When the aircraft landed in Austin, the local authorities were waiting for the offending tele-communicator and he was arrested for disorderly conduct.

Surprise, surprise.

Talk about a crappy flight?  A passenger on a Dallas to New York flight was asked by the pilot to sit on the seat of a toilet in the aircraft bathroom for three hours.  He has filed a $2 million lawsuit against the airline.  The pilot asked the man to sit there after a flight attendant complained of an uncomfortable jump-seat.  Now here is the rub, “the guy is flying for free on a pass that someone gave him, he is not paying one thin dime for the trip.” 

Now he is suing for two-million and some change?

An Okie on an airliner that is going down and crashing, doesn’t know if he is going to heaven or hell.  All he knows for sure is …. He is going thru Dallas.  A couple of lessons in this: 

(1)  It no longer pays to fly the Friendly Skies I guess.  (2)  Rent a car in Dallas and DON’T fly to Austin.

See you in the funny papers ……….

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Here lately I seem to take umbrage at just about everything.  I can’t seem to find any common ground with the cellphone people, the television networks are driving me nuts, and the political spectrum has literally driven me over the brink from time to time. 

It is not you.  It is me.

Living in the my Golden Age has not turned out the way I assumed it would, and I seem to be infected with a massive case of cynicism or the lifestyle of the eternal skeptic here lately, of which, a cure seems totally unreachable.

A consistently negative attitude rarely generates much sympathy in others, at least if you expect the worst it is always certain to happen, then it’s a bit of a surprise when something actually works out in your favor.  You see, a pessimist thinks that everybody is as nasty as himself, and hates them for it.

As hard as I try, which is quite often, I just cannot seem to shake it off.  I don’t really want to, because I feel as if having done that, I would transform myself into a naïve creature with little hope whatsoever.

It is not easy living in a materialistic world of plenty, glory and ease, and still believing at the same time, that we are all doomed and that nothing can be done.  Finding someone to share my witty, often baleful influence on society and the country at large, has proven however, to be rather easy.  The internet is full of people like this. 

There are countless breeding grounds for apathy and distrust of the political system and the people who run it, everywhere on the net.  In case your interested.  As a public service we now have maps available at WE-KNOW-WHERE-YOU-ARE-DOT.COM.

Like Ronald Reagan said, “You can run … but you cannot hide.” 

We know where you are and we can show others too. Each laminated map is $4.50 have your credit card # and expiration date handy.  California residents please add the 50% sales tax … The Governator needs a new hummer. California is a great place to live, if you are an orange.

Perhaps if we just expected more from “each other” than our political leaders we would get somewhere?  So as of today, right now, a totally new beginning.  I am going to forget the front page of the newspaper, and go directly to the sports page!

I would much rather read about someone’s accomplishments, I am sick of reading about abject failures.

Like I said, “It isn’t you … It is more than likely me.” 

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Related:  Disinclined Recluse

Saturday morning, a good time for reflection, if you are lucky, maybe even you are allowed to sleep in and lay in the rack for awhile. That is always something that seems to appeal to me. Haven’t checked the weather, might be a good day to be outside. A good deal to steal away, to a familiar spot … Sit in my well worn, recliner, close my eyes and take a nap.

All great achievers do that from time to time.

Watch my neighbor scoot around his front yard on his rear, with a knife, a bucket, pulling weeds by hand, because he is too tight or stingy to spring for some weed killer. I am known affectionately in some circles by my “low maintenance outlook towards life” no brag, just plain fact, I can waste away a day with the best of them. But this is NOT my idea of what to do with a day, pulling weeds and scooting around a yard on my rear with a bucket. Just not gonna happen.

I digress, I am not supposed to think along non-productive lines of thought, I am trying to be more positive, so I am gonna go back to the other thing.

Had lunch with my buddy this week, and he and his wife are contemplating a drive to the westcoast to visit Yosemite National Park, might throw in the Grand Canyon for good measure, it is after all, “on the way.” Even with the apparent disadvantages of travel by automobile, high fuel and all that, they are contemplating doing this. Which could be a good idea, with the way things are heading these days, trips like this, could be a thing of the past very soon.

If you have never experienced Yosemite National Park, there is a good shot of the valley on Jon Taplins’ webpage, http://jtaplin.wordpress.com/ and some good reading. I go there all the time. His main page has a shot of the entire length of the valley of the park, you arrive at this point by taking the Fresno entrance at the south end.

For the most part, me and the miss’us are going to be locked down here in the heartland until at least September. So any traveling I do will have to be “armchair traveling, wistful thinking sitting on the porch with the sun in my face and the noise of man.”

Taking a trip without luggage is what I call it.

Today might be a good day to spend in the California Sierra’s, to travel the paths and mountain trails of my mind, that rich ground that has been my staid companion for years and years, an imaginary trip thru time to another place. To be in a place that is quiet, serene, which has a sun-washed emptiness about it, but exciting to think of. The mere thought of walking amongst nature and exploring excites my soul.

The smells, sights, new sounds all working in concert to make my day. Hapless romantic or just a plain old dreamer. Who knows? Allowing this childish curiosity to continue on through my adult life gives me satisfaction in the tedium enforced perimeters of my home, my living room, where not much “actual living” occurs. Most of the “adventure in my life, sadly has taken place” and this is what I am relegated to in my senior years.

One of the few things that I have left in life is my rich imagination, and I never want to lose it. It’s cheap. It’s free. It stimulates my brain (and maybe even a sense of real meaning sneaks in from time to time). It allows for simple pleasures. My mind paints a picture of time that never gets stale.

As the poet says, “I don’t ever want to lose the wonder.”

No matter how old I get, I have the feeling that if I can keep this curiosity flame lit, I’ll see the world in a much different way. It is truly a good thing: It also gets me a long way down the well beaten path on less than a gallon (all you really need is a comfortable chair and a cup of luke warm coffee). It also seems to be about the only cheap, inexpensive stimulus I can actually afford these days.

Have a great weekend …

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