Journal

April 27th, 2008

I realized last night while watching a movie that I don't pronounce the word "important" correctly. I say, "imporden". Maybe that's a local dialect and maybe that's just something lazy most Americans do. I don't know. But I learned because some part of my mind felt it necessary to judge a cartoon character in a movie then tell me woah Aslynn, you are so absolutely wrong--and isn't it crazy for you to be critising a cartoon character? My gods man, get a life!

Truth is, every day I'm discovering some way I judge the universe, take it in my hand and look at it and say that's okay or that's just fine or maybe no, that's not quite how it's "supposed" to be, like some of the spots on the shelf I made. But then there comes a point where you just have to say you did your best--even if you know you could have done better, you could have taken a little bit more time to do such-and-such or you could have done one aspect or another slightly differently and gosh darnit, how did you overlook whatever it is you overlooked? Wasn't it obvious?!

You did your best.

So me? I took what I know, I used what I had, I focused on it when I was able, and now, arguably too long later, I don't have to have my DVD, Playstation, Game Cube, Nintendo, and Atari 2600 collection lined up against the entertainment room wall. Did my best and hell, always wanted to own a house with a bookshelf under the staircase and now I have it, now I do and it's mine and it's beautiful and it's great and Harry Potter could only wish for such a wonderful bookshelf in his house!

April 24th, 2008

The time has come to write something here. So far there has been nothing here. There used to be something here. But lately nothing here. So I put something here. I'll tell you about my frustration, my anger, my lust, my midnight inklings, and maybe nobody'll see them 'cause they aint linked to any site and I haven't told anyone where I am. I'm right here on this web page, one web page, an ugly telneted webpage. I didn't even throw it together. Throwing it together would at least imply I took some time to "throw" but I didn't, I just wrote, I'm just writing, and if you read this you've got some time on your hands to read. You must be curious or crazy I don't know and should I care because you aren't here anyway, I haven't given out this web page to anyone it's just one file of a million billion files on a machine that just happens to be connected to the internet so look and maybe write me at rrp@efn.org and tell me what a weird mo-fo I am. Or maybe I'm not maybe I'm just different and you can't figure me out so you throw me in a box like you've got it all down pat but you don't know shit, you don't even take the time to stay around and find out if you know shit you just assume. That's what I'm used to anyway people assuming I'm him or her or them, never asking who I am or what I want or what I dream or where I want to go from here. I want to go up and up and up and never stop going up or getting better or being nicer or kinder I want love and romance and children and responsibility and success and a success I build not some luck come at me some strange day but true work your ass off success at life which means friendship, commitment, understanding, and the like. Do you see where I'm coming from? Maybe not, tonight this is just a rant me typing a hundred words a minute not stopping not thinking just typing all my thoughts and fears and my heart pouring out to the page in almost a meaningless fashion but isn't that our daily internal monologue babble babble and we pick out what we want and pretend it's all that's there not pay attention to the moment we spotted someone's nice legs and made some quiet inside comment that brushes away in the universal wind to have no significance to me or anyone else. How many thoughts and ideas have been lost in the winds, I don't know, but I'm sure enough to save the world, enough to love a child, enough to love ourselves but then the flotsom twists and turns and the waves then sinks away from our site and we're left with life with conditioning with the boxes and living and forgetting there must be something else then we wonder and are somehow maybe frustrated and unable to break through the paper blind keeping us from seeing the truth. And there we have it... It's another day and I'm currently having my buttocks massaged!

Where: http://www.efn.org/~rrp/
What/When: From over a decade ago, my first internet account (and free at that!) all thanks to dial-up, freenets, telnet, pico, pine, nn, and the like. Surprised it's still up! Those were the days!!!

April 23rd, 2008

To the right you'll find a picture of one the youngest known galaxies in the universe, I Zwicky 18, taken by the Hubble Space Telescope. The spattering of dots you see around the youngster aren't stars, no, they're hundreds upon hundreds of older galaxies, each containing billions and billions of stars, nebuli, solar systems, black holes and the like.

I want you to do a little experiment. Some night when there's a totally clear sky get in your car and leave the city or town or the suburb you're living in, drive until you're out in the middle of nowhere away from any man made lights, where the stars shine bright and sure, get out of your car, and look straight up.

Beautiful, isn't it?

