I find this fascinating

Did You Know: The Regeneration Speeds Of The Human Body
Posted on November 13, 2010 by Brent Lambert

The human body is an incredible machine. Part of what makes it so impressive (apart from the concept of consciousness and self awareness) is its ability to regenerate itself. Your outer layer of skin, the epidermis (apart from the thicker dermis beneath), replaces itself every 35 days. You are given a new liver every six weeks (a human liver can regenerate itself completely even if as little as 25% remains of it). Your stomach lining replaces itself every 4 days, and the stomach cells that come into contact with digesting food are replaced every 5 minutes. Our entire skeletal structures are regenerated every 3 months. Your entire brain replaces itself every two months. And the entire human body, right down to the last atom, is replaced every 5-7 years.

The question I would love to know the answer to is this: if my brain replaces itself every two months (meaning I’ve had 210 completely new brains since the day I was born) how is it that I’m still able to have memories from when I was a young boy?

Thank you to www.feelguide.com

I think I saw a ghost today.

I think I saw a ghost today.

Either that or a really vivid hallucination

Really don’t know which but hope it was the first.

The latter would not be as good.

10am

I stepped out of my office building for a smoke and as I passed this truck (with fireman license plates) I caught out of the corner of my eye a figure standing right by the truck.

He was a pit portly, stocky, about 6 foot with sandy blonde hair and a round head. His hair was short but not cropped and it was plain and not styled. Like your average good ol boy hat hair “I don’t care what my hair looks like” kind of style.

He was wearing a plain blue sweatshirt that was a darker blue then his faded blue jeans and white sneakers. He was standing there staring at me with his hands in his pockets.

I whirled around (yes I whirled, all spy-like)

No one was there.

No door was closing.

No sound was made.

No person crouched in the corner.

Nothing.

I was alone (well physically at least)

I think I can pick this guy out of a line up.

I can see his face in my mind’s eye but at the same time I can’t see it.

It’s kinda blurred.

12:45pm

Now as I write this some time has passed since the event. An hour or 2

The figure and face has coalesced into that of a guy I used to work with long ago.

I can’t even remember where I used to work with him at.

I couldn’t tell you his name but I can picture him well.

Now I am confused…

Was it just my mind playing tricks on me?

Did I really see something and my mind has blended it with a prior memory?

Or maybe the figure was the guy I used to work with that guy has since passed?

I don’t know.

How many Adolph’s or Elvis’s do you know?

You ever notice how many stigmas are attached to certain names.

How many Adolph’s or Elvis’s do you know?

Well why do you think that is?

I think that the person associated with the name resonates so loudly in the human conscious that by invoking their name immediately associates the mind with that one “special” person. With such a strong association, good or bad, it is rather hard for people to get past that.

In other words 1 person has taken that name as their own and no one else can have it. The shoes are just too big to fill.

It can take years, if not decades, for a name to pass through time and be released to the general public again.

Now a new one looms on the horizon.

Fred Phelps.

*shudder*

Just the name makes me feel dirty.

Do you know who this guy is? Course you do. Everybody does.

Google the name and you get nothing but sites about this freakshow.

His main website is “godhatesfags.com” (really? And to think it was still available. Figured that one would have been snatched up already. It’s so catchy!)

To give you a brief synopsis here this nutcase has started his own cult in Topeka Kansas preaching to the world that God hates fags and that soldiers who die fighting for the country he lives in are gonna go to hell. Then has the audacity to picket the funerals of said soldiers. (Yeah Fred, I said cult. You live in a compound of houses surrounded by your followers and don’t let them associate with anyone out of your circle. You and Jimmy Jones, David Koresh need to setup a poker game. You can invite Applewhite but I don’t know how hard it will be to contact him on his spacecraft behind that MMM-bop meteor and that’s gotta be a long distance call anyway. )

First off, who is a funeral for? It is not for the meat lying in the pretty box. Meats don’t care.

Go ahead and pull some ground round outta the freezer and ask it if it wants to be buried.

If you get an answer up your meds.

What I mean to say is the person that WAS in that meaty shell no longer resides there.

