Death of innocence

I can recall the first time I ever really thought about the future.

It was back in 1980 and I was in the 6^th grade. There was a meteor shower that night so my sister and I were laying out on the sidewalk in front of the house watching the skies. We lived in a small town in California then so of course it was a beautiful night.

As I lay there staring up into the black sky with its millions of twinkling stars my mind started to wander.

I thought about going into the 7^th grade when school started up next and my sister was starting High School.

Then it started to snowball in my head

Then in just 2 years I would be in High School and she would be a Junior

and then she would be a senior and graduating and then moving away

and then I would be graduating and...

It got to be too much for me.

I couldnt handle it.

It was just too big for my eleven year old mind to handle.

I got scared.

I started to cry.

I dont mean sniffles I mean full on no sound coming out bawling.

I ran inside the house to find the only comfort I knew.

Mom.

I needed my mommy.

She was in the bathroom.

I pounded on the door. “Mooommm!” I yelled “I (sob) need (sniff) you”

“What!” she hollered back through the door “what wrong”

but I didnt know what was wrong.

I couldnt put into words what I was feeling.

I didnt even know what I was feeling

I needed comfort.

I needed reassurance.

I stood there nonplussed.

How do I say that I am scared of the future? How do I vocalize that I am scared of growing up and leaving everything I know right now behind me.

“nothing” I finally managed to get out, holding back the sadness in my voice as best I could

“never mind”

“ok well just go back outside then, I'll be out in a minute”

so I went back outside

and I lay there staring up at the vast cosmos without really seeing it.

My sister asked me if I was ok.

“yeah, I'm fine” I replied

but I wasnt.

I mark that moment as the starting of the death of my childhood. Now I know it is not nearly as catastrophic of a childhood decline as some but that was mine.

poppins

Disney

Man I love Disney.

Warning you now that I have drank the Disney Kool-aid here so if you have a hate on for Disney well there are 500+ other posts on here you can read.

Like most children I was raised on Disney and the very first movie I ever saw at a theater was “Pete’s Dragon”

I would say my least favorite would have to be Bambi. Still a good story but just something about it never really clicked for me.

        Sidenote: It’s rather odd that when you do to Disneyworld or Land and see the characters walking around, it amazing how fast their movie becomes a favorite.

For my absolute favorite, wow that would be like picking a favorite kid. I really like them all, especially anything after 1963.

Aladdin is just spot on for action and humor but a lot can be said for “The Apple Dumpling Gang” and Dean Jones in “The shaggy D.A.”

“Escape to Witch mountain ranks right up there with “Bedknobs and Broomsticks” and I am not even going to touch of the Kurt Russell string of flicks.

Even Donny Osmond killing it in Mulan with “I’ll make a man out of you” is just stupendous.

But there is one movie that rides over the rest.

The pinnacle of all Disney flicks

The one with the silliest of words in it that everyone still knows 50 years later

Mary Poppins

Mary. Freakin. Poppins.

This movie is practically perfect in every way.

5 Oscars and 2 Grammys and is widely considered one of the greatest films of all time.

When people say something is timeless this is what I think of. You can watch this at any time and at any age and still enjoy it. This is what started my sincere admiration for Dick Van Dyke and I cannot picture anyone alive or dead who would be able to just kill as Mary Poppins that Julie Andrews.

I’m not going to go into great detail here obviously. At the very least you can read about it on Wikipedia.

If…no. WHEN Hollywood decides they need to “reboot” this then I will be done with movies.

Now if you will excuse me I just took a spoon full of sugar and I am off to go fly a kite because I love to laugh.

tiny things

It’s the little things

There is a lot in life to enjoy. It doesn’t all have to be doom and gloom. There are little joys that you can experience every day.

