A low in human times

Play with me here a second.

You are sitting at home, minding your own business.

Suddenly there is a knock at your door.

Not a nice rap-rap-“I’ve come to have tea and cookies”-rap

But a heart dropping BLAM-BLAM-BLAM.

Questioningly you get up and peak out the front door.

On the front porch you see 2 policemen.

2 very serious looking policemen.

Behind them you see 2 squad cars blocking your drive and 2 more serious looking policemen with guns pointed at your front door.

Your first thought is naturally “what the hell did I do?” (Everyone has a guilty consciousness) Then you realize you haven’t “done” anything since you early 20’s.

Naturally, you open the door.

You are then forcibly grabbed from your home and thrown into a squad car and then thrown into jail.

Questions, tirades, pleading, doesn’t matter nothing helps.

The next words you even hear are “the judge will see you now.”

So you are brought in front of the judge and by now you must be quite pissed off and indignant.

Before you can even sputter

A 12 year old girl, that you vaguely remember buying Girl Scout cookies from last year, points at you and says

“Yup that’s the mean Clown that made me shuck corn.”

Before you can even deny owning large shoes or even knowing how to shuck,

You have been sentenced to death.

No this is not an allegory to slavery or segregation.

Pretty damn silly right?

The Salem Witch Trials

In winter of 1691-92, in Salem Village, Massachusetts, outside Salem proper, four girls, Ann Putnam Jr. (12), Abigail Williams (11), Elizabeth Parris (9), and Mary Walcott (17), apparently began to suffer seizures, screaming fits, bursts of gibberish, general fear and violence against others.

It is now theorized by most that Parris and Williams, the two who started the craze, were simply looking to get attention for themselves. But once they were suspected of “indwelling by the Devil,” a crime which might have gotten them executed, they immediately blamed various people throughout Salem Village, and even neighboring towns of possessing them with their spirits, witchcraft and communion with Satan. The entire area was paranoid about Satan in the first place, and was thus a powder keg waiting to go off. Putnam and Walcott are believed to have started doing the same thing just for the fun of joining in, but Putnam’s parents saw her “possession” as a convenient means to get rid of some local enemies they’d made. Walcott is thought to have been involved for the sheer pleasure of causing others’ deaths.

It would take too long to give all the particulars here, but in the end, 19 people were hanged in public for witchcraft, and one man, Giles Corey, at about 80 years old, was crushed to death beneath heavy stones for refusing to enter a plea of guilty or not guilty. The local magistrates even indicted and imprisoned a 4 your year old girl named Dorothy Good and aggressively interrogated her as to whether she was a witch. She, of course, had no idea what in the world they were talking about and only wept for her mother, who disowned her to save herself. They finally told her to confess to witchcraft and she would be given back to her mother, which, of course, she did. She was released on 50 pounds bail and went insane from the ordeal.

The hysteria did not stop until the Governor George Phipps, who knew people were being killed, was informed that his wife had been accused of witchcraft. He immediately ordered the entire farce to cease.

Only five years later, every party involved in accusing or prosecuting innocent people repented, claimed to be ashamed, and begged everyone’s forgiveness. All except for Judge John Hawthorne. He condemned, or joined in condemning, most of those executed, rejoiced at their executions, and felt absolutely no remorse for the rest of his life, not even when several women suffered miscarriages in prison due to starvation and the atrocious squalor. He called these dead infants, “righteous punishment from the Almighty. The children were not human, but born of the Devil, and now burn in the everlasting flames.” Abigail Williams disappeared, some say to New York, where she may have become a prostitute.

Basically 4 teenage girls were not hugged enough by their daddys and decided that, for fun, they would destroy people’s lives.

They created a public hysteria so bad that it caused a mother to throw her child to the wolves just to save her own skin.

Wow.

Ok taking that situation completely at face value here.

Put in the same position, in the same era, I feel very confident in saying that I would gladly (ok maybe not gladly but readily) admit that I was the bad-assest warlock pimp this side of the Mississippi just to save my child.