Therefore, a funeral is for the ones who are left behind. The ones who now have a hole in their lives that shrinks sometimes, crumbles a bit but never really fills in.

So basically CockbreathFred is spending his time stomping around and shouting epitaphs at people who are sad and are saying good-bye to the meat they loved when it was alive.

Now I don’t even think for a second that ol’ Bendover Fred has both oars in the water.

Oh Hell no.

He has moved his canoe to the volleyball pit and is invading Poland by air in it.

But let’s pretend for a second he does.

Then why would he do this?

Well I am writing about him.

He is on the news. In the papers.

The punch line of a lot of jokes.

Yes Fred you are a joke.

No one REALLY takes you seriously. You are but a loud buzzing horsefly that needs to be swatted. A minor nuisance that will eventually fade away when your last gasp is grasped.

Just think though! You are going to have THOUSANDS of people at your funeral.

Picketing.

Slow Down

Trapper’s Rendezvous 2011

Well it’s been that time of year again.

Trapper’s Rendezvous.

This is a Boy Scout function where 5000 scouts from all over come to one spot and camp out, in January and then proceed to trade the crap they don’t want for other crap other people don’t want.

Oh don’t get me wrong about the crap. Some of it is good crap but there is A LOT of just junk.

½ a toy here, brass casings from fired bullets, empty shotgun shells.

The hot selling item this year (each year something is hotter than anything else) were lighters.

Any size any type any kind.

You could trade that for anything you wanted.

But I get ahead of myself here.

First off, I never in my wildest dreams thought I would actually go camping in the middle of winter.

Sounds stupid to me.

I am not camping’s biggest fan anyway but when my age is higher than the temp, the last thing I want to do is be outside.

But the Beast wanted to go and he wanted his daddy to go with him.

So I went camping.

We were all geared up, thanks in no small part to the in-laws.

The Plan:

Friday night the wife was supposed to be home right after work, about 430, so we could toss our stack of camping equipment into the escape and meet up with the caravan.

Yeah well the best laid plans etc, etc.

I failed to go through my list I had created so we missed some key elements in our packing

Beast’s gloves, Beasts meds, pillows and other odds and ends.

Wife takes her time to get home so we don’t start packing until the caravan was scheduled to leave

We get to the meeting spot and the caravan is nowhere near ready to leave.

Finally at dusk we start moving out.

I have no clue where I am going and then I find out that the lead of our caravan doesn’t either. Not only does he have a heavy foot and is gone in a flash but he is running off of pure memory anyway.

Thank God for GPS.

It’s about an hour drive to the spot and we get there (never once even seeing the other car in our “caravan”) and by luck and some intuition we find our camping spot. In fact we found the camp site before even before our lead driver arrived.

The tone for the rest of the weekend will be set in 5.

5- We find the site

4- We find a stellar parking spot and pull in

3- We hop out to go locate a place to setup our tent

2- I duck past the rope sectioning off our troops spot

1 - I trip over a tent peg and go down hard sucking mud.

Of course Beast thinks this is the funniest thing he has ever seen as I pick myself up and stagger on into the camp.

So now it is night (around 7ish) and I have to setup a tent I have no knowledge of how to setup, in the dark, by myself. Beast did pretty well about holding the light for me while I set it up and while I threw the rain tarp over the tent he set it up on the inside.

Still when I proclaimed it as done (I.E. I was done with it) it looked like some giant had sneezed a tent out of one nostril.

But hey I wasn’t there for my benefit.

My idea of roughing it is limited cable and no room service.

The whole reason I went was because the Beast wanted to go And he had fun. Snowball fights and eating and keeping warm and hiking up and down the whole area (I myself must have walked well over 5 miles, and I know he was moving more then I was ).

But the most important thing was

He had fun.

I want a new drug.

Oh what a joyous day indeed!

I went to the ol’ sawbones today because well, I cannot STAND losing anymore days to this fatigue.

I think I have mentioned it before but for the past 4 to 6 months I have been spending 1 day of the weekend asleep.

I don’t mean getting up, being industrious, taking a catnap and then enjoying my evening. Hell I wouldn’t mind that.

