Off The Record

Overheard in a bar during a ~40th high school reunion:

"I carried the 'football' [nuclear codes] for President Reagan. I was part of the Iranian hostage rescue effort - did you know there was a second team involved?"

"I keep a photo of President Reagan on the wall at home."

"Did you know he approved the invasion of Grenada because he asked himself what would John Wayne do?"

"I saw him in Houston in 1984 and he remembered me as the young kid he talked with at the small airport gathering in 1980. He's smarter than people gave him credit for."

"I still look young because I graduated from high school when I was six and Vanderbilt when I was twelve. Haha."

"My husband here is Navaho, from Gallup, New Mexico. After our white wedding we had an Indian wedding where I had to slaughter and cut apart a sheep to prove I knew how to feed our family. If I cut myself with the knife during the ceremony the wedding was off. He had to cut down a tree and build a lean-to. We have an acre on the reservation we plan to retire to."

"When Nixon was visiting this area, my father's plumbing business partner was driving a load of dynamite down the same two-lane road as the presidential motorcade. He wondered why men in suits were looking under culverts as he was heading to his demolition job. He'd be accused of terrorism these days even if he was a patriotic American on his way to doing a hard day's work."

"The newspaper called my victory a close win even though I had 61 percent of the vote."

"You're better-looking in person than your facebook photos."

"Thanks so much for contributing to the church organ fund in my daddy's name. That was sweet of you."

"I retired after 34 years of teaching 8th grade math. I join your mother and other retirees for the monthly get-togethers now."

"You're young enough to be my son!"

"You were at Camp Pendleton, too? Did you ride out in an LSD until everyone was seasick and then storm I-5 in winter?"

"You used to work in Utah? I'm thinking about moving to Salt Lake City. Are the Mormons very cliqueish?"

"Channel 11 is much more friendly to my husband so he's willing to meet them for interviews about what he's doing for the state. Reducing the budget will be one of his main focuses this term."

"I used to have to hold the antenna up when my father wanted to watch Channel 19 to get the local news."

"Are you the car dealer?"

"I know your father. He used to have an account at my bank. Does he still have that bungalow his grandparents built in Florida in the 1950s?"

"Yes, I'm still involved in Christmas tree sales. But I've got the pine pollen problem now. I drive the truck to pick up the trees and drop 'em off. I open the rear door and step back to let the rest of the Optimists unload 'em at the tree lot."

"Look! There's you and your wife on television wishing us a happy holiday."

"Yep, I can't get away from that, can I?"

"He normally received about 14,500 votes in the previous three elections but only about 12,500 at the last election. I got those 2,000 votes and they wanted to call it close!"

"My younger sister was the drum major in your class."

"My husband and I were at UT at the same time but we didn't meet until years later, after I was married."

"Your sister was my counselor at church camp in 1976. That's where my wife and I met two years earlier."

"When we were little kids I used to call her the Big Boop because she had a big behind. What was that, almost 50 years ago?"

"Shut up and get up on the floor and dance with me."

"I can't for very long. My arthritis is acting up."

"This is my ex-husband. Darling, do you still think I'm the best-looking one in here?"

"Well...maybe."

"Guess that's why you're my ex."

Thanks to Demetrice and Tony for setting up the arrangements, Ashley for her quick, efficient service at the Shack BBQ and Justin Michaels for the one-man band music.

Kid Grows Up

A long time ago in a village of the hills of Tennessee, a bunch of young people found time in their daily academic schedule to put on some primary school stage musicals.

One of them, Keith Cate, anchored his career in Florida years ago and spent a few minutes with the Prez today.

My, oh my, how times fly by!

Was it that long ago I was the wise senior / drama club president and Keith the new sophomore kid on the block?

Thirty years later, we're still making memories...

Now what about that omnipotent anti/pro-tax bill facing Congress that's going to be memorable, if we're lucky?  In 30 years, will we remember it more than this week's Iranian cabinet change?

Transcript newly released...

"GW, I, as much as anyone associated with your father's administration, would like to say affirmatively, without hesitation, that we know what we don't know and there positively are chances that there are aren't any WOMD in Iraq."