Whenever I see an enlightening human story on the Hallmark channel about the virtues of the human spirit it doesn’t take long to be reminded of what a parasitic cesspool the human race really is.

Yes I can become incensed about stuff from 400 years ago.

No I dont thing humanity has made any great strides forward in the time alotted.

Nathaniel Hawthorne at least had the good form to be ashamed of his uncle (ancestor,grandfather, whatever) Judge John Hawthorne.

Symbiosis?

I was reading this article (thank you Boing-Boing) from the brief synopses I was reading here it looks like the bacteria in our guts that’s we actually need to help with digestion and such, is actually influencing parts of our brains. Looks like it is causing us to be more careful in our lives and take less risks, which makes sense as the bacteria would want their host to live as long as possible.

If the host dies that kinda makes the whole “living” thing moot by definition.

So by actively influencing the brain chemistry they can reduce the number of risks the host will take and by reducing the risks taken they can, in theory, keep the host alive longer.

Do bacteria control your brain?

Posted: 20 Apr 2011 08:56 AM PDT

A new study has found evidence suggesting that you are not what you eat, so much as you are what's living in your gut. In mice, at least, the presence of normal gut bacteria has a significant impact on how an individual mouse behaves, and how its brain develops.

This new study is the first to extensively evaluate the influence of gut bacteria on the biochemistry and development of the brain. The scientists raised mice lacking normal gut microflora, then compared their behavior, brain chemistry and brain development to mice having normal gut bacteria. The microbe-free animals were more active and, in specific behavioral tests, were less anxious than microbe-colonized mice.

In one test of anxiety, animals were given the choice of staying in the relative safety of a dark box, or of venturing into a lighted box. Bacteria-free animals spent significantly more time in the light box than their bacterially colonized littermates. Similarly, in another test of anxiety, animals were given the choice of venturing out on an elevated and unprotected bar to explore their environment, or remain in the relative safety of a similar bar protected by enclosing walls. Once again, the microbe-free animals proved themselves bolder than their colonized kin ...

Consistent with these behavioral findings, two genes implicated in anxiety -- nerve growth factor-inducible clone A (NGF1-A) and brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) -- were found to be down-regulated in multiple brain regions in the germ-free animals ...

When Pettersson's team performed a comprehensive gene expression analysis of five different brain regions, they found nearly 40 genes that were affected by the presence of gut bacteria. Not only were these primitive microbes able to influence signaling between nerve cells while sequestered far away in the gut, they had the astonishing ability to influence whether brain cells turn on or off specific genes.

Personally, I'd like to see more analysis on what these findings mean. The Scientific American story quoted above makes it sound like normal gut bacteria are, on the whole, kind of cramping the brain's style. Given the evidence that exists about healthy gut bacteria's importance to maintaining other aspects of physical health, I'm curious whether this study implies that we humans have accepted a bit of a trade off. We get gut bacteria that help us digest food and train our immune systems—but we loose some control over how our brains function, possibly to our detriment, but possibly not, depending on the circumstances.

Oh, and, before the rest of you get a chance, I'm going to jump in here and make the obvious comment: "I, for one, welcome our new E. coli overlords."

Scientific American: The Neuroscience of the Gut

Top 30 of things

                                              My top 30 things I have learned the hard way.

