Dagoth's Domain

Spider Symbiotic Relationship Contract

2007-11-10T08:44:00.000-05:00

It is very likely most scientists (and Wikipedia, from whence the following information came, and in whom we trust) will tell you that Spiders fall under the Kingdom: Animalia, Phylum: Arthropoda, Class: Arachnida, Order: Araneae, of which there are 111 families, comprising 40,000 species, including the Suborders: Mesothelae, Mygalomorphae, and Araneomorphae, (whew!...may the spelling Nazis and anal retentives spare me!). That's a heck of a lot of spiders to look through especially if you are looking to identify any particular one.

Of course any child will tell you that there really are only four types of spiders (correct me if I missed any) as follows:

Classification: "Big and Hairy" - Though not indigenous to this part of the country, can be found in some peoples homes where they are kept as pets, and might I add, do qualify as pets, since they are "pet able", wherein fish are not.

Classification: "Long Legged" - best known; "Daddy", the largest of the long legged species, and friends to most children as they rarely/do not bite.

Classification: "Big, Fat Booty" - Spiders, according to children are debatable the scariest, next to the "Big and Hairy", but do "pop" when stomped on, confirming death. Often misclassified as the "Big and Hairy" type by those who are most fearful.

and finally

Classification: "Itsy Bitsy" - Best known from their "water spout" fame, but besides that are generally ignored except when found inhabiting the screen of a window or door, that they seem to confuse with a pre-made web, just the right size for them.

(boy is the spell checker taking a beating).

Of these (except for the "Big and Hairy", as mentioned before), I have many, living both inside and outside of my home. We do have an acceptable symbiotic relationship wherein I allow them to live, and they keep the six legged creatures inhabiting our living area down to a minimum. In many of these cases, training of said spiders has been required in order to maintain a peaceful symbiotic relationship. I would like to mention, that I have found the spiders sharing my living area, as easily trainable, and most cooperative when it comes to sharing a living environment. I would like to point out two spiders, in particular, for showing exceptional wisdom and understanding, and for following the rules of living amongst humans:

To the female spider, of the "Big, Fat Booty" variety, living on my back porch (one of many there, but known to be female for the multiple egg casings laid. See picture above; most cooperative with the camera lens one inch from you, I might add) I would like to say: "I did not particularly enjoy the time when you were maintaining a spot directly over my doorway, though I must mention that you resisted the temptation to jump in my hair while I was locking and unlocking the door." "I must also mention that the time you built a large web right in the walkway, which I walked directly into, and took said web full in the face, did nearly stress our relationship to the breaking point and was not in any way enjoyable." I am glad to say that "the position you have now taken up on my back porch is much more acceptable, and I am glad that we have worked through our previous issues." and finally "Please maintain your present position this afternoon when construction is going on to wrap said back porch for winter, as moving to the outer areas of the porch where the panels are being hung could be unsafe (O.S.H.A. Standards apply)."

To the spider of the "Long Legged" variety that has attempted on at least three occasions to take up residence in my bathroom, I would like to say: " I am glad that you survived the two occasions that you attempted to take up residence in the shower, and chose to exit said shower when I held the shower door open for you, and changed your mind against heading towards the flowing water, as you attempted on both occasions, and might I add, would have been disastrous on your part." I would also like to say "I'm sorry for disturbing you when you had taken up residence behind the bathroom door, I did not know you were there, but must also commend you for leaving when I held that door open for you." "I must say that I am surprised by your wisdom and intelligence in understanding exactly what, 'a door held open for you', means."

To all of the rest of my eight legged, symbiotic partners, inhabiting my living environment, I would just like to say before winter sets in, "Thank you for your on-going battle in keeping our living area clear of those nasty bugs (especially the 'skeeters'), and to your progeny next year, I extend the same 'symbiotic no squish/no bite contract' that I had with you this year, providing walking areas are kept clear of webs, and the shower (due to its inherent danger) is, once again, an off limit zone."

Boo Smiles for You...

2007-10-28T16:51:00.000-05:00

These aren't your mamma's jack-o-lanterns...

Here's hoping all you Goblins have a most wonderful All Hallows' Eve...

Woodworking #101 Part #1

2007-10-21T13:08:00.000-05:00

Ok, now I'll tell you everything you need to know about woodworking... Well... maybe not... The truth is I am certainly not the greatest woodworker on the planet, I don't create great works of art or stunning pieces fit to be seen in some posh gallery downtown. But then again that's not really the point of it, or at least it isn't for me.

I've been woodworking my whole life with little more than simple hand tools and have loved every minute of it. I know people that make absolutely fantastic creations out of wood and probably don't get any more enjoyment out of it than I do. You see, when it comes down to it, I am not really overly concerned with what I'm making, or how impressive it comes out, as long as it comes out reasonably decent, I'm good with it. I'm not trying to impress anyone.

For me there is just something so magically relaxing about the sound of a hand plane sliding over a piece of knotty pine, or block sanding some rough hewn lumber down to a silky smooth finish. Beveling an edge purely by eye and having it come out perfectly equal just brings a warm fuzzy feeling all over that's hard to describe. I find reading or watching movies very relaxing, but with them, when you are done, there is nothing for you to grab a hold of, nothing solid you can hold in your hands and say to yourself "I made this".

These pictures show a display stand I made the other week for a replica blunderbuss pistol I picked up at the medieval fair over the summer, and this is a good example of exactly what I am talking about. I really liked this pistol and didn't want to put it away until next years fair, so I got out my tools and went to work on a new piece of pine. This isn't en extravagant project, it didn't take weeks of meticulous, labor-intensive work, in fact except for the staining and lacquering, and the entire thing was completed in a few hours. But it really made for a relaxing Sunday afternoon, it wasn't some massive job that took weeks and weeks and hundreds of dollars, and when I was done I had a nice functional item that I could be proud of.

If you watch some of the woodworking shows, you may get the idea that you have to have thousands of dollars in equipment filling up your garage (I don't even have a garage, this was done in my kitchen, 'women insert derogatory remark here'), and spend thousands more on the finest exotic woods, and have master designs laid out, but this just isn't the case. You don't have to break the bank to make some very nice things, and I didn't even have any plans for this, I just sort of followed the vision in my head, planning it as I went.

It really is a wonderful way to spend a Sunday afternoon and you just might find your wife would prefer you creating something nice, even if you have to take over the kitchen for an afternoon, rather than you sitting there watching football games all day... well, maybe as long as you clean up the sawdust afterwards and don't cut into the kitchen counter top...

"You've Been Wandering the Wastelands, Fighting with Half-Men Again, Haven't You?!?"

2007-10-14T07:14:00.000-05:00

Ok, here come the excuses... Sorry for being absent from blogger lately. It's amazing that if you just say "you are not going to blog today", how quickly that can turn into tomorrow, and the next day, and the next, and before you know it a month has gone by. I guess I took a break from blogging without really meaning to.

Now I could say that so many things have been going on lately that I really didn't have time to blog, but that wouldn't be totally true. It is true that sometimes I get way too many "projects" going, and start many more than I finish. It always seems to be a question of "what am I going to work on today?" and "what am I going to let slide?" I have projects going on here that I have literally been working on for years, and one would think I would finish up some of them before I start any new ones, but what would be the fun in that.

I've often thought that people don't die "wishing that they had done all these things that they always wanted to do." No, I believe people die when "they run out of things to do that they always wanted to do." I see people in their "mid-life crisis", rushing around doing all kinds of wild and dangerous things, wanting "to get them in" before their time runs out, and I wonder "if you get them all done, what's left after that?"

Fortunately, I've been spared the desire to go climb mountains or jump out of perfectly good airplanes (shouldn't people save that one for last just in case the parachute doesn't open?). My desires are much simpler. I want to get rid of all my bad vices (smoking and drinking), I want to learn Tai Chi, I want to learn all about Buddhism and learn to meditate, I want to become a calmer, more focused individual. Some people that know me would say that "I would have to die to become any calmer", but these people only see an outward projection and do not have a clue how I feel inside. It seems as I get older, I am having a much harder time staying "in the eye of the hurricane", if that makes any sense to you.

If I just thought about all the books I want to read before I died, I could probably come up with about 300 years worth of reading, and the list grows daily, much faster than I could ever possibly read them. The invention of e-books hasn't helped the situation much either, and lately I've found quite a few of them that have taken up more of my free time.

I would like to say that all the things I have been doing have been positive things, but anyone who has a life knows that that can never be the truth. Work has been a bear lately, with several people leaving, and the rest of us having to pick up the slack. So there has been more than one day of coming home and zonking out on the couch. One might also think that I have been wasting my time watching TV, as the new seasons of many of my shows and the hockey season have started, but unfortunately keeping my eyes open to see them has been more of a challenge than anything else lately. I can't blame this napping all on work though, since I know a lot of it is being caused by my trying to quit smoking (8 weeks now), so I guess that fixes the Karma of it.

It hasn't been all bad things either, as I have been taking some long walks through the neighborhood (camera in hand), mostly trying to slow down this weight gain that quitting smoking has thrown at me. I have also rediscovered my love for vegetables, which is a good thing, and has helped slow down the weight gain as well, if only food didn't taste so good right now. I have also completed a couple of woodworking projects that have helped to keep my hands busy. I will try and bring you pictures from my walks and my woodworking projects in some later posts.

So there are my list of excuses for not blogging for the last month, all of which I know may seem pretty lame, but thats my story and I'm sticking to it. I will try to pick it up, and be a better blogger, but I ain't makin' no promises (by the way I have been reading your blogs but haven't always been in a position where I was able to make comments on them).

Seafood Bisque

2007-09-16T11:16:00.000-05:00

Yesterday dawned more like any fall day you can imagine, even though the calendar says we still have a week of summer left. It was drizzly with dark clouds and no sun to be had, and the thermometer on the back porch read a bone chilling 46 degrees F.

Though I've been living here for many years it still surprises me by just how quickly the weather changes right after Labor Day. So being chilled to the bone I decided there is just one thing to be done about it, I broke out the 16 quart stock pot and decided to "go to town" on a batch of seafood bisque.

Now I love summer and the hotter the weather is the better, but one thing I do like about fall and winter is cooking becomes "no holds barred". When it's hot you may not want to fire up the stove or the oven, but come fall you don't mind a bit simmering a nice stoup all day long, and there is nothing better than the warmth it brings when consuming it, not to mention the bonus of heating the house up a couple of degrees without turning on the furnace.

This is my recipe for Seafood Bisque, guaranteed to warm you up on any chilly fall day:

1 stick butter
4 stalks celery - sliced (including tops)
1 large onion - diced
1 bunch green onions - sliced
1 red bell pepper - sliced
1/4 cup flower
1 can mushroom bits & pieces 4 oz. (include juice)
1 can white corn 15-1/4 oz. - drained
1 can diced potatoes 14-1/2 oz. - drained
1 can chopped green chiles 4-1/2 oz.
1 pint heavy cream
1 can cheddar cheese soup 10-3/4 oz.
1 can cream of celery 10-3/4 oz.
1 can cream of potato 10-3/4 oz.
2 cans whole milk 10-3/4 oz.
1 tbsp. Old Bay seasoning
2 tbsp. Creole seasoning
1/2 tsp. black pepper
1/4 tsp. salt
1 tbsp. paprika
1/4 tsp. basil
1 tbsp. parsley
1 tsp. garlic powder
1/2 tsp. crushed red pepper
6 cups water
1/2 lb. langostinos
1 lb shrimp peeled, deveined & detailed
1/2 cup white wine

Start by sauteing the celery, onions & bell pepper until soft then add the rest of the ingredients and cover and reduce all day. I simmered this batch for about six hours on very low heat. If you don't want to cook that long, reduce the amount of water, also this does have a little bite to it, so if you don't want it quite this hot you can reduce the Creole seasoning and crushed red pepper. Also adding and 8 oz. package of crab meat wouldn't hurt this any, though it does tend to disintegrate in the soup. What seafood you use may depend on your taste and what's available at the time...

Little Things

2007-09-09T05:30:00.001-05:00

It's a little after 6:00 a.m. on Sunday morning and the sun is just starting to come up. I love being up this early in the morning while it's still cool out and oh so quiet. The rain continues to come down outside as it has all night, but I am not complaining since it is our first real rain in a very long time. In fact I can't remember the last time we received any significant precipitation. One problem with living this close to the windward side of lake Erie is that sometimes you can go all summer without rain. The lake can cause storms to "split" and go around this area so that it rains everywhere else but here. It's a strange phenomenon, but one I have lived with all my life. There are times when you can see that the thunder and lightning are being "pushed" way south of us and you know they are getting the rain that you were so desperately hoping for. Very often we can look up at the sky and see a ring of storm clouds in a circle all around the horizon, but nothing but sunshine and blue skies right over us. This may sound nice, unless it hasn't rained in two months and all your greenery is turning brown.

Last weekend I decided to move the small saplings that have been growing in my flowerbed out into my yard. I knew with as dry as it's been that I was taking a chance with this, but I have noticed that some of the trees around here are starting to change colors already and I didn't want to wait any longer. So last Saturday I moved sixteen trees, mostly Maples, out into my back yard, and have been carrying buckets of water out to them every night since. My hands were very swollen after all that digging but it was nice to stand among them and imagine what they will look like in ten or twenty years. Now all I have to do is keep them alive until the rains come, which hopefully last nights rain marks the beginning of the wet season. Weather forecasts around here really are useless. I may have lost two of the trees that are out in an area that gets a lot of sunlight, but hopefully most of them will survive. This year I hope to get some nice pictures of the fall foliage as it changes. Last autumn we had tremendous winds that blew all the leaves off of the trees as soon as they would change. The only good thing about that was that I didn't have to rake because all the leaves blew out of my yard. We'll see what this season brings.

I was going to mow the lawn today but the rain is putting an end to that idea. I am going to have to work on the mower before I can do so though. Last week I was about twenty minutes into mowing when, for no apparent reason, the mower lost most of its compression, which caused it to run very slowly. It wasn't mulching after that, but I did manage to fight my way through the rest of the yard, hopefully I haven't blown the engine on it. I really don't want to have to buy a new mower with so little of the season left, though now is a good time to do so, as they are all on sale. This mower is only two years old so I don't plan on giving up on it just yet. It does take quite a beating, as my yard is big enough for a riding lawn mower. All my neighbors have riding lawn mowers and the neighbors on either side of me (good guys that they are) have been mowing quite far into my yard. I think they feel sorry for me, not having a rider, but I've tried to explain to them that I like push mowing my lawn (it only takes me about two hours) and I don't intend on ever buying a rider. I tell them that some guys walk eighteen holes of golf every week, I push mow my lawn, but this hasn't stopped them, in fact they seem to be mowing further and further into my lawn every week. I'm not complaining mind you, last week, when the mower gave out, I was very glad to have less lawn to mow. It has always been a puzzlement to me, that we do things to make our lives easier (like buying riding lawn mowers) but then we have to start an exercise program because we've made our lives too easy.

I have found a new Website, www.livescience.com, that has quickly become my favorite site. They have lots of interesting articles, and new ones every day. The site changes all of the time (unlike my blog), which means you can go back to it every day and find new and interesting stuff to read. They also seem to be affiliated with half a dozen other sites, which provide new and interesting articles as well. The most amazing article I have read so far is one about a hexagon shape they have found in the upper atmosphere on the planet Saturn, which they can't explain, and it doesn't seem to go away, as they have seen it for over twenty years now by different space probes. These sites also have top 10 lists and trivia & quizzes that are a lot of fun to take. I know just the mention of the word "science" for many people will conjure up nightmares of high school science classes, but I was fortunate to have some really excellent teachers that fostered a love of the subject in me. These sites also tend to deal with the more interesting discoveries in science these days and they won't be asking you to memorize the periodic table either...

PS: The picture of the moon at the top is just one I took with my camera zoomed all the way out and really has nothing to do with this post. The picture of the hexagon on Saturn, on the other hand, was borrowed from www.space.com as my camera can't zoom quite that far...:)

Modern science has been a voyage into the unknown, with a lesson in humility waiting at every stop. Many passengers would rather have stayed home.

-Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot

Most Unusual O.C.D. Trait

2007-08-25T07:58:00.000-05:00

Now I don't usually post about my job, (being in Engineering, it isn't all that exciting to anyone but other Engineers), but Friday was just too good to let go. I wrote a question up on a dry erase board in my department, "What is your most unusual O.C.D. Trait?", and I received some anally wonderful, obsessive-compulsive answers.

Now if any of you know any Engineers, you will know exactly what I am talking about. They may possibly be the most meticulous, anal-retentive, perfectionists that have ever worn a pocket protector. Women that are doomed to the unfortunate hell of having to be married to an Engineer know exactly what I am talking about. Their husbands generally don't cheat on them, or physically or mentally abuse them, (though you may call being married to one a form of mental abuse). These women have to put up with some things that are much, much worse. The constant rearranging of things into their proper locations (a place for everything and everything in it's place), the lack of spontaneity (if you want us to be spontaneous, you have to allow us to have a design review meeting and write some specifications on exactly how this spontaneity will be performed), and the generally just strange quirks that Engineers exhibit on a daily basis. I won't even talk about the female Engineers, they are an entirely different breed altogether.

I received many of the standard answers, "The toilet paper has to be on the roller so that it rolls outward, not towards the wall", "Constantly straightening the dish towel that is hanging on the handle of the stove", etc., but what I was looking for was the really unusual ones. To understand the difference between "normal peoples" obsessive-compulsive disorder and Engineers O.C.D. you have to realize that if a normal O.C.D. person sees a picture on the wall hanging uneven they will constantly have to straighten it, where the O.C.D. Engineer will tear the wall down and rebuild it so that the picture never goes out of level again.

We did have one Engineer that claimed not to be anal at all, and we even called up his wife to find out the truth (wives know), but she actually confirmed his story. We have decided to have his degree investigated to make sure he is actually an Engineer and not one of those Art majors.

Now I would like to share with you the best ones from the list, in no particular order (hard to believe isn't it?), starting with my own:

I have coffee cup tree in my kitchen which has to hold the same six mugs, each of which has their own location on the tree, and each of which is used on a specific day of the week. One is used twice, it is my weekend mug, which means dishes are done on Saturday night so that it can get washed for use on Sunday.

Another Engineer has two jugs, one of milk and one of juice, which go in the door of their refrigerator at home. Now most of his family members will just put them anywhere in the door, and normal O.C.D. would cause a person to put them in the exact same location every time, but this Engineer's O.C.D., means that he has to put the one that is the most full closest to the hinge of the door since the heavier weight towards the outside edge of the door would change the center of gravity and it's moment of inertia (sorry for the Engineering terms) and would cause the door to swing open too fast.

A young, Intern Engineer claims that whenever he sees a new piece of chalk for a chalkboard he has to break it, but not just break it normally, he has to "twist it" to break it, since anything that is broken by twisting, will break at a 45 degree angle. If you don't quite understand this one, just realize that it's an Engineering thing. We did debate whether this is actual O.C.D. or just youthful destructiveness, so for the time being, though I have included it, this one is still up for review.

Finally, I have saved what I feel is the best for last. When asked what his most unusual O.C.D. trait was, one Engineer replied, "that's easy", and pulled up his pant leg to reveal a safety pin hooked to one of his socks. Apparently he has a safety pin hooked to every pair of socks he owns so that he can pin them together before putting them in the wash, that way each sock will have the same amount of wear and tear on it, he can also use the safety pin if he splits his pants at work, or he can use it for an emergency fishing hook, or a suture if he cuts himself. I'm told it's also important that it be a brass safety pin so that it won't rust in the wash.

So if you think my O.C.D. isn't as bad as some of these others, you have to realize how many hours I spend on each post and how many times I rewrite them, and still am not satisfied when I do finally give up and post them from the sheer exhaustion of nit-picking them to death (I am going to try and post this without a re-write, but I don't know if I will be able to stand it)...

What's your most unusual obsessive-compulsive disorder trait?

"In anything at all, perfection is finally attained, not when there is no longer anything to add, but when there is no longer anything to take away."

-Antoine De Saint-Exupery - Wind, Sand and Stars, 1939

******************************

Update: Seven days and still not smoking. It's been harder than I remember it, but I figure that's just because it's been longer.

1,000th Day One...

2007-08-19T08:48:00.000-05:00

Well as of yesterday I am officially trying to quit smoking again. I've been down this road, oh, so many times before but have always managed to fall short of the objective. This time I am more determined to succeed than any other time I can remember, but I know that doesn't mean it will happen. I also know that it must happen, or they might as well just put me in a flip-top-box right now.

The last time I tried was two and a half years ago, I know this because that's when I quit drinking. I knew that most of the times I failed to quit smoking, drinking caused the failure. I would go out, have a few beers, lose my inhibitions and buy or bum a cigarette. So this last time I tried, I quit drinking first, hoping that it would be just what I needed to overcome the beast. I succeeded at quitting drinking, which really wasn't that hard at all, but after six months slipped off of the no smoking wagon.

I wish that quitting smoking was as easy as quitting drinking, then I'd have it made. In fact of all the challenges I've met in my life, quitting smoking has to be, by far, the hardest one for me to overcome. I don't understand why this is the case when so many of my family members have quit, seemingly so easily (I know this is only how it appears). My one brother quit and his wife is a chain smoker. I couldn't imagine trying with someone around me all the time like that. Unfortunately he just started up again after having stopped for eight years. I smacked him upside his head when I found out he started again.