"So, DR, you're saying there are no WOMD in Iraq?"

"DC, is that what I told GW?"

"Well...inasmuch as I never said I intentionally shot my colleague while hunting..."

"DC, are you saying that DR is saying that we are too weak to take Iraq unilaterally?"

"GW, what are you trying to say?"

"I don't know, DC.  Seems to me you're the one with the daughter who's..."

"GW, I thought we agreed you wouldn't ask and I wouldn't tell.  Isn't that right, DR?"

"Maybe GW's right, DC.  Seems like it all started with the whole 'points of light' thing that GW's father started.  Makes us look too touchy-feely to the Saudis."

"Haha, DR. That's a good one, knowing what we do about the Saudi royalty.  'Don't ask, don't tell.'  Seems like if you pay off enough people, they do what they want."

"Speaking of which, GW, did we ever get paid back for that pilot training we funded?"

"DC, I told you, like Daddy said, 'read my lips,' we were never directly associated with the attacks on the WTC and the Pentagon."

"But the good guys we intentionally planted on the flight that crashed in Pennsylvania..."

"Never happened, DC.  Isn't that right, DR?"

"There is no record and there never will be, of any facts to the contrary."

"Meaning what, exactly, DR?"

"GW, is it what I just said."

"DC, what did he just say?"

"What you said, GW."

"Which is?"

"Exactly."

"I see.  And none of this is being recorded?"

"Precisely, GW."

"DR, does that mean it is or it isn't being recorded?"

"That's correct, GW.  It is isn't being recorded."

"Very well.  Let's talk more about my presidential library.  I'd like 36 holes of legendary golf to encircle the building complex."

"Do you mean 36 legendary holes of golf, GW?"

"DR, why don't you go plot some output with CP or something?  DC and I can handle this one ourselves."

"Yes, sir.  I believe we can nab one of the Saddam Hussein lookalikes and let Saddam enjoy the rest of his retirement in..."

"DR, that's highly classified.  Even GW doesn't know what you're talking about."

"Lips sealed.  See you boys later."

Learning to Let Go

While China continues to show it can't play fairly ("we'll take all your money while we influence your domestic buying habits but we won't let you get involved in our 'internal' affairs"), republican lawmakers are laughing all the way to 2012, realizing that democratic holdouts will allow the republicanites to pass delayed legislation after the changeover in 2011 and then claim the taxcut extension bill they voted for is the sole reason the economy improved before the 2012 presidential elections, proving "tax and spend" democratic archetypes are dinosaurs.

I heard someone say, "Nixon resigned over less damaging data than the stuff Assange's group recently released.  Does that mean Nixon can recover his reputation by comparison?"

We live in interesting times, no matter how repetitive.

Cohorts are pushing me to show them what the next great thing is.

I will but it's not an instantaneous burst of product sales.

Apparently, one effort in converting social media into a cradle-to-grave education system supplanting rote learning methods in traditional classrooms is sneaking up on us - those who prove its capabilities will profit first but those who marketise it best will profit the most by creating a personality mesh sensing algorithm that detects the deficiencies in one's talent/skill mix and redirects one's social media connections to reinforce stronger lifelong healthy habits.

Routers Root for Reuters

Fuzzy math?  You make the call:

Taxpayers fed exhaust smoke of GM bailout

Makes me wonder who's going to get what really has to be done about so-called tax cuts in America.  I'm going to think about it over the weekend.  Not an easy answer.

Meanwhile, Llosa asks who's going to keep paying to keep his house, not him, a museum.

Does a Fork Have Three Tines or Four?

In this parallel universe, I bounce the ideas you give me against the protagonists wandering around waiting for instructions on what they're supposed to do next with their lives.

A single word changes the course of these fictional characters' purposeful campaigns.

Should I let them continue on toward more concentration of riches, exclusive information ownership and bigger, stronger, more luxurious gates/walls preventing access to the masses?

I am an individual who works in this imaginary world but does not live here.

As the information gatekeeper, I have access to both of my imaginary friends' worlds.

I will not live to see how their scenarios here completely play out in comparison to the real world.

