top ten mini rants

With religion ranted out for the time being, I expect I shall move along to "things I don't understand" in general. Let me list ten for starters. 1. My wife got a "Kindle" the other day. You read books with it. You can read books with a laptop. Reading books is an "app" on a smart phone isn't it. My question isn't "Why do we need Kindles?" It is "Why doesn't the Kindle have a camera?" 2. My computer screen shows the time of day in the lower corner. Why doesn't it show the date? 3. Modern chemistry has come so far. Why is my oral medication for Diabetes 50 year old technology? 4. French fries taste great. But why are they the standard side dish. Do they taste better than all the others? 5. If you look at the label of any laundry detergent such as "All" or "Cheer" you will find it difficult to tell what the product is. To find out that it is in fact soap, you must look below the brand name and find in very tiny and faint script, the word "detergent" as if it is a secret. Why is this? 6. In the home bathroom, "guest towels" are used for guests. They are usually very nice and put out for the guests to dry their hands on. The guests apparently "share" the use of these towels. Aren't you glad we don't have "guest" toilet paper? 7. Windmills have been around for centuries. Satellite dishes on the roof for decades. Small generators in cars for decades. Why can't I go to Lowe's and buy a windmill for my house, for say a couple hundred bucks and put it up on my roof myself, and plug it into my wall? 8. During the seventies and eighties Japanese cars took over and almost wiped Detroit out. We were told to buy American. Why didn't GM just buy a Toyota Corolla and take it apart piece by piece and copy it exactly and build that car as their own? 9. NASA is going to fly this one last "Space Shuttle" mission. Then we should be saving money and lives by going unmanned. And moving to a newer and better series of space vehicles. Why not take Atlantis to the museum now and put the money toward newer and better stuff? 10. Most restaurants don't serve their breakfast menu all day. Or their lunch menu. They deny their faithful customers something that they could prepare for them. Why would this be good business?
OK that's ten of say a thousand.....remember I'm pullin' for ya. Keep your stick on the ice. LLITTY :::::":::::

it's the caffeine talking, part 115

I wrote and posted a nice big geezer rant about religion. A few hours later, I pulled it down and deleted it. It was so severe. My brother explained to me that that kind of talk/thinking is not societally sustainable. I want people to like me, and I don't want to offend anyone. So it's maybe not a good idea to bash peoples beliefs. I would like to convert a hateful rant into innocent questions. There are many things I just can't understand. Why don't I just tell you what my questions are? 1. Why is it that some people consider the legends in the bible to be real historical accounts? 2. The "rapture" and the end of the world is a big scary scenario. Why do the ones who are "saved" feel happy about this, when the majority of the poor wretched souls will have a tortured fate? Being happy, in the face of that, even though you are safe, would that be sadistic? 3. Christ was born of the Virgin Mary. She is therefore a God. Father, Son, Mother. Why do they call Christianity a monotheism? 4. The Christian religion has lots of sects. And a huge divide between Catholic and Protestant. Before converting the non believers of the world, why doesn't it agree first on what it's own beliefs are? 5. Are Mormons Christian? 6. The Bible is pretty hard on women. Why would women want to be involved in the faith? OK that's enough for now. Enough questions. One more thing before I get off religion. Some say we are in the "end times".. Some say the world will end Dec. 23, 2012 two years from now. Based on the Mayan calendar. But the present day Mayans don't believe that at all. One of the most devout and renowned bible answer men in the world, Harold Camping, predicts the the world will end on May 21, of this year! 4 months from now. Just Google that date! I can't wait. LLITTY :::::+:::::

"I know I look a fright, 2"