I do understand full well what happened to him though. Something people who have never smoked can't possibly understand. Once you have been addicted to it for any length of time, it never, EVER, let's you go after that. You can quit for ten years, and the desire, the pangs to have one, will keep coming back. If I could quit and it would be totally gone after say, six months, then I would have succeeded a long time ago. There have been so many times that I've tried and failed after I thought I had it beat, just because after a while your guard lets down, a stressful day or a moment of weakness happens, and bang, you're back smoking again. The surgeon general once said quitting the smoking addiction is harder than quitting cocaine, yeah, I wish this were cocaine I was addicted too.

Even blogging can be difficult when you are trying to quit because just sitting down at the computer has become a trigger. I smoked much more when I sat behind the monitor than any other time. There are just so many triggers to overcome, I even tried to figure out a way to drive to work without passing a store, but there just isn't one. It's too easy, in a moment of weakness, to pull over into one of those places and buy a pack, especially when the stresses of the winter driving commute start, that one has nailed me several times.

This time I have a goal, though it may sound a bit silly. With the recent announcement by several countries of a planned return to the moon by 2020, I would kinda like to be around to see that. I was seven years old, and do remember the first time they landed, and yes I know it's quite an over-reaction on my part to think that I wouldn't be around in thirteen years if I don't quit, even though I did have an uncle die young from emphazema because he was a chain smoker. I just feel the need to quit this time seems so much more serious than before, as I enter the autumn of my life. It may be entering the winter of my life if I don't succeed.

I'm starting by using the patch again this time, which I have had luck with in the past (how can I say that if I always failed?). It really helps me get through the horrifically difficult beginning and first day. After that, the trick is not to let your guard down six months later. My second ex-wife once said "she thought I quit using the patch too early the other times", perhaps she was right, I think I will take her advice and stay on it a little longer this time. I have always felt that I really just needed the patch to get through the first day. I sure could use a wife right now to help relieve the stresses that come with quitting smoking ;-) though the truth is that spouses can cause their share of stresses as well.

So now it's time to keep busy (as to keep my mind off of it), take lots of naps, eat a lot, gain weight, and worry about the diabetes the weight gain may cause later. I can only fight one battle at a time and this is one battle that I really need to win...

To cease smoking is the easiest thing I ever did. I ought to know, I've done it a thousand times.
-Mark Twain

More GLMF 07

2007-08-07T17:56:00.000-05:00

I was walking through the Medieval Faire in the early morn, just after opening, when a high voice didst called out to me "My Lord, wouldst thou like thy Tarot read?"

I responded to the fair young maiden sitting on the bench in the wood "How much of my gold wouldst such a reading cost?"

She responded "None my Lord, tis' free".

Now being a wary old sea dog I am not normally taken in by such frivolous things, but being that it was said to be free (doubt ringing in the back of me mind) I chose to give it a try nonetheless.

This fair maiden who didst go by the name "Michelle De Nostradamus" (hmmm... why didst her name sound so familiar?) invited me to sit whilst she did turn over 4 cards for me, which was apparently her form of reading the Tarot. Now I have never had my cards read before, but it did seem to me there should be more cards than that, but being that the price was so cheap I figured this must be the wal-mart version.

The first card she turned was "The Lovers" which she claimed to represent my past. Now as there have indeed been lovers in my past I was not overly surprised by this, but it surely did not tell me anything new.

The second card she turned over for me was "The Poppes" which she did tell me represented my present and after consulting the small book in her lap, didst also tell me "this represented balance and was a good thing" (after seeing her consult her manual and her seemingly unending hesitations I was getting the impression that she was maybe not the most spiritually gifted of "tellers" in the fine shire of Avaloch but then again, still no money had passed hands, so this was still all good). I thought upon the "Balance" this card was said to tell and I surmised that this was indeed also true as I have not fallen down in some time (at least not since I quit imbibing spirits), so this did seem reasonable to me as well, but as with before, no new revelations.

The third card which she didst turn over for me was "The Hanged Man" which she said did represent my future. This card did suggest to me that there was death in my future, which once again did not surprise me, as not being immortal, I do fully expect that I will die at some point. Nothing new to figure out here either.

The fourth and final card she turned for me was "The Magician" (kinda like the joker) and this card she did say was for luck. Well knowing my luck with gambling, as well as with the ladies, has always seemed to be a "joke", I did not see anything new here as well.

She did not have any more revelations to tell me as to exactly what the cards meant and did mostly seem at loss as far as what any explanations for them might be, so I did thank her and went on my way but not before tipping her a couple of pounds for at least trying (I suppose it worked since some money did end up changing hands).

As I walked away thinking what silliness these things are, and being a man of science, how is it that people can believe in such nonsense as Tarot Cards, Fortune Telling, Palm Reading and alike, it suddenly dawned on me "That her telling had been exactly correct after all!"...

"If fortune smiles, who doesn't? If fortune doesn't, who does?"
-Chinese Proverb

Medieval Faire 2007

2007-07-31T16:42:00.000-05:00

Aaaaarghh!! It do be Medieval Faire time again and this last Saturday my son Zach and I set sail, bound for Geneva, Ohio, and our annual trip. The luck was with us, as it happened to be "Pirate Invasion" weekend, which is always good for me as it do match me garb. This year I dressed up but chose not to carry me trusty cutlass, opting instead to bring my camera, but fear not, it wasn't as if I was unarmed as it's a "canon", which every good Pirate should have. I would have posted this tale sooner but it took all day Sunday to edit these pics as I fired off me canon 432 times, nearly emptying my one gig hold, by three quarters, of all the shot I had on board that day. It was a good thing that I brought it with me as there were all kinds of strange folk and creatures about, the likes of which I have never seen in all me travels. I swear it be true, there where men with horns, and Elvin folk with pointed ears, tinkers and alike, and even belly dancers who would come brazenly up to the camera shaking their wares and tempting a man to... take their picture... As Poseidon is my witness there must have been evil spells and incantations being cast as to ensnare a brave mans soul. I tell thee there was indeed wickedness about, but I had me Canon with me, so not to fear from the temptations about... but I digress...

There were many Knights about with their trusty steeds doing battle, though their show of daring seemed much shorter than previous festivals I had attended. Perhaps it was due to the fact that they seem to have a different group of knights every year and this group seemed to be made up of lords a bit long in the tooth to be jousting. Also the showing off of their bravery included very little jest and boasting as I had come to expect of men of high honor, nay they had very little to say at all, just straight into battle they went. Still it was good to have them about to help protect honest sailors from eyes as green as the deep sea which peered deep into the lens as if to enthrall a brigands heart (sigh)... but alas I digress again...

My son Zach did seem to enjoy the Faire, though I sometimes wonder if he comes along just to please the old captain. This year, more than any, he really seemed to enjoy it even if some of the shows like the Falconer and the Tortuga Twins were not there, and even the brochure that you get at the entrance had been reduced from a booklet to a mere single page. He especially liked these large oxen though the sign in the back did say "Black Ox Good Food", which kind of made me wonder what manner of creature would want to eat such a beast after they had petted it. No doubt it was one of those Gypsy Queens that can vex a mans brain by flaunting their scantily clad midriffs, shaking themselves all about... hmmmm, I do be having problems concentrating on the tale at hand...

Some of my favorite minstrels, "The Pyrates Royale", where on hand singing their bawdy tales again this year. I watched their show last year but forgot to pick up a cd at the end of the show, a misgiving that I remedied this year. It's hard to find good pirate music, but these buccaneers are definitely first rate. I especially enjoy their song, "Hellship", a story about being clubbed by a comely wench in a tavern and spirited aboard a pirate vessel and forced to man the ship, and also their ballad, "The Boatman", a story of a woman longing for her man lost at sea. This ballad has an enchanting tune just like I've heard the sirens sing tempting a man to dive overboard. There must be some wicked magic about that can stop the heartiest of souls dead in their tracks and take the wind right out of their sails with a mere come hither stare... (Keep it together Dagoth)...
As always there where lots of wares for sale many of which would cost a Pirates treasure.
The "Washing Well Wenches" and the "Battle Chess" were back again this year, along with some new shows, so all in all it still made for a good Medieval Faire, even if some things seemed to be cut back. If you wish to see more pictures they are posted here at my Flickr site.
The weather was much better than last year when it was very hot and humid, and my pirate boots served me well for sloshing through the mud, everything was pleasantly dry this time. This will probably be the only weekend I will go to the Faire this year as there are only two weekends left and I didn't get a seasons pass this year...No I mean it, I'm not going back, no matter how much the gods tempt me!... Someone lash me to the mainmast!... Arrrrgh!!!

"Opportunity may knock only once, but temptation leans on the doorbell."
-Anon

The Path to Emptiness

2007-07-26T19:13:00.000-05:00

The other day I went to the bookstore even though I now have so many books to read that I really don't need to acquire any more. I wanted to get a book on Buddhism and of course had to pick up a few others while I was there, all the time trying to restrain myself from simply going hog wild and doing serious damage to the budget.

I didn't have any particular book in mind and if you have ever been in that section of the book store you know there are quite a few to choose from...hmmmm, how to decide... So I used pure Buddhist logic in making my choice, I picked the book with the happiest looking monk on the cover. I know, I know, but when you are taking a shot in the dark, any little bit of logic surely helps, no matter how off the wall it may seem. It turns out I made a good choice. The book I picked out was "The Joy of Living" by the Buddhist Master Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche and I certainly have not been disappointed. I'd like to share a small excerpt from it just to give you an idea of what I mean...

"Learning to appreciate the clarity of the mind is a gradual process, just like developing an awareness of emptiness. First you get the main point, slowly grow more familiar with it, and then just continue training in recognition. Some texts actually compare the slow course of recognition to an old cow peeing - a nice down-to-earth description that keeps us from thinking of the process as something terribly difficult to abstract. Unless, however, you're a Tibetan nomad or happen to have been brought up on a farm, the comparison might not be immediately clear, so let me explain. An old cow doesn't pee in one quick burst, but in a slow, steady stream. It may not start out as much and it doesn't end quickly, either. In fact, the cow may walk several yards while in the process, continuing to graze. But when it's over - what a relief!"

Now if that doesn't give you insight into "the path to emptiness" I'm afraid nothing will. So if you are so inclined to read such things and get the opportunity to pick up Yongey Mingyur's book (Rinpoche is a title given to a great master which roughly translates as "precious one") "The Joy of Living" I promise you won't be disappointed. You may be surprised (as I was) how much physics and modern science are intermixing with Buddhist beliefs that have been around for countless centuries...

"Looking again and again at the mind which cannot be looked at, the meaning can be vividly seen, just as it is."
-The Third Gyalwang Karmapa

Battlewagon Blues

2007-07-19T20:26:00.000-05:00

Tonight my van decided I should stick around at work a little longer than usual. I went out after work, as usual the last one in the lot, and started it and it immediately died. In fact I started it 6 times and it stalled each time right after I turned the key. After that it simply refused to turn over at all. Fortunately the guard was still there and he helped me jump it, but still no dice. The lights wouldn't even turn on. We did have to do a lot of work on my old jumper cables as they had become quite rusty sitting in the back of the van. After working on them a while we were able to get quite a bit of spark, but she was still being stubborn, so I had the guard drive me to the auto parts store to get a new battery.

Now I didn't really think it was the battery, as the one in it is only two years old, but I didn't have many other options at that point. The battery that was in it my ex wife had put in before she gave me the van and it had to be the cheapest battery on the planet, it looked like it was made for a garden tractor. I decided I had very little to loose by buying a better battery.

So we got back and put in the new one and turned the key... no dice. At that point I was quite ready to give up, so I packed my tools away and was going to go back inside to see if I could call someone for a ride when I decided to give it one more shot. I pumped the pedal once (don't ask me why) and low and behold it fired up and stayed started.

I took the old battery back to the parts store to get the deposit (should have brought it with me the first time) and had them check it while I was there and sure enough the battery was fine. Now it has left me wondering what is going wrong with it now. It could be the starter or the fuel pump, but I can't say as I've ever had one of my vehicles act quite like this before. Now I get to wait and see what's going to give out and where it's going to strand me...

An Imagining...

2007-07-15T08:50:00.000-05:00

I became aware... At one point in time and space, I understood that I was energy and matter and time and space. I understood that I could absorb more energy and more matter and become more than I was. I understood that I could touch a thing, such as holding a cup in my hand, and at the level of the very small, my atoms would mix with it's atoms, for there was more space between our atoms than there was matter itself, the boundary between it and myself would merge. I learned that I could bring down that barrier and take it's matter and energy into my own and we would become one, and I would be increased. Just as when you consume, you take into yourself some of the energy and matter of that which you consumed. My desire to consume increased and I reveled in the joy of it. For as I consumed more, the power, the energy that I was, became more, and there was a great joy in this.

This joy was caused by my increase in energy, because as I became more powerful, as my energy increased and I became larger, encompassing more matter, I became safer. Safer in the knowledge that no other separate energy, no other separate matter, could absorb the energy and matter that I was. The fear of this happening to me lessened.

It became like a drug, this need to be safe, and I consumed more and more. Growing ever larger, expanding, first consuming planets, and then whole solar systems. I continued forever increasing in mass and size to eventually consume whole galaxies and beyond. Eventually absorbing even time itself, for I knew it could harm me as well. Eventually all that was had become part of me. I had absorbed all energy and matter and space and time that existed everywhere. I became all that was, and all that was had become part of me. There was no separate energy, or matter, or space, or time, I did not encompass. I was everything... Except...

As I reached the end, encompassing all things until there was nothing left that was not me but the most tiniest of single particles, with the least amount of energy, holding the smallest amount of space for the least amount of time, I stood poised to absorb it, but hesitated...

At that point I looked down upon this smallest of things and realized that it could not harm me, for I was everything and it was merely the smallest of things. I looked down upon it and cherished it and realized that if I consumed it, I would be alone, and a new fear overtook me. Yes, I was on the verge of being all things, all matter and energy, all space and time, wherein nothing could harm me, but I was also on the verge of being alone, a type of aloneness almost unimaginable. For there would be nothing else that was not me, forever, and at this point even forever had lost it's meaning, as I had absorbed all time as well.

I looked down upon this one last spec of matter and energy and space and time and thought it was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. After all it was the only thing left to keep me company, the only thing left between me and forever being alone with nothing... but it was not enough...

I needed more things that were not me. I began to regress back the way I had come. I began to cast off the energy and matter and space and time that I had absorbed. Shrinking forever smaller and I reveled in this, the smaller I became, because there were now many more things to keep me company. I was no longer alone.

I continued until I was as that last spec had been, the smallest of things, holding the least amount of matter and energy, encompassing the smallest amount of space and time, and once again I stopped, though this time, not because I wished it, but because there was nowhere left to go. Beyond this smallest of things, there was neither time and space, nor matter or energy, there was simply nowhere to go beyond that. Beyond that, there was no existence, a place I could no longer go... I began the journey back upwards again...

I finally reached the place where I had started this journey and stayed there content. I knew that if I grew to encompass all things, I would be safe, but alone. I knew if I was reduced to the smallest of things, I still could not be reduced beyond that, and was safe. I knew that whenever you consume something, making it part of yourself, you will take in some of it's matter and energy, but not all of it. I knew there was no need to fear that my matter and energy and time and space would be consumed by something else, I could never completely wink out of existence. I could exist here, both gaining and casting off energy, both gaining and casting off matter, taking all the space and time as I needed, without any fear. I understood that having all the energy, and matter and space and time in the universe meant being alone, and having none of it was ok as well, because it meant I had an entire universe to keep me company. What I possessed was not near as important as the company I kept along the way...

How strange is the lot of us mortals! Each of us is here for a brief sojourn; for what purpose he knows not, though he senses it. But without deeper reflection one knows from daily life that one exists for other people.

-Albert Einstein

Photographic Expedition No. 1

2007-07-08T09:22:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I went on my first photographic expedition. I thought there would be many when I purchased my new camera, but life has conspired to delay my first one, as life often does. I felt that an expedition should involve a quest, so I decided to make my first quest the U.S. Brig Niagara, which is a recreation of Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry's flagship and is based right here in Erie, Pennsylvania...

When I got downtown to the ships birth, there was no tall ship to be had. I know it had been here on Wednesday when I had passed by this place... I wondered where it had gotten off too and decided to look around for it...I found many sailing vessels, but not quite the one I was looking for...I even found old sailing ships, though they were still not quite the tall ship I was looking for...I looked out over the bay, and though I found Perry's monument over on our peninsula, Presque Isle, I did not find his ship...
I even zoomed in on his monument, thinking perhaps it was hiding (though how could you hide such a large vessel? I just like the zoom feature), but alas still no ship...I searched the waters of the bay for this ship, but found only ducks...And more ducks...I found a new Convention Center being built...I found a tall tower... and I thought, if I went up in it, I could see the whole bay and find this missing ship...Yes, a very tall tower...But alas the tower was closed so I could not use it to find the Brig... Where else should I look? I decided to journey around the bay, and go out onto the peninsula, where I could see Lake Erie, and perhaps find my lost ship out there plying the waves, as tall ships often do...On my journey I found a clown fish, though there are many fish here...I found a big blue frog, there are many of them here as well, if you know where to look... This one's in love...I finally made it out to Presque Isle and looked back to where I had come from, thinking perhaps it had come back, but still no tall ship...I found Perry's Monument that I had seen from the other side of the bay, but his ship was still not here... I grew dejected...I peered out onto Lake Erie and my heart rose! There were many boats here, perhaps one was the one I sought...But I found only beautiful sandy beaches, and the blue water of the lake, and no tall ship...
I found many colored flags fluttering in the wind, but these were not the big white, square sails and the rigging that I was looking for...I even found seagulls flying in the breeze, but they were not really seagulls at all... But a mere illusion...

So, sadly I headed home... My grand quest a failure... and when I got home I checked the Brig's website, and found that the Niagara was off visiting neighbors... Which had I checked before I left, I would have known she was not here, and there would have been no need to go off on this foolhardy expedition. I could have saved my self all this time and trouble...

Afterwards I realized that journeys do not always take you where you thought they would, and you do not always find what you are looking for...

Sometimes marvelous things find you instead...

"It is good to have an end to journey toward, but it is the journey that matters in the end."

-Ursula K. LeGuin

Not Knowing...

2007-06-28T18:10:00.000-05:00

After my fathers funeral I went over to talk to my oldest brother who was outside of the church where many of us had gathered. He was holding the folded American flag that had draped my father's casket (my father had been a World War II vet). The flag was originally presented to my mother after the ceremony, but later she chose to give it to my brother for reasons only she knows. I said to my brother "Every string in that flag represents each time our dad paced through the living room and screamed at the television during the siege".

I had to explain this to him because apparently no one had ever told him the story. I was very young, about six, and though I remember it quite well, I can't really say I understood what was going on at the time. It was during the Vietnam War when my eldest brother was a Marine stationed at the base in Khe Sahn. The base had been surrounded and for many days the Marines were trapped in this very dangerous place, often fighting hand to hand. During that war, freedom of the press meant that every night during the evening news the terrible pictures of war were flooded straight into the homes of Americans all across the country. Every night my father would come home and pace back and forth through the living room ranting at the television "why can't we get those boys out of there!" The truth... why they couldn't get my brother out of there. A type of insanity had taken over my father, so worried he was for his son. Yes though I was very young I remember the ranting, and raving, and pacing very well, and I remember my father asking me questions, not that he expected any kind of an answer from a six year old, but just because he needed someone to ask, these questions that had no answer, and I just happened to be there.

My brother seemed very happy to hear this story, though I was surprised that no one had ever told him it before. During the siege there were no letters, so, no story was ever relayed, and by the time he came home, most people just wanted to forget about the war. I think it was a good time to tell him the story, certainly better than had we been able to tell him during the siege, because simply put, sometimes you are better off not knowing, no matter how much you desperately want to know.

My father certainly would have been better off not knowing the perils that surrounded his son. It certainly would have saved a lot of wear and tear on my father's nerves not to mention to carpet in the living room. It may have even saved my father's and mother's marriage, though doubtful, that ended shortly after that. This madness surely served no purpose, and benefited no one, and if it in some way made my father feel better, had he not known the particulars of my brothers situation, there would have been nothing for him to have to feel better about.

My brother didn't need to know about the state our father and the family was in at that time. He was busy dealing with the situation that surrounded him and the last thing he needed was to be distracted from the job he was doing by news of his fathers "mental deterioration" (for lack of a better word). I believe he was better off thinking that everything was just fine at home.

Yes, I think that quite often one is better off not knowing, or at least there may come a better time to find out what you really didn't want to know about in the first place...

"Where ignorance is bliss, 'Tis folly to be wise."

-Thomas Gray

PS: If you have a poor opinion of the war, the men and women that served in it, or the things they had to do to get through it, by all means, when in my presence, feel free to keep your comments to yourself. Because in that case, I'm much better off not know what you think...

Still Standing...

2007-06-10T07:13:00.001-05:00

This is not the post I wanted to write about him but sometimes life leaves us little choice in the matter.

A while back I wrote a post about my mother and I always said I would get around to writing a post about my father, but that has always been me, that I get around to doing things in my own time. We always seem to think that we have more time than we really do... but sometimes we don't...