"Is this a morality play?" I ask myself when a word spoken in imaginary and real terms has the same (or equal) effect.

I try to convince myself that I don't know what I or my colleagues in the real world are talking about.

Empires come and go.  No one lives forever here or there.  Languages spoken and not written are forgotten.

In this imaginary world, friends tell me that they feel betrayed by their popularly-chosen leader.  Since they don't have a "vote of no confidence" or a call for new elections to force a change of leadership, they're banking on other methods to voice their lack of confidence and desire for a new leader.

They believe local leaders who are emboldened by this current superregional leader are using redistricting and school closing methods to cause a "flight" of specific populations from neighbourhoods so the local leaders can get their own friends into the neighbourhoods (and more cheaply, too).

I'm glad all of this is imaginary because, if I had the slightest inkling that it was true, well...

I asked my associates Sal and Vince, who provide bodyguard personal security services for the Committee of 7.5, if they had heard any of these rumours, they being in on the know and the know-how that ain't nobody's business no-how.

They said, yeah, they'd heard it, too.  They was watching the real estate prices like all good investors - houses, flats, estates, commercial properties catering to the military, that sort of thing - seeing as how it never hurts to turn a tidy profit when no one ain't looking.

They asked me why I was interested, me being all about the species and the big picture and all that.

I told them it was simply a matter of a subplot in a story I was writing.  They nodded.  Enough said.  They knew all about digging up plots and turning them into subplots.

You've seen how they operate - a burning cigarette accidentally dropped on the carpet and a high-rise burns (boins) down, a brake line breaks and a car careens out of control down a hillside, a Hollywood type don't pay her dues and she gets what's coming to her, some "kids" tear into a laboratory for kicks, leaving graffiti around and a virus spreads unchecked.

Life is full of mishaps that resemble art.

Their priest tells them to turn the other cheek but he don't say nothing about what they're supposed to do when they're looking the other way with their cheek turned.

That's why I don't judge my friends, colleagues and associates.  Business is business.  Money makes the world of money go up and down.  Favours make sure we all got something to hide and the means to pay for keeping them hidden.

If you want another Houdini, Chamberlain or Hitler, I can't stop you.  History if full of history about people who can't learn from history.

Besides, this is just fiction.  It's not like my friends are trying to tell me the truth.

I mean, if you picked up a metal object on the road and the object had one end split in two, would you call it a tuning fork or an eating fork missing a couple of tines?  Some of my old mountain friends would call it a miniature divining rod.  I would just call it a fork in the road.

The decision's up to you.  You can START negotiations now or put them off until the future.  If you put them off, can you prove you did so because you were investigating a trail of information that someone was trying to hide from you before ratification was completed?  Would the people believe your story about the reasons for saying no on the crucial day when you needed them to say yes for you one more time?

Capital!

After reading "Angela's Ashes," and in light of the similarity of names, Merkel announced today the annexation of Ireland and the movement of the headquarters of the Fourth Reich from Berlin to Limerick.

Greek politicians, disappointed that they were not chosen for the new capital, staged a protest, insisting that all future Olympics will be held in their country in order to make up for the debacle of the last one they hosted.  Of course, they will not pay contractors for any work in future Olympics, either.  After all, debt is a source of national pride - it's all Greek to them.

The U.S. is said to be in negotiations with Germany to split Ireland into eastern and western "Management Zones" so companies in both countries can hide their profits from taxation while still claiming to have headquarters in their home country.

Russia and China deny involvement in causing the economic collapse of Ireland despite strong evidence linking them to taking out risky loans to finance overpriced holiday getaways for their favourite pols.

Two Words

Integration? Nyet!

Dichroic Dichotomies Bombastically Fantastic

Found for sale at roadside stand - fried bedbugs and ground flax seeds - mmmmm.....  Never miss a business opportunity when there's free protein for the baking.

So which state functions do you care about - subsidies for business entities or subsidies for subcities?

I want a couple of days to step back and ponder the impermeable impervious impenetrable perforations.  How, for example, does one step in and out of spacetime if spacetime does not exist?  How does one appear to those who only know spacetime as the working model for daily living/survival?