Now lift your hand skyward. Any direction will do, this experiment will work regardless of where you're pointing. Now hold your index finger and thumb about a quarter inch apart, like you could just reach out and pinch a star. I want you to stare at the "space" between your fingers and I want you to ponder this thought: if your eyes were as good as Hubble and if you didn't have all the air molecules and pollution between you and the vaccume of space, what you'd see would be very similar to the picture above: galaxy upon galaxy upon galaxy upon galaxy upon galaxy.

That's a lot of fracking stars!

For those of you who are athiests you can stop reading, the rest of this Reflection is an argument directed at those who believe in some type of Divine being(s)/creator(s) who for the purposes of this argument will simply be referred to as The Great Pixie.

First, lets assume that that The Great Pixie exists and that It is omniscient (all knowing and all seeing), omnipotent (all powerful), and omnipresent (everywhere at once).

Now look at the night sky. What you're seeing is finite. Yes, there's a heck of a lot of stuff out there but there's an end to it, an edge, and on the other side, as far as we know, nothing.

The Great Pixie, on the other hand, has no beginning and no end.

Question: Do you really think you can really disrespect a Being that can create ALL THAT?!

Now take the word "respect", which in terms of our one true diety would mean, "Deference to a right, privilege, privileged position, or someone or something considered to have certain rights or privileges; proper acceptance or courtesy; acknowledgment".

Question: Is it possible to show disrespect to The Great Pixie?

First, lets assume that it is. This begs the obvious question, how does one insult the Divine?

According to many fundementalist Muslim's depicting Allah visually (aka The Great Pixie) is a form disrespect (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jyllands-Posten_Muhammad_cartoons_controversy).

According to some Faiths it is disrespectful to work or engage in certain activities on certain days of the week (for instance Jews observe the Sabbath).

An inquiry into world cultures would quickly find that different traditions hold widely different ideas regarding what constitutes disrespect towards The Great Pixie and frankly books could be written on the subject (and have been). Since I don't have the time, interest, or energy to perform an in depth investigation of the beliefs of all traditions, past and present, I simply wish to suggest that the only common theme in all cultures for what constitutes disrespect towards the Divine is what I'll term "the destruction of beauty".

That said, for the sake of fairness assume that no culture, past or present, has a monopoly on what constitutes disrespect towards the Divine therefore it would be biased to choose one culture's definition over another's. That said, the only fair definition is the universally shared one: The destruction of beauty.

But what is beauty? Is it possible for an individual or group of people to see something as beautiful while another person or group views it as ugly? Answer: Yes. And what is destruction? What a Christian might view as destruction a Buddhist might label change. Is it possible to view destruction as a positive, normal process? Again: Yes.

If beauty and destruction are qualitatively defined then it follows that all people and their cultural traditions make qualitative and therefore subjective judgements regarding what constitutes disrespect. In other words:

Disrespect is a human construct.

Now take a look back up at the sky and tell me, how do you, one tiny being on a tiny world somewhere on the edge of it all, show the Creator of that disrespect? If The Great Pixie, God, Allah, or whomever, created this universe, the laws They set into motion cannot be broken. You, my friend, cannot disobey God, you cannot break the laws of physics, and no matter what you think, everything's working Perfectly, just the way it was originally designed.

Don't believe me? Prove me wrong.

Now I want you to imagine a world where we all understood that things are just as they were meant to be, that a Creator set this universe in motion with perfect understanding and precision, that everything they created in it, love, hate, anger, joy, and especially Twinkies, has a place, a purpose, a rhyme and a reason, and each one of us knew we were given, at birth, everything we needed to experience the universe fully and that this is the meaning of Divine Love.

As a race we are so young, our spirituality and beliefs shaped by ego, our paths often directed (or misdirected) by fear and power. Wouldn't it be a beatufiul sight if in a thousand years human society had evolved to a point where we began acknowledging higher truths that could be universally demonstrated instead of hiding behind the fundemental confines of our respective tribes' dogmas? Wouldn't it be grand if we understood "sin" and similiar ideas as something necessary for a younger, more fearful species, something we were ready to replace with knowledge as well as personal and social responsibility?

I won't be around to see it but if it is to occur one day, if we are to evolve as a species, I sure hope there's truth to that fangled reincarnation thing.