The first thing you must understand about my father is he was not a perfect person or by any means a perfect father, but he did give us everything we needed. No, we are not talking in a financial sense, but much more important things. He gave us qualities of heart and soul that made us the people we are today. He gave us laughter, intelligence, strength and an openness of mind necessary to ferret out the truth. I see in my brothers, of whom I have three, the kind of people I want to be like, and there are no other people I would rather be around. It is very clear they get these qualities from him.

When we gathered at my one brothers house on Thursday and the reverend came over, he wanted to hear stories of my father, as he had never met him before, none of us held anything back. I'm sure my brother's reverend had done this many times, but I doubt he had encountered a family quite like this. We wondered, near the end of the evening, if he maybe thought we were a little bit wacked, but if he expected weeping and sadness and boasting of what a great man my father was, he was in for quite a shock, when he received honesty, and laughter, and maybe some stories that most families would have left unsaid to a man of the cloth. I'm sorry but my father didn't raise us that way. The reverend did know my one brother well, so hopefully that was enough warning of what he was about to encounter so that we weren't too much of a shock to him, or maybe he was surprised to find out that my brother wasn't unique and there were actually more people like him out there on this planet, either way I think the reverend handled it well. No, we are not saints and you will find that out very quickly after being around us a short time, but we are also very proud of who we are, the type of men our father made us to be.

The last ten years or so had been very rough on my father. It was about that time that his diabetes had gotten so bad that one day while out driving, his sugar dropped to such a low level that he passed out behind the wheel and hit a tree, breaking his hip and shattering his elbow on his right side. It was about then that he had to start taking insulin injections and could no longer try to hide his illness from the rest of us. A few years later we had to take his license away and shortly after that he had his first bad heart attack, the doctors said very little of his heart was still working and he must have had other small heart attacks before then. Since then, the diabetes had taken its toll on his body and especially his legs. We knew he was going down hill, and the family had plenty of warning to prepare themselves, but some people don't give up easily or go down quickly. If I have learned anything from my family, and especially from my father, it's that you are tougher than you think you are, and life is going to knock you down again and again and again, and damn it, you get yourself back up and face it until you have nothing left to face it with! Oh, and a good belly laugh in the face of all that adversity will certainly help you get through.

Three weeks ago my eldest brother went over to my dads place and found him collapsed on the floor. He was taken to the hospital where it was determined that he had had a stroke and another heart attack, and could no longer see or use his left side. After about a week they determined that little could be done for him and moved him into a home, where after ten days, he finally had nothing left to face it with.

This last Tuesday I finally got the call, my father, my very best friend and my one and only hero, who was almost 80, had passed on. This weekend the clan gathered to pay homage to a very strong man, maybe not a perfect man, but a very strong man none the less, a man who made all that knew him stronger. Yes there were tears, but they were all tears of laughter because life is going to knock you down and it may hurt you, but you never give it the satisfaction of knowing it did, and always get back up, until you absolutely cannot get back up one more time and after you get up, laugh in its face. You are much stronger than you can possibly ever imagine...

Oh, by the way, have you heard the one about?...

It takes courage to live—courage and strength and hope and humor. And courage and strength and hope and humor have to be bought and paid for with pain and work and prayers and tears.

-Jerome P. Fleishman

Not Impulse Buying...

2007-05-28T15:46:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I was watching one of my new chipmunk friends making a spectacle of himself on my back porch mere feet from me. He couldn't see me through the glass window of the French door so the first thought that came to mind was to grab my digital camera and snap a few shots of him, but then I sighed and said "why bother, the pictures won't come out well anyways."

My old Kodak DC3800 had become a real disappointment. It was a good camera in its day but as with all electronics these days, "Its day" didn't last very long. It had a whopping 2 mega pixels, an 8 meg memory card, and no zoom capabilities, that pretty much makes it about as good as any camera phone these days. It really wasn't all that expensive of a camera to begin with and I have really wanted to get a better one, but I'm just not a spender. I'm the person who always worries about the "what ifs". What if the car breaks down? What if I loose my job? So consequently I'm always saving my money.

I had finally had it with that camera and after the chipmunk incident, immediately hopped into the karaoke battlewagon and headed off to the store. Now this does not qualify (in my mind) as impulse buying, as I had thought about it for a long time, and it wasn't like I was at the store right when the "desire to purchase" came over me. Ok, so a new camera wasn't high on my list of "needed things" to get, it was more like on a separate wish list. There certainly are much more important things that I could have kept saving my money for. The thing is, I have been working a lot of overtime lately, and saving every dime (can you hear me convincing myself in my head), and haven't splurged on anything in quite some time, and so don't I deserve a "little" extravagance for myself?

Looking over the cameras in the store it pretty quickly came down to two, an Olympus and a Canon (their most expensive models). The best part was I had two of the girls in the camera department helping me out and it turned out one girl owned the Olympus and one owned the Canon and I managed to get them to argue over who's camera was better. The girl who owned the Canon (the slightly less expensive model) did admit that the other girls camera was better, but proceeded to rattle off a list of reasons why her camera was better, and she put up a pretty convincing argument, the best of which was that the Canon had a fold out LCD screen that you could point downward and shoot while holding the camera high over your head (she showed me a picture she took at a concert by using just such a method). The part of that which I liked the best was that you folded the screen face against the camera body protecting it; the Olympus' screen was affixed to the back of the camera, leaving it exposed. The Canon finally won out (I never buy the most or least expensive of anything and I was maybe feeling a little guilty about the money I was spending).

So after picking out a few peripherals, I left the store with my new "Canon Power Shot S3 IS" with 6.0 Mega Pixels, 1.0 gig memory card, 12X zoom and 0.1 second between shots (I missed a shot of some deer in my backyard the other day with my old camera because it took too long to be ready to fire again) in hand and also a DVD copy of "Apocalypto" by Mel Gibson (another thing I didn't need, but it was an excellent movie especially if you like Mayan and Aztec cultures like I do) and thereafter proceeded to go shutter happy (how was that for a run-on sentence?). I've spent most of the weekend (except stopping to watch the movie) taking shots, loading and playing with the software that came with it, and reading the plethora of materials that came with this complicated machine. There are a lot of different settings, which I am just starting to learn what they all do. I was very happy to find that it has a "Diopter Adjustment Dial" that allows you to focus in the view finder, just like focusing a pair of binoculars, because while I was in the store I was unable to admit that all the little icons in the view finders were blurry, and I thought it was just because I need a new pair of glasses (another thing on the list), and the girls might chuckle at my poor eyesight (you think about these things when you're a guy and you get... older).

So from now on my blogger posts should contain more and better pictures even though I still have to edit them for size (the pictures, not the posts), as no one wants to have to wait to download a 3 meg picture. I've included in this post new pictures of "Tunneler" the chipmunk who dug a tunnel under my sidewalk to my flower bed and has an amazing ability to "dive" into the bark in the flower bed and pop up somewhere else, also some better pictures of "Chubby" the groundhog and "Oscar" the red squirrel who live in my shed. I hope you all have had a wonderful Memorial Day weekend, I'm just glad to go back to work tomorrow so that I can pay for this shopping spree...

Regret for the things we did can be tempered by time; it is regret for the things we did not do that is inconsolable.

-Sydney J. Harris

My First Time (blush)...

2007-05-26T06:47:00.000-05:00

So I've been tagged by the dearest Pobble, and yes that is the very first time I've ever been tagged so I guess that means I've finally lost my meme virginity, "Pobble, was it good for you?"

The rules of the tagging are as follows:

* Post a similar post like this one and add a link back to the person who tagged you.

* List 5 reasons why you blog about the things you blog on your blog.

* Choose your 5 tag ‘victims’ and tag them nicely.

(Hey pobble, just what qualifies as tagging nicely?)

* Write a comment on their blog letting them know that you tagged them.

Ok, this seems simple enough on the outside, as the question of "why one blogs" comes up occasionally, but I've always thought that "I really don't know why I blog". Since I have been tagged I must try to come up with at least some sufficient answers, so here goes...

1.) First and foremost "I like meeting new people and making new friends". Many bloggers feel they must write about "exciting things" in order to keep their bloggers entertained, but I've always just enjoyed hearing about the everyday "goings on" in people's lives. I become attached to the bloggers that I read daily and become saddened when a blogger leaves, feeling like I've lost a friend. It's all about the human contact...

2.) "I love to write". My biggest problem with blogging has always been trying to keep my posts down to a manageable size (and you thought it was my grammar). I spend a lot of time, when making a post, just trying to cut it down to something reasonable. If I ever posted my first draft it would likely fill up half of my blog page...Yes, I tend to ramble on a bit...

3.) I like "being able to speak my mind without interruption". Just let me say what I have to say, and then make your comments. I find quite a few rude people these days who will try to "speak over you" right when you are in the middle of a sentence, which I find quite annoying. I also have a dislike for "conversation hogs" that won't let you get a word in edgewise. Blogging, by it's nature, promotes polite conversation (Ok, down off of my high horse)...

4.) There is something very special about putting your thoughts up on the web and knowing that someone from half way around the world may be reading them at this very moment. I like hearing what people think "straight from them", not from the media telling me how people think on varying subjects...

5.) "I love the comments people put on your posts". It's when you find out that people all over the world really are just like you deep down inside...

Now for the tagging bit. I don't normally tag people when I put up a meme, rather I like to just let them steal the meme if they like it because I know some people don't particularly like being tagged, but "hey, it's part of the rules on this one", so here goes...

"Spider"

"Tai"

"Kimber"

"Liz"

"Hope"

I know a few of these bloggers have been absent for one reason or another (as I have myself) and a couple are "off on adventures" but who knows I may get lucky and get a response...

I want to thank "The One and Only Pobble" for tagging me and giving me the "hey where have you been" virtual smack upside my head. I know I have been absent a lot lately and I just want to let you know I'm still alive. I hope this posts, as my last post never found its way to the net. It still sits "in draft" as blogger refused to put it up and after three days of trying I kind of gave up on it.

Those who bring sunshine to the lives of others cannot keep it from themselves.

-James Barrie

Afraid of the Dark?

2007-05-06T06:01:00.000-05:00

When I was a wee tot about a millennia ago a bedroom became available in my house and my mother decided that it was time that I should have my own room. So they moved me into the bedroom next to the one I had shared with my older brother pretty much for all of my entire young life. Now when it came time to go to bed my mother thought that I might be afraid of the dark, though I had slept in complete darkness my whole life, this would be the first time alone. So to head off this problem she decided to leave the desk lamp on hoping that this would help me to not be afraid of sleeping alone in the dark. I screamed bloody murder.

The desk lamp threw-off garish shadows from the bed, closet and desk, which I was sure all the monsters in the world were hiding in. After several nights of this my mother decided to try it without the lamp, and I slept just fine. As it turned out I was maybe the only child on the planet who was not afraid of the dark but indeed afraid of the light. My entire life I have spent taking great comfort in the night, feeling very safe surrounded by the darkness, which I could slip off into and none of my enemies could find me. There has never been any fear for me when the sun goes down which seems to be a sentiment very few people on the rest of this planet seem to share.

When I originally moved into this house eight years ago with my now ex-wife there was street light in the back yard up at the peak of our roof which illuminated the entire back yard turning night to day. The switch for this light was down in the basement, not easily accessed, but since this large halogen light had a sensor that would turn it on at dusk and shut it off when the sun rose it was always left on. My wife and the kids were greatly comforted by this light and the only time I remember it being shut off was on a couple occasions when the ex and I went skinny dipping in our pool and at least one occasion when we slept out in a tent which was when I found out that our neighbor's young adult kids liked to skinny dip in our pool as well. The wife, kids, pool, and the neighbor's kids are all gone now but that light is still there turning night to day.

About two months ago I was down in the basement and I saw the switch to that light and decided I really didn't need it running all night long, so I shut it off. As with many people I have been trying to lower my footprint on the planet, to help in any way I can to put less carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, which means shutting off those unnecessary lights wherever possible. Now this may only be one light, and one might think that shutting off one light won't make much of a difference, but it can. As it turns out that one light, that I paid little attention to before, was responsible for 25% of my electric bill! Fully one quarter of the electric I consume was being generated for one light whose only purpose was to light up the back yard, and most of the time it was doing it was while I was asleep, benefiting no one! Now that seems like a good bit of savings, not only for the environment, but for my wallet as well.

Now its not like its totally dark out there at night, the street lights running up and down my street do a good job of turning night to day, because apparently the headlights on peoples cars aren't good enough. Out back there is plenty of light provided by the old shop across the field that closed down last year but still has a dozen street lights illuminating their entire parking area for no one except one guard, and has at least one of those street lights that burns both night and day. The moon and stars do a pretty good job of lighting up the night, what little of them you can see anymore, as they are mostly blocked out by all those lights we seem to have some need to burn all night.

Which makes me wonder are all the people still so afraid of the dark that they can't just let the night be the night. Are they still worried about predators in the darkness, even though we've wiped most of them out, that they feel a need to wipe out the darkness as well. Can't they enjoy the charms that the night brings, that any skinny dipper will tell you, has its advantages. After all, the only monsters I've found in the darkness seem to be lurking high atop those telephone poles...

Things that make you say "Awww Crap!!!" Part 2...

2007-04-25T19:05:00.000-05:00

Did I mention that I had more of these? That's all of them I promise...

The March of the Penguins

2007-04-01T07:01:00.000-05:00

Back at Christmas time I posted a meme and one of the questions was "What I wanted for Christmas". My response was "Would it be too mach to ask for the Penguins to make the playoffs". Apparently it wasn't too much to ask, because I finally got my Christmas present, Yes my Pittsburgh Penguins are in the National Hockey League Playoffs!

At the time they were lounging around 12th place in their conference (you have to be in 8th or better to make the playoffs) and though they were doing much better than their last place 58 points of the previous season (they are at 101 points now), with 15 teams in their conference, they still weren't anywhere near a playoff birth. Since the all-star break they have been absolutely stellar though, and have seen a very busy March schedule where they managed an amazing 12 and 5 record for the month, guaranteeing them a place in the playoffs. Right now they hold a tenuous 1 point lead in their division with 3 games remaining in the regular season and though they may not be able to hold onto that 2nd place spot in the conference, due to the fact that their remaining schedule is with much tougher teams, than the team that they are ahead of right now, they will manage to finish no worse than 5th in their conference. Still quite a turnaround from last year.

I've been waiting a long time to put up this post. I'm a little superstitious when it comes to my sports, and I didn't want to jinx them. If I tune into a game late and my team is winning, but then they start loosing after I've started watching the game, I will change the channel, figuring it was me that brought them the bad luck. Silly? Perhaps, but these superstitions were formed at a young age, when I spent many winter days on local ponds with other youths trying to "put the puck in the net", or in our case, the piles of snow that served as goals since we didn't have the real thing. The rule was whoever scored had to be the one to dig through the snow to find the puck so that the game could continue. If you had a really good slap shot you could sometimes blow the puck right through the "snow goal" to keep yourself from freezing your hands, having to dig through the cold snow afterwards to find the puck. I remember getting up early in the morning and lacing up my skates (with bread bags inside them to keep your feet warm), and skating up the road to one of the local ponds where all my friends would gather for the days games. We lived on a dirt road that would freeze in the winter and you could actually skate on it, so I could put on my figure skates at the house, no I couldn't afford hockey skates, but that was ok, since most of the kids didn't even have real hockey sticks, I was one of the few that did. Often these games would last all day and well into the night, if the moon was out enough to see by. We would return home well after dark, ravenous, having not eaten all day, and exhausted from the exertions of skating all day, and absolutely ready to get up again tomorrow and do it all over again. These memories are where my superstitions and my love of the game were formed and are held very dearly to this day.

I don't know how far my Penguins will make it through the playoffs, I guess my only wish right now is that they make it through the first round. With players like Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Jordan Staal and Marc-Andre Fleury they sure seem to have the talent to go far in the playoffs, but you never know when they are going to run into a hot goaltender that can shut them down. This season very few teams have been able to totally shut them down and no deficit seems too much for them to overcome. Last night they played the Toronto Maple Leafs, and though "the Leafs" had a 4 to 1 lead in the second period the Penguins were able to storm back and score with 4 seconds left to tie it up and send it to overtime. The Leafs did eventually win that game in overtime (after a long delay because of a medical emergency in the crowd, I guess a fan got too excited), but they sure are fun to watch. Many of the Penguins away games have sold out, even in cities with teams that haven't been selling out, as it seems the rest of the hockey fans around the league want to come out and see these phenomenal young stars play. So even if you aren't a Penguins fan or don't even care about hockey or sports in general, I suggest if you get a chance to see the Penguins play, you do so, because with this team, hardly a game goes by without some miraculous, impossible goal being scored and no game ever seems over or out of reach until the final horn blows... "Lets Go Pens!!!"

Do You Have The Time?

2007-03-11T09:26:00.000-05:00

It seems like lately 24 hours in a day just isn't enough time to get everything done that I want to accomplish. If Dubya really wanted to help instead of starting daylight savings time early, he should institute the 26-hour day. Between shoveling snow, keeping my pellets stove clean (it's been burning on high a lot lately) and overtime at work, time has been at a premium.

Of course any more daylight is always helpful and I do like it when it starts staying lighter later, though maybe that's just because it's spring springing. Last week I took some pictures of my Daffodils just popping their little heads out of the ground. Unfortunately that was just before it dropped down into the teens again and they got buried under more of that evil white stuff. The last couple of days have dawned warmer and more spring-like so hopefully this is a portent of better things to come, I sure am tired of shoveling. The forecasts are saying it just might be so, but of course that's what they said about last week. I've learned not to get my hopes up too soon and certainly not to speak it out loud, as I might offend "the Great God of the Lake" and bring "the bad stuff" crashing back down upon us. Never EVER Get the short sleeves out or put up the storm windows too early, as this is a temptation that fate just cannot resist. I'm hoping that hinting about it in a blog isn't going to cast us back into the frozen depths of hell. We'll just have to wait and see if the God is offended by my words and more punishment required.

On the brighter side I made Hope's Chicken Enchilada recipe, which she posted on her blog, and I have to admit that they are the best Enchiladas I've ever tried. They are a lot of work though, it took about three hours to put them together, but are definitely worth every minute of the effort (on a weekend). I tend to get "stuck in a rut" when it comes to my cooking, so it is always a pleasure when some new wonderful recipe is discovered. I really do believe that the food we eat can have a huge effect on how we feel about any given moment in our lives. For example, I've gone to Mexico twice and I still feel that the second trip far surpassed the first because the food at the second hotel was far superior to the first. The chefs and restaurants at the hotel on the second trip had a much wider variety with no two days offering the same menu. Entertainment and accommodations may have been better at the first hotel but in my book they don't have as much effect on your attitude as the food you are consuming. Either way, neither hotel had Enchiladas near as great as Hope's.

I am happy to announce that I have finally succeeded in defeating "Drakan: Order of the Flame"...woooo hooooo... I have played many different video games in my life but this may be the first one that I have actually taken all the way to the end. It's always a sore point if I have something started and left unfinished, but with video games that seems to be the norm for me, to play them for awhile and then put them aside. I know it's only a video game and not really any kind of an accomplishment at all, but they always seem to be, like a book left unfinished, or any project left uncompleted, that they add to the overall feeling of a lack of accomplishment in your life when they are not finished. Any project left uncompleted is somehow worse than one that is either not started, or one that is finished but not to your satisfaction. The only problem with this game is that it really isn't finished. The game ends with the evil "Navaros" escaping into another realm with "Delon's" body ("Rynn's" brother whom he has possessed and she is trying to rescue) and "Rynn" and her dragon "Arohk" diving in after them. So I guess now I have to go out and try to find the sequel, "Drakan: The Ancients' Gate", in order to find out if "Delon" is ever rescued. The best part of the game may not be getting to fly a dragon, but all of the wonderful weapons you acquire in different parts of the game. In the first picture "Rynn" holds aloft the "Runeblade" which is the strongest weapon you can attain, though I was partial to the "Mourn Bringer" sword, it didn't score as many hit points, but it was very cool to look at, as it had blood constantly "flowing" off of it, it was indestructable (sometimes after using a blade a while they would break) and it made a wonderful "death moan" every time you swung it. Actually for most of the game I did very well with a massive "Mithril War Hammer" (I was surprised to see that particular metal in the game, taken from LOTR) and of course the various bow's with explosive, magic, and poison tipped arrows. Definitely a game for someone who likes swords and dragons, though playing this could have attributed to my need for a few more hours in the day as well...

PS: Blogger actually coded this right from compose mode, has something changed for the better?

Bad Parenting

2007-02-28T21:38:00.000-05:00

Forgive me but I found this to be very funny in a sad and morbid sort of way. So if you find this to be as hilarious as I did there is something really wrong with you...:)

I awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt!

2007-02-22T19:22:00.000-05:00

fi yuo cna raed tihs, yuo hvae a sgtrane mnid too

Cna yuo raed tihs? Olny 55 plepoe out of 100 can.

i cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno't mtaetr in waht oerdr the ltteres in a wrod are, the olny iproamtnt tihng is taht the frsit and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it whotuit a pboerlm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Azanmig huh? yaeh and I awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt!

"That's Just Storm Snow"

2007-02-13T19:33:00.000-05:00

Many people today were checking out the online weather sites that are showing a large winter storm coming our way out of the Midwest. They seemed a little worried that this system was going to produce a lot of snow. Though the radar sites did show a rather large storm heading our way, I just had to explain to them "this is nothing to worry about, it's just storm snow."