I'll leave you with these thoughts by Ashleigh Brilliant:

ASHLEIGH BRILLIANT, QUESTIONS AND IDEAS, AUG 2009- NOV 2010. Part I.
 

1. Do red and green mean stop and go everywhere in the world?

2. How close did the Germans come to invading England in World War I?

3. Is it possible that the Dalai Lama and Mother Teresa once had an affair?

4. Trade-name for a new brassiere: the CANDELA BRA.

5. Idea: write my own Constitution, beginning “I the person.”

6. Lists for the listless.

7. Are shoulders the only thing we can shrug?

8. Needed: a car that runs on URINE.

9. The Day I Didn’t Die.

10. The two great World Wars had many similarities and some striking differences. Where can I find a good comparative summary of these?

11. Do people with foot fetishes tend to become podiatrists?

12. Am I right in saying that, unlike the body, the mind discharges no waste products?

13. Good title: NOT NOTHING.

14. Good conversation starter: Complete this sentence: “My mother used to . . . .”

15. Did horse-and-buggy drivers ever use rear-view mirrors?

16. Question: Why “knuckle dusters”? What does the “duster” part mean?

17. We can say “there is only now” because past and future are in a certain sense unreal -- but we can’t say “there is only here” because we know other places exist.

18. Reality For Beginners.

19. Are there people who can put on their trousers both legs at once?

20. Do all Americans say “A to Zee” and all Brits say “A to Zed”? (This could be the basis of a detective story which hinges upon whether the perpetrator is American or British.)

21. Dear Obnoxious Cell Phone User,
I realize you are minding your own business (and that you wish I would mind mine) – but must you do so at the top of your voice?

22. And I heard God say, “THIS LIFE IS ON ME.”

23. I cut my finger on the First-Aid box.

24. I’ve heard of games involving a “greased pig.” How about an ordinary game of catch in which the players’ hands are greased. The game could be called BUTTERFINGERS.

25. When did a reigning British monarch first visit a British colony (not counting Ireland)?

26. How many home accidents occur when people are putting on or taking off their pants?

27. Question: Where did Hitler get the Negro extras who were sometimes needed in German films during the Nazi era? What became of them?

28. How many American black soldiers were taken prisoner by the Germans during World War II, and how were they treated?

29. Idea: an illustrated Who’s Who of our local homeless population.

30. Which animals need least sleep, and are there any which never sleep at all?

31. I find 3 different meanings of Amadeus: “Love of God,” “Loves God,” and “God’s Love.”

32. Why was there no Roman anti-cruelty organization picketing the Colosseum? Has society as a whole actually become more “humane”? Is this “progress”?

33. Isn’t the song “Thank Heaven For Little Girls” dangerously close to sexual deviance?

34. Is a point well taken the same as a point well made?

Three Words

Vick is baaaa-a-a-a-a-a-a-ck!!!!  A Hokie through and through.

Now, if only Virginia will get its extension agents system working for all counties.

Away We Go

I was pumped and excited after the U.S. elections two years ago.  I am just as pumped and excited today about the election two days ago.

Change is good.

Time to look forward, watching updates not only from NASA but from commercial ventures, too, such as SpaceX and news about space flight in general.

All while reading "Dark Side of the Moon" by Wayne Biddle - the dead never live to see the retelling of their life histories to fit the views of the time - and "Never Order Barbecue in Maine" by Ken Tanner - you don't have to be radical or a maverick to succeed, but it doesn't hurt to be one, either.

It's a bright, cool day in fall - time to take a short hike into the woods and remember why living is where it's at.  Always good to meet a snail or bird that has no clue what all these funny-looking scribbles we call words are about.

Where are your ideas?

Are you the kind of person who'd rather watch replays of the Lawrence Welk Show, seeing a young couple dance to the tune of "Capri" over and over again on PBS?

Or do you like retro punk and would rather form a mosh pit in the living room bashing heads to Dead Kennedys' "Halloween" on last.fm?

That's how two sides of the nonapathetic voting subcultures see the other.