The room at home that I hang out in is a pig pen. A shambles. I haven't returned phone calls. I haven't posted here on my blog. I was a Grinch through the holidays. My laundry is on the floor. I've watched a hundred old movies on TV. My dog Jaker has been hanging out with me. He likes this current lifestyle. We can learn about my life from the lyrics to the song "countin flowers on the wall". I make no excuse or apology for this laziness. But I feel a bit guilty about just hanging out in my room. And it's bad for one's health to lay around and watch TV. Sometimes I get a headache from doing that. It can be cured by simply walking a half mile. The temperatures all through December and now in January have been 15 degrees below average here on Delmarva, so it's not fun outside. I should probably get a treadmill. I hate exercise and exercise equipment. It's a bit too early to think about spring. Groundhog day is three weeks away. Then I can think about spring. I have closed off two rooms on the first floor of the house to save on heating costs. I have put plastic and straw against the north wall. My wife has a heating element in the bird bath. She feeds the wild birds every day. Our two barn cats are thriving and finding warm spots to sleep. The horse and the goat are turned out every day and safe in their stalls at night. Our four dogs live in the house with us. Hence we have no nice furniture or carpets. My dog Jaker is here with me as I type. My son is here visiting from California so wife and I are not an empty nest. His visit will be way too short for us. We come alive when he is here, as all you parents know. I am glad the holidays are over. I think the reasons I don't really like Christmas are: 1. I no longer believe in the spiritual part of Christmas. (don't get me wrong--I strongly believe in good will toward men and peace on earth) 2. I don't like the commercial gift exchange. Gifts with a deadline. I have a Christmas tree and it's still "up" because it's a lighted outdoor blue spruce. It's got those old kind of big light bulbs on it. Had no indoor tree this year. After Christmas I bought a very nice artificial tree that has lights built in and is pretty high end. It retailed for well north of $300. But after Christmas it was 75% off, and I had a coupon for another 10%. It's still in the box, and still in the back of the Jeep. So I'm looking forward to having a nice tree next year. That's if I have enough Christmas spirit to set it up. Happy half way to half way through the winter, groundhog fans.

Don McLean American Pie

My wife and I are celebrating our 23rd anniversary. Tonight we locked up the dogs and cats and horse and goat and barn and sheds. We went into Easton and ate at a fine place. A big restored old colonial a half block from the Tidewater Inn, in the center of town. I don't know how to pronounce what I had, but it was good. Wife had called ahead for our reservation and warned them she was a vegan. Whereas I am a vague an. She had a nice chef's creation. And we had champagne. Wife takes a half glass about twice a year. We had tickets for the Don McLean concert at the Avalon right across the street. We lingered over dessert and coffee, and almost missed the opening song. When we picked up our tickets at will call, the nice lady told my wife she had something for her. Along with our front row center tickets the lady handed my wife a cool black baseball cap with red stylized initials "RC". She said that Robert Cray wanted to thank her again. I said "What?" Apparently, wife had bought Robert and his ensemble their carry-out the last time she was at the Avalon. Is wife hanging out there a little too often maybe? And I thought I was a starstruck fan. Front row. The instant we sat down, the lights went down and the show started. McLean looked old. Of course! The generation lost in space is old. He had four other players in his band. They were geezers too. Do I look that old? Keyboard, bass, drums, lead guitar. McLean had this beautiful bodacious Martin D- 45 on a stand beside him on the stage. But he was playing this old big box Gibson, he had borrowed. He explained that the Martin had had it's neck broken by the airlines. I guess he was just displaying it on the stage out of sadness. I wish he would have had the Martin for the show. Don't get me wrong, the Gibson was a nice guitar. It was a big old dreadnought with a spruce top that was so brown it must have been 40 years old. I never saw McLean adjust one tuning peg the whole show. He couldn't have done that with the Martin. But for that singer- songwriter ballad style of clean vocal and guitar the Martin would have been better. Plus the necks are different and I'm impressed that he played the borrowed guitar so well. But he's been doing shows like this- singing the same songs for 42 years! He never does a show without singing American Pie. And he sings it like he means it every time. I was so impressed by him that I am writing to you now when only a day or two ago I was so seeped in ennui i couldn't have written one word on a napkin. As I write this I am still in my sport coat and black dress boots and Christmas shirt. I'm actually in the world again. If it's not too windy tomorrow I will fly up to Massey in the CherOHkee to a hangar Christmas party. Wife may come too. She's been away a bit, helping out her dad and I'm so glad she's back. This has been the nicest anniversary ever. And next weekend is live music and friends in Fredneck. Followed by a big bon fire here on Sunday. I guess I'm back. I wonder if wife will let me wear her new ball cap to the fly in tomorrow. LLITTY :::::+:::::