P.S. Not completely happy with this reflection but hey, it's time to publish, get to other Reflections, and go snuggle.

April 20th, 2008

I'm not sure when things changed. I thought I was paying attention but maybe I wasn't. Maybe "I thought" in the same way my daughter says so after I ask if she's finished her homework or brushed her teeth before that last hug of the evening.

And maybe it's just that I've woken up or maybe I am asleep. How do I know? If I pinch the skin or my wrist is the sensation running up my arm real or have I tricked myself?

Does it matter?

When I was six I thought all you needed to know was knowing itself and if you knew you could follow the directions, one through four (or whatever the case may be), and after five or ten minutes or hours or days or years the pipes would be firmly in place. Sure, one might spend fifteen minutes perusing the shelves for the right parts but then presto chango: no more leak!

One dollar, seventy-nine cents.

You think sometimes you've got it all worked out, or at least just enough to get by, make sense of it all, make a few of your dreams come true: steady job, beautiful house, big screen tv. The other dreams, the ones you may have written down, the ones you tell your friends about or maybe your enemies, the ones that are still flittering about the ether or that you see on the tv screen, maybe they're big, maybe they're small, but that's not how you sort them anymore. After so many years of perusing the shelves, of realizing you forgot your wallet or when you do realizing that they don't have what you're looking for or the price isn't something you can afford right now, even on credit, that's when you started putting everything into buckets, one, two, three, four, five of them in all...

...Definitely, no matter how difficult it may be...

...Likely, go for it and see...

...Maybe, possibly some day...

...Let's see what happens and...

...Impossible but fuck it, that's okay...

You know how it works, you get out of the crib one day and the first bucket was full. A few years pass, the droplets multiply, come together in dance, and when you aren't careful they spill out, a waterfall of visions not to be trivialed or let go without a fight, definitely, likely, maybe, let's see, impossible, until one day you're sitting on the porch looking into the clouds waiting for it to rain like it used to when you were six, warm gentle mists of water on your face and visions of hope on your tongue and you were laughing, you were laughing, and nothing in the world could stop it.

Maybe a rocket scientist down at NASA will discover what gravity is, not merely describe it's behavior in mathematical prose, and they will turn it up side down. You and I, then we can run and jump and skip and laugh, it won't matter, the water will end up where it belongs, definitely, then we can do what we came here to do in the first place. We won't have to stand still anymore.

April 19th, 2008

My best friend sent this too me a few week back and I need it more than ever.

Who knows, maybe you do too.

Take care and goodnight,

April 18th, 2008

When I was ten or twelve or so my Nana was visiting. She hadn't come to visit often after grandpa had died. The trip from Mount Shasta was several hundred miles and in all her life she had never learned to drive.

It was November, I remember because it was my birthday and I only remember that because she got me a present. That's not to say she never got me a present but most years I received a card in the mail with the expected "Love Nana" scrawled lovingly at the bottom and maybe if I was lucky a dollar or two inside (and for a kid who didn't get an allowance that was a fortune, even in 1985!). I remember because she bought me this plastic gun thing, well, sort of a gun. It was big and bulgy looking and clear and you filled it with four or five ping pong balls and shot them at a target. Ping, pong, ping, pong, it went as I ran around clicking the trigger until after about five, maybe ten minutes of use pulling it back resulted in a dead click.

It was broken.

The rest seems a blur to me. Nana felt horrible about it and I remember trying to make her feel better by saying, "Don't worry, it's not your fault, it was made in China." Looking back it's laughable that I'd said that, I don't recall ever having anyone ever give me an indication that Chinese products were low quality. Anyway, I was, in my own, simple, kiddish way attempting to make her feel better.

Later that same day, it seems, the broken toy vanished to be replaced by another toy, this time a silver race car you could pull back, which wound up the wheels, then let go and watch it race across the floor. I don't recall playing with it too much, probably too old to be interested in toy cars anymore. I guess grandparents have a harder time remember what kids like at what ages. Anyway, it was also made in China.

There's a reason we remember what we remember, a flash point in time and space that sets something forever in our minds. This memory, this one I remember because I felt guilt at the time. I knew I'd let words slip out of my mouth that made her feel like I cared about a piece of plastic more than her.

And nothing could have been further from the truth.