Living on the leeward side of Lake Erie we are very used to snow around here. Every winter we get a thing called "Lake Effect Snow", which is caused by the winds coming over the lake, picking up moisture, and then dumping it all over us in the form of large frozen white crystals.

Most people in the country require a storm to come through their area in order to get any winter precipitation, but for us it can happen almost anytime. All we need to get a good pelting of the white stuff is, a good north wind, an unfrozen lake, and icy cold temperatures, all of which we've had in abundance lately.

Up until three weeks ago winter had hardly even reared it's ugly head around here, and to tell you the truth most of us were quite enjoying it. Lake Erie, which is normally covered with a thick layer of ice before the end of December, hadn't even frozen over. We were beginning to think that we were going to have one of those rare "winters without a winter", but our lake can be a cruel and fickle mistress.

You see we get most of our lake Effect Snow before the lake freezes over. Once we get a good six inches of ice covering that great body of water out there, it becomes much more difficult for the wind to draw the moisture out of the lake.

So there we were happily enjoying the balmy weather but in the back of our minds we knew that without that ice covering, we were probably living on borrowed time. I guess our time finally ran out.

Three weeks ago the jet stream switched, the temperatures plummeted down into the single digits, and the wind shifted around to the north and that's when the beating began.

We have received 50 inches of snow in the last three weeks bringing us from well below our average to finally surpassing it this week. That 50 inches is also the official amount, measured at the airport, which is not in our traditional snow belt, some areas around here have received three times that.

I am fortunate to live in the northwest part of the county which gets a lot less snow than the southeast corner, the further you travel east around the lake, the worse it gets.

For three weeks now we have been getting pounded relentlessly with snow while some of the surrounding areas have had absolutely nothing. While other areas were enjoying sunshine, we had nothing but clouds and more snow. During that time it snowed day and night, barely ever taking a break, and that is the thing with Lake Effect Snow in this area, it doesn't require a storm front to come through in order to start falling. It can just start falling and continue to fall for weeks without giving us any kind of a break.

True I've seen far worse winters having lived here my whole life, I've seen winters that were much more frigid and winters with vastly greater amounts of snow, but I can't think of a winter that has been any more cruel than this one has been. I think we were all starting to have thoughts of spring and that maybe... just maybe... we were going to get away without any kind of a real winter at all this year, but it was nothing more than "the great god of the lake" playing a nasty little joke on us.

So now when people pull up the radar site and show me the "big storm" that is about to smash into us, all I can say to them is "that's just storm snow, at least it isn't Lake Effect, that little storm will pass through in a day or two"...

Things that make you say "Awww Crap!!!"

2007-02-07T21:18:00.000-05:00

Wordless Wednesday

2007-01-31T21:01:00.000-05:00

Here There Be Dragons

2007-01-27T17:40:00.000-05:00

"...and from the ashes of the Old World, another breed of man will be born. A man born in peace and not in war. And to his kin, the teachings of the Order will be as myth.

The sacred pact 'twixt Dragon and Rider forgotten, dormant in time.

Yet fear not, for when the darkness is once again made flesh, The Order will ride again, delivering righteous fire from the sky..."

-From the sayings of Rimril, Fourth Archmage of the Order

Lately I gotten back into playing an old video game of mine called "Draken Order of the Flame." I'm really not a very serious gamer, since I tend to play them for awhile, and then put them down and forget about them for a year, and then start playing them again. This one I have had for quite awhile and it is definitely one of my favorites.

Most games don't really do much for me, but put me in one where you get to swing a BFS (Big Farkin Sword), Fly a Dragon and protect a Fair Warrior Maiden, and I'm all there.

The story revolves around "Rynn" (that would be the Fair Warrior Maiden) who is traveling the land of Draken searching for her younger brother "Delon" who was carried off when a band of "Wartoks" attacked and destroyed Rynn's village. Along the way she hooks up with the ancient dragon "Arokh" and together they search the land for Delon, all the while having to fight off all kinds of creatures like Wartoks, Orcs, Giant Spiders and Scavengers. During the quest all manor of weapons, Armor, Potions, Magic Crystals and Runes are found to help them in their search.

I spent most of the day today playing, though in truth I had to start over at a previous game save because I got my dragon "stuck" in a mine and couldn't get him out. I don't know if it was a glitch or what, and at first I thought maybe he just wasn't allowed to go any further with Rynn until I played on for a while and realized he was really supposed to be with her. I had to start over again at a save that was quite far back in the game and spent most of the time just getting back to where I was. Once I got back I found the going much easier with Arokh, it really helps to have a fire breathing dragon with you when you are slaughtering bestiary. These dragons should really come with four-wheel drive for moving around on the ground and in caves and mines.

There are a lot of places in the game where Arokh cannot pass and Rynn has to go on alone until she can unlock a gate to allow him to come through. Some of the time you are flying around on Arokh's back blasting the creatures on the ground, fighting crow dragons in the sky, and dodging the shots from the cannons that the Wartoks use to try and blast you out of the sky. Other times you have to traverse underground mines and caves on foot, fighting the creatures with sword, mace and bow.

I'm not the greatest gamer in the world and I do manage to get Rynn and Arokh killed probably more often than many other gamers would but that's when the health potions and game saves come into play so I can keep on going through the game wreaking mayhem and destruction on my enemies.

I collect swords and dragons, and even have a couple dragon tattoos so this game pretty much has everything in it that I could possible want in a 3DVR game. I also like going to Medieval Faires and this game really has very medieval flair to it. You just can't beat a game where you get to fly a dragon and swing a sword, so if you will excuse me now "It's time to go hunt some Orc"...

Happy 18th Birthday to Me

2007-01-23T05:46:00.000-05:00

Today is my birthday and according to the calendar and my driver's license I am 45 years old but I believe they are wrong and I can prove that I'm 18 again.

Now when I was 18 I looked up at 28 and thought it was old, it seemed so very far away. Now that these lying documents say I'm 45, I once again look at 28 and it seems every bit as far away.

Therefore the only conclusion I can come up with, using strict scientific visual observation, is that I have come full circle all the way back around to 18 again, though if you visually observed me you might disagree.

So not only have I proved that I am 18 again I have also proved the viability of circular logic.

My Meme

2007-01-17T21:00:00.000-05:00

Sorry about being a.w.o.l. on blogger lately, but overtime has started up at work again and though I don't mind the money it really doesn't "leave much gas in the engine" at the end of the day or much brain to think with. I've had things to say just not a lot of energy or time to say them....

This time I've decided to write the meme rather than just snatch it off of someone else's blog. Someone has to begin these things somewhere, so I thought, "why not here with me." If you like it, please feel free to snag it...

1. What is the background image you have up on your computer right now? Teotihaucan, a place I've never been to but would love to go see someday.

2. Which is your all-time favorite Dinosaur? Brontosaurus which is now called the Apatosaurus.

3. What was the first music concert you went to? Kiss and I was 13. It was at a place here called the Erie County Field House and their pyrotechnics scorched the ceiling...good concert...

4. Polar Bears or Penguins? Always partial to Penguins whether they are in Pittsburgh or a PC...

5. Describe your favorite "comfy" clothes? My Raiders sweat pants and my gray flannel shirt...

6. What natural disaster would you least like to experience? I don't think I would enjoy being around a forest fire very much...

7. If you could have any other job, what would it be? Archeologist...no wait Bush Pilot...

8. How do you like your coffee/tea? Coffee with creamer, no sugar...

9. I was going to write you a letter since you left the Earth, but you forgot to tell me which planet/moon you moved to, which is it? Hanging out on Europa watching Jupiter rise...

10. What was the first car you bought? 1978 Firebird Redbird Edition, she was sweet...

11. What is your favorite type of tree? Eastern Hemlock...

12. You've offended my honor! Now we must duel, choose your weapon! Draw your cutlass matey...Aaaaarrrghh!!!

This Post Really Stinks

2007-01-06T18:16:00.000-05:00

Well this guy seems to have taken up residence in my yard. I've seen him a couple times now in my backyard, right behind the porch, but every time I ran to get my camera he pulled a disappearing act. Now I know these guys can't run very fast, and generally don't need to, as a defense, since most creatures run from them, but every time he managed to elude my camera... until now.

This time I just stood in the window and waited, watching him eat. When a car drove by I saw him scurry into my shed. Now he can't really get into my shed like "Oscar" the red squirrel can, but I have a little open addition built on the side of the shed and he ran into that. The addition has three sides, a roof and a floor but is open in the front, and is where I keep trashcans, my wheelbarrow, and such. It appears that he has made a little home for himself among the junk that I have stored there.

I don't know how "Oscar" the red squirrel and "Chubby", the woodchuck that lives under the floor of the addition, feel about their new neighbor, but my shed sure seems to be turning into a wildlife condo. As for myself, I don't think I'm too overly thrilled with the new resident.

I grabbed my digital camera and snuck out onto the back porch and tried to take his picture, but it is a really dark and rainy night, and my camera isn't the greatest, so the first pictures all came out black. I then went back inside and got the 1 million-candlepower spot light I got for myself for Christmas, and went back out on the porch again.

The spot light did the trick, allowing just enough light for him to show up in the pictures. Fortunately I have my back porch wrapped with plywood panels for winter, which afforded me some protection to get these very dangerous shots. It's funny how long I just stood there with the spotlight trained on him, snapping pictures, and he really didn't seem to care, at times getting within 15 feet of me, of course he knew he wasn't the one in peril.

He hasn't sprayed yet or at least I haven't smelled him, but I'm sure he's a "fully capable skunk" so I guess I'm going to have to be a lot more careful when leaving and coming home now. The shadows thrown off by my porch seem a lot more ominous now, maybe holding unseen dangers.

The only thing left to do now is come up with a name for him... Pepe is just too un-original...

Plant a Tree... Save the World...

2007-01-01T07:37:00.000-05:00

TREES ABSORB CARBON DIOXIDE.

CARBON DIOXIDE IS THE GAS THAT CAUSES GLOBAL WARMING.

PLANT A TREE...SAVE THE WORLD...

I don't know how I can make it any clearer. It's early morning, the sun is just rising on this New Years day 2007 and it's a balmy 50 degrees F. and raining outside when it should be 20 degrees with 2 feet of snow on the ground.

We are deforesting our planet, killing off the one thing that can save us. There is no more time for argument and debate, because while people talk, the temperature is rising.

In 2006 I managed to plant 22 trees in my yard and have many more in my "tree bed" waiting to go in this year. Here are some tree facts for you taken from the Colorado Tree Coalition.

Carbon Sequestration:

· Heat from Earth is trapped in the atmosphere due to high levels of carbon dioxide (CO₂) and other heat-trapping gases that prohibit it from releasing heat into space -- creating a phenomenon known as the "greenhouse effect." Trees remove (sequester) CO₂ from the atmosphere during photosynthesis to form carbohydrates that are used in plant structure/function and return oxygen back to the atmosphere as a byproduct. About half of the greenhouse effect is caused by CO₂. Trees therefore act as a carbon sink by removing the carbon and storing it as cellulose in their trunk, branches, leaves and roots while releasing oxygen back into the air.

· Trees also reduce the greenhouse effect by shading our homes and office buildings. This reduces air conditioning needs up to 30%, thereby reducing the amount of fossil fuels burned to produce electricity. This combination of CO₂ removal from the atmosphere, carbon storage in wood, and the cooling effect makes trees a very efficient tool in fighting the greenhouse effect.

· One tree that shades your home in the city will also save fossil fuel, cutting CO₂ buildup as much as 15 forest trees.

· Approximately 800 million tons of carbon are stored in U.S. urban forests with a $22 billion equivalent in control costs.

· Planting trees remains one of the cheapest, most effective means of drawing excess CO₂ from the atmosphere.

· A single mature tree can absorb carbon dioxide at a rate of 48 lbs./year and release enough oxygen back into the atmosphere to support 2 human beings.

· Each person in the U.S. generates approximately 2.3 tons of CO₂ each year. A healthy tree stores about 13 pounds of carbon annually -- or 2.6 tons per acre each year. An acre of trees absorbs enough CO₂over one year to equal the amount produced by driving a car 26,000 miles. An estimate of carbon emitted per vehicle mile is between 0.88 lb. CO₂/mi. – 1.06 lb. CO₂/mi. (Nowak, 1993). Thus, a car driven 26,000 miles will emit between 22,880 lbs CO₂ and 27,647 lbs. CO₂. Thus, one acre of tree cover in Brooklyn can compensate for automobile fuel use equivalent to driving a car between 7,200 and 8,700 miles.

· If every American family planted just one tree, the amount of CO₂ in the atmosphere would be reduced by one billion lbs annually. This is almost 5% of the amount that human activity pumps into the atmosphere each year.

· The U.S. Forest Service estimates that all the forests in the United States combined sequestered a net of approximately 309 million tons of carbon per year from 1952 to 1992, offsetting approximately 25% of U.S. human-caused emissions of carbon during that period.

· Over a 50-year lifetime, a tree generates $31,250 worth of oxygen, provides $62,000 worth of air pollution control, recycles $37,500 worth of water, and controls $31,250 worth of soil erosion.

If you live in an apartment or don't have any place to plant a tree here are some people at AmericanForests.org that will plant trees for you.

Please try to make it your New Years Resolution to help do something about this environmental catastrophe that is going on all around us.

Christmas Festivities and Such...

2006-12-25T20:50:00.000-05:00

Thursday I was invited to my best friend "Jul's" house for their family Christmas dinner get-together. It was very nice of them to include me in with their family. They had an unusual Christmas Eve afternoon dinner and present opening. Since both her and her husband's children (from previous marriages) are pretty much grown up, with some moved out, they had many family dinners to contend with, which prompted the afternoon dinner. I've known "Jul" since we were 15, and to tell you the truth, cooking has never been one of her strong points (she'll admit that). Still she put on a pretty good spread with a nice holiday ham, though I did have to give her a hard time, telling her "I half expected fish sticks". I love her dearly.

I went and had Christmas dinner today at my first ex-wife's house with my son, and it was very nice. It's really a good thing that her and I can manage to get along so well, even after the divorce.

I think she liked the gift I bought her because she laughed when she opened it. I always bought her traditional gifts every year, along with the other stuff I bought for her, and every year she would get a large sampler pack of a particular brand of candy. I ran across it when I was out shopping and wondered if she would remember. I told her before she opened it "she would probably recognize it". I think she liked it.

My son did insist on picking me up off of the ground again, though I was a little worried that he would hurt his back, he did manage get me up in the air a little bit. This is no easy task as I am around... ahem... 220 pounds or so (it's been awhile since I weighed myself, ok)... He has his learners permit now and I got to ride with him to the store for the first time. We went in his mother's standard, and though it got a little "wonky" going around one corner shifting into second, he still did a very fine job. It amazes me how fast he's grown up and turned into a fine young man.

Yes, all in all, a very nice Christmas indeed...

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And yet another stolen meme, this time from Kimber's Blog...I'm feeling more and more like "the Grinch" all the time...hehehe...

1. Hot Chocolate or Egg Nog? Egg Nog, Egg Nog, and more Egg Nog.

2. Does Santa wrap presents or just sit them under the tree? Always Wrapped.

3. Colored lights on tree/house or white? Colored Lights.

4. Do you hang mistletoe? Nope.

5. When do you put your decorations up? Usually Thanksgiving weekend.

6. What is your favorite holiday dish? The Green bean Mushroom Soup Casserole with the onion thingy's (that's what they call it right?)

7. Favorite Holiday memory? One year (as a teenager) I opened the door to my bedroom in the morning and my mother had "saran wrapped" me into my room. The next year she used wrapping paper that had a brick pattern on it to "brick" me into my room. Of course at that age I didn't really care much about Christmas, preferring to sleep in until noon instead, but she got a kick out of it.

8. When and how did you learn the truth about Santa? To tell you the truth, I can't really remember, but then again that was some time ago.

9. Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve? Most years' one gift was allowed.

10. How do you decorate your Christmas tree? I always liked the hodge-podge look with all different kinds of decorations.

11. Snow! Love it or Dread it? I wouldn't say I love it, but some for Christmas would be nice.

12. Can you ice skate? Oh yes, I used to love playing hockey on the local ponds, but I couldn't play defenseman because I could never manage to learn to skate backwards.

13. Do you remember your favorite gift? Probably the Bowie Knife my father got for me.

14. What's the most important thing? Family.

15. What is your favorite Holiday Dessert? Pumpkin Pie with lots of cool whip.

16. What is your favorite holiday tradition? Our non-traditional, traditional Christmas dinner...Steak and Shrimp.

17. What tops your tree? A star that belonged to my father.

18. Which do you prefer giving or receiving? Ok, I'll admit it, I love opening presents.

19. What is your favorite Christmas Song? "We Three Kings", I always enjoyed hitting the bass notes on that one.

20. Candy canes, Yuck or Yum? Yuck, I've never been much of a candy person.

Christmas Wish List...

2006-12-25T10:15:00.000-05:00

On this Christmas morning I have a few Christmas wishes for my Blogger Friends. These are wishes that I could not possible make come true, But I will wish for them just the same...

Spider Girl - For her I wish a Magic Carpet that will take her off to all the exotic lands she desires to see.

Tai - That she may sprout wings so she can fly and never come down.

Wolfgirl - The only thing any mother really wants, health and happiness for little Zoe.

Tenacious T - Finally finds her perfect place in this world.

Liz - Hawaii elects her empress of the islands where she may spend the rest of her days on her thrown being served avocados on silver trays by buff Hawaiian men.

Claire - Finds that which she seeks.

Hope - She finds her muse again.

Pobble - smiles, smiles and more smiles.

Enid - The cure for Sarah.

Gnightgirl - The military, in its infinite wisdom, decides her son's platoon should go protect Greenland instead.

Lynda - The cure she seeks.

Spider Walk - Finds the path through her troubling times.

Andyt - Always finds the next day easier than the last.

And for everyone else I hope this Christmas brings you your fondest desire...

A Christmas Meme...

2006-12-23T20:41:00.000-05:00

In the spirit of Christmas I stole this Christmas meme from Lynda's site, I hope you enjoy it...

1. Wrapping paper or gift bags? I'm definitely a bag person, so to speak.

2. Real tree or artificial? I have an artificial tree that I bought about twenty years ago. It was a really nice one and very expensive at the time. All the limbs are hand wrapped so it doesn't look like a bottlebrush type tree. It turned out to be a very good investment, I don't think I'll ever have to buy another tree.

3. When do you put up the tree? I didn't get it down out of the attic this year, but normally it goes up Thanksgiving weekend.

4. When do you take the tree down? Usually the weekend after Christmas.

5. Do you like eggnog? My son and I are both egg-nog-aholics. A long time ago I used to have a really good recipe for making it from scratch and would make it all year long.

6. Favorite gift received as a child? A hardbound copy of "My side of the Mountain".

7. Do you have a nativity scene? No, not really.

8. Hardest person to buy for? I never have any problems coming up with gifts for anyone.

9. Easiest person to buy for? Me.

10. Mail or email Christmas cards? E-Mail.

11. Worst Christmas gift you ever received? Sweaters, people buy me sweaters though they have never seen me wear one, I don't know why.

12. Favorite Christmas movie? "The Grinch who stole Christmas" (the old animated version).

13. When do you start shopping for Christmas? I always thought the 23rd wasn't too early to start.

14. Have you ever recycled a Christmas present? Never.

15. Favorite thing to eat at Christmas? Busted...I made a whole tray of deviled eggs today just for myself...hehehe.

16. Clear lights or colored on the tree? Colored.

17. Favorite Christmas song? "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch" which my friend "N" and I would always sing at Karaoke around this time. During the entire song we would keep trying to crack each other up.

18. Travel at Christmas or stay home? Stay home. To me Christmas is all about being home.

19. Can you name all of Santa's reindeers? Yea, all I have to do is sing the song.

20. Angel on the treetop or a star? A star.

21. Open the presents Christmas Eve or morning? Christmas morning.

22. Most annoying thing about this time of year? Lines in stores.

23. What would you like for Christmas? Would the Penguins making the playoffs be too much to ask?

A Little Christmas...

2006-12-21T20:49:00.000-05:00

Merry Christmas to all and to all a Good Night!...

Yes this is my Christmas tree...Sort of a Bonsai Christmas Tree with a little bit of Charlie Brown thrown in for a good measure... Certainly not ostentatious by any means, instead delicate and understated just the way I like it...Ok, Ok, so I didn't go to town on decorating, so shoot me...No, I didn't get up to the attic to get my tree out, and it's not like you can really overload a little Bonsai tree like this with ornaments anyways, but at least it got the ornament on it that was most important...

I did want to wish all my friends a Very Merry Christmas and I truly hope you receive all that you could ever ask for this Christmas...

Peace
Dagoth

Man vs. Wild

2006-12-16T09:53:00.000-05:00

Have I mentioned before that I am somewhat of a survivalist? Being such, I enjoy watching all things having to do with the subject. Lately I have been watching a show on the Discovery Channel called "Man vs. Wild" that I really felt had to be mentioned. I know this kind of show isn't for everyone but if you are going anywhere near the wilderness there are some things about basic survival you should learn first.

A young British fellow, by the name of "Bear Grylls" (yes that's Bear), hosts this show, and puts himself out in different locals, where people may get stranded, and then tries to survive and escape the area.