1.  No matter how bad it is, it can always get worse.
2. Never, ever wish for time to speed up because once it gets rolling it wont stop.
3. Money can buy you happiness, it just depends on how you use it.
4. People come and go in your life but you are stuck with you forever. Get used to it.
5. Hate is a strong word and should be reserved for dictators, pedophiles and the Fred Phelps Klan.
6. Never laugh or make fun of someone’s awkwardness because someone else is laughing at yours.
7. A cliché is just a fact that everyone knows. Dont discount it.
8. No one knows everything.
9. You will find a large sum of people who mistakenly think they are exempt from Rule #8.
10. Never lick a public elevator, you will get strep.
11. There is no such thing as “luck”.
12. No matter how good you are at something, there is always someone better.
13. Nothing that happens is high school is permanent but can leave permanent scars.
14. Ask. The worst thing they can do is point and laugh.
15. Remember the past as a lesson, prepare for the future as a battle but actively live for right now.
16. It doesn’t matter one whit what someone else thinks of you, just as long as you like you.
17. Pain is your body’s way of saying something is wrong. Do not ignore your body.
18. Love is just a word. Easier to say then it is to do.
19. A man who says he fears nothing is a fool.
20. Putting a label on something works great for anything but people.
21. Everyone lies.
22. No one has your best interests at heart above their own.
23. You can love friends more than family but your family loves you more than anyone else.
24. It hurts to fail but you don’t learn anything by doing it right all the time.
25. The future is a really scary place no matter who you are.
26. A person’s opinion means more to them than yours does.
27. Someone else’s opinion should never supersede your own.
28. Life is hard, dying is easy.
29. Life is rarely, if ever, fair.
30. Life does not come to you, you have to go to it.

POLY-TICS

One thing I have always been vastly disinterested in is the dreaded politics.

Politics, in any form, is just a buncha hot air.

There is no way I am going to believe that a politician, after spending so much time in their allotted position, is going to be able to connect with the needs of the common man.

Now, I am not THAT stupid. I understand fully that you can’t please everyone and that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. Blah,blah,blah

The way I explained politics to my kids was as such.

Everyone has a voice in America and everyone also wants their voice to be heard. You have been in a noisy room where a bunch of people are standing around just talking and murmuring to each other, right? OK not imagine a whole country like that. Kinda loud and cant hear anything.

So we elect certain people to be our voice.

Then we all tell them what we want said and they take that list to a room in our city with a buncha other people just like them and they each all talk at the same time and try to get all of their lists taken care of. Once everyone has finished reading off their lists, these guys (and gals) then try to lump certain items together and filter out other items, to try and make the main list smaller and more manageable.

They then hand that list off to another guy, who has been chosen by us as well, who takes the list to a room in our county with a buncha other people just like them and they each all talk at the same time and try to get all of their lists taken care of. Once everyone has finished reading off their lists, these guys (and gals) then try to lump certain items together and filter out other items, to try and make the main list smaller and more manageable.

(There is a pattern here)

They then hand that list off to another guy, who has been chosen by us as well, who takes the list to a room in our state with a buncha other people just like them and they each all talk at the same time and try to get all of their lists taken care of. Once everyone has finished reading off their lists, these guys (and gals) then try to lump certain items together and filter out other items, to try and make the main list smaller and more manageable.

They then hand that list off to another guy, who has been chosen by us as well, who takes the list to a room in Washington with a buncha other people just like them and they each all talk at the same time and try to get all of their lists taken care of. Once everyone has finished reading off their lists, these guys (and gals) then try to lump certain items together and filter out other items, to try and make the main list smaller and more manageable.

Have you ever played the game telephone where 1 person says a phrase and it passes from one person to another until it gets to the last one and they repeat the garbled message

**note this game does not work for groups of 3 people or less**

Same thing with politics, so by the time the message is ready to go to the President for his OK and No way, the message has changed, bent, twisted or just plain broke. So if you had mentioned to your city representative that

“Boy, I sure would like to pay less for gas.”

By the time the President hears the message it says

“Please give all our money to Congress and the Senate”

I firmly and strongly believe that the voice of 1 person railing against the establishment is the same as a million voices, not going to get squat done. Now back in the day, back when this country was first founded, yeah! The voice of the people had a LOT of pull. When the people pushed back the Government had little choice but to listen to them and even *gasp* obey!

However, now days that is not even a piece of the puzzle anymore. In today’s world they just like to keep up the illusion that your voice actually means something.

Why?

Because if they didn’t then as a people we would get fed up and revolt to have our voice heard. However, if they just continue to tell us that we have a voice and they are listening, then we go back to our hovels and stare at our idiot boxes and figure all is ok.

It really doesn’t matter what you say or what you do or the party you belong to.

None. Of. It. Matters.

As long as this world is spinning (which with the way the skin is shuddering might not be too much longer) but forever and ever, the Haves will keep on having, the Havenots will continue to have not and nothing will ever change that.