April 17th, 2008

Didn't write yesterday. Meant to, but didn't. Strange to be writing so often again. Strange but good, in a good but strange way, if you catch my meaning.

I had planned on writing a journal entry about a documentary I watched today but I'll do that another day as it will take me a few hours to get down on paper.

Late last night I couldn't sleep due to the Vicadin but for the obvious reasons that didn't bother me too much. Couldn't figure out what to do with myself, though, so at one point I grabbed Kurt Kobain's journal and read. here are some things I could connect with:

Amen!

Thought about posting a picture here of Kurt but was afraid Courtney would kick my ass.

For those who are interested I had an MRI done today. Was a little nervous about the machine plucking my eyebrow ring out of my head but it wasn't effected. Laid back in a tiny tube for about thirty minutes relaxing, almost falling blissfully asleep to the CHUNK-CHUNK chank chank chank sounds of the amazingly loud machine, wondering just how many watts of electricity were shooting through this thing.

Wish I could get to bed but gotta watch something I'm doing on my work machine for a little bit. Bugger bugger toil and trouble. Soon a toodle to beddy bye I go!

April 15th, 2008

I keep thinking I am but I'm not going to write tonight but I realized I must write if for only one reason, to make an editorial correction. I'd said that I heard my daughter on the phone in the morning and wondering where she was. When she got home later that day I asked her where she'd been and she said at her mom's and I said, oh, not a friend's, but I heard you on the phone this morning, and she said she wasn't on the phone that morning...and it was the strangest thing, I had to ask her three times because I knew I wasn't dreaming, I'd woken up and heard her voice off in her bedroom yammering on in the kind of one sided conversation you hear when someone's talking on the phone. I even asked myself maybe, just maybe, I'd heard her clock radio go off but no, it was definitely one voice yabbering followed by silence followed by yabbering, it was most certainly her voice, and yes, I was awake.

I'm still at a loss.

In other news, my pain's gotten so bad I've been to the doctor and gotten heavy duty pain meds. Strangly, while it screws most people up I'm able to focus on my programming better--I wrote a little C# app today that can delete 7gigs of data in under twenty seconds over a network. That's the good part. The bad part? The pain is now so bad that even with the pain killers I'm in a moderate amount of pain and scared that by the end of the weak even with pain killers I'll be down for the count.

I have an MRI Thursday. I hope it turns something up. I can't take another doctor guessing, telling me to just go home, tough it out. I hope it's a herniated disc.

Funny to hope to have something so serious it might mean surgery. I'll get flowers though, and every heterosexual guy likes flowers. Well, at least one does.

And sometimes that's all you can do.

April 14th, 2008

So yesterday I spent much of my day in front of the computer. I worked a little while watching Netflicks and I wrote a Reflection for April 13th, one which, all told, took me about three hours to research and write. Get on the computer this morning (well, actually this afternoon, not feeling so hot today) and lo and behold everything in that entry except this picture was gone.

Bugger.

Years back I would not have allowed the Reflection to experience such a quick and uneventful demise, especially given the work I'd put into it. So I'd pluck the outline that still floated clearly in my mind, jot it down on paper or in Word, and write up a second time but even better. Maybe I'm just old and tired or maybe I don't get wrapped up in my ego so much anymore, just don't feel the need to resurrect it from the dead like some kind of savoir. However, I will share two things.

First, a little something Buddha once uttered:

April 12th, 2008

If you've been paying attention to the news lately you may have heard of child abuse investigations at a FLDS (Fundementalist Church of Christ of the Latter Day Saints) community in Sand Angelo, Texas. While I haven't spent too much time digging into this story what I've heard on CNN toubles me.

Personal Disclaimer: If individuals within that community are guilty of child abuse or pedophilia they should be tried in a court of law by a jury of their peers (but God protect them if they choose a jury of their 'peers').

That said, I heard an interview with an "expert" on the FLDS. The interviewer at one point made the implication that children in the community were living in some sort of social poverty (e.g. that their parents were somehow not educating them properly because every child psychology book links Crayola crowns to mental and emotional health). The interviewee then went on to critisize the parenting in FLDS communities as it forces children (and women) to "obey and submit", and makes clones or "obiant robots" of the children.

What the frack?

Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't the story that one or multiple men in a community of people were breaking the law, i.e. sexually abusing children? If you asked me what the story is I'd say that's it. What does their religious beliefs or community structure have to do with the straight forward crime of statuatory rape? If this were a story about a drug dealer a few miles down the road from you or I would they report on what the perpetrator's favourite tv shows were or perform hour after hour of investigative reporting regarding the history of their marriage, childhood, discuss their parental style, or belief in flying saucers??? Hell, do they judge Christian Literalists (one of whom lives in the White House) because they believe women and children should obey and submit, as directed by the Old Testament?

If you doubt that we as a society erroneously judge and take pot shots at those whose lifestyles are too divergent from the norm then I challenge you to Google news on the FDLS (or Scientologists or even Catholics...) and what you'll find is generally negative.

How is it in an America so many of us claim is free being different is supportive evidence for being a criminal? While my philosophical and theological views differ startingly from those in the FLDS, I don't care what they believe, what their communities look like, how they raise their children, what they wears, etc., as long as they don't harm anyone. And those are the real stories here. On the one hand there were allegations of child abuse within a community and so the larger community (the state of Texas) came in to protect the children, on the other hand is the story of society's inherent bias against those that are different. It's completely insane to think the police would arrest me because some neighbor three houses down molested his daughter so why isn't anyone screaming outrage over hundreds of childreng being taking into custody based on a crime that may (or may not have) been perpatrated against one child? Don't you need evidence of a crime before taking a child from their parent?

(...but then what do I know, for six years or so I raised a little girl--who isn't mine by blood--with her biological mother--who I wasn't romantically involved with--and I was constantly judged, boxed, and at worste treated like I had some sort of disease...)

In CNN's support, today I caught another interview with two women were are in a polygamous marriage. The women, who were not identified for fear of social and legal repurcussions, shared their experiences of living in a polygamous marriage, why they'd wanted to be in one, and how it was positive and correct for them. The reason they took the risk to come on the air, one said, was to show the world that there is a negative bias against polyfidelitous arrangements in America and it was time people saw there was another side to this story, that women do choose polygamy, that they enjoy the arrangement and structure of the family that way, and that it brings joy to their lives. So kudos, CNN, you shared another side of the story--well, it really has nothing to do with the story but thank you for sharing there's a positive side to a non-story that is all too often treated as "news" when instead it's just a familial organization that works for some people and not others (just as the nuclear family works for some, but not others).

Your turn Fox. Oh wait, nevermind, you won't be happy unless we keep that well known equation "One man, one woman"--and it must be true, I read it on a bumper sticker!!!

So what is the story? Are we getting it? Or are we tuning in only to hear our world views and judgements reinforced by even more echoes of judgement, ignorance, and maybe even hatred?

If we truly value America as the land of the free then we must learn to think logically, to unemotionally separate fact from our own personal bullshit, and allow others to express themselves and their lives in a way that best suits them as long as they harm none.

April 10th, 2008

Alright, I thought I'd put these two pictures back to back since I mentioned working on the shelving on the 7th and here they are, first pictures of the 1/2 stained bookcase taken while I still smelled of shoe polish. I haven't been able to work on the shelves since given I've been tired as heck and getting into work early (for me) and staying late (normal). The colour doesn't exactly match the lighter colours of much of the wood throughout the house so I guess I'll just have to refactor the rest of my residence, won't I? No rest for the wicked!!!

Oh hey...I don't really have time to type...back and legs are killing me today...working from home...but I realized that only one person has sent me a secret postcard and the month is 1/3rd of the way over. I'm still waiting to get some, people. :)

Not much else to say today. Tired. All written out.

P.S. Poop...

April 7th, 2008

Been about two years, two years since I started this project. The reasons for not completing...oh, they're so many, why don't I name a few? Why don't I mention the lack of help and/or encouragement? Why don't I mention the fucking constant worsening pain in my knee extending over time to my left ankle, hips, back, and right knee? Why don't I mention the countless times I sat in my room minding my own business only to find someone standing in my room starting a fight with me over fuck knows what? How about the concern I lacked the basic skills to get the job done? Or that I always seemed to have another 101 OTHER things I needed to get done? How about...how about the other 101 things I'm not going to write about here...tonight?

I'm going to take a picture in a bit, a picture of where I'm at now--but you will not see it tonight. This will be the first time I've written a "blog" after I've taken the picture of where I'm at.