He's definitely not the first person to do a show like this but I've found his show to be much more interesting than some others I have seen. At first I thought he was nothing more than a thrill seeker (he may still be that) but after watching half a dozen shows or so, I've come to the conclusion that he's really willing to "take it to the edge", and his survival techniques are sound, though at times quite extreme. Surviving in the wild often requires that you do some extreme things.

In last nights show he parachuted (he usually parachutes into the area he is going to survive in) into the African Savannah and worked at surviving the native wildlife while trying to find his way out. During the show he came across a zebra carcass that had been killed by lions and fed on by vultures. I was quite impressed when he proceeded to cut and eat raw meat off of the carcass with his knife and sometimes tearing at it with his teeth. In another part of the show he passes up drinking water from a stagnant pool where he finds a dead turtle, deeming that the water was unfit to drink, but later finds some elephant dung that he then squeezes the "fluid" out of, into his mouth, and drinks that. From my point of view the stagnant water seemed much more appealing. Yes this show can get quite gross at times, but I'm still very impressed at the lengths he's willing to go to, not only to survive, but also to make a television documentary.

Many people get lost in the wilderness each year with very little to survive on, and almost no knowledge of what they need to do to survive. This show, though at times gross, gives a lot of good information on just what you should do if you find yourself in just such a situation. So far I have seen "Bear" survive in the Moab Dessert,Sierra Nevada Mt. Range, Costa Rican Rain Forest, Mt. Kilauea Lava Fields, European Alps and African Savannah all of which are places where people get lost in every year and don't survive. The outcome, for these people, could have been different had they just a little bit of training on survival in the area they were venturing into. Most of these techniques have been handed down through the generations from our distant ancestors who used them in every day life in order to survive and allow our society to rise to the level it has. The vast majority of people in our society could not survive without their grocery stores and taxi cabs, yet they still go on vacations, and get lost, in these areas wholly unprepared for what can await them.

"Man vs. Wild" airs on the Discovery Channel on Friday nights at 9:00 pm EST (and also some other times). They also have a very good Website that has survival techniques, videos and lots of other information about surviving in the wilderness. The website also includes many video highlights from the show and information and videos from other survival experts such as "Les Stroud" ("Survivorman", one of my other favorite shows) and "Ross Mcfaden". You can find out more about "Bear Grylls" at his Website, which includes information about some of the other adventures he's filled his life with. He has lived a very interesting life for such a young man, which includes climbing Mt. Everest at 23, being in the British Special Forces, going through the French Foreign Legion Basic Training ("Escape to the Legion" documentary on the Military Channel which is how I discovered him) and being a Black Belt.

Next weeks show he is in an Alaskan Mountain Range and being confronted with having to cross a glacier, he chooses to go "under" it! I think I may just be able to tune in to see that...

Spreading some Christmas Cheer...

2006-12-12T20:51:00.000-05:00

I was always disapointed at Christmas, every year I only asked Santa for one thing and he never came through. All I wanted was his "Naughty Girls List", but you think he would give it to me... nooooo... what did he need it for after Christmas anyways...

I always figured he was the guy to go to since he was always walking around saying, "Hoe. Hoe. Hoe!"...

Which brings me to a naughty Christmas joke for you...

Santa was visiting Jessica Simpson's house one Christmas eve when Jessica came into the living room in her nighty. Removing it she said in a very sexy voice, "Santa won't you please stay the night".

To which Santa replied, "Ho, Ho, Ho, gotta go".

So Jessica removed her bra and said again, "Santa won't you please stay the night."

Santa once again said, "Ho, Ho, Ho, gotta go!"

Finally Jessica removed her panties and desperately said, "Santa won't you please stay the night!"

Santa seeing her stark naked replied, "Hey, Hey, Hey, gotta stay, can't get up the chimney with my pecker this way"....

Here's hoping Christmas brings you lots of smiles...

Don't read this post before operating machinery...

2006-12-10T07:14:00.000-05:00

Since this post is about everything you never wanted to know about heating your home with a pellet stove, I suggest you read this just before going to bed, as it may help you to get to sleep.

Well today is going to be pellet stove cleaning day. In some of my previous posts I've mentioned that I heat my home with a pellet stove and though this does save me money, it also comes with a price to be paid. Regular cleaning of the stove is necessary in order to keep it running well,and depending on how well it's running, determines how often you have to clean it, kind of a "pellet stove paradox" (making a mundane thing sound important).

Pellet stoves run on pellets made of compressed sawdust. This sawdust is a byproduct of the wood industry, and there was a time before pellet stoves, when they would have to dispose of the sawdust, but now it can be used to heat your home. Being that I am a tree hugger, and not a big fan of the wood industry, you might think this odd that I would heat my home in such a manor, but I figure if you are going to cut down the tree anyways, you might as well use all of it.

These pellets look like nothing more than rabbit food. They come on a skid of fifty, forty-pound bags (one ton) and do require a little work moving the bags around depending on the set-up you have. The skids of pellets come with a giant black "garbage bag" over them and are then wrapped in plastic wrap to keep them dry. As long as the bag and plastic wrap are intact, they can sit outside in the elements and not get wet. After I remove the wrapping on a skid, I move the bags up onto my covered porch to keep them dry. If the pellets get wet they will expand and be ruined. It's not as bad as it sounds, moving a ton of pellets, I can do it in about twenty minutes, which is the other job I have to do today.

The place where I buy them delivers them with a large flatbed truck that has a forklift hooked on the back. This forklift is lowered to the ground and the driver will put the skids of pellets anywhere you want them. It's an unusual forklift in that it is three wheeled and the wheels are more like big "mudder" tires with tractor tire treads, this allows the forklift to drive through just about anything, so they can even be delivered in the winter and not tear up your lawn too much.

My pellet stove has a large hopper in the back that will hold about three bags of pellets. It feeds the pellets down into a burn-pot where the pellets are ignited and burned. The burnt ash is then blown out of the burn-pot by the air coming in through the air intake pipe that comes in through the back of the stove and hooks into the burn-pot holder. The burn-pot has little holes in it that allow the air to blow through, expelling the burned ash, which then falls down into a removable ash pan. This ash pan has a gap around it where the soot and smoke are sucked through and the exhaust then flows through a damper, past an exhaust fan, and vents out through a pipe that goes out through my exterior wall (yawning yet?)

The stove is about seven years old and doesn't run as well as it used to. I had to replace the seals around the door and the exhaust fan this year. These stoves are much more finicky than wood burning stoves in that there cannot be any air leaks around any of the openings in the stove. If there is, the stove will suck in air through the leaks and not through the intake pipe, which will stop the ash from blowing out of the burn-pot, and the pellets will start backing up out of the pot and the whole thing just stops burning correctly. Also if there is an air leak around the exhaust blower, the soot will "stay" in the stove, turning everything black and clogging up the exhaust.

I have to clean out the ash anywhere from three days, if it's not burning right, to a month, if it is burning well, but I haven't had it last a month since it was new. Right now it has been burning for about two weeks, the ash pan is full and the ash is filling up the bottom of the burn chamber and creeping up the side of the burn-pot holder. I have had it fill up with ash to the point where it's right up to the edge of the burn-pot, but I don't like to let it go that long (eyes getting heavy yet?)

I found out last year that the stove I was sold is defective. While talking to the owner of the store where I bought it (he has the same stove in his home) that there were supposed to be "tracks" in the bottom of the stove that the ash pan slides into, but my stove was apparently built without them. These tracks hold the ash pan up off of the bottom plate allowing the soot to vent out around the pan. The only reason my stove ran at all, was there is a weld seam near the ash pan and there is some weld slag (drops of weld) on the bottom plate that the pan sits on, holding it up just enough to let the soot out. Over time these weld droplets have worn off so the ash pan is sitting directly on the plate and there is no gap for the soot to get out. The company I bought the stove from wouldn't do anything about it since the stove is so old and out of warranty, so I fixed it by jamming two washers under the pan to hold it up and allow the exhaust to vent out.

Cleaning involves shutting the stove down and sucking all the ash and soot out of the stove with a shop-vac and also cleaning out the exhaust pipe with a brush on a long pole (just like a chimney sweep, but it's only 4 feet long). There is also some hard carbon build up on the burn-pot that I have to bust off with a hammer and chisel because this build up starts to close off the holes in the burn pot that allows the air in. This can be a very messy job but it isn't as bad as cleaning a wood burning stove, or so I'm told. It takes about two hours to clean everything after you let the stove cool down for an hour.

With the extra work involved and the mess, pellet stoves aren't for everyone. I don't mind the work involved with one of these, and they certainly aren't as convenient as heating with gas. I burn about 5 tons during the worst winters and less if it's not as cold. I had 1 ton left over from last year and bought 4 more tons for this year at $230 a ton (you can get them cheaper if you buy in the spring), with delivery it cost me $1018 (you can also save money if you have a truck and go get them yourself). I know heating this house with gas would cost a lot more, as I have had months like January when the gas bill ran upwards of $400 by itself. The price of pellets has gone up a lot since I bought the stove. When the price of natural gas went up, a lot of people put in pellet stoves, creating a shortage of pellets and driving the price up. I like knowing that my heating bills for the winter are already paid in advance and there are no big surprise gas bills to deal with.

One of the big drawbacks with heating this way is that the heat is not even throughout the house, with it being very hot in the room with the stove, and cooler in the rooms that are farther away from the stove. I do love being able to sit in front of the fire on those cold winter mornings, drinking my coffee, and it's great to stand in front of the stove and warm up after you come in out of the cold. I have a rocking chair in front of the stove, and the heat, and the "hum" that the stove makes, can put you to sleep very quickly, just like this post has done for you....

Return of the Zombies...

2006-12-02T12:19:00.000-05:00

I've spent most of the day just playing with my blog (they said I'd go blind if I did that, but I'm ok, I did it just until I needed glasses). I updated my template to the new blogger layout. Even though it looks like the old template, it has all the new blogger features, which I have been messing around with.

I found some new ones for changing fonts and colors in different parts of the template, so you might notice this looks a little different than it did before, even if it looks the same.

It didn't seem to like the old code for my Flickr Badge or my Frappr Map so I went to their sites and got new code and they seem to be working fine.

It also has a gui for putting your links into your side bar, but it puts the first one you put in at the bottom of the list, which is kinda backwards from how I think it should work. It will allow you to order them in alphabetical order or in reverse alphabetical order with the flick of a switch, which is nice for people who like to order their links.

I really wish they would add some more fonts even though a font only works if the person viewing the page has the font stored in their computer. You would think we could manage more than eight...

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I stole this meme from Tai's Blog a while back and said I would do it, but it sort of got lost in time. So there, now I've done it, even if it is a little late...

1. You can press a button that will make any one person explode. Who would you blow up? Gary Bettman the NHL commissioner. I never forgave him for changing the division and conference names. "Because us hockey fans are just too ignorant to remember those old complicated names"...

2. You can flip a switch that will wipe any band or musical artist out of existence. Which one will it be? Michael Jackson..."nuff said!"...

3. Who would you really like to just punch in the face? Ok, so I'm not much about hitting girls, but that girl on the timeshares commercial with the facial expressions, just to stop her face from doing that...

4. What is your favorite cheese? Muenster.

5. You can only have one kind of sandwich. Every sandwich ingredient known to humankind is at your immediate disposal. What kind will you make? Any sandwich as long as the bread is absolutely fresh and soft.

6. You have the opportunity to sleep with the movie celebrity of your choice. We are talking no-strings-attached sex and it can only happen once. Who is the lucky celebrity of your choice? Celebrities have never really done much for me, they just seem like people doing a job. I suppose if I have to pick one it would probably be Jeri Ryan...

7. You have the opportunity to sleep with the music-celebrity of your choice. Who do you pick? Lorrie Morgan...

8. Now that you've slept with two different people in a row, you seem to be having an excellent day because you just came across a hundred-dollar bill on the sidewalk. Holy shit, a hundred bucks! How are you gonna spend it? I'd probably add it to what I'm spending on my son for Christmas...

9. You just got a free plane ticket to anywhere. You have to depart right now. Where are you gonna go? With winter setting in Fiji sounds good right about now...

10. Upon arrival to the aforementioned location, you get off the plane and discover another hundred-dollar bill. Shit! Now that you are in the new location, what are you gonna do? In Fiji I'd spend it on an outrigger canoe and fishing nets so I wouldn't have to come back...

11. An angel appears out of Heaven and offers you a lifetime supply of the alcoholic beverage of your choice. It is...? This would probably be better if I actually drank...

12. Rufus appears out of nowhere with a time-traveling phone booth. You can go anytime in the PAST. What time are you traveling to and what are you going to do when you get there? April 19, 2004 and take a little car ride.

13. You discover a beautiful island upon which you may build your own society. You make the rules. What is the first rule you put into place? Everyone goes nekkid!...

14. You have been given the opportunity to create the half-hour TV show of your own design. What is it called and what's the premise? Can't think of a thing.

15. What is your favorite curse word? Pecker head...

16. One night you wake up because you heard a noise. You turn on the light to find that you are surrounded by MUMMIES. The mummies aren't really doing anything, they're just standing around your bed. What do you do? As if this hasn't happened before, I invite them back to bed. What does it matter if they had children before anyways?...

17. Your house is on fire, holy shit! You have just enough time to run in there and grab ONE inanimate object. Don't worry, your loved ones and pets have already made it out safely.So what's the item? My little calendar thingy with the feet that my son gave me...

18. The Angel of Death has descended upon you. Fortunately, the Angel of Death is pretty cool and in a good mood, and it offers you a half-hour to do whatever you want before you bite it. Whatcha gonna do in that half-hour? Go buy a gun and shoot the angel of death...

19. You accidentally eat some radioactive vegetables. They were good, and what's even cooler is that they endow you with the super-power of your choice! What's it gonna be? I'm able to communicate with all the wild animals and I lead them in a revolt to destroy the humans that are wrecking the planet...

20. You can re-live any point of time in your life. The time-span can only be a half-hour, though. What half-hour of your past would you like to experience again? Snuggling in bed with "J"...

21. You can erase any horrible experience from your past. What will it be? (the answer "nothing" doesn't count) If I have to answer this then you haven't been reading my blog...

22. You got kicked out of the country for being a time-traveling heathen who sleeps with celebrities and has super-powers. But check out this cool shit... you can move to anywhere else in the world! Bitchin'! What country are you going to live in now? Fiji would be nice, but I already mentioned that...

23. This question still counts, even for those of you who are under age. Check it out. You have been eternally banned from every single bar in the world except for ONE. Which one is it gonna be? Since I don't go to bars this one is easy. I pick my ex-bar since I wouldn't go there anyways...

24. Hopefully you didn't mention this in the super-powers question.... If you did, then we'll just expand on that. Check it out... Suddenly, you have gained the ability to FLOAT!!! Whose house are you going to float to first, and be like "Dude, check it out... I can FLOAT!"?. The Dalai Lamas house just to show him I could...

25. The constant absorption of magical moonbeams mixed with the radioactive vegetables you consumed earlier has given you the ability to resurrect the dead famous-person of your choice. So which celebrity will you bring back to life? Carl Sagan...

26. The Celestial Gates of Beyond have opened, much to your surprise because you didn't think such a thing existed. Death appears. As it turns out, Death is actually a pretty cool entity, and happens to be in a fantastic mood. Death offers to return the friend/family-member/person, etc. of your choice to the living world. Who will you bring back? See answer #21...

27. What's your theme song? "Whipping Post" The Allman Brothers Band...

Leftovers

2006-11-26T08:09:00.000-05:00

Well Turkey Day has come and gone and now the only thing left to do is eat the leftovers.

As it turns out, I didn't have my T-day feast all to myself, as I stated in my last post. All last week a fellow that I work with kept claiming that "he and his wife would be over Thanksgiving day to share in my feast", I thought he was just joking. So wasn't I surprised when there was a knock at my back door, Thursday, just as I sat down with my first plate. I had jokingly told him "the turkey would be done around 1:00 and the could show up any time around there." I really never thought they would actually show up though.

He and I have worked together a long time and are always joking around, so I really never took him seriously. Fortunately I made enough food to feed an army so there wasn't any problem there, and all the food turned out good, in my opinion, so all went well. He said that "since I had ran a restaurant before, I had better be able to cook" and though this is a little different than cooking bar food, it's well within my capabilities. I grew up on a farm, with a mother who worked full time, so I learned early on the art of cooking, which has always been something I have really enjoyed. I can remember my brother and I going out and collecting blackberries and creating blackberry pies with them, or going fishing in the morning and returning to cook them up for our lunch. Often making breakfast meant going out and collecting the eggs from the chickens first, so I learned my way around a kitchen at a very young age. Unfortunately many men never learn how to cook, and my friend is no exception, claiming that "he would starve if not for his wife feeding him", of which I have no doubt.

It was very nice to have some company for dinner for a change, and of course not wanting to come empty handed they brought me a Pomegranate. Now this may seem like a strange thing to bring, but during our many conversations I believe that I mentioned that I had never tried one before, so now I guess I am going to have to try this thing before I go back to work because I'm sure he will ask how I liked it.

So if you ask me what I'm thankful for on this holiday weekend, it would have to be "friends that don't let you eat alone." Though had I really believed that they were coming I would have made more biscuits and started the pumpkin pie sooner...

Celebrations of Life...

2006-11-21T20:13:00.000-05:00

Hey You...

I want to thank everyone for their heartfelt sentiments and support for my last post, and to let everyone know that I'm doing ok. I really dreaded that day coming again this year, as last year was so very, very bad. This year I did handle it better, having learned to distract myself and "stay out of my own head", which seems to be the best way for me to "keep my balance" these days. I did take flowers (carnations, her favorite) and place them at the cross, out at the crash site on Sunday, but I didn't stay long, as that place is still very hard for me to cope with. I know she understands. Time seems to be "doing its thing" for me, even though I still think this has been going on for far too long. I don't know if I'll ever be totally over it...

I want to wish everyone a very happy "Turkey Day." Even though Halloween is my favorite holiday, Thanksgiving comes in a close second. You have to admit if there were a holiday made just for guys, Thanksgiving would be it. First you stuff yourself with massive quantities of food, then you snooze on the couch, drinking beers (not me though) and watching football games (of which they've added a third one this year). What could be more in tune with any mans expectations of a perfect day. I believe they added "Black Friday" just to make it up to the womenfolk for all the work they do on Thanksgiving while the men are absorbed with their debaucheries. I went to the store on Saturday and picked out my bird and all the trimmings to go along with it. I only got a small 13.5-pound turkey as I am cooking this massive feast just for me. I was looking for garlic oil to baste the bird in, but the only thing I found was garlic and basil oil, and since I'm not a huge fan of basil, I blew it off. This idea of using garlic oil was something my best friend "Jul" suggested and it sounded pretty good, but since I live in a small town and our grocery store has somewhat limited selections, it was not to be. I guess I'll go back to my tried and true methods for my turkey and look elsewhere for the garlic oil for next year. I also picked up Sweet potatoes, green beans (for the casserole) and a pumpkin pie. The only thing I forgot was the bread for left over turkey sandwiches, which is the real reason for cooking all this food in the first place...

I'm going out to see my son tomorrow, as it is his 17th birthday. My ex, "T1", has invited me over for dinner like she did last year. She has a funny way of inviting you for dinner. When I talked to her on the phone she said, "are you coming over for dinner", to which I said, "Yes, cook for me woman!" It wasn't like I was going to just invite myself over for dinner. It appears that my son is all grown up now, this year for his birthday all he wants is "cash". I think the first time they ask for that you know they have changed...

Miss You...

2006-11-15T19:27:00.000-05:00

J.A.S. 1/30/69 - 11/19/04

"I Never would have opened up but you seem so real to me"...
"I don't have to pretend"...
"I believe this is heaven to me, to no one else but me and I'll defend it long as I can"...
"But I love the way you smile at me. I love the way your hands reach out and hold me near"...

I Love You and miss you always.

Blogger Beta Revealed

2006-11-11T09:26:00.000-05:00

Up until now there has been one very large issue with switching over to Blogger Beta. We were not able to post a comment on an old blogger site with our new Blogger Beta ID and password. I've discovered that we can though; there is just a little trick to it.

If you go to an old blogger site and try to post a comment by putting your new Blogger Beta ID and password directly into the comment section, it won't work, giving you an error saying your ID is not recognized. The old blogger comment section won't take your new Beta ID and password, but if you go and log into your Blogger Beta dashboard with your new ID and then go to someone's old blogger site, when you go to leave a comment, it will post it without even asking for your ID and password. The idea is to be logged into the server first, then go to people's sites and comment.

I am very close to the point where I am going to blow off the Old Blogger site and just start using my Blogger Beta site. This last week with all the problems the Old Blogger servers had, has pretty much convinced me. While the Old Blogger was down quite often, the new Blogger Beta, on it's new servers, was chugging right along with no problems (in fact right now the Blogger Beta let me post this while the Old Blogger won't even let me log in). I'm not saying that there are no problems left with Blogger Beta, there are still is some issues with mobile blogging, team blogging, and if you need a dashboard in any language other than English, French, Italian, German or Spanish, but most the other bugs seem to have been worked out.

The new Blogger Beta does have some nice new features like being able to categorize your posts by adding "Labels". The new templates (though there are only about 8 of them that look like the old ones) have a nice GUI feature for adding sections to your sidebar easily. My Blogger Beta site, Dagoth's Domain, is an old template and does not have this feature but my Blogger Beta Site, Dagoth's Board Room, is one of the new templates and does have this feature.