So, like they say, exercise your right to feel like one in 317 million - get out and vote in the United States of America.  It's the least we can do to keep alive the dreams of Plato, Epictetus, St. Brigid, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, W.E.B. Dubois, Gandhi, MLKJ, Gloria Steinem and Andy Griffith.

And who knows, your single vote might make a difference.  Mine rarely has but I vote anyway.

I can dream, too, you know.  One day the Keep Politics Purely Political Party will win, if I live long enough.

Wild Orchids

Ever had a ganglion cyst?  I've had two - one on each wrist.

Broke the first one when I tried to jump over a barbed wire fence, caught a shoe, fell over and smashed the bones in my left hand.  I was ten years old.

The second one's been around for a few years, hanging out between the bones of my right hand.  It sort of tells me the weather.

It's about to get cold again.

Reminds me I'm gettin' lazy in my writin', too.

All the brainpower on this planet and we still spend most of our time looking for food and other survival necessities.

Technology wizards will regale you with the PopSci promises of tomorrow.  I can't seem to stop 'em.

Business gurus will continue to win friends and influence people.

Tower builders will build taller and taller towers.

Is there an echo in here?

The fellow down the road at the post office showed me how to cut my shipping costs in two.

What exactly is a sport bean?

Julia in Moscow said I wander from subject to subject and asked me why.  I asked her why she was Russian.  No difference.

The thought process is the thought process, is it not?

Why would Spiegel article [and translation] end this way:

Die "trivialen Medienauftritte" des Präsidenten, lästert Joshua Greenman in der "Daily News", "haben die Marke Obama herabgewürdigt".  Es ist eine uralte Kritik, aber genau das Gegenteil ist jetzt der Fall: Nur so kann Obama sich selbst und die Nation dem düsteren Bann der humorlosen Tea-Party-Antihelden entziehen.

Doch die lustigste Sequenz der "Daily Show" stirbt am Ende sowieso am Schneidetisch. Es ist Stewarts bissiger Begrüßungsmonolog, in dem er Obama auf die Schippe nimmt, der tatenlos hinter der Kulisse warten muss.  Der Einstieg wird aber für die später ausgestrahlte Version gestrichen - aus Zeitgründen.

[The "trivial media appearances" of the president, Joshua Greenman blasphemes in the "Daily News", "have degraded the brand Obama". It is an ancient criticism, but the opposite is the case now: the only way Obama himself and deprive the nation of the dark spell of the humorless Tea Party anti-heroes.

But the funniest sequence of the "Daily Show" dies in the end anyway at the editing table.  It is Stewart's sarcastic greeting monologue in which he takes the mickey out of Obama, who must wait passively behind the scenes.  The entry is deleted but for later broadcast version - lack of time.]

From: Von Pomp zu Pappmaché, Von Marc Pitzke, New York, http://www.spiegel.de/politik/ausland/0,1518,725769,00.html, accessed 28th October 2010 [Translation via http://translate.googleusercontent.com/translate_c?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&sl=de&tl=en&u=http://www.spiegel.de/politik/ausland/0,1518,725769,00.html&prev=_t&rurl=translate.google.com&usg=ALkJrhjrNUM92nFBgIQ7KXCwT2pPA1-p0A]

This is my life, where comedy and tragedy continue their ageless witticisms from the balcony to the balustrades to the benchwarmers and first string players.

Meanwhile, I have to figure out how to connect all the world's supercomputers to regenerate the Book of the Future that I sold to a homeless person who wanted the pencil shavings to start a fire under the downtown river bridge.  What was I sinking?

Police and Investigators Baffled

Famed botnet not stealing your secrets or credit card numbers!

Authorities planned to tie the recent bust of an international botnet ring to a global organised crime unit, claiming the ring leaders were stealing government secrets, private IDs, and bank/credit card account information.

However, upon further research of the data secretly stolen from the botnets, analysts have revealed that the botnets are in fact inserting people's lives into the lives of others - falsifying backgrounds in private company personnel files, putting people's faces in other people's holiday photos, creating completely cross-referenced wikipedia entries with corresponding websites and news wire stories...essentially rewriting the Internet, codenamed Operation "John Malkovich in 'Being Tom Hanks'".