The Havenots group will always grow and will always have less pull and less influence then the Haves. How am I so certain?

Lets think here.

Let’s say tomorrow morning there is a great revolution and everyone who is a “Have” is dragged through the streets in a burlap bag. All corporations become ran by the employees, all monies are distributed evenly among all the people.

Even ground across the board.

By the end of the week, someone will be in charge and expect more for doing so.

By the end of the week, someone will have double their portions just because that’s what they want.

That’s just the way we work.

badassitude

Hideaki Akaiwa

On the afternoon of Friday, March 11th, Hideaki Akaiwa was at his job, dully trudging out the final bitter minutes of his work week in his office just outside the port city of Ishinomaki in Japan's Miyagi Prefecture. What this guy's day job actually is, I honestly have no idea, but based on the extremely limited information I have on the guy I can only presume that his daily nine-to-five routine probably falls somewhere between the motorcycle chase scenes from the movie Akira and John Rambo's antics in the book version of First Blood on the ridiculousness/badassitude scale. But that's only speculation.
The one thing we know for certain is that Akaiwa was at work on the 11th, when suddenly, right as he was in the middle of jumping over a giant Gatling-gun-armed robot while riding on a rocket-powered jetbike he'd MacGuyvered together out of vines, tree branches, and a couple thumbtacks, something terrible happened – an earthquake. And not just any earthquake – a mega fucking brain-busting insane earthquake the likes of which the island of Japan had never had the misfortune of experiencing before. The ground shook, buildings crumbled, lights smashed apart, and the entire population of the country froze in fear as fault line below Japan rumbled for a ridiculous two-plus minutes.
But, amazingly, an 8.9 magnitude earthquake wasn't the worst thing to happen to the town Ishinomaki on that horrible day. No, that was afterwards, when the tremors from the earthquake churned up a raging tsunami that took a bustling city of 162,000 people and suddenly turned it into little more than a ten-foot-deep lake.
For reference, here's a NASA satellite comparison of the city before and after the tsunami. Needless to say, poor Hideaki Akaiwa, concerned for his family, rushed out of his office in time to see his city completely submerged under an obscene ten feet of water that buried everything from houses to businesses. He ran to the high water mark and stared helplessly into the sprawling lake that once used to be his home.
But it gets even worse. Hideaki's wife of twenty years was still buried inside the lake somewhere. She hadn't gotten out. She wasn't answering her phone. The water was still rising, the sun was setting, cars and shit were swooshing past on a river of sea water, and and rescue workers told him there was nothing that could be done – the only thing left was to sit back, wait for the military to arrive, and hope that they can get in there and rescue the survivors before it's too late. With 10,000 citizens of Ishinomaki still missing and unaccounted for, the odds weren't great that Hideaki would ever see his wife again.
For most of us regular folks, this is the sort of shit that would make us throw up our hands, swear loudly, and resign ourselves to a lifetime of hopeless misery.
But Hideaki Akaiwa isn't a regular guy. He's a fucking insane badass, and he wasn't going to sit back and just let his wife die alone, freezing to death in a miserable water-filled tomb. He was going after her. No matter what.