There may still be some problems with posting a comment on a Blogger Beta site that has its security features turned on. If you have an anti-spyware filter running, the secure site wants to put a tracking cookie on your computer before it will allow you to comment and your anti-spyware software won't allow this. The ant-spyware could be shut off temporarily, allowing you to comment, and then turned back on removing the cookie afterwards. I presently have an email out to the Blogger Support Team asking them about this issue and a few others, hopefully they will get back to me soon.

Since I have been running dual sites I haven't heard of anyone having problems posting comments (other than the issues the blogger server had the other week) on either of my sites and have had some people posting on both. Having two identical sites has caused a little confusion which is why I am thinking about ending this practice. I would really be interested in hearing what you think, is it time to switch?

Games! Did someone say games?!?

2006-11-06T19:04:00.000-05:00

In my previous post, Household Pictorial Challenge, I showed the chessboard that I acquired down in Mexico, as one of my favorite objects. After seeing it, Blogger AndyT, who found my site through Gnightgirl (the post was her challenge), challenged me to a game of online chess. Never being one to turn down a game, and since it has been sooooo very long since I've had the opportunity to play, I accepted his challenge. So to facilitate said game, I have started a new blog, Dagoth's Board Room, where I will be posting pictures of our game and play-by-play.

Mind you, neither of us claims to be Grand Masters or anything like that. It just seems like it might be a lot of fun. I've always loved the game, though many people find it boring. I remember many games in my life, many wins and many losses, all of which were a great deal of fun. I especially remember one weekend when my father, my brother and his wife, and myself were snowed in, inside my small apartment. They came to visit just before a raging blizzard set in, and were trapped there. We entertained ourselves for three days, by having non-stop chess tournaments from morning till night. It was one of the worst blizzards that I can remember, with nothing moving outside except for snowmobiles. How better to entertain ourselves than to get two chessboards going, with winners playing winners. I couldn't begin to tell you how many games we played that weekend, but by the time the snow let up we had played so many games there was no way to tell who the overall winner was, and for that matter, it didn't seem to make much difference to any of us, anyways.

I hope you all will stop in to the new site and check out how the game is going, and don't be shy to comment. Though AndyT and I both agree that no kibitzing is allowed. I don't know how long this game will last, though we have agreed to try to make at least one move per day. As I have never played an online game before this should be quite interesting. I will be posting one picture for every two moves in order to try and save bandwidth. So I would just like to say good luck to AndyT, though I expect that any chess player would say lucks got nothing to do with it...Let the games begin!

Household Pictorial Challenge

2006-11-01T20:01:00.000-05:00

This post was inspired by Gnightgirl's Household Pictorial Challenge wherein she asked that we would find a few items around our house that have special meaning to us and post pictures and talk about them...ya know, kinda like "show-n-tell" in school, the only subject I got straight A's in...yea yea, right...so here goes...

First of all we have the "Dragon Banner" I have had this banner for quite a few years now and I always say "Wherever this banner flies, that is my home". It has flown in more places in the last few years than I expected and whenever I move into a new place one of the first things I do is hang this banner...

This small pouch that I acquired down in Mexico contains some items that are very special to me, it has; 2 small stones, one from the ruins at Chichen Itza and one from the walled city of Talum (stones NOT from the ruins themselves), it has my two wedding rings from both my marriages (ok kinda strange), and most important the Lothlorian Broach from the Lord of the Rings that is pinned on the outside of the pouch that my girlfriend "J" gave me for my Halloween costume when I went as Legolas...

These are just a few of the dragons that I collect. I haven't quite found homes for them yet, but I will as soon as I build some of the shelves I have planned for my house...

This is my favorite chess set that we got at the flea market in Cancun. It features the Spanish Conquistadors versus the Aztecs and is really a lovely piece. It only has one problem; it's never been played on. There is something a little sad about a chess set that has never been played before but I hope to change that soon...behind it you can see my Samurai Swords which are also one of my favorite things...

This Oriental Lantern is a strange object that I have had since I was about 7 years old. I found it at an old junkyard where my friends and I would go to scavenge "good junk" when we were kids. It's an item that seems bound and determined to travel with me on my entire journey through life...

And finally this Oriental Fan that doesn't really fit into the rules of the Household Pictorial Challenge, because I just received it today. At work we have an Engineer visiting from one of our sister companies in China and he gave out presents to people in our department who have been helping train him. It's just very lovely so I thought I would include it. Now I just have to find a good place to hang it...

Halloweenage

2006-10-28T11:33:00.000-05:00

Happy Halloween boys and girls! As you can see by the picture I finally got my Halloween decorations out. Yes, this is the extent of my Halloween decorating, two little porcelain figurines. Don't let this give you the idea that I don't like Halloween, in fact it's by far my favorite holiday and as far as I'm concerned you could get rid of all the other holidays and just make Halloween last a month. I'm just not much of a decorator, unlike some other bloggers that I could mention. So I've decided to decorate my blog with these two figurines as well and also put on my Halloween costume in my profile pic. This costume that Spidey and I call "The Dargon" has seen many Halloweens and many variations (this one is Voodoo Dargon) and will always be my favorite of all the costumes I have worn because I love and collect dragons.

It has not always been the case that I have not decorated extravagantly for Halloween. I remember a few years ago when we nailed a Blair Witch effigy to the front of the house, hit it with an inverted pentagram laser, used our karaoke equipment to blast loud scary music out the windows, used our fog machine to lay down a good ground fog, and had a fire barrel burning in the front yard. We buried my friend "N" in a pile of leaves and he would jump out every time some little goblins would come by. My stepson would come running out from behind the house revving a gas powered weed whacker (we didn't have a chainsaw), the rest of us hid behind the bushes lying in wait to give the little munchkins a good scare. The children that were brave enough to come to the door received their well-earned rewards, but you know you've done well when you see kids running past your house in terror, too afraid to stop even with the temptation of getting candy.

The only sad comment I have on Halloween is the number of children that I get here seems to be way down from what it once was. This small town that I live in has never produced the high numbers of kids that some other places that I have lived has. Last year I only got 23 children (yes, I keep track), which is a lot less than I remember coming on previous years. It's possible that the low numbers were caused by the fact that my house had been empty for nearly a year and I had moved in a mere two weeks before Halloween. I tend to think that the more likely reason for the low turn out is because my neighborhood seems to be "growing older", with most of the children I see being teenagers, too old to be as "uncool" as to dress up and go out trick-or-treating. I miss my first house that I owned that was at the other end of the county and was in a prime trick-or-treating neighborhood where the children would be bused in by the vanload and I would receive upwards of 300 children. At that place, even with the worst weather, like we had one year, with sleet, snow and rain, we received 160 kids. I will still be hopeful that this year there will be a better turnout than last year, but that's not likely to happen if the poor weather we've been having doesn't change soon.

On a different note, I want to apologize for being a.w.o.l. from bloggerland again. The last two weeks have truly been the weeks from hell. I seem to have developed a new trick, "panic attacks", that I have never experienced before, and don't think they are related to my seasonal depression, though I don't know what is causing them. One of these attacks happened while I was at work, which caused my coworkers to send me off to the hospital where I was diagnosed as having "stress induced anxiety attacks". I can't point at any one thing in my life that is more stressful than my life normally is and my best friend seems to think it's all the crap I've gone through in the last couple years finally catching up with me. These have been especially hard on me since I have always said that "I eat stress for lunch" and I have been described as "cool as a mountain lake". I haven't had one in 4 days and I hope I have seen the last of them because they really are quite annoying.

Another unfortunate incident I had the other day was I hit a deer with my van on the way to work in the morning. I was driving across the one dark, lonely road I take every morning when a vehicle coming at me blinded me from the fact that there was a small doe standing in the road. By the time I got hard on the break it was too late and I thumped the deer in the rump, breaking my passenger side headlight and bending the corner of my hood down slightly. I am the kind of person who will swerve to miss animals in the road (I warn people of this when they ride with me) because I believe that critters may not have the intelligence that we have but that they do cherish their life every bit as much as we do, maybe more. This time though with the car in the other lane, her in the road, and another deer on the side of the road, I had nowhere to swerve to. Though I gave her a pretty good smack in the ass, I hope she survived it, as I haven't seen a body along side the road where I hit her. This has been a bad year for hitting animals as denoted by the very first blog I wrote back in April.

I hope you all have a marvelous Halloween filled with goblins and I will try to make it around to everyone's blog to let them know I'm still alive. I'm sorry that this is such a long post but I am making up for two weeks absence and hope to post on a more regular basis now providing everything in my life manages to stay in control.

Declaration of War

2006-10-14T12:00:00.001-05:00

I know the last few weeks I have been fairly absent from bloggerland, and for that I am sorry. I have no excuses for this, it's not like I have been busy doing many important things, and in fact just the opposite has been true. I have spent a lot of time surrounded by the darkness that sets in on me this time of year.

Today I have decided to fight back against the feelings that overwhelm me when the sun goes away. I am very familiar with this battle that I wage every year, and I know what needs done to combat it. Thanks goes out to Liz who reminded me of the light therapy that many people use around here to fight their seasonal depression.

Right now it's the middle of the day and I have every light in the house on, every candle lit and all the blinds open. I'm sure that I'm making the electric company happy with the extreme candlepower that my house is putting out right now. My home is putting out enough radiation to light up a small city and my electric meter is probably spinning fast enough for 5 houses, but if people say "It's better to light one candle than to curse the darkness" then I say "it's better to curse the darkness until it goes away and light every candle you have".

My neighbors may think I'm whacked, having all my lights on in the middle of the day, but I've never put much weight behind "worrying about what others may think of me". Right now I'm doing what is best for me, and if that means drawing more than my fair share out of the electrical grid, than "so be it". I have no more time to hide in the darkness.

Since this depression has set in, I have still been writing posts, I just haven't liked anything that I wrote. I actually have a new folder on my PC called "not posted", that after working many hours on these posts have dumped them into it. I would write for hours, and then edit and re-edit them, but in the end, decided I didn't like them and dumped them in this folder planning to try and fix them later. The problem is right now, in the frame of mind I am in, I don't like anything that I write. A couple weeks ago I would never have done this. No matter what I wrote I would post it and not much worry about whether I liked it or not. Why am I being so critical about my writing now? My friend Boston Pobble put it best when she said, "Post whatever the hell you want. We'll still read". All of my blogger friends are exceptional writers, but I have never once "judged any post that they write as critically as I judge my own", and I know they don't judge me either. I enjoy reading everything they write whether it's a story or just telling me about how their day went. So I have decided to follow my dear friend's advice and post this whether I like it or not. I'm in no mental condition right now to be judging my own writing, so if this, or anything I write is boring, please just bare with me and accept me for what I am.

I'm not making any promises. I won't say that I am going to post more often, or that my posts will be more interesting, or written better (I'm not ready to perform miracles yet). I can only say that I am trying, and I am going to try every day to "fight the good fight" and be a better blogger friend. There are so many things I still want to do with my life and none of them are getting done while I sit, swallowed up in this depression. I will take it one day at a time; do the best I can and continue to "light my candles, and curse the darkness until it goes away"...

If you are wondering about the pictures I'm including in this post, they really have little to do with what I am talking about, they are just pictures of our first snowfall this morning. Maybe that's what got me going....

Cartoons

2006-10-07T09:51:00.000-05:00

I have been digging around in the old archives of my PC and came across some cartoons that have been in there gathering dust for years, so I thought I would share a couple of them with you. I hope you enjoy them and have a great weekend.

That time of year again

2006-09-30T18:39:00.000-05:00

I know I've been absent from bloggerland lately but I've had some extremely important stuff that I really had to take care of (sitting in the lazy-boy watching tv). The fact of the matter is it's the time of year when my "seasonal depression" kicks in, and it seemed to knock me down this week with a vengeance. I am not complaining, my depression isn't as bad as it is for some people, but the fall and winter aren't real good times for me. This is just the time of year when everything doesn't "seem" to work out right for me. I know that everything is ok in my life (or at least no worse than normal) it just seems like it is.

I did try the drugs before but found that I didn't like them very much. I actually didn't like being happy all the time (sounds odd) because I couldn't really trust whether I was happy about something or it was the drug making me feel that way. The other thing I didn't like was the fact that there are some "side effects" that the doctor didn't warn me about, like you have to be really careful about coming off them (even for a day or two) because it can slam you into a worse depression than you had to start with. The other thing they really didn't impress upon me enough is just how bad drinking can be while you are on them (I found they made me want to drink all the time, dangerous if you work in a bar). I have found that just by stopping drinking (stopped putting "a depressant" into my body) that I have been doing much better this year than I have in previous years (maybe that's all I needed).

I spent a lot of time this morning working on a post that I almost lost when my computer had issues (my fault, I made a mistake when I was changing some settings a while back that I forgot to change back when I was done). I did manage to save the post but after working on it for many hours, I decided that I didn't like it, and deleted it. Normally, I don't think I would have been that critical about it or I would have found a way to fix it, but as I said before it's hard for me to be happy about anything right now.

I went grocery shopping and it just seemed like there was nothing I wanted to eat so instead I spent a lot of money and got very little for it. I did manage to get some good comfort foods which included a lovely cherry cheesecake (you can never go wrong with that) and also something that I discovered a few weeks ago, White Chocolate Macadamia Nut Cookies, which seem to have become my latest addiction. I also bought some 'Pulos' Greek Sauce, which I've had before and is not too bad (did I mention before that I love good Greek sauce). I used to have a very good recipe for making homemade Greek sauce, but I forgot to "snag it" before I left the bar that I used to own. I did however manage to get in the line at the store behind the lady that has all the issues (good for me), who’s check won’t be approved by the machine, who has a coupon for everything if she can just find it, and has to have the manager come over so she can tell him how she’s been shopping here for years and has only had the machine refuse her check when she has tried to cash 3 checks at the store before (like she did today) and doesn’t understand why it seems to only do it when she cashes 3 checks on the same day (no I didn’t smack her in the back of the head). The nice smile and the apology of the cashier for it taking so long made everything all right.

On the way back from the grocery store I was following a large truck that had a pair of "blue balls" hanging under it. I've seen more of these lately and I would like to know how guys think that this makes their truck look cool. Are they trying to tell us that their truck has a problem or that they do? I can say that this is a "joke" that I really hope doesn't catch on any more than it already has. It rates right up there in intelligence with the "baby on board" signs (I'll try harder not to hit your vehicle) that by the way I saw one last week (don't tell me they are coming back either).

So now that I have a handle on what's going on I will try to keep up with my blogging more, and hopefully all my posts will not be depressing and just go back to the normal boring type of posts that you are all used to from me...:)

PS: Screw dinner I'm having cheesecake...

The Weed

2006-09-20T19:36:00.000-05:00

Earlier this year when I was doing major battle with the weeds in my flowerbeds, I found this little "weed" that sort of looked different than all the others.

Now I don't have very many flowers in the flowerbeds surrounding my house, and so the weeds had pretty much taken over. I did have some baby trees that had started to grow, many of which I transplanted out into the yard this year, but not very many flowers in the beds. No one lived in my house last year so the weeds had seriously overwhelmed the entire flowerbed, and I've spent most of the summer trying to reclaim this area around my house from the weeds that had taken it over.

I do have a couple rose bushes, some daffodils and one very sad rhododendron that refuses to give up, though it's been right on the edge for several years, but finally seems to be doing a little better this year.

While I was weeding early in the spring I came across a little "weed" that didn't quite look like the rest, it certainly wasn't a grass or one of the many dandelions that predominately made up my flowerbeds. This little guy, who was about 6 inches tall, was different than anything I had found there. Thinking it may be some sort of tree I decided to spare it, just to see what it would grow into.

Every time I weeded I would see this little "weed" and would think to myself that "I really should pull it and toss it, after all it's just another weed". Something kept me from pulling it though, I don't know what it was, maybe just curiosity to see what it was. It grew straight and tall, to the point now where it's about 5 feet tall, but I still had no idea what it was (and I still don't). It wasn't ugly or anything and I still had hopes that it may be some sort of tree that I could transplant into my yard, but it's leaves didn't belong to any tree I recognized, and I'm pretty good with knowing trees.

About a week ago my little "weed", which is now a fully-grown bush, flowered for the first time and it made me glad that I chose to let it live. It blossomed with some very beautiful flowers, and looks very nice growing right where it is in the corner of my flowerbed. Now maybe one of our resident blogger gardeners might recognize what this "weed" is, but I still have no clue as to it's identity or where it came from. Though I do know that it really doesn't deserve to be called "a weed" anymore, since It's definitely shrub sized now. Weeds are defined as some plant that grows where it isn't supposed to, and this one may have started it's life as a weed, but now it's turned into a welcome addition.

It's just funny how if you give something in your life a chance to flower, to show you it's true worth. You might just find that you really had something quite spectacular all along, and you thought it was nothing more than a "weed".

Early Sunday Morning Blogging

2006-09-17T07:45:00.000-05:00

Well it's 5 am Sunday morning and I'm sitting here blogging. When I think about it, it's kind of strange knowing that of all the Bloggers (or people) that I know, I'm probably the only one awake at this time on a Sunday morning, except for maybe some of my west coast blogger friends who may still be up partying, as it is still Saturday night for them. I've always been an early riser, and I absolutely love the early morning when it's so very quiet out, so to answer your question, no I haven't been up all night, I'm just enjoying the silence of the morning.

I haven't done much blogging this week because I've had my 9/11 sickness. What is a "9/11 sickness" you may ask? Well let me tell you. Everyone remembers where they were and what they were doing on that fateful day. I was sitting on the couch, wrapped in a blanket, shivering. I had come down with an illness, be it flu or very bad cold, I don't know, but I had called into work, as I was definitely in no shape to go in that day. My wife, at the time, called me and told me to turn on the TV, to watch what was going on after the first plane had hit the first tower. I watched the second plane hit the second tower live. She called me back a little later and asked me to try to get a hold of her daughter who lived in Pittsburgh as there had been reports of a plane going down "in" Pittsburgh, and she was worried. I spent the next four days sitting on the couch watching the drama unfold. I probably could have gone back to work after two days, maybe three, but this was one of those times when you just couldn't pull yourself away from it. As for my 9/11 sickness, I have been sick every 9/11 since that day. It always seems to come back to remind me, and it's gotten to the point where I've given it a name. It's strange that it should come back at the same time every year. I didn't miss any work this year, so I guess I've made up for taking those extra days off 5 years ago. It has become a tradition that I will be sick on that day, a tradition that I wouldn't mind seeing come to an end.

I made my first pot of chili of the season this week. Chili is a traditional fall and winter food, meant to warm you up when the weather turns colder, and as the leaves have started to change, I felt that it wasn't to early for the first batch. Chili goes along very well with football and the end of baseball and all those other autumn traditions that we hold dear. It is one of my favorite things, to be out raking leaves, and then to come in to a large bowl of steaming hot chili, though not enough leaves have fallen for that yet, it won't be long now. I don't really have a recipe for mine as it comes out different every time, which is just the way I like it. I always felt that chili is more art form than actual cooking, and over the years mine has had many changes to it. My chili has gone "from the ridiculous to the sublime", and everything in between. I have made some that verged on inedible, where one spoonful would instantly break you out in a sweat and have you downing vast amounts of water, to others that where quite cool and mellow. I do however have one ex wife that no longer trusts my chili and will under no circumstances touch it, no matter how much I proclaim it's mildness. This batch came out quite on the mild side though it appeared to me that it wasn't. I added about a dozen whole jalapeno peppers (diced) that gave it a look like it was going to be very nasty. I was surprised that it wasn't very hot at all. I have some friends that wouldn't have liked this batch at all, since they feel that it isn't chili unless it makes your tongue run for cover. I have found that chili doesn't necessarily have to be toxic in order to be good. There is one part of my "recipe" that never changes; my bowl of chili has to be dressed up with copious amounts of cheddar cheese and sour cream. The sour cream especially helps to cool it off if that particular batch comes out too much on the toxic fire burner side.

A tragic death has occurred. My coffee maker has given up the ghost. I'm afraid it died from being overworked, and has left me drinking instant coffee all week. I have to get to the store to buy a new one today. I used to have a backup coffee maker, but I think my ex snagged it when she moved out. My backup coffee maker was a twenty-year-old Norelco, though not very pretty, never failed to function. It had been passed from family member to family member and was one of those machines that never seems to give up. Hopefully I can get to the store to get a new one today.

I finally ordered my pellets for my pellets stove yesterday. Pellets are made of compressed sawdust, a byproduct of the wood industry, which are burned in a stove specially designed for them. This is how I heat my home in the winter. This year it will cost me roughly 230$ a month to heat my house with the pellets. If I heated my house with the gas furnace, because of the size and age of my house, some months the bill would be about 400$ and maybe higher depending on the whims of the gas company. I have been a little worried this year because I would normally have had my pellets in long before this, with a few unexpected bills, I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to afford them. I had one ton leftover from last year, so I ordered four more tons that should be delivered this week. I like to have five tons on hand, as this was the amount I used during a very bad winter a few years back, and consider that to be the "worst case scenario" as far as winters go around here. I pretty much burn a consistent one ton a month during the winter, and will burn gas in the very beginning and end of the winter when it costs less than 230$ a month to do so, which was the price per ton this year. When I started burning pellets about eight years ago they were 130$ a ton, but since then, with many people changing over to wood pellets, and the price of gas skyrocketing, it has driven up the price substantially. Still there is great peace of mind that comes with having your heat for the winter already paid for and knowing there won't be any big surprises from the gas company.