Breaking down the details of the illegal operation was going to be the success story of the government announced just prior to upcoming elections that pundits have predicted will sweep out the old and bring in the new.

Government consultants and PAC contributors secretly hoped the operation breakup would put a halt to the country's conservative reaction to bank lenders' predatory lending practices in response to newly rich stockholders looking for a sure bet that caused the collapse of the global economy and an increase in volatile investment trends like making cow patties more precious than gold.

A cow farting next to a lantern in a barn full of kerosene and dry hay couldn't have caused a more bitter tasting sweet mint in the mouth of a gifted sawhorse.

Now that the truth has been discovered, analysts are pouring over the wikileaks website to determine how much the wikileaks creators have themselves been duped by a group of teenagers determined to turn the e-world into a parody of itself by putting into the hands of "insiders" documents that were forged at the beginning.

NEWS FLASH!  Whole floors of rooms of people being hypnotised to believe the documentation, including photographs and videos, that shows them performing acts in which they never participated!  Debutantes caught shopping at discount stores!  Queen Elizabeth funneling beer at a punk biker bar!

In archaeology news, scientists have released a report claiming that sacrificial wells in Central America contain the remains of alien creatures.  Speculation and rumours say that the aliens may have been trying to hide from tribes wanting to turn the aliens into gods while they were merely picnicking on Earth before continuing their weekend tour of this spiral arm of the galaxy, their prescient spaceships taking off on autopilot and leaving the aliens behind.

From the News Desk of Our Caracas / Karachi / Tehran Bureaus

So often I've been told that one group of people is tired of all the flood of noise coming from another group.

"We're tired of the Western influence on the world."

"One more elevator piping Muzak and I'm going to explode!"

Having seen from another country the local reporting of international headlines filled with important "news" from my country, I understand only one thing: squeaky wheels.

There are more Chinese Internet users than there are people in the U.S. so why are non-U.S. countries entertaining us with U.S. news rather than news about internal Chinese events?

I say we experiment by only publishing the usual sensational/shocking/negative news about China rather than the U.S. and make the Venezuelas and Irans of the world happy.

Better yet, let's publish the same news about Venezuela and Iran in international headlines all the time - the 24/7 shocking accusations and innuendos about their politicians, athletes and film stars; tantalising hints about debauchery in business deals; "on the street" reports about the hidden poverty, crime and general malaise.

Oh, and occasional "feel good" stories to change the tone/pace of news and keep citizens glued to their TVs, radios, computers, and mobile phones.

After years of hearing how excitingly decadent these countries are, we'll run some polls to determine what global citizens think are the countries with the most ruinous children of Satan.

Or we can agree that news proliferation is proportional to the number of people free to file reports, positive and negative, about countries and events.

Is it a fair system? Certainly not. After all, news sells advertising. Advertisers like news that sells their company image in a positive light.

"A family of eight, after just filling their petrol tank with refined Iranian fuel, wiped out in fiery head-on collision on crowded Venezuelan motorway. More news at 11. Have you considered buying a new automobile lately? Then, Brand X, with its slew of family-friendly safety features, is the way to go. Now, back to your regular programming."

Freedom? 1984? Totalitarianism?

Have they locked up all the treehugging, grizzly bear loving, bald eagle saving hippies in Alaska and replaced them with...?  Well, I'm not sure.  I think maybe some of the KGB tactics slipped across the Aleutian chain and practitioners are confusing American conservatism (which, by the way, includes environmental conservatism - where else can we hold an Iditarod if all the land is developed?) with goosestepping fascist statism.

Or maybe I don't have all the facts?

You decide: Handcuffed reporter explains

Anyone running for public office is responsible for talking to the public, ALL the public.  Otherwise, they're private individuals like the rest of us NOT running for public office.

I love this planet, not just because I have nowhere else to go right now, but because I believe in our future when we'll have choices about which spheroid to call home.

If all we're going to do is turn into a cybersecurity-fearing, jackbooted society, then...

Time to check my network of futurists to see what their latest plots are showing.  Maybe it's not too late to buy the Book of the Future back and see what I've been missing these last few weeks.

Maybe...