How the fuck Hideaki Akaiwa got a hold of a wetsuit and a set of SCUBA gear is one of the great mysteries of the world. I'm roughly twenty hours into Fallout 3 and I'm lucky to come across a fucking vacuum cleaner in that godforsaken post-apocalyptic wasteland, yet this guy is in the middle of a real-life earth-shaking mecha-disaster and he's coming up with oxygen tanks, waterproof suits, and rebreather systems seemingly out of thin air. I guess when you're a truly unstoppable badass, you, by definition, don't let anything stand in your way. You make shit happen, all the time, no matter what.
Regardless of how he came across this equipment (borrowing, stealing, buying, beating up a Yakuza SCUBA diving demolitions expert, etc.) Hideaki threw on his underwater survival gear, rushed into the goddamned tsunami, and dove beneath the rushing waves, determined to rescue his wife or die trying. I'm not exactly sure whether or not the dude even knew how to operate SCUBA equipment, but according to one version of his story he met his wife while he was surfing (which is awesome, by the way), so it doesn't seem like that much of a stretch to say that he already had a little experience SCUBA diving under a more controlled situation. Of course, even if this dude didn't know how to work the gear I'm certain that wouldn't have stopped him either – Hideaki wasn't going to let a pair of soul-crushing natural disasters deter him from doing awesome shit and saving his family. He dove down into the water, completely submerged in the freezing cold, pitch black rushing current on all sides, and started swimming through the underwater ruins of his former hometown.
Surrounded by incredible hazards on all sides, ranging from obscene currents capable of dislodging houses from their moorings, sharp twisted metal that could easily have punctured his oxygen line (at best) or impaled him (at worst), and with giant fucking cars careening through the water like toys, he pressed on. Past broken glass, past destroyed houses, past downed power lines arcing with electrical current, through undertow that could have dragged him out to sea never to be heard from again, he searched.
Hideaki maintained his composure and navigated his way through the submerged city, finally tracking down his old house. He quickly swam through to find his totally-freaked-out wife, alone and stranded on the upper level of their house, barely keeping her head above water. He grabbed her tight, and presumably sharing his rebreather with her, dragged her out of the wreckage to safety. She survived.

Dramatization of the rescue.

But Hideaki Akaiwa still wasn't done yet.
Now, I'm sure you're wondering what the fuck is more intense than commandeering a wet suit, face-punching a tsunami and dragging your wife of two decades out of the flooded wreckage of your home, but, no shit, it gets even better. You see, Hideaki's mother also lived in Ishinomaki, and she was still unaccounted for. I think you all know where this is going.
First, Hideaki searched around the evacuation shelters and other areas, looking for his mom among the ragtag groups of survivors who had been lucky enough to flee to higher ground. She might have escaped, and he needed to find her. Now. He ran through the city like some post-apocalyptic action hero, desperately trying to track her down, but when a couple of days went by without any sign of her, he knew what he had to do. The water had only receded a few inches by this point, the rescue teams weren't working quickly enough for his tastes, and Hideaki Akaiwa fucking once again took matters into his own hands – rushing back into the waterlogged city looking for his mom.

These are not ideal SCUBA diving conditions.

So, once again Hideaki navigated his way through the Atlantean city, picking his way through crumbling wreckage, splintered wood, and shredded metal to find his elderly mother. After another grueling trek, he tracked her down on the upper levels of a house – she'd been stranded there for four days, and would almost certainly have died without the timely aid of her son. He brought her to safety somehow as well, as you might expect at this point.
Now, while most people would have been content in the knowledge that their family was safe, Hideaki Akaiwa isn't the sort of badass who's going to hang up his flippers and quit just because he'd taken care of his own personal shit – this guy made an oath to keep going back into the wreckage on his own to find people and help them to safety. Today this 43 year-old Japanese badass rides out every single day, multiple times a day, riding around on a bicycle with his legs wrapped in plastic to keep himself dry. His only equipment – a pocketknife, a canteen, a flashlight, a change of clothes, and a badass set of aviator sunglasses – packed into a trusty trio of backpacks, he rides out in search of people needing rescue, a modern-day, real-life action hero.

Your To Be List - Blog

Be Present: Ten years from now, what will have mattered to our children?

Wednesday, January 26, 2011 at 3:35PM
Lauren Rosenfeld in be blessed, be compassionate, be humorous, be kind, be loving, be present, blog

Ten years from now . . .

Remember: If it will have mattered in ten years, it matters now.Ten years from now, it won't have mattered whether or not the sink was perfectly scrubbed.

Ten years from now it will have mattered that I stopped scrubbing the sink to listen to a problem they were having in school.

Ten years from now, it won't have mattered that the plates were chipped or that the cups were not a matched set.

Ten years from now, it will have mattered that we sat down at the table together, said a blessing, and shared stories about what happened that day.

Ten years from now, it won't have mattered that their books were scattered everywhere.

Ten years from now, it will have mattered that they loved to read and did so in every corner of the house.

