Hell's bells and panthers' pants!

I have a recollection of a phrase my mother used..."hell's bells and panthers' pants!" is how I remember it. Roughly translated, it would be an expression of annoyancde or acknowledgement of surprise of some sort. I wish I had seen it written, but I never did.

A Google search revealed nothing...if you have every heard it, or if you have a sense of its derivation, I'd be interested in hearing from you.

Paraguay, Mexico, and Polka Dots

I just got off the phone with my favorite niece. She and her husband, a Paraguan native, are leaving Sunday for a one month trip back to his home in Paraguay. Aside from that celebration, she just got the results of her exam (I think it was an exam) that gave her permanent status as a teacher in Texas. She is an exceptionally bright young woman who, if she chose, could get involved in a field which would richly reward her financially for her contributions. But, she has chosen not to measure her worth on the basis of her income but on the basis of how happy her work makes her and how much she contributes to society. I admire that enormously. Hearing about some "issues" involving "rich" people from the USA visiting the country getting robbed, I am concerned about her and her husband, but I know they are both very bright and can deal with uncomfortable situations if necessary.

I withstood a board meeting today with people who have yet to learn what governance means and still behave as if they were managers. It's tough for me. I don't like being told how to do things, much less what to do, and I abhor people giving me directions based on their understanding of "the way things are" when, in fact, their understanding is flawed. But, that is the business I am in. Shit. Why have I chosen to be in a business in which Board directives are so important? I should have been a REAL entrepreneuer. I'm an aging idiot...a goddamn geezer! Well, there's that I can fall back on...

I wrote this paragraph considerably later in the evening...and before the following paragraph. Just to mention... I did a bit of searching on of real estate in the Lake Chapala area and found that, if the listings are any indication, real estate continues to skyrocket. Almost nothing less than $150K. That's scary. I don't know if we'll ever be able to retire to in the reasonably near future. But I did find some nice places...if only I could find some money laying about. Maybe I can find someone who wants to buy something on a shared basis...not likely. I keep looking.

I hope I can engage in some soul searching this weekend. What do I want to be when I grow up? At 52 and a half (a sister-in-law started that habit), I still have opportunities to start anew. Maybe I should sell polka dots. Maybe I should MANUFACTURE polka dots. Perhaps I should offer my services as a polka-dot therapist. Or maybe a polka-dot hypnotist. I could change entirely and become a polka-dot ombudsman. It doesn't even have to involve polka-dots. It could focus on something entirely different: cement statuary, threshing machines, theatrical taxidermy, erotic populism...almost anything but association management. 'Nuff said.

My tomorrow (including Sunday) will have to involve some time writing minutes from an April meeting...GGGGGGGGGGGGRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!! I hate writing minutes. But I havfe to be prepared for Friday, when those minutes will be reviewed for approval. This will be my second trip out of town with my Australian staffer...more relaxed, this time, as she is more comfortable with her job. And my meeting planner will be along, as well, for a wierd meeting. Would that I could have them handle it all...and let me stay home enjoying the warm weather.

I am finished for the moment. Please pass the Pom-Pilot (you wouldn't understand...it's a drink shaken in ice, with pomegranate juice, a citrusy rum, and muddled orange...wonderful!

No blogging

Nothing much comes to mind. I think I will not blog much tonight. Tomorrow, I have a client board meeting, so not likely I will blog then, either.

Of Birthdays and Such

Today is my wife's birthday, so we had a little celebration at the office (complete with our singing battery-powered gopher belting out the Beatles' "Today is My Birthday," as is traditional for all staff birthdays). This evening, we went to dinner to a place called The Firehouse. The food is wonderful; I recommend it. Most menu items are on the spicy (not necessarily hot) side; steaks, chicken, etc., with marvelous vegetables as sides (asparagus, spinach, carrots, etc., etc.), all of which are zipped a bit with spicy accompaniments. Various and sundry of my brothers and sisters and inlaws and nieces and nephews sent my wife birthday greetings; very nice of them and much appreciated by my wife. Her sister sent her an audio birthday card, shaped as a bottle of champagne that, when opened, made the sounds of a cork popping, champagne being poured, and glasses clicking. It was clever.