This Site Has "Moved"

2006-09-10T08:39:00.000-05:00

If you are using "Blogger" go Here to use this site!

While this switch between "Blogger" and "Blogger Beta" is going on I will be posting at two sites, one with the old "Blogger" template and one with the new "Blogger Beta" template. Right now you are at my "Blogger Beta" site and should use this if you have switched over to "Blogger Beta". This seems like it may be a pain, but it is really the only way I can see of doing it. At some point you will have half the people on "Blogger" and half the people on "Blogger Beta" and it's going to cause a real mess. Eventually when everyone is switched to "Blogger Beta" (and it's going to happen) I will stop keeping the other site up to date, but for now I will be putting up identical posts on both sites (which really isn't that bad), so that my friends can "comment" on my posts, which they haven't been able to do. If you switch to "Blogger Beta" you should keep using this site. So saying "my site has moved" isn't really true, it's just acquired a "split personality"...

What Planet are you?

2006-09-07T18:41:00.000-05:00

You Are From Mercury

You are talkative, clever, and knowledgeable - and it shows.
You probably never leave home without your cell phone!
You're witty, expressive, and aware of everything going on around you.
You love learning, playing, and taking in all of what life has to offer.
Be careful not to talk your friends' ears off, and temper your need to know everything.

What Planet Are You From?

Thanks to Wolfgrrrl! for posting this one, the only problem is I don't even own a cellphone...

Dagoth in Beta

2006-09-07T16:58:00.000-05:00

Many of you have probably noticed that you can't post a comment on my site using your blogger user name. That's because I have transferred my site to the new Blogger Beta. As there are still many bugs with the new system it is probably best to wait until they work a few more of them out before switching over, unless you are a "glutton for punishment" like me. Right now I am seeing a whole lot of problems with it, without a whole lot of improvement. The main improvement seems to be, being able to make your blog private, though I have some questions on that as well. When Spider Walk changed her sight over and made it private, it refused to let me into the comments section unless I allowed blogger to place a tracking cookie in my computer. I have anti-spyware that blocks tracking cookies, and it's not something that I would want to change, to allow tracking cookies to be placed in my computer.

As far as not being able to comment goes I wrote an email to blogger about this bug and this is the response they gave me:

Hi there,

Thanks for writing in. Unfortunately, users logged in to Blogger in
beta
accounts are currently unable to comment on unmigrated Blogger blogs.
However, note that all Blogger accounts will ultimately be switched to
Blogger in beta, so this should only pose a temporary problem. We
apologize for the inconvenience.

If you'd like to comment on an unmigrated Blogger blog but have already
switched to a Blogger in beta account, as a workaround, you can create
a
new, regular Blogger account. Then, you may use that account to comment
on
regular Blogger blogs.

Finally, please note that Blogger users that have not yet switched will
still be able to comment on Blogger in beta blogs. However, the links
to
their profiles are currently not working properly. Our apologies for
the
commenting messiness. We appreciate your patience during this
transitional
period.

Sincerely, 
Danish 
The Blogger Team

So with that being said I started a new account in Blogger so that I can comment on other people's sites. It is just a temporary site and I don't intend on doing any posting there. This still doesn't change the problem of people without a blogger beta being able to comment on a blogger beta site. You can still comment as anonymous, which is kind of lame, or you could get a temporary blogger beta account, essentially doing just the opposite of what I have done here. I was planning on just waiting until they fixed, but when they suggested in their reply that I get a second account, it made me wonder just how long it was going to be before they fixed this problem.

Having to use two accounts is kind of a pain, and hopefully this won't go on for too long, though I've been through more than a few beta tests in my job and sometimes they can drag out for a while. Of course most of the betas I have used have had a lot less bubs than this, and most of them were fairly minor. The bugs that blogger beta has hardly qualify as bugs at all, because It's not a bug when functionality is missing entirely...

One of my Favorite Games

2006-09-04T11:04:00.000-05:00

This is one of my favorite Games, called Kye. I have zipped it into a zip file that you can download by clicking on the link below and try the game if you would like (providing I got the download link right). It's a very simple game that doesn't require installing, simply download and unzip the file and put it's contents in a folder in your computer somewhere. To run it you just double click on the Kye.exe file.

Kye.zip

You are the green circle and you can move him around with the mouse or the arrow keys. The idea of the game is to get the blue diamonds. The light yellow blocks you can break by running into them, the solid yellow blocks you can push. The round circles with the arrows will go in the direction of the arrow once whatever is blocking them is moved. The "hour glass" shaped blocks are called "sticky blocks" and can be pulled or pushed and will "stick" to your green man and to other objects to "pull" the other objects out of the way. Beware the "little moving monsters" of different size and shape, if you let them loose they can kill you. It is also very easy to get yourself trapped by the blocks if you move them in the wrong way. There are 10 levels of which I have cleared 9. I found this game, though very simple by design, also very addicting. If you are able to clear all of them let me know.

A Book Meme

2006-08-30T17:56:00.000-05:00

1) A book that changed my life: I would have to say it was "My Side of the Mountain" that I read over and over again as a very young lad. It really stirred in me a love for the woods and surviving in the wild.

2) A book I've read more than once: There would be several answers to this but I guess I'll go with "The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, The Unbeliever" by Stephen R. Donaldson since it's my favorite.

3) A book I'd take to a desert island: "Lord of the Rings"

4) A book that made me laugh: Funny, no single book stands out in this category, so I'd have to say all of them at some point. I don't generally read books of a comedic nature.

5) A book that made me cry: Never.

6) A book I wish I had written: "The Earth's Children Series" by Jean M. Auel mostly because I would have liked to have been involved in the archeological study that was used to garner information to create the series.

7) A book that should never have been written: Is there really any such thing.

8) A book I'm currently reading: "The Wheel of Time Series" by Robert Jordan which it seems like I've been reading forever.

9) A book I'm planning to read: "The Wayfarer Redemption" by Sara Douglass.

The Cyborg Name Generator

2006-08-30T17:30:00.000-05:00

This one is pretty simple, you just type in your name and pick an avatar and it will give you your Cyborg name, or maybe just the cyborg meaning of your name. Anyhow I thought it made my "name" sound pretty cool...oh yeah, I had to edit the code a little to make it show up right, it appears that they missed some spaces. Make sure there are spaces between each part of the code...

Scents in the Wind

2006-08-26T09:33:00.000-05:00

It's hard to believe that next weekend is Labor Day already. The summer seems to have flown by so quickly. In my hometown fall often sets in directly after Labor Day. I have often thought it strange how suddenly it seems to change seasons around here, kind of like a door slamming shut. One day it will be summer and the next, fall, without much of a gradual change from one to the other. I have been seeing some small signs of the coming change though.

After our summer hot spell, the nights seemed to have turned much colder, making me close most of the windows before I go to bed. It will soon be time to put the storm windows down, enclose the back porch, and generally get this house ready to endure the long, cold winter months. I still have to get my pellets in for winter, since I use a pellet stove to heat my house, I'm very late on that. I don't want to have to heat my house with gas this winter; it would be way too expensive.

My red squirrel, "Oscar", has returned, I hadn't seen him all summer and didn't know where he had gone off to. I was worried that maybe one of the hawks had gotten him, I'm glad to see he has survived. I saw him this morning for the first time, climbing around on "his" shed. He seems to have timed his return with my black walnut tree starting to drop its walnuts. I have to go clean out "his" shed again before he starts filling it up with walnuts for the coming winter, I'm not the only one around here getting ready for winter. I wonder if he's noticed that I have torn out half of the deck that he liked to romp around on so much, or how he feels about "Chubby" the groundhog who has taken up residence under his "shed". "Oscar" looks pretty fit; it appears that he found plenty of food over the summer. The last time I saw him was in the spring, when he looked awfully scrawny after enduring the long cold winter. I've noticed that "Chubby" has put on a lot of weight and seems quite ready for winter as well.

Lately I have noticed the flocks of Canadian Geese gathering for their annual trek southward. Earlier in the week a large flock had landed up the street in a neighbors yard, that has a very nice pond. They apparently were visiting my neighbors' white geese, which live there all year, and were mingling among the rest of the flock. My neighbors' geese, which like to come out to the road and harass the cars as they go by, seemed quite happy to have the company. This morning two very large flocks flew over my house heading south; is it time for them to go already? Surely there is more warm weather left and plenty of time for them to make their migration. Perhaps these are just the "early birds" getting a jump on their long journey, or are they warning of an impending long and cold winter coming?

I have been feeling very rushed, of late, to get all the things done that I need to do, to prepare for winter. In this part of the country it's not good to have winter set in on you unprepared. We don't get many natural "disasters" here, like earthquakes, tornadoes or hurricanes, but if you get caught in a good blizzard, it can be just as dangerous. There is also the "sealing up" of the house, and the planning for how you are going to heat it, still to be done. I know there is plenty of time left, but I can't help but feel a little trepidation over what I know is on it's way. I often wonder why I live in this part of the country, when I dislike winter as much as I do. The only thing I can say is, this is home for me, and always will be, no matter what comes with the wind...

pictures provided by All Creatures

Flirting with Disaster

2006-08-22T18:54:00.000-05:00

When it comes to bloging everyone has certain problems they must deal with every time they put up a post. They must decide what kind of blog they are going to write, how personal they are going to get. Do they care if someone they know were to find their blog and read it? There are as many different bloging styles out there as there are people bloging.

Many people don't get very personal with their posts, choosing to write about their hobbies, put up pictures for the rest of their family to see, etc., allowing many people they know to have their blogs address and share in their life. For them getting very personal is not an issue, because they don't get deeply personal, they don't fear anyone they know finding their posts. They often put up pictures of themselves and will quite often use their real name.

Others tend to get very personal with their blog, using it as a form of diary, and only feeling safe if complete strangers read their posts. These people use fictitious names, never post a picture of themselves and always live in fear that someone they know will find their blog and recognize them. There posts often contain references to their jobs that could get them in trouble at work. We've all heard of the people who have been fired because their boss found and read their blog. Many people who choose to have blogs like this often tell stories of family, friends, lovers and co-workers that would cause them to die of embarrassment if any of the people they wrote about ever read their posts.

The majority of people tend to fall somewhere in between the two extremes. They tend to keep themselves anonymous, sometimes getting personal with their posts and sometimes writing very common stories about the everyday goings on in their lives that even their mother could read. They keep their weblog private for the most part, usually only allowing a few close personal friends to know their secret identity.

One of my favorite blogs "Flirting with Disaster" is no longer part of the blogosphere. The editor, my friend Claire (fictitious name) suddenly and with very little warning pulled her blog down because she was afraid that her cover had been blown. Her blog quite often got very personal, but was written with a flair and style that truly made it a joy to read. She was the kind of writer that could have written about sheep and would have kept you totally enthralled. They certainly would have been the best sheep stories on the web. Before her blog came tumbling down, she fired off one post saying that she thought her anonymity had been blown and she was probably going to take her blog down, it was up for a couple more hours. It's very sad when a blogger has to go to these extremes, and very strange when someone you have been reading about and commenting to, suddenly is no longer there.

I know many bloggers that struggle with keeping the anonymity of their blog and retaining the freedom to write as they choose. They struggle with the choice of having a public blog, taking their chances with their anonymity, or creating a private blog that very few can see, which limits the amount of readers they will get, and friends they will make. We all have to make these choices sooner or later, and they are never very easy choices to make.

"Claire, I hope you will find your way back, and overcome the problems you have encountered. I will miss your writing very much; I will miss you very much. If you find yourself in my neighborhood of the blogosphere, please drop me a comment"...

Ad Lib for Lack of a Better Reason...

2006-08-19T08:02:00.000-05:00

I shamelessly ripped this off of Claire's Blog with no regrets whatsoever!

I like my coffee________________(with creamer only, Thank You very much!) While, sipping my coffee, I really like to______________(wait for my eyes to focus, my brain to turn on, and remember my name. I also like to listen to the birds singing in my back yard.). If I am really struggling, energy wise, later in the day, I will have ________________(a sugar fix...) or ____________(more java juice, after all Coffee = Life...) to pick me up.

On my way to work, I listen to _______________(The sound of my engine, If I play music, I'm constantly turning it down because I think I heard something in my engine, I'm paranoid that way.) I ___________ (hate, especially in the winter) my commute to work, except when__________________(All those other people stay off of "my roads!"). I'm so glad I don't_____________________ (have to commute like I did when I lived in Florida, 2 hours one way.)

Today I am feeling_________________(The sadness of summer slipping away and not being ready for winter) and i really wish that after work, I could _________________(get my van from the mechanics.) I also wish I had enough money to________________ (Pay the mechanics and get my pellets to heat my house this winter.)

Last night, I drank __________________(Pink Lemonade.)
and thought about________________________(getting some more RAM for my PC.) It made me feel kinda _________________(frustrated.)

As the weekend nears, I am looking forward to ___________________ (Nothing, since I'm still trapped at home without wheels.) I really need to _____________________(get ready for winter) and I hope i get to do that also.

Ye Olde Karaoke Battle Wagon

2006-08-13T09:46:00.000-05:00

Well here I am stuck at home with no wheels. This weekend the "Olde Karaoke Battle Wagon" decided it wanted the service I have been promising it for sometime now and not delivering on. Generally I take reasonable care of my vehicles but one of the vans problems has been going on for a very long time without me getting it fixed.

My 97 Dodge Caravan, which I affectionately call the "Olde Karaoke Battle Wagon", due to the fact that we originally bought it to haul our karaoke equipment, has been leaking transmission fluid for about a year and a half now. This was originally my ex's vehicle but when it stopped shifting she parked it at her girlfriends parents house and bought another vehicle. This van is not your soccer moms mini-van. It has leather quad bucket seats and a v-6 that will smoke the tires on command and sometimes when I don't mean to. It's also hauled more gross tonnage in the time we've owned it than most guys' pickup trucks. It spent most its time packed to the ceiling with half a ton of karaoke equipment and was rarely unloaded, so it was always carrying that much weight around. This van has earned the right to be called "Truck" more than most trucks have (sorry just had to defend my vehicles honor there for a minute.)

Last year "T2" (my ex) asked me "would you take over the van and the payments, I can't afford it", to which I said, "Yes but you will have to get the vehicle to me first" (I didn't know where it was at the time). She said, "The transmission has gone out and it is going to cost $750 to get it replaced." I then said, "How do you know that the transmission is toast and it will cost that much to get it replaced? Where did you take it to get it checked out?" she said, "I haven't taken it anywhere because it won't move and that is how much it cost to get the transmission replaced on my other car." I said, "Have your girlfriend "J" check to see if it has transmission fluid, and if it's low put some in, because this can stop it from shifting." She called me back a little while later and in a very excited voice said "We put transmission fluid in it, and now it goes forwards and backwards!" It was all I could do to keep from splitting a seam laughing. They delivered the vehicle to me a short time later.

That was about a year ago and I did have my friend "N" put the van up on the rack at the garage he works at, which is when we found that a small 4" x 4" access plate on the side of the transmission was rusted and leaking the fluid. We didn't have the part to replace it so I kept driving it and kept putting transmission fluid in it when it was low. This plate is not a major problem so I guess it just became easier to add a quart of fluid in every week than to bother getting it fixed.

About a month ago another problem started, it began leaking power steering fluid. I started pouring power steering fluid into it all the time saying to myself "I really had to get it into the shop to get it fixed." Well the power steering fluid requirements got to be excessive, with me having to put fluid in every day. About two weeks ago the front end started making noise, which got me to worrying that this may be the rack & pinion going out, which is a sign when you start to loose power steering fluid. Having to replace the rack & pinion would not be cheap by any means. So I decided that I had to get it to the garage.

I took it down to a local garage on Wednesday after work. This garage is run by two older fellows that are really nice and not only don't they rip you off on the work they do, but sometimes they forget to charge you for some of the things that they do work on. The one that was there on Wednesday said that the other fellow wouldn't be in until tomorrow and he did all the scheduling, so I should bring it back Thursday. I went back in on Thursday and the other fellow said he wasn't able to put it up on the rack since they were full and to bring it back Friday night. Well after I left there the front end started getting very loud, with the kind of crunching, grinding, squealing noise you really never want to hear coming out of your vehicle. Friday morning I decided not to drive it to work, because if that was the rack & pinion I didn't want it going out while I was flying across the highway. I coaxed it the mile or so down to the garage and told them "it had decided it wanted to come to the garage now."

The one fellow called me back Friday evening with the good news, that it wasn't the rack & pinion. The power steering fluid loss was caused by a bad pump, and all the racket had been caused by the inside brake pads being worn completely off (funny the outside ones were like brand new) to the point where it was metal on metal. So I'm going to need a new plate on the tranny, rotors, break pads (maybe calipers), and a power steering pump. This will be fairly expensive but nowhere near what it would have cost to replace the rack & pinion.

The "Olde Karaoke Battle Wagon" has served me so well and for so long that I really should treat it better, besides the fact that I really can't afford to get another vehicle right now. It's worked hard over the years and is still reasonably young though it has quite a few miles on it. I think it's still a good vehicle that I can get many more miles out of. Maybe that's why I like it so much, it reminds me a lot of myself...

Linguistics

2006-08-10T19:43:00.000-05:00

A few years ago I had the pleasure of going to Mexico. We stayed at a lovely resort hotel a couple hours south of Cancun. The very first night after settling in, we went to one of the hotel bars to have some fun and drinks. We weren’t at the bar more than a few minutes when a lovely couple came and sat down beside us. We immediately hit it off with them and began to have a great time together.

We started having rounds of “Tequila Boom-Booms” which are a shot of tequila, slow gin and 7-Up in a tall thin shot glass which is covered by a napkin and slammed on the bar which causes it to fizz up and you take it and quickly shoot it down. This became our drink of choice whenever we were together.

Every day we would go off and “do our own thing” but come evening we would meet up with them at the same bar and describe what adventures we had had that day to each other. We would spend the rest of the evening just having a ball, bar hoping, going dancing at the disco, whatever mischief we could find to get into together, and invariably closing down the last bar together before retiring.

Later I found out that they were on their honeymoon, and was surprised that they chose to spend so much time with us. We would even hang out together at the pool during days when we didn’t have something going on. I would have thought they would have wanted to spend time alone, as it was their honeymoon. We really did have a lot of fun together and it was very sad at the end of the week when we had to fly back home and leave them behind.

You might be wondering what is unusual about this, as people often make friends while off on vacation. We spent many hours together and really seemed to enjoy each others company, but our relationship posed one minor problem for us to overcome.

You see Antonio and Daniela were from Italy and did not speak a single word of English, and we were from the U.S. and spoke no Italian. The entire time we were together was spent “playing” a very elaborate game of charades, trying to communicate to each other. Though some things we were never able to communicate to each other, you would be surprised at just how well you can “talk” to each other if you try hard enough.

We did meet one fellow that worked for the hotel who could speak Italian and English (that is how we found out it was their honeymoon, we never could get that one across with charades). He offered to spend the week with us translating, but not for free. We declined his services because we were just having too good of a time together, with our own form of communication, and spent the rest of the week plying our charades and having a ball.

There is more than one way to communicate with people that don’t speak your language. We would never have met Antonio and Daniela if we had chosen to turn the other way that first night at the bar, just because we didn’t speak the same language...

Spammed!!!

2006-08-07T16:13:00.000-05:00

I received this Post Card from Liz today. I knew I was taking a chance giving out personal information to her just to get a Post Card, and sure enough I was right. Along with the post card came a whole load of Spam.

I generally never worried about getting spammed by snail mail because I always figured, if I did, I could just move my mail box to the other side of the road.

I was just so excited about the prospects of getting a card in the mail that I really didn't think about the possible consequences. It's amazing how something as small as this can brighten up your day, but I guess for everything there is a price to be paid. The thought of getting a beautiful card in the mail can make you overlook little things, like "Devil Horns", not to mention a name like "Liz Vicious".

So be warned guys she may seem very sweet and be d.d.g. but there is definitely a little devil inside of her. So if you'll excuse me now I have to go put this beautiful post card up on the alter with the rest of the stuff...

Thank You DearHeart!!!

Righteous Geekdom

2006-08-05T17:54:00.000-05:00

You are not a geek

You are not into anything typically considered geeky. In fact, you probably make fun of every geek you see. Come to think of it, you're probably that serial killer who has been killing all of those nerds.

Take this quiz at QuizGalaxy.com

I'm sorry I just can't agree with this assessment. I have always been good at hiding my geekyness though. In high school I had long hair, wore an army coat and hung out with a rough crowd, none of my friends knew I was in the chess club. On the first day I walked into the chess club the first geek I encountered said, "you know you're in the chess club, don't you?" Boy did I enjoy beating him.

I am also an A+ Certified PC repair technician which I earned going to school for computer systems administration. This quiz says I'm not geeky at all just because I don't enjoy their particular video games. I was crushing computerized chess games before most people knew what a computer was. I bought my first computer in 1980 it was Commodore VIC 20. I am fluent in just about every operating system there is including Linux and UNIX.

I work in Mechanical Engineering, and everyone knows we are all geeks, including the IT department. Yes I own pocket protectors! I never thought I would have to defend my geekyness, when I have spent so many years covering it up. I guess it's time to come out of the wiring closet. I would like to thank Spider Walk for posting this test, though I still would like to protest their assessment...