Ten years from now, it won't have mattered if they ran off to school with wrinkled shirts or grass stains on their pants.

Ten years from now, it will have mattered that they were always told, "I love you. Have a great day!" as they dashed out the door - wrinkles, grass stains, and all.

Ten years from now, it won't have mattered that their beds were made haphazardly; that there were lumps under the covers and pillows left on the floor.

Ten years from now, it will have mattered that I leaned over their rumpled beds, kissed them goodnight and assured them that even as they slept, they were loved.

Ten years from now . . .

Ten years from now it won't have mattered that the couch was threadbare.

Ten years from now, it will have mattered that we sat on that couch and laughed until we cried – and that on that very same couch, I held them when they cried genuine tears of sadness.

Ten years from now, it won't have mattered if there were muddy footprints tracked through the house.

Ten years from now, it will have mattered that they ran with abandon, filled their lungs with fresh air, and connected with the wonder of nature.

Ten years from now, it won’t have mattered if I won every argument.

Ten years from now, it will have mattered that I lived my values.

Ten years from now, it won't have mattered that they didn't get everything they wanted.

Ten years from now, it will have mattered that their deepest needs were met.

Ten years from now, it won't have mattered that I wasn't a perfect parent.

Ten years from now, it will have mattered – and mattered deeply – that I was a present parent.

So today and every day, may I live in the moment with my children, with my eyes to their future.

And let me offer my children the gift of what will have mattered in ten years.

- by Lauren Rosenfeld, M.A., M.Ed., Author of Your To Be List

Your To Be List - Blog

Woke up shaking

Went to bed at oh I would say around 930ish.

Stirred awake and thought “ugh don’t wanna get up yet. Man, I will bet I could sneak in another 30 minutes.” So I glance at the clock

and… its 12:20a.

I roll over and go back to sleep.

Wavylines-wavy lines- Wavylines-wavy lines

I was in an office/home. A friend of mine was undercover with “the organization” but he had been discovered. He was currently making time with the Don’s girl. I was standing at a desk where the top right drawer had been removed and a camcorder had put in it’s place (don’t ask me, this is dreamland.)

I was entertaining 2 of the Don’s goons (who were of mid-eastern heritage) as they recorded themselves on the camcorder

Then I left and as I was walking to my POS silver Mazda (fyi :in reality I have never owned a silver car or a Mazda) I noticed the Don and some goons were heading in. I tried to call my friend but I was too late.

I jumped in my car and discovered I was in a Japanese airport terminal where everyone travelled by conveyor belt and I was being chased by the Yakuza. (yes for some reason I have managed to piss off 3 different mafia-esc organizations).

As I drove my car on the conveyor belts, on which it fit perfectly thank you, I was somehow thrown out and ended up chasing my own car as the conveyor belts carried it away.

The conveyor belted system started getting smaller and smaller.

Soon I was still chasing what was left of my car as it had been compacted down and was forced to lay down to get on this last belt.

The belt went into/under a large concrete block.

It was a long tunnel and there was no light in it or at the end.

The opening and tube were so narrow you had to lay down with one arm above your head.

(I’m getting agitated just recalling it.)

I knew my car would never make it through the tunnel but I was being chased and nowhere else to go so I followed it.

People followed in behind me.

As I lay there in the receding light, the tunnel mouth getting smaller and further away, every shrug and adjustment I am bumping into the ceiling or wall.

Soon the light is so distant that it is easily covered up by the movement of the people lined up behind me.

That’s when I reach my car.

Which is, of course, stuck.

But the conveyor belt is still moving, bringing this mass of people closer and closer and closer and…

…And I am standing next to my bed, vibrating like a cold Chihuahua.

2:30am and I have all but pissed myself

Great Start!

Turning Worms

A new leaf

First off, not whining here just resolving.

I am not the best dad in the world and I am all too aware of this.

I want to be more than anything else.

I lost SO much when I tried to grasp for the golden ring and missed in 2000. Yes 11 years ago and still I feel the ripples.

I lost more than I ever realized what was at stake.