Enough about food, though; I am stuffed.

I was contacted today by a Seattle television station, KOMO-TV, with a request that I be interviewed for a program called, I believe, Northwest Afternoon. So, tomorrow I will be interviewed; I have no idea when, or whether, the piece will air. They wanted me to send them a photo...I assume they will flash it on the screen while they play my interview. I'm not in Seattle, so won't see it, but it would be interesting to hear how I come across. Well, maybe not so interesting...oh, well, it's nothing of particular merit.

My sister-in-law sent a link today to an MSNBC web page that offers the opportunity to test one's knowledge of topics that are included in the citizenship interview questions. On the MSNBC page, the questions are multiple choice; in the real world, they are simply asked as questions without answer options offered. I scored 85%, after guessing on several questions. Absent the multiple choice options, I am convinced I would have failed. Check it out.

Nothing more for the moment. I feel a need to get back to writing something other than travelogues. I need time, too, to think about what I want to say. So, maybe I'll take a breather and return with something worthy of your time. We'll see.

Medical Marvelous Tuesday

Today was better. Yesterday was a waste of the earth's energy, from my point of view; it should never have happened.

My angry, reactive email message to the full board of a client association did not cause quite as much backlash as I expected, though it could still happen. But, from what I can tell, it looks like everyone is feeling a bit sheepish, me included.

So, onward! I've been reading about the Smart car, a tiny European car manufactured under the auspices of Mercedes Benz. I saw one for the first time when I visited Dubrovnik, Croatia in May this year. The news buzz is that it will be distributed in the U.S. in 2007. It gets something like 48 MPG in the city, 70 MPG on the highway. It looks dangerously small...but maybe not.

As I sat in my doctor's office today, for part 2 of my 'annual' physical, I read one of only two magazines in the examining room, Variety (O was the other one...not much choice). The article I read was about Dick Cheney. It painted a picture of a man who is very close to his family...a man who is normal in that sense. It also painted a picture of a right-wing fanatic...more of what I think him to be. The only time I have heard Dick Cheney say anything that sounded remotely compassionate was when he took an opposing position to Bush on the issue of gay rights. The fact that his younger daughter is gay apparently got through to his admittedly tiny 'human' side. I wonder what could get him to come around to the position that '2500 American soldiers should not have been killed in a war that should never have been initiated by the U.S. President.' I doubt he'll ever get there.

Speaking of my doctor visit... It went well. My cholesterol is low. Almost all the lab tests came back looking good. The EKG was strong. The only little issue was what he said was a 'microscopic amount of blood in your urine sample, but it's so small I'm not worried about it.' He wants me to get a colonoscopy and he wants me to see a urologist 'just to be safe.' So, aside from having a huge gash in my chest from bypass surgery a couple of years ago, and another gash in my gut from Crohn's-related surgery about 16 years ago, I am the picture of health (except, of course, that the picture has too much flab on its gut).

All is right with the world...more or less. Except for Iraq, Somalia, Afghanistan, etc., etc., etc. But you get the idea.

Blowing a cork.

I just responded to a message from a board member of our largest client...I should not have done it. He pulled my chain once too many times and I unleashed my response on him, and copied the full board. While I did not overtly call him an irresponsible jackass, redneck, idiot, moron, fascist, pig, my response could reasonably be assumed to have carried those sentiments. I either need, desperately, a vacation or I need out of the business I am in. I'm ready to explode. I feel like I am dealing with idiots and I am just not interested in continuing to tolerate right-wing idiots as clients. Tonight, I am closer to screaming and losing it than I have been in years. I am flat-out pissed off and have reached the end of my rope. I can't take vacation now...I have too many client meetings in the near-term. I can't afford not to take vacation now...I am absolutely assured of losing my clients if I don't get away from them. What a fucking horrible dilemma. At this very moment, I am feeling more stress than I have in years. I am too old for stress this powerful. I need to break something, preferably a jawbone of a board member. How can I relax...running, walking, screaming...none of it will work. A cork is about to blow.