Maybe it's time to look at the hard data surrounding a plane crash.

Maybe...

Chasing Rocks

A lot to think about today but not a lot to say.

Walked through the Lowe Mill outdoor festival this morning and listened to a few minutes of live staged music while looking at the works for sale by local artists.

Drove home, turned on the water sprinkler for the birds hanging out in the yard, this drought seasonal and selectively effective.

Watched a few minutes of NFL football on TV.

Surfed the Net for showtimes for the movie "Red."

A house full of unread books and not a thing to read.

How often do I get to admit to myself that I like to contemplate, compose sentences, and read my own writing, which often discusses the actions of other members of my species?

What if it's not the candidates but the offices themselves I don't want to vote for, thinking we have too many political positions? Should there be a checkbox that states, "I think this position should be eliminated"?

Is a crippled body the only way some people become rich (professional athletes, personal injury lawyers, cosmetic surgeons, office workers, etc.)?

If I have nothing new to say, why do I keep pretending that I'm original/unique?

Ergo: The more my cat gets to know me, the more it likes other people.

Maybe my momma was right - guess I think too much for my own good.

It's the Martian year of NASA space exploration. How are the other space agencies teaming up to complement and build on their work?

Time for a nap. I'm tired of thinking and thinking about thinking this afternoon.

Turn off the water sprinkler first, huh? Reserve water for us people, too!

We've Got 'Em Right Where We Want 'Em

Is it more important to host friends or be a guest at their place?

Is it better to pretend to fall for a hoax or always let others see you know more than they do?

On a cloudy day, the cats sleep on the living room sofa.

Birds drink from the water catch pan beneath a hanging flower pot.

On what sort of idea is your small startup based?

Are you an eager or hesitant person? A people pleaser or a crowd pleaser?

Thanks to Nick at Calhoun's; Ashleigh at P.F. Chang's; the production of "Secretariat" at Monaco; the salesperson at Clarks who put me in a new pair of Italian-made shoes; Main Street Cafe where a group of plumbers was treated to lunch by Kohler's; Dr. Brian M., Shelly and staff at CCI; Delta and United.

Package deals: Would a flight on the VSS Enterprise qualify you for a discount on an overnight stay aboard a Bigelow space hotel?

Would you be the first to fund the whole research and development of a space colony to insure/ensure a future for your family and friends?

If you don't live in this time, where do you live?

Overheard a scifi fan say we're probably spending thousands of years of cilivisation development just to become a watering hole for space-hopping playtoys and their spoilt drivers.

Anything is possible. Let's focus on easier-to-imagine nearterm goals and let the future have its say when it's ready to speak.

Would you be willing to live with a different metabolic rate?

I know I am an illusion and what I see is not what anyone else sees or is anything like what the living objects around me experience but to change my perspective would require a tremendous toll on my set of thoughts.

I'm happy being imperfect me. Able to enjoy the time to myself examining my perspective. Plugging and unplugging my connections with the universe around me like a switchboard operator. I am anybody, everybody and nobody rolled into one body.

I am of my species, adapting better than a chameleon to changing circumstances.

Some days I don't want to be me and some days I want the whole world to know who I am.

I am me. I am you. I am us. Time to transition to more detailed support of our exploring the universe.

Time for me to blend into the background where I am most useful in my quest to help all of us maximise our living in the moment to the benefit of the whole solar system and our individual goals/happinesses.

It has been fun joining the chorus of voices in the online zeitgeist that shrinks and changes faster and faster.

Time for me to move on, where the planet hasn't spun much slower or faster lately, a dependable characteristic (almost a constant) for calculation purposes.

Anonymous blogs achieve their goals through quiet encouragement, avoiding personality cults and other hindrances to subcultural equal opportunities for growth.

A billionaire can't exist in a communist culture. A CEO and a factory worker can't make the same salary in a capitalist culture.

But they can and they do.

I am unimportant. What I do is what I do to keep your connections going.

Pardon me while I disappear to do what I've got to do. I see a clear path ahead for those truly in need. I'm assisting those who are idle and want meaningful work to call their own.

The days of whines and rosy complaints are over.