Where I'm at now is not the picture you see, you grok? Blah!

Fuck I hate that 80's staircase. It screams at my pain body, tells me how I can't even get the stains to marginally match, how that's not okay, and how I must replace this crap-hole aged staircase.

And many miles to go before I sleep.

Fuck-a-duck.

P.S. I should have said the same (see 4-8-2008 P.S.) for the honorable Arthur C. Clarke! (God I feel old)

P.P.S. I'll probably be resting soundly before anyone gets that quote--all except you, Chief. And then...

April 6th, 2008

American Beauty Torn - Personal Edition:

Colenal Fitts:

P.S. God bless, Charlton Heston.
P.P.S. Fuck I feel old!!!

April 2nd, 2008

Take a moment and browse to: http://marketplace.publicradio.org/display/web/2008/04/01/april_1st/ then download the MP3. Fast forward in 13 minutes and you'll hear the news report. Yes, yes, Marketplace did an excellent job on this story but frankly, I think they leveraged the relative distrust many of us have of the IRS, the Bush Administration, and the like. The "economic stimulus package" didn't make much rational sense in the first place and it's not uncommon to hear talking heads talk nonsense on the news every day of the week, why not icing on the proverbial cake of insanity that is Washington?

So yes, I admit it, I've been snookered. 'nuff said :-)

P.S. Here's another that would have fooled me: Nobel Nomination for Bush and Blair

Take a moment,

April 1st, 2008

I'm not as far as I'd hoped to have been but I'm at least as far as I needed to be. I have, for instance, not smoked in over a month and this morning I am having decaf and a few handfuls of raspberries for brunch. At the same time I have not finished the shelves (oh, so close!) nor picked up all the leaves in the back. I've gained a few pounds but I've been to the gym more often. Two steps forward, one step back, and as little judgment as is possible.

No April jokes were played on me today unless you count something I heard on National Public Radio aka NPR aka the voice of sanity on the airwaves and while I haven't yet been able to find a hard copy of the report (which I will share here once it's at my fingertips) the report startles--though doesn't shock--me. Anyway, long story short apparently the IRS, in the best interest of the American economy, and to insure that about a million tax payers' money (i.e. their tax "rebate") is injected directly into the economy they've created a program whereby those of us who have been identified as high risk (i.e. those of us who are intelligent enough to spend our rebate on something like, say, paying off our debts!) won't get a rebate check but will instead be sent a rebate in the form of expensive "stuff" we "might" need. In the case of a couple interviewed by NPR their "stuff" happened to be an air conditioner they never asked for and don't need…as they said, they're close to loosing their house but hell, at least it's nice a cool if/when they do loose it this summer! So don't be surprised if your IRS rebate check comes in the form of a consumer item they've designated as something you absolutely "need" and not your hard earned cash.

(I sincerely hope that was an April Fool's joke or I've really lost faith in the leadership of this country, they've lost their bloody minds if not their souls)

Onto other things.

My knee and leg hurts badly today but then what's new as of late. Been drinking plenty of water. Plenty of projects at home that are half complete. Plenty of projects at work that are half complete. Picked up a book called: Getting Things Done. I've read about ten pages, seems to be exactly what I need to point me in the right direction, and I especially like one of the two major tenants: write down everything you need to do and get it out of your mind so you aren't wasting all your time thinking about it when you can't do anything about it (or to put another way: be present and effective in the moment).

Actually I did have something to share with you. Stumbled on this site the other day, one that I saw a year or two back, really enjoyed it: http://postsecret.blogspot.com/. Here's the basic premise: find/make a post card, write down one of your biggest secrets, send it in to the web site, see it posted.

Quick browse makes you think. Makes me think, anyway, remember, at least, that I'm not alone.

Comma.

Not to be a copy cat but I'd like to do something similar, at least for a month and why not April? That said, if you have a secret and a post card, put them together, scan or take a decent quality picture of it, and send it my way. I'll post it here and write a Reflection based on it. Rules? Of course. I won't ask you to tell me more. I won't identify you as the person who sent me the card/secret either online or otherwise. I will use the card as inspiration for my entry but I will keep any personal analysis of your secret to myself. Last but not least I reserve the right to use, not use, augment, or what have you, the picture submitted.

That's a challenge for you, a challenge for me, more pebbles in the water.