For me my joys are rather simple:

• I live for my children’s laughter. Nothing can make me grin faster than hearing them laugh.
• My wife doing a small thing for me. Like the other day I mentioned that the apples we had were mushy and I do not like mushy apples so on the way to work she stopped at Quick Trip and picked me up a package of crisp apple slices.
• Hitting every green light.
• Not being able to breathe because your nose is stopped up so you dig into your proboscis and latch on to dried snot chain and as you pull out this monstrosity you can feel it leaving your sinus cavity. Ok that may be a bit uncouth and gross to some but you take your joy where you can get it.
• When you take a drink and you can feel the cold going all the way down.
• Warm toes
• A really good poop and when you wipe it comes away clean. Oh come on! Everyone poops. I just happen to be the guy talking about it.
• A really long episode where I just destroy everyone in my Trivia Crack queue. I really like winning but I try to be careful at how hard I beat people because I want them to come back. I really have a brain full of worthless information. Funny side note is my daughter does the same thing and blames/credits me for filling her brain with trivial knowledge.
• 3:15PM – let me elaborate. In everyone’s life, especially at work, there is that one time of the day that just crawls by. For me it about 2:20 to 3:10 and yeah I’ve narrowed it down to that close of an approximation. That is my time of the day where the clock just stops and starts moving backwards. Once I get past that roadblock it is just smooth sailing.
• A good nap. I have this rule that if I am going to take a nap on any given day then I have to be asleep before 3:30pm. Any later than that and I run the risk of interfering with going to sleep that night.

Then there is one of my rarest of joys.

A good night sleep.

  I know for a fact that there is a feeling you can get where you wake up and feel rested and invigorated to start your day. I have felt this elusive animal less than a handful of times at best in my 46 years on this planet but I know it is out there.

So what do you consider to be your joy?

Tell me below.

Theory of sleep

As someone who suffers from insomnia on a regular basis I have theorized that since the brain sucks in every bit of input you experience. Every smell, sound, thought, sight, touch, whatever. All that input just sits in your brains RAM until you give the brain time to download and process the information. This is why the body gets the same amount of regenerative energy from just 15 minutes of calming downtime but you still have a need for sleep.
Thats what dreams are. Part of your brain is built to make sense outta input so part of your brain watches this info flying by as its being put away and starts making stories up from it. Why? bored maybe? maybe thats its job and it doesnt know how NOT to do its job so since it cant use current input it uses what it has available.
Anyway once your RAM gets full then the machine starts to break down. It is full to bursting with all of this data and hasnt had any down time to process it. The computer starts to error out. Your brain bluescreens. Too many bluescreens and the whole thing just shuts down.
Anyway thats been my theory for a while but what do I know. Just had 3 decades of sleepless nights to contemplate it.

dumb ideas

Have you ever hated your job so much that you grasped at anything just to not go?

I worked for this copier company once many years ago. It was a multi-million dollar company that was expanding so it had some promise at least.

I ended up hating the job but the job market in my town was so tight I was happy for a job at the time.

One of the owners was a horrible man who did not know how to empathize with other human beings. Quite literally. I don’t think it was Asperger’s or something along those lines though I think he was just an ass.

Please note that I am not exaggerating here either and I am not bashing because of sour grapes or anything of that sort.

When I first met the man he was cursing casually to a group of people. Not in a mad, boisterous “I am trying to get my point across” way but in a “I don’t know any better” kind of way.

Cursing is not usually a big deal to me really. I think it is tactless and classless to curse freely around women especially ones I do not know.

Especially female employees.

Especially female employees who have asked him to stop

Especially female employees who have asked him to stop on threat of legal action.

Yet when requested to stop by a female employee she was told “I am the owner and I will do what I want.”

If anything I am under-stating.

This guy was very self-centered and egotistical and …I am digressing.

A good example was my father died on a Wednesday and yet I had to come in on Thursday and work because they could not give me both Thursday and Friday off.

Not because of the work load or scheduling or anything like that.

He just did not want to.

Anyway, back to my point.

I went to the dentist and he said eventually my wisdom teeth might need to come out. They were not an issue or anything at that point but something I would want to think about.

Immediately I jumped at that opportunity.

I willingly had oral surgery just to have a reason to not go into work for 1 day.

But that’s not even my lowest point though.

And trust me I am not proud of any of this.

My lowest point was when I worked for an aircraft corporation.

The job itself was just so incredibly boring that one morning….. I licked the inside of the elevator.