I mean going to bed early Friday (9ish)

Sleeping until Noon

Then falling back to sleep at 1 or 2 till 5

Then going back to bed at 9

And the whole while not being worth a penny farthing.

NOT how I want to spend my life. My family deserves more and better.

I know I need to exercise more but I need the oomph to be able to do so.

Yes oomph is a word.

I am thinking of a stimulant because frankly I am at the point where I have considered dropping off the legality trail and going into the boondocks.

I have tried all kinds of homeopathic remedies, diet pills, straight up over the counter stimulants, energy drinks, blah-blah-blah. Basically end up jittery, sweaty, a hell of a bad case of heartburn and still tired.

However, as a side effect, I have also learned how to make my own liquid plumber!

So I go to see the Doc.

I left the Doc with a script for Lunesta (to sleep) and a diagnosis of ADD to boot*.

So too tally up the medicinal count here

Skelaxin – muscle relaxer

Ultracet – for pain

Fentynol – for pain

Replaced Clonzepan (to help me get drowsy) with Lunesta

Replaced my Anti-D with Straterra

Plus a nasal spray to help keep the snoring down.

I think my Doc is starting to think I am just a junkie looking for a fix. He keeps mentioning what is a non-narcotic and non-addicting.

I would stop all this crap today if my body wasn’t addicted to it.

Mentally I am not addicted. I take everything sparingly just to stave off the peaks.

Physically, however, the withdrawal symptoms suck.

It’s like having the flu but without the bright light at the end knowing soon it will be over.

1. Starts out small with just a runny nose
2. Then you get a little lethargic. No juice in the batteries.
3. Now, since the pain meds slow down your system, the incessant trips to the bathroom as the colon clears it’s things to do list.
4. Then you start getting really tired. Like you do after an allnighter out drinking and every blink is a decision whether to open the eyes up again.
5. Then the cold sweats. You are hot and cold at the same time. And no, wearing a parka with shorts does not help.
6. Then the narcolepsy sets in as you are unable to stay awake now and 150 pounds is attached to each limb as your brain keeps trying to escape out the back of your skull.
7. Now that you are sniffy, sleepy, sweaty, poopie and dragon ass now lets toss in TWITCHY! Each muscle starts revving up randomly, mostly in the extremities. It feels like all the energy in your body has been rerouted to just one limb. So while you are lying there in abject misery your left arm feels like it needs to run a marathon RIGHT NOW! It’s not a good feeling either and you cannot ignore it.

I know this because this is what I went through about 6 years ago when I ran out of Loratabs. Needles to say I weaned myself off of them and don’t take them anymore.

This is also how I know when it is overdue for me to change my pain patch. I get to stage 3 and I know I need to take some serious measures and quickly.

So kids. Unless you have a coma scheduled in the near future

Just say NO to drugs.

*as for the ADD I saw that one coming. The Beast has ADHD and I see a lot of me in him. Looking back, I show all the signs of it when I was younger. It wasn’t until I started smoking that I calmed down.

Amok Time

It’s really scary how reality creeps in on you.
One day you are outside playing the dirt, with friends or just a stick then in just a blink of your eyes and you are in an office 30 years in the future with no hope of making it back wondering what the hell happened.
When you are young and vibrant you don’t wake up one day and say
“You know what? I think today I am going to forfeit all my dreams and just settle in."
It comes on you slowly like a cancer.
You go to school, You get a job, if you do well they pay you more
Then before you know it you making too much to be able to afford to quit.
Trapped.

If you’re young enough and free enough you can tear up your roots and just bail.
But you are just delaying the inevitable. Sooner or later you will have to find that one place to settle or spend the rest of your life living under a bridge with a name like “Stanky or Roadway Joe”

As you age it becomes harder and harder to be free until one day you realize that the whole job market is full of younger people. Younger people who have not had to learn what you know. They already know it because it already existed when they were born. It’s second nature to them.
Now all you can do is find a job and hunker down and take the daily grind in the ass. Because that’s all we are.
We (the middle class) are whores.
Selling our time to make a buck.
The light doesn’t shine in our eyes any more as we just stare dully at the wall waiting for the day to be over. Placidly laying there while the day does what it wants with us as we tick away the hours just waiting to go home.
We used to dream, then we realized that it hurt too much.
Now we just want to make it home.
We used to LIVE now we just exist.