Domesticated

I want to talk about some simple things around the house. I really get it when a housekeeper says "I don't do windows". Some chores are not bad. Some are bad. I hate vacuuming. I hate cleaning a toilet. I hate dusting. But I don't mind dishes, or laundry. We have a dishwasher. Over the years, I've had lots of dishwashers. The one we have now is a state-of-the-art energy saving, green- friendly one. It saves water. It saves energy by not making the water as hot. It saves on the environment by using less cycles and less soap. All of these "new" improvements are fine. The only drawback to our new dishwasher is that it doesn't get the dishes clean. I talked to the sales rep. about the problem of the dishwasher not actually washing the dishes. I told him that I don't really need to save water too much as I have a deep well and my water is free. I have lot's of time and don't care how long cycles last. I'm willing to spend the extra electricity to get the water really hot to sterilize the dishes. I'd like to get the old kind of dishwasher that isn't efficient but gets the dishes really clean. The rep told me that they don't make dishwashers any more that get the dishes really clean. No kidding. Another thing. All my old dishwashers had the controls on the outside of the unit. So you could see them, even with the door closed. It was that way for forty years. Now the controls are hidden inside the door of the unit and you must have the door open to use the controls. This creates an extra engineering problem because you have to have a conditional type of sensor, a separate chip, for the door logic. Like setting an alarm. Of course! these new dishwashers cost much, much more. And do less. And are more prone to failure. Some folks like to be energy wise and save up the dirty dishes in the dishwasher until they have a "full" load. I hate this. I don't like storing dirty dishes, even if it's in a dishwasher. If I go to the trouble of emptying the dishwasher, and then loading it: it's gonna get run and the job is done. Even if it's half a load. And I don't put pots and pans in the dishwasher. Ever. I just clean them by hand, dry them and put them away. They take up too much space in the dishwasher. And the dishwasher doesn't get them clean anyway. We have about five times as many pots and pans as we need. So we are short cabinet space. I have about five times as many clothes as I need. So I am short closet space. I don't want to get started on my having too many clothes or too much stuff in general. I intend to write a post about too much stuff, and hoarding. It's become an interesting epidemic in the U.S. I don't mind doing laundry actually. I just hate putting laundry away, because I have no place to put it. Some people have housekeepers that come and clean once a week. We had this for a while. But we used to have to work pretty hard to get the place cleaned up enough to be presentable, to a housekeeper. Alas, now I am retired and my wife and I are the housekeepers. And we do a lousy job. I don't understand how rich people, or royals can stand having live- in servants. I'm sorry, but in my home I want privacy more than anything else. I don't want somebody in my house, messing with my stuff and dealing with me every time I want a cup of coffee. Leave me the hell alone. And I'm paying you to be hanging around in my house? Maybe I'm missing something, but I'd rather clean my own living space than have someone see what a slob I am. And I'm a slob and that's the way it is. I don't want to have to kind of always keep things neat like I would as a guest. Hey, it's my house. Is it all right with you if I relax? Now a chauffeur is a different story. I don't want a limo. But a driver now and then would be nice. He wouldn't be in my personal space and I could sleep or watch a movie, or look at scenery, or chat with wife. It would have to be a regular car though. I've ridden in limos many times and I just don't get it. But having a driver in my very own regular sedan would be nice once in a while. Just a fantasy, mind you. I don't even have a full size sedan. A driver wouldn't be any fun in my 1998 Ford pick up.