…..Yeah, licked.

Tongue swabbed right along the metal wall in the cab right next to the buttons.

Thoroughly disgusting I know.

I am revolted just thinking about it.

Why you might ask?

Simply because of the germs that collect on services of high traffic areas like elevators.

Some scientists recently did a swabbing of the turn-styles in the subways in network and found everything from cheese bacteria just hanging out waiting to run into some milk to make some cheese to the bubonic plague. Yup the Black Death was lingering around on the turnstile just waiting for its chance to recreate the middle ages.

Oh and they also found DNA. They found human DNA and rat DNA and then DNA they could not identify.

DNA they could not identify?

I do not know what that even means.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/big-data-and-bacteria-mapping-the-new-york-subways-dna-1423159629

I paid dearly for my frivolity though and after reading this article I got off easy.

The next day I had a raging case of strep throat.

Yay me.

I gave myself strep throat just to have a reason not to go to work.

I am an idiot.

Powerball dreamin

Have you seen the Powerball lottery total?

450 million dollars.

That is truly a helluva lot of money. 

I mean, wow! Almost half a billion dollars.

Just like the rest of humanity I do like to dream about what I would do with that kinda cheddar.

I would set it up so I could just live off the interest for starters. Figure 80 million would give me a living wage of around 50k a week. Especially with no bills that should be more than enough.

Id do all the normal crap too. You know, new dream house, killer cars (not really a guy who cars too deeply about driving a nice car. Just a toll to get me from point A to point B but with that kind of money why not.)

Family and friends taken care of obviously. Id give my brother in laws about 1/4^th of what I would give my sister. Why? Because my sister has always been there 110% for me and mine and I cant say the same for my wife's brothers.

Id have about 10 million set up to just spend. Frivolously and stupidly.

This would be the “get it out of your system” money. Spending to get the spending out of our system.

Once the past, present and future were set and solid then I would start getting beneficial.

One thing id like to do is make a deal with a local car lot and have these golden tickets made up.

Then Id find people driving beaters.

The cars held together with bailing wire and spit and were rust colored cause they were mostly rust.

Id go to Wal-mart and places like that and look for families mostly.

Id give them a golden ticket that they could trade in for any car on the lot they wanted. All expenses paid. They could do whatever they wanted with the car, meaning keep it or sell it, whatever.

That would make me feel good.

Think id also setup a scholarship fund too. Donate to the local school library. Shoot donate to the school since our beloved Governor decide to yank 3 million from the budget.

Maybe days when I was bored go to the local grocery store and buy peoples groceries.

Yeah that would be fun.

Seeing peoples faces light up when that damn money burden is lifted from their shoulders even momentarily would be a wondrous thing.

I believe with my whole heart that having the burden of money removed from my shoulders would go a very long way to lifting my depression. Maybe not forever, no but for at the very least a year I would be all grins and giggles.

Unfortunately trying to get rich by winning the lottery is akin to trying to kill yourself by just traveling by commercial airlines. They say that you have a better chance of getting hit by lightning on your way to buy the ticket than actually winning.

Still that lightning does have to strike and I will be paying my $10 dollar idiot tax by buying a ticket.

Like my dad would say “someones gotta win”

So what would you do to be beneficial?

What kind of unusual practice can you think of to help out your fellow man?

Give me some ideas in the comments.

spirits

I was outside at dusk changing a lightbulb in my porch-light. I had my cordless drill out to use and was standing on a step-stool. I had just finished screwing in the Phillips screw and was changing bits to switch to standard when I dropped the bit. I felt it hit my foot and then heard it hit some dried leaves on the ground to my right.
Great.
Well I've got an idea where it dropped so I finished what I was doing then jumped off the porch and went looking for it.
Nope no luck. I went up the 2 steps back into the house. Got a flashlight and went back down the 2 steps and went looking for it. Still nothing. Which is odd because I heard it hit leaves and these are the only ones near me?
Figure fine ill just look tomorrow when there is more light. Went to go back in the house and there on the top step. Right in the middle of the step, where I had just been twice. Laying perfectly lateral to the edge, like it had been placed there was the bit.