I still remember the first time I saw the future and it scared the shit out of me.
It was 1979, I was about 10 and there was going to be a meteor storm that night
So my sis and I were laying out on the still warm sidewalks at midnight on a warm California night in San Marcos.
As I lay there on my blanket just staring at the stars my mind started to wander. I remember thinking how time passed and how soon I was going to be “older”.
My mind took off at a full gallop and I couldn’t reach the reins.
I thought how in 4 years I would be in high school and then just 4 years after that I would be an adult and out of school and everything I knew and loved would be changed as Iwouldbeoutofthehouse and on my own andmaybegoingtocollegeandwouldntseemyparentsormysisterandgetmarriednadhavekidsandoorororor
…… I freaked the fuck out.

I started bawling, weeping like my heart had broken.
I bolted for the house yelling for my mom.
Alas, She was in the bathroom.
I knew I needed someone to hold me and tell me it would be ok.
I needed reassurance.
I needed my mommy.
I begged her to come out.
“What’s the matter?” she barked through the door.
I didn’t know how to respond to that. I didn’t even know what the matter was.
I was scared but I didn’t know what I was scared off.
I didn’t even know how to express what the matter was.
“Nothing” I finally sobbed, trying so very hard to cowboy up
“never mind.”
I went back outside and I lay there,
I lay there trying to get my shit back together.
I was only 10 though,
I didn’t even know I had shit!
Much less that it was broke.
That’s where my recall ends… I don’t remember anything else about that night.
Now looking back I think I had a full fledged panic attack.
It may have been then that I really taught myself how to section off my thoughts and lock them down into dark chained trunks in my mind and shove them off into the corner never to be referenced again.

Imagine: A 10 year old boy having a panic attack about a uncertain future that he had no control over.

If he had only known the truth.

Who is Who?

My Cast of Characters:
Being a new year and all I figured I would cover for you the main people that affect my life. These are the people that I interact with on a semi-normal basis and play a daily part in my semi-normal life

1. Wife a.k.a Wildcat: Been married for 20 years this April. Happily married for shorter than that. I am the odd one she is the stalwart and stoic one. If we were any more opposites we would be characters on Sesame Street. (not sure what that means, but sounds right). We are polar opposites.

2. Girl aka PHM: This is my daughter. She is 15 going on 30. She holds her friends in a higher esteem then the family that cares and provides for her. She has her blonde moments but over all has a pretty solid brain locked in that pretty skull of hers. She knows the right things to do, just chooses not to do them (what kid doesn’t?). Could not be prouder of her.

3. Boy aka BEAST: This is my boy. He has ADHD and a speech impediment. He did not start speaking until he was 5 or so and then it was just “E”. He is now 12 and is the most creative and hyper kinetic person I have ever met. He has no friends but has a heart the size of Texas and wants nothing more than to be liked by his peers. He fills my heart and breaks it every day.

4. Mom aka Ma: My mom. Widowed in 2003 and retired as of the 8th of this month. She is stubborn and yet looks to me for any and all solutions. I help where I can but sometimes I kinda let stuff slide so she has to figure it out herself (for her own good).

Umm wow. This sucks. Thought there would be more in here….
Then there is me ZomBee
I am a 18th level Chaotic good ranger with a +5 swo…..just kidding

I am 40+ in age with the body of a 60+ year old.
I have ADHD (undiagnosed professionally) .
I suffer from fatigue, depression, chronic pain and insomnia.
I work at an IT help desk (which is akin to Einstein working the counter at McDonalds.)
I am just a normal guy with above normal intelligence (not bragging, it can be as much a curse as a help), but have “decided” not to do anything with my brilliance. (which is akin to owning a Ferrari and walking everywhere or being married to a supermodel but sleeping around with homeless prostitutes)
                                  I just live.
This is going to be my "new" year though.
I don’t believe in New Year resolutions but I have made it my goal this year to try and better myself and create the person I really want to be.
I am still working out my plan of action to create myself but stay tuned

Could prove to be interesting.