Thursday Blues, Friday Muse

I feel the need to express a few things. It's not really a rant or a vent. I'm hoping that a few sentences will fall together somehow and that may only happen because I'm doing something more than just thinking. I'm trying to tell you what I'm thinking. I'm not a real writer any more than I am a real singer. But I've learned something about being creative. My son helped me remember it. Do you ever find yourself "learning" something that you already knew very well? Here's a good example. Whenever I feel blue, or slightly ill, I always have the mindset that this is the new baseline for the way that I will feel for the rest of my life. I'm a bit extra sad because of this new life I am facing. Then, in a day or so I feel so much better and the bar of the newer baseline is back up. Then I "learn", or actually, "remember", that it's always that way. I don't have to be "extra blue" when I'm blue. The world will continue on without me and do no better or worse. Another thing I have to keep learning over and over again: being grateful. And not taking things for granted. Back to creativity. I don't claim to be an artist. That may be my point here. When you want to create something. Just create it. The way a child would play with a stick or some mud. I have ideas all the time that float around in my head. I never write them down because I don't carry a notebook and I don't really want to write them down. I remember a tiny percentage of them. That's OK. It brings me to my next point. Just because I have a great idea, it doesn't mean I have to write a song about it. Just because I see a beautiful scene on a beautiful lake in Alaska doesn't mean I have to take a picture of it. I'm talking around the edges of "writers block" here and an undefinable thing called the "muse". I can't explain why I get a favorite song from the sixties in my head and it becomes the only song that I think is cool. It becomes the only song I want to play. The "art" of it all is in my mind and my mind alone. I think that is the essence of pure art. I have absolutely no desire to create something that "sells". I think it would be fun if someone liked something I did. That's different because it would be after I did it, or made it. When you do it, you know you are doing it, and it's only for you. I'm not saying it's wrong to make a living creating stuff. Of Course! that's great. I envy people who do that and they are very talented indeed. But those very artists would probably admit that they work and produce not under the "muse" that I was describing above. When they do that, it may be in a different medium. All this is not to be confused with the validation that we all constantly seek. This personal validation goes deep to our psyche. It's all we're after, day in day out. " Look at me. Let me talk. Listen to me. My turn. Look what I did. Look what I have. Agree with me. Love me." In fact when I am in the process of my "art" whatever that may be, personal validation is not what I am looking for. The quest for validation is an endless futile treadmill..... like getting enough money. There is never enough Validation. Like money, it can never satisfy you. Fulfill you. Having said that, I am shallow, and would love to have a published book someday. Or a Youtube video with say a million plays. But the artist needs more than just an idea coupled with the muse. After he has those two things he needs to "do" the project. Yesterday I was telling my son that I just can't seem to write any blog posts. He's going to Hollywood pretty soon. He's writing a screenplay. Everyone in Hollywood has a screenplay. He said: "Well, whenever I can't seem to write, even though I want to write, what I do is just start writing." My son is exactly right about this. This is one of those things that I already knew. And I thank him for teaching/reminding me. LLITTY :::::+:::::

Celebrate the Quarter

There are four real earth holidays that belong to all of us. Two solstices and two equinoxes. Today is the day of the Autumnal Equinox. Now the days will start slowly getting shorter as we head for the holidays. The weather has been indescribably beautiful. There is a full moon. A harvest moon. Which happens rarely on the actual equinox. But it is happening now. Last night I mowed by the light of the harvest moon. Then it clouded up and we actually got thunder and a touch of rain. I looked at the moon through binocs during the day yesterday and it was spectacular. The winter solstice has Christmas. The summer solstice has 4th of july. The vernal equinox has Easter. But what has the autumnal equinox? Labor day? That's a lame holiday. Going back to school? That's already happened. I want to celebrate these four important holidays of the sun. The natural holidays. The calender holidays. The earth's cycle holidays. We all get to celebrate them. Regardless of our culture, race, or religion. These four sun holidays can remind us that we all live on one planet. We all depend on one planet. We have to be good roommates. Race. What is race. The DNA between races amounts to about one tenth of one percent! We are the same. Folks. I want to celebrate the holidays we all naturally own. If you have a deity that you worship and a certain day is his holiday, fine. Don't expect others to respect that day. But four times a year there are these sun holidays. You can't deny them. And say, "Oh I don't believe in the shortest day of the year." We all live and we all die on planet earth. Fed by star Sun. I think we should all be off work and school today.