Transmogrification

A wonderful day like yesterday can be turned into a quagmire of depression when followed by a day like today. I suppose I let it happen, but I certainly do not intend it. I appreciate clients...but I sometimes loathe dealing with them and their psychotic quirks...and their paranoia and their deep fear of competitors.

I will not continue to sully this post with more bitching and moaning...I will try to keep it to myself.


I suspect I could have walked to the bridge over the creek near my office and allowed my stress to wash away as I watched the fish and turtles and water birds. But I didn't. I stayed in my office, fuming and stewing, allowing yesterday's good mood to be swept away in the flood of annoyance. You may have noticed...I have not yet let the bitterness and bitching to flow away. I will keep trying.

When I arrived at my office at about 7:20 this morning, I was ready to let anything troubling slip away...but my newest staff member did not show up until 8:15. (I know, the bitterness and annoyance is not flowing away...dammit!)

I had every intention to rip through the "required" tasks this morning so I could devote more time and energy to thinking about possibilities...things to which I might devote my attention...things that could impact my life in a positive way. Nope. Didn't happen.

So, here I am, it's 7:54 pm and I'm still pissed off, feeling angry and unfulfilled, and generally behaving like the sort of pig I loathe in others. Snarl! Bark!

I will give myself a respite from walking tonight...have a margarita and do my damnedest to get my attitude back in check. If I had friends like me, I would recommend euthanasia! Enough! Back to the real world. Now, I'm thinking of the garment workers in Jordan, a story about whom I heard this morning on NPR. I have nothing to complain about! Get over it, John! Count your lucky stars and ignore your crybaby tendencies.

That's better. I'm trying to let myself laugh at me now. Read today's and yesterday's posts on Perils of Caffeine in the Evening. Not all laughs, but it helps. And don't forget to read the blog of ...A Curmudgeonly Crab, someone with whom I have fallen in love...I really like her posts, and tonight is no exception...she is a rabid liberal! Note: This love affair has not had an impact on my relationship with my wife...she knows I love her! But read Crabbi's links and you'll see!

Nice Day

Some days are unexpectedly delightful. Today was one one of those days.
I was prepared to work in my yard today, after my morning walk, but wasn't really in the mood. I expected my wife to have a long list of things to do, many of which would involve me...such as doing laundry, doing grocery shopping, and a few other odds and ends. But I was in for a surprise. She suggested, for the second consecutive weekend, a long drive in the country. A long drive in the country would be expensive (gas and time) and wasteful (gas, mostly). I have been having mixed feelings lately, But I quickly agreed with her suggestion.

After packing a little bag with bottled water, we headed out, going north and then east. We drifted toward Honey Grove, a tiny town that I thought I remembered but, when we got there, I realized I did not. I remembered someplace entirely different. We had lunch at a cafe on the town square (Red Brick Grill)...a pork chop for my wife, a chicken-fried steak for me. Both of us selected, for our three vegetable accompaniments, the salad bar (rather nice), fried yellow squash, and green beans. I asked for, and actually received (a rare thing, I'm disappointed to say) some sliced jalapeños. While everything reminded me of the overcooked style I grew up with, it was tasty.

We drove all over northeast Texas today! It was such fun. We stopped off at a couple of campgrounds on a little lake, taking in views of blue herons, fish jumping out of the water as they tried to snack on bugs that skipped along the surface of the lake, etc. We looked at land, with dreams at work...wishing we could find a secluded lakefront place we might afford...and we just let ourselves go with the trip. It was marvelous. After a brief stop at home to unload groceries from a brief stop at the grocery store, we went out again, this time stopping at a bar/restaurant called Ozona Grill. It was wonderful. We each had a margarita on the rocks and asked for an appetizer that we enjoyed. We sat outside, in the shade of trees on a patio. It was glorious. I do not want to go to work tomorrow. I may well play hookie. If so, I will be very productive in our back yard, creating a hideaway. Or, maybe not.