I would be gone from the house by 7am for my 1^st job and be back home by 1am the next morning after my 2^nd. Then I was offered a job in another state for more pay then the 2 put together.

I thought about this and the wife and I discussed this.

I finally decided that I would probably regret saying NO more then I would regret saying YES.

Oh how wrong I was. (On the positive side, I probably wouldn’t have the job I have now without it but cant say for sure. For all I know I could have been working for the Post Office if I stayed.)

I did not look at the big picture.

I did not realize how much I was going to miss.

Right off the top I missed 3 months of them growing up. BLAMMO. Just Gone.

Time that right now I would give up all my fingers and toes with a butter knife just to get back.

every day and night I spent with them foremost on my mind. I called every night just to hear their little voices.

Then when I finally got them into the same state as me I felt “better” but my wife, severed from her life line, fell into a depression.

I was leaving the house at 5am and returning at 8pm each night. This is better?

We had declared bankruptcy to be able to afford to live in this new state so we had no credit.

We had no family around us.

Due to the high cost of living we had no money either.

Just when I started to really groove at my new position, the dotcom bubble burst and I was out of a job.

I wanted nothing more than to cavort about with my younguns but it is rather hard to cavort when a 2-Ton elephant is sitting on your head.

I was now jobless, pennyless, 2000 miles from home and have 2 lil mouths looking up at me as the greatest man who ever lived.

Nah no stress there at all.

My boss (ex-boss) tells me that I could just send them back to Kansas and sleep on the floor at his apartment and he will make sure to “take care of me” when he gets a new position.

A fine and reasonable offer in itself, if I had still been in my early 20’s and/or single.

I distinctly remember he used the word sacrifice.

I just couldn’t do it.

I knew what I had already sacrificed and it wasn’t my sacrifice that was holding me back.

It was the sacrifice I would have to ask of a 2 and 4 year old.

I couldn’t do it.

Not that I felt that my very presence was such an enlightening factor in their life that they could not exist without me. It was actually the other way around.

I found that their very presence was such an enlightening factor in MY life that I could not exist without THEM.

So I made a token effort to find a job in Atlanta, telling my wife that if I didn’t have a reasonable prospect in a week we would move back to Kansas.

First time she had smiled in 3 months.

Luckily I found a job in Kansas City and when we moved back worked as a contractor.

Lucky in that I was bringing in money

Unlucky in that I was spending SO much more time away from my family.

I was miserable but I knew that they were around family now and that was something, that was more and that was better.

Tallied up all together I figured I lost an entire year of them growing up.

Then in 03, while I was working closer to home in a position at 1/4^th the money and for this demon-sucking evil bastard, my dad passed away.

At this point I crawled into my shell and sat there in the dark.

My depression and misery overwhelmed me and I had nowhere to go.

More and more adversary started piling up on me, each one heavier then the next.

I can’t regret the last 8 years more than I do.

I lost more in the last 8 years then I thought possible.

I went through all the motions and I was there physically when I could be but I wasn’t really there.

Then about 3 or 4 months ago something snapped. Sprung? Bounced?

The pit I was digging became a tunnel.

Now as I dig toward the light I know I am still in the tunnel but it’s getting brighter and brighter in here.

I would give anything to have those 8 years back.

I know that cant happen. Even though I enjoy the fantasy side of life I know that reality sucks.

No magic, no odd talisman that reverts you to an earlier age, no blue police box to travel the conduits of time.

So all I can do is try to destroy all the habits accumulated in the past 8 years.

I say no MORE!

No more fatigue days. I spend 1 day of the weekend either asleep or damn close to it.

I say NO MORE!!

No more nights spent with the eyes glazed over as I stare into the idiot box.

The answers are not in there.

I SAY NO MORE!!!

I can’t change the past but I sure as hell am going to try and better the future.

What am I?

I was thinking about what the perfect job would entail.

Now number one is obviously the time honored skill of pondering. 

Since this entails me just doing whatever I please and randomly thinking about a subject, that's kinda a small exclusive market there but I am still looking. By looking I mean squeezing my eyes real tight and singing Twinkle-twinkle lil star.