Excuse me, but I'm going to watch Star Trek now...

Letter from the Heart

2006-08-03T18:43:00.000-05:00

Well the heat has finally subsided somewhat around here, at least It's cool enough that I can Blog with the light on. I had planned on mowing my lawn yesterday but when I passed the bank on my way home from work it said 97, and with a heat index of 106, I decided it probably wasn't a good idea. I checked out the weather channel and they said it was going to be much cooler come the weekend, so that pretty much decided it, no mowing last night.

I received a letter in the mail tonight from my girlfriend "J's" daughter "E". I posted a little while ago that I had ran into her sister "K" when I found her working at the drive thru at a fast food restaurant. It sure was nice to hear from her, since I hadn't talked to her since Christmas.

In the letter "E" mentions that she was in a car accident. She was up on the interstate where she was cutoff, lost control, went thru the median and hit an SUV. She said the accident was pretty bad, but no one was seriously hurt, and the vehicles were trashed. She asked me if I heard about it because it was on TV and in the newspaper, I hadn't (I don't watch the news), and it's probably best that I didn't because I surely would have freaked out. I don't know if I could handle something like that happening again.

"E" also mentions that she's been getting piercings. She now has her tongue, collarbone, and nose pierced and is getting her belly button pierced on Friday. She says "her family doesn't like her piercings, but she really doesn't care", and that "She knows her mom would like them, as she liked the things "E" liked, weird things." Yes I know "J" would have liked them, because she did like weird things... like me...

Be safe out there...

Swashbuckling since 1973...

2006-08-01T19:54:00.000-05:00

My pirate name is:

Bloody Davy Kidd

Every pirate lives for something different. For some, it's the open sea. For others (the masochists), it's the food. For you, it's definitely the fighting. Even though you're not always the traditional swaggering gallant, your steadiness and planning make you a fine, reliable pirate. Arr!

Get your own pirate name from piratequiz.com.
part of the fidius.org network

I would like to thank Mad Ethel Kidd (not sure what that means) for the fantastic post she dedicated to me and also for finding this Pirate Name Generator..."Not sure I deserved that"...

I would also like to thank Tai for coming up with her own pirate name for me, "Dagoth the Multi-hued, Terror of the Sea!", I can honestly say I've never been called Multi-hued before..."Not sure I deserved that either"...

It's good for a Pirate to have more than one name, Ye never know when an alias will be required..."Do you have a little Captain in you?"...Yaaaargg!!!

Medieval Faire 2006

2006-07-30T09:20:00.000-05:00

"Take what ya Can!...Give Nothing Back!"...

Well we finally made it to the Medieval Faire yesterday and I have to say that that was the hottest, muggiest, most uncomfortable Faire I have ever been to. Usually this faire is pretty nice as far as that goes, because it is in a woods, but it had rained all week and though it was sunny on Saturday, the entire place had been turned into a mud bog swamp. I think they would have to come up with a new scale to describe the kind of humidity that pervaded the entire area. Though everyone I talked to said "it was better than the previous Saturday when it poured down rain for most of the day", I think I would have rather had the rain. Wearing heavy layers of medieval clothing certainly didn't help it any.

It was a good Faire though, with seemingly many more people attending than any other Faire I had gone to before. We figured that many of the people that were there had planned on going last weekend when the rains came and probably came this weekend instead, effectively doubling the crowd.

My son "Z" and I didn't sit through as many of the shows as we had at previous Medieval Faires, opting instead to stay in the shade, because most of the seating is out in the sun. There are many different pathways that snake through the woods at this place, and it's sad when you choose which ones to take by how well they are shaded by the trees.

We watched the "Joust" from the side that is lined by trees, though you have to stand, we figured it would be better than the side with all the benches that are out in the direct sunlight. We also watched the "Human Chess Tournament" from a position fairly far away, once again, standing in the shade of the trees. The Chess Tournament's seating area does have a suspended canopy, but by the time we got there all the benches under the canopy were taken. The Tournament this year was Robin Hoods Merry Men versus the Sheriff of Nottingham's Men.

I really wish they could hold this event in the fall when it is much cooler, but you take what you can get. They surely sold a lot of beer, wine and lemonade yesterday, but it seemed I couldn't down lemonades as fast I sweated them out. Later on in the evening as the sun was lower in the sky we watched the "Falcon" show and it was actually reasonably comfortable, making us wish we hadn't gone quite so early.

I promised pictures and these are about as good as my old 2.1 mega pixel digital camera can do. I could have set the quality higher but I don't have a very large flashcard, and wouldn't have been able to take very many pictures. I really need to get a better camera. I also promised pictures of myself, and I wouldn't want to go back on my word...."Pirate!"...."Drink up me hearty's, Yo Ho!"...

(Yarg! If ye want me "Dead Man's Chest" you'll be diggin for it, but don't say I didn't warn ye!)...

(And yes, I was soaked to the bone, as I said it was really, really hot, and today I'm doing laundy to wash all the white salt marks out of my medieval garb.)...

Dagoth Uncovered...

2006-07-28T18:35:00.000-05:00

This is for Spider Walk who asked very nicely if I would maybe post a picture of myself today. Of course you can't expect me to come out of my shell all at once. I want to thank Liz for the use of her "News at 11 eye blackout thingy" so I could still retain some of my anonymity. Maybe someday I'll be brave enough to show the rest of me. Spidey I hope you had a wonderful day and I hope you are not too disappointed when you finally get to see the rest of me...

Best Friend

2006-07-26T16:51:00.000-05:00

I haven't heard from my best friend "Jul" lately. She used to call me all the time but she's been having some problems at home and hasn't been able to call much lately. When she has called me, I could tell she was sneaking the call in by the way they have abruptly ended. She just had a new modular home built and they have had all kinds of problems with it, not to mention how long it's taking for her old home to sell. I hope everything is going well on that front.

We met each other when we were 15 and became good friends right from the start. I remember times when we would ride our bikes for miles to see each other, as we didn't live very close to each other.

Her and I shared one locker all through high school, I seem to remember she said she "wanted to keep one book there, for a class that was close by" and had moved everything in within a week.

We hold world records for talking on the phone, with some calls having gone on for three and four hours.

Though many others have come and gone she has always been there for me, except for a period of time during her first marriage when her husband made it clear I wasn't welcome (he was an asshole, and that's all there is to that.)

After we each got divorced from our first spouses, we hooked back up again and have been together ever since. Through my second marriage and divorce, her second marriage, lots of girlfriends for me and boyfriends for her, we have always been there for each other. I hope we're not loosing contact again.

Part of the problem we have always had is, we're both insatiable flirts, and when we get together, well lets just say our mates haven't always appreciated the way "Jul" and I act towards each other. All I have to say is "to hell with them, she has been my friend longer than anyone, and if they can't deal with it, tuff."

To say my second wife, "T2", didn't care for "Jul" very much, would be an understatement. "T2" had a jealous bone that would rival, in size, any dinosaur bone that has ever been unearthed. I asked "Jul" to be my "best person" at our wedding and that didn't go over very well. The problem started when we decided to have a country-western wedding. "Jul" rented the same Tux that the rest of us did, but since it was a guy's Tux, you can imagine that the pants didn't fit quite right. She asked me if she could substitute a black skirt instead and I said that it was ok, but when I told "T2" she had a cow. I didn't think that "Jul" was being unreasonable, "T2" just had to pick out something to get "bent out" about.

The end of the month is "Jul's" birthday; I hope she has a great one. I probably won't see her before then but maybe we'll be able to sneak in a phone call. Her and I have shared a lot of life together and I hope we get to share the rest of it together as well. Having a female best friend, for a guy, is somewhat unusual, but I wouldn't have it any other way. "I love you and miss you kiddo."

Rainout

2006-07-22T19:38:00.000-05:00

My son and I made a valiant effort to go to the Medieval Faire today but we got rained out. We actually made it all the way to the fairgrounds, all the time hoping the rain would let up, but it never did. The weather channel's radar made it look like the rain ended right around where the fairgrounds are, and we kept thinking we would drive out of it, but this was not the case. They say the Faire is "rain or shine", and I've been there when there were small downpours sending everyone scurrying for the tents, but that was a little too much precipitation for our liking. We turned around and headed back, choosing instead, to try again next weekend. Last weekend we couldn't go because "Z" was out of town at his grandmother's house, and this weekend we had a rainout. I suggested that we could try again on Sunday but "Z" wanted to go to a festival they are having in the small town where he lives and tonight and tomorrow are the last days for it. Next weekend will be better anyways because the theme for that weekend is "Pirate Invasion" which it just so happens is my Medieval Faire Garb. So hope for good weather.

Last week I saw a chubby old woodchuck run out behind my shed, I ran out after him but when I got behind the shed he was nowhere to be found. I love woodchucks, and whenever I pass one beside the road I always yell out at them "Get off the road, Chubby!" Tonight I was looking out my backdoor and he was right beside the deck I am tearing down, just behind my back porch. I stood there watching him for a while, contemplating whether I should run out yelling at him, just to put a little excitement into his life, but I didn't. I just waited and watched until finally he ran under the floorboards that are part of the shed. Now I know where you're living. Maybe he'll become friends with the red squirrel that lives inside my shed and teach the red squirrel to clean up after himself.

The Personality Test on my last post, I found in Spider Walks archives, and this one Hope found at the same site as the personality test. This one has also shown up on Wolgrrrls site and from there traveled to Boston Pobbles site and lord knows where all else it has gone. It's fun watching how these things travel around. I am not surprised that I was linked to this movie since I am always a very calm, cool and collected person, who seldom stresses out over anything..."Getcha motor runnin"...

What Classic Movie Are You?
personality tests by similarminds.com

Personality Test

2006-07-19T18:54:00.000-05:00

I was rooting around in Spider Walks archives and I came across this personality test and decided to give it a try. I don't know how accurate these things are, I'm a firm believer in the fact that I change from one minute to the next and quite often my judgments are swayed by that belief. I feel if I take one of these tests an hour later, I will get totally different answers. I take pride in the fact that my thoughts, decisions and beliefs are never carved in stone (except for maybe that one). I believe that every minute of our lives, changes us, and therefore would change what answers I would give to any given question. It is good for a snapshot though, so there you go, and that's what I was at that moment...

Advanced Global Personality Test Results

Extraversion	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	60%
Stability	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	53%
Orderliness	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	63%
Accommodation	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	43%
Interdependence	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	36%
Intellectual	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	76%
Mystical	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	36%
Artistic	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	56%
Religious	\|\|\|\|\|\|	30%
Hedonism	\|\|\|\|\|\|	30%
Materialism	\|\|	10%
Narcissism	\|\|\|\|\|\|	30%
Adventurousness	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	50%
Work ethic	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	43%
Self absorbed	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	43%
Conflict seeking	\|\|	10%
Need to dominate	\|\|\|\|\|\|	23%

Romantic	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	83%
Avoidant	\|\|\|\|\|\|	23%
Anti-authority	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	43%
Wealth	\|\|\|\|\|\|	23%
Dependency	\|\|\|\|\|\|	23%
Change averse	\|\|\|\|	16%
Cautiousness	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	36%
Individuality	\|\|	10%
Sexuality	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	56%
Peter pan complex	\|\|	10%
Physical security	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	76%
Physical Fitness	\|\|\|\|\|\|	30%
Histrionic	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	63%
Paranoia	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	70%
Vanity	\|\|	10%
Hypersensitivity	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	50%
Female cliche	\|\|	10%

Take Free Advanced Global Personality Test
personality tests by similarminds.com

Stability results were medium which suggests you are moderately relaxed, calm, secure, and optimistic.

Orderliness results were moderately high which suggests you are, at times, overly organized, reliable, neat, and hard working at the expense of flexibility, efficiency, spontaneity, and fun.

Extraversion results were moderately high which suggests you are, at times, overly talkative, outgoing, sociable and interacting at the expense of developing your own individual interests and internally based identity.

trait snapshot:
clean, self revealing, open, organized, outgoing, social, enjoys leadership and managing others, dominant, makes friends easily, does not like to be alone, assertive, hard working, finisher, optimistic, positive, likes to stand out, likes large parties, respects authority, practical, high self esteem, perfectionist, dislikes chaos, busy, not familiar with the dark side of life, controlling, high self control, traditional, tough, likes to fit in, conforming, brutally honest, takes precautions

That Kind Of Trust

2006-07-15T17:45:00.000-05:00

I don't know where this week went. It's not like I had a whole lot going on to make the time fly by. I just spent the whole week inside my head, in places I really don't want to be. I think seeing "K" again sent me spiraling into memories of "what could have been." Most of the time was spent with the dark wings beating about my head, sending me further down into the abyss that I have been trying to climb out of.

You see "J" was quite a wonderful and amazing person. I remember times when I would be sitting in my living room, and she would come up and curl up beside me and start burrowing into my brain. She wasn't the kind of person that would wait for you to take "your walls" down, oh no, she was coming inside those walls, ready or not. She had an amazing way of asking pointed and deeply personal questions, in a manor that wouldn't let you evade or take cover, but with a gentle touch that allowed you to let go of your fears. It didn't take long before I stopped trying to evade and really enjoyed those conversations. She would also show you just as much of herself, to equal the things that she dug out of you. She could instill a trust in you, unlike anyone I've encountered before.

She decided one day that she needed a haircut, and I was going to be the one to do it! I really did try to get out of doing it because I know how much "the hair" means to most women. She wasn't going to take no for an answer though, and pulled a chair out into the middle of my kitchen and handed me the scissors. I think that is the most my hands have shaken in a very long time, and that's not a good thing when you are trying to cut someone's hair. It turned out pretty good though and I didn't even draw any blood.

I would like to say that her ability to create a trusting relationship was reserved for her boyfriend, but it wasn't. I know of quite a few people who inhabited my bar that required her insights on a daily basis. Many would come down, quite distraught over something in their lives, specifically looking for her guidance. If she weren't there, they would turn to me next. I guess they expected that since I was her boyfriend, I must have been able to wield the same magic she did, that I could also, somehow, make everything seem all right. I never had any kind of a talent such as that, to give the perfect advice that would help people fix their lives. I would just use my bartender abilities to quietly listen to their problems, and hoped that she would show up soon. It was hard to see those people when they came down to the bar after the accident, seeming so much like children lost in the woods, with no one to guide them out.

I have to admit that I grew dependent on her disarming manor as well, her ability to see past the camouflage, her ability to look deep inside me and never bat an eye at anything she found. She saw me at my best and at my worst and accepted both with equal happiness. When the heart finds that kind of trust, which seems to be so very rare these days, it becomes attached very quickly. The kind of trust I hope some day I can find again.

One big smile can make your day.

2006-07-09T19:28:00.000-05:00

I got done mowing my lawn tonight and really didn't feel like making dinner. Since I had to go to the store anyways, I decided to pick up something to eat. I decided to run through the Wendy's drive through, which I haven't gone to in a while, mostly because it's a little difficult to get to it from the store.

I made my order and pulled up to the window, and there, running the drive through was my girlfriend's daughter "K". Her face lit up when she saw me. I only got to talk to her for a minute, but it sure was nice to see her, and see her so happy to see me.

She thanked me for the birthday card, and told me she "had meant to write and thank me but hadn't gotten around to it." She told me "I should stop down and see them more often" to which I said, "Yeah, I'm a bum." I told her that "I loved her and missed her, and to tell her sister 'E' that I loved her and missed her too."

I wish more than anything that I could have kept "J's" children, but I was just the boyfriend, and didn't really have any parental rights to them. I think "J" would have liked it though. I grew so attached to them when I lived with them, and took care of them for the months after the accident. It hurt so much to see "J's" family, my family, broken apart like that. I miss the girls and her son "N" and of course "J" so very, very much.

The Old Silverback

2006-07-08T15:25:00.000-05:00

About thirty years ago my father and I went on a day hike at a very beautiful place here called Wintergreen Gorge. He drove to a cemetery that is up above the gorge and parked the car there and we went to the back of the cemetery where there is a beautiful lookout and also a path that leads down into the gorge. This path is extremely vertical and going down it can be quite treacherous as you run from tree to tree, to keep yourself from gaining too much speed.

We hiked up and back through the gorge all day, even making a little fire and cooking lunch that I had brought in my daypack. We stopped at one point to watch some guys that were repelling down one of the sheer rock faces that this gorge is known for.

When we finally made it back to the path, I took off running up the steep vertical incline. I felt it was the best way to try to make it up to the top and after maybe about ten minutes I crested the top and collapsed onto the ground gasping for air. Though I was 14 at the time, it still was quite an exertion, even for me. After about ten more minutes my father showed up at the top of the cliff, sucking wind, but by then I had caught my breath and was seemingly just sitting there waiting for him. Years later he told me that, that was the first time in his life that he felt old.

This morning I went out and started tearing down an old deck in my backyard that I had built a few years ago. I spent about two hours on my knees unscrewing deck screws so that I can get the decking off before the major mayhem and destruction begins. When the battery on my cordless drill finally gave out, and I went to stand up so I could go inside to get another battery, both my knees and my back refused to bend. I had to climb down off of the deck and go inside all hunched over.

Now I have worked until parts of my body didn't function anymore, but that always required some seriously intensive labor that lasted all day, not two hours! I remember building this deck, years ago, when I would start early in the morning and not stop until the sun went down and I couldn't see anymore. Today for the first time I really felt old, and I realized that I'm the same age my father was when I ran up the cliff and made him feel old for the first time.

One of the things I didn't want was to become my father. Don't get me wrong, I love my father dearly, but after he divorced my mother, he spent the last forty years of his life alone, never dating again or remarrying. I swore when I was younger that I wouldn't let this happen to me. It appears now that I'm getting exactly what I didn't want. I've become an old, broken down, warhorse, with few prospects and little to offer any prospective mate other than an old silverback gorilla that is well past his prime and ready to wander off into the jungle. It sucks when the universe "whops" you on the head (or in the knees) and says you "arn't a big dog anymore" and maybe you should "get up on the porch." At least I understand my father better now and know why he has spent the last years of his life alone.

End Day

2006-07-06T20:37:00.000-05:00

I wanted to post tonight but Blogger wasn't being very cooperative, so I'm going to make this a quickie while (if) the connection lasts.

I was watching a show tonight on "the National Geographic Channel" (yes I watch that kind of stuff) it was called "End Day". It was about possible scenarios for the end of the world.

There have been a lot of shows and movies out lately about the end of the world and possible post holocaust scenarios and this just happens to be one of my favorite subjects. I really like shows like "Armageddon" and "The Day After Tomorrow."

There have been so many documentaries lately about the impending pandemic, super volcanoes, tsunamis, global warming, ice ages, and meteors that it seems like every other show is about some extinction level event (e.l.e. which has now crept into our vocabulary.)

My questions to you, my gentle readers, would be, do you think that some catastrophe is about to befall us and if so which of the many possibilities do you thinks is most likely? Do you think all these shows are nothing more than hype?

Goings On...

2006-07-02T09:38:00.000-05:00

There were a lot of things I wanted to get done this weekend but the weather really isn't cooperating. The humidity here is unbearable today and the forecast is calling for thunderstorms, so I don't think I'm going to get a whole lot done. I did manage to get the lawn mowed yesterday, knowing that it was supposed to storm today and also got the oil changed on the "old karaoke battle wagon", which was overdue. This morning started out beautiful, it was overcast, which kept the temperature down, but then the sun came out and it started to get miserable. Now it's clouded over again and the wind has picked up, which is helping it somewhat, I hope the storms move in soon to cool it down. I notice the hotter that it gets the more of my clothes come off.

I do have laundry to get done, so that will be the major chore for the day. I have extra laundry to do this weekend because I didn't do any last weekend. It's really a good chore to do on a day like today because I get to spend time in the basement which is much cooler than upstairs. I went down in the basement and got it started this morning and ran into many spider webs, which I cannot stand. Today would be a good day to do some extra cleaning down there. Running into a spider web is something that annoys me to no end. I try to let the ones go that are on my back porch because they keep the bugs down, but I really can't tolerate them inside my house.

I picked up the ingredients to make Hopes Mexican casserole yesterday. I was going to make it last night but it was just too hot to think about turning on the oven. If it cools down out there, and it does seem to be getting better, I will try to make it tonight. I was able to get all the ingredients for it except for the Cheesy Nacho Hamburger Helper, which is the main ingredient. Apparently my grocery store doesn't carry that particular type, so I have substituted Cheesy Enchilada Hamburger Helper instead. I think it will work just as well, though it won't be exactly the same. Come to think of it I didn't eat dinner at all last night, I seem to loose my appetite when the weather gets hot.

Next weekend is the beginning of the Great Lakes Medieval Faire that I have been going to for the last couple years. Last year I took my son "Z" and he really seemed to enjoy it. I have to get a hold of him and see if he wants to go again this year. A couple of weeks ago he broke a bone in his ankle while playing basketball and has to wear an air cast. I hope it's well enough for him to do all the walking around that is required. One of the nice things about the Medieval Faire in Geneva, Ohio is that it is all set up in the woods, which makes it much nicer to be able to walk around in the shade. The bad thing about this is you have to watch out for the roots of the trees that are sticking up, so you don't trip. With Z'z broken ankle this might not be a good thing, though I understand he has been taking the air cast off, so it's not a break that incapacitates him. Last year he mentioned that he was interested in getting a Kilt in the family plaid so I think this year we will try to find it for him.