In the chance that this job has already been filled I was thinking about what would be "optimal" for my world.

Criteria: 

Pays around $50 an hour starting or about 50k a year. Hey I have mouths to feed gotta hit the ground running.

20 - 25 hours a week. 9 to 1 is optimal and Mon-Fri of course.
   Full benefits including 2 weeks vacation and 2 weeks sick pay a year.

Minimal schooling (see : hit the ground running)

No moving.  No traveling.
   Minimal human interaction.
   No selling. No Commission basis. If you make your life that way, more power    to you. I couldn't sell a starving man a saltine.
   No risk. Well, ok as secure as can be in today's world.
   No sweating. No lifting. Bad back and all that. Walking is ok.

That's basically it. 

Now just have to find the job that fits the bill. 

twinkle-twinkle lil star

Rock ON

Let’s say the magic blue fairy flits through your open window, gives you the magic ruby red slippers and tells you “You have the power of Grey-skull!!”

Which, translated out of hippy blue fairy talk, this time it means you now have the innate ability to play the guitar 25% better then the best player in the whole universe?

So this means that if there just happens to be 8 armed cephalopod in the delta quadrant that can play the screaming monkey mandolin better then the Devil himself and his fiddle of gold, you could do better.

OK so now you are THE virtuoso.

Whatcha gonna do with it?

Sit in the basement and pinked away at a toy ukulele and sing for the neighbors cat?

OK, well if that makes you happy go for it.

However, the “correct” answer is

“form the kickiest-assist band of all time!!”

(by the way your grammar sucks, you should look into this.)

So, who are the ultimate band mates of all time to create the world’s greatest music makers of all time?

OKOK so the previous was just a bad vehicle to get to creating a band of faves...

This would be my band.

1. Drums – drums are easy. A spastic chimp can keep some kind of rhythm (if you play drums, I don’t apologize. You have a talent that I do not have. Making me worse off than a spastic chimp yet again.) I guess it would be either Don Henley or Tommy Lee. Why? Well for the most part because those are 2 drummers that come readily to mind and while I really dig the Eagles, I have seen Mr. Lee playing drums while spinning all tipsy-turvey in a roll-cage 100 feet off the stadium floor. Plus he seems like a really cool guy and if the band needs a party leader, who better.
2. Bass guitar – Gonna be in a band then you either want to meet chicks and/or make money. If you wanna make money, then you want the guy who copyrighted the money sack emblem. Mr. Gene Simmons. However if you just want the chicks, man then you gotta pull in McCartney. He has enormous talent and a proven track record also, and more importantly, has a way to pull in the ladies from all generations. Paul (or Faul, if you believe that Paul is dead and was replaced by an imposter in 1969 by British secret service MI-5) also brings to the table a great history of lyrics
3. Lead Guitar – EasyPeasy. Eddie VanHalen. Nuff said.
4. 2^nd Guitar – Well me of course!
5. Lead Singer – Jim Morrison would be optimal but his drug use to overcome his shyness could get in the way. Michael Jackson would be great for the faster pop numbers, Elvis for the slower numbers and Johnny Cash for the ballads.
6. Keyboards – Billy Joel is the piano man of course. Tony Bank from Genesis would be nice too.
7. Background Vocals – Well here is where you can plug in just about everyone you can think of to stand behind you and harmonize with a random “yeah” and “baby”. 3 to 5 would be a good number so lets say...

   1. Christina Aguilera – Girl has pipes

   2. Bruce Willis – yeah. Well 80's Bruce Willis cause I like his “Return of Bruno” album
   3. Whitney Houston – early girl though cause she has pretty much killed the chords.
   4. Dean Martin – needs some male pattern sounds in there. I love me some Dino.
   5. Aretha Franklin – gotta have some soul in there.

As you can tell I really haven’t listened to any music what so ever since the 80's.

I just don’t care too much about it.

I think a lot of it stems from my near deafness due to mishaps when I was a lad. It all kinda ends up sounding the same to me.

                                                   Now what would be a good name...?