Evidence of Exercise

My swollen knees, nascent blisters on my feet, and sense of accomplishment are testament to my long walk this morning. I got up just before 6:00 am, put on my shorts, t-shirt, and walking sandals, grabbed a bottle of water, and headed out the door. A took a brisk walk to the nearest Starbucks, got the 'grande' size cup of dark roast coffee, and headed south down a major street for about 3/4 mile, then back west, and then meandered north back to the area where I live. By the time I got back to my subdivision, my feet and knees were complaining, but I had no choice but to keep going. As I neared my house, an hour after I left, I saw a neighbor outside, trimming the grass encroaching on her flower beds. A 'westie' puppy was at her feet...she picked it up as I approached, she said, to avoid having the dog get wet grass clippings all over me.

After a 20-minute chat, I got home...just a few minutes before my wife got out of bed. Now, after a shower and shave, I'm ready to get out and about, so this blog will have to wait until I'm in the mood.

Bats at the Beach

My wife and I went out for breakfast this Saturday morning, a treat in advance of yet another workday in preparation for client meetings. We went to Bagelstein's, a good place to go for breakfast options unavailable in the average "diner" or intergalactic chain. Bagelstein's is a chain...I don't know whether it's local or regional or national...but it doesn't feel like a chain. I considered ordering grilled kipper with eggs, but opted instead for corned beef hash & eggs. My wife went for her favorite omelet: an egg-beaters version smothered in chili.

That started the day right and positioned me for being in a good mood today. What sealed the deal was a conversation between Weekend Edition host Scott Simon and Daniel Pinkwater, who talked about and read snippets from Bats at the Beach, a children's book. We pulled into the garage about half-way through the piece and experienced an NPR 'driveway moment.' We just had to listen to the remainder of the piece. Despite the fact that the book is ostensibly aimed at 4-8 year-olds, it caught the fancy of a couple of fifty-somethings. The author is Brian Lies, who I gather has written a number of children's books. Here's a photo of the cover, snagged from the Houghton-Mifflin website:

Politics and Memories and Politics and Nature and Neologisms

More on Kinky
My post yesterday, expressing delight that Kinky Friedman will be on the ballot in November for Texas governor generated some dialogue. I described Kinky as liberal-leaning, to which someone who appears to be decidedly NON-liberal-leaning expressed disagreement. No, my visitor insists, Kinky is not liberal. Kinky is, in fact, far more Republican than liberal he suggests. Admittedly, Kinky frequently behaves irrationally and without ensuring that his utterances correspond with his thought processes, but Kinky is most decidedly liberal-leaning. Despite his occasional detours into madness, Kinky is PROFOUNDLY liberal. Among his attributes that seal it, for me, are:

• His live and let live attitude about religious beliefs.
  
• His professed belief in the truths upon which the ten commandments are based...he does not give a whit about their religious basis, he simply believes the messages they convey speak to the fundamental values of most of humankind (he would like to see them back in schools in Texas, though he admits they may have to be renamed the Ten Suggestions)
  
• His focus on education for youth
  
• His belief that gays should enjoy the same rights as the rest of us...this, in a state that not long ago enacted legislation that might as well may homosexuality a capital offense

There's more, of course...I believe he is deeply liberal, despite sharing some views with Republicans. I suppose, if I were to delve deeply into my own mind, I would find that I have plenty of conservative ideas...I just can't think of many at the moment.

Vinyl Memories
A post on Perils of Caffeine in the Evening brought to the front of my mind my own collection of LP records and the turntable that I have not used in years. As I read from his list of LPs...Chicago Transit Authority, Cream, Santana, Jethro Tull, Joni Mitchell, et al, I realized I have many of the same ones, along with a collection of classical music; a scattering of "country" in the style of Jerry Jeff Walker, B.W. Stevenson, Kinky Friedman and the Texas Jewboys (yes, the guy going for Governor); Jimi Hendrix; and a bizarre mix of stuff ranging from John Phillip Sousa to Enya and Broadway scores. My turntable is not working (even if it were connected to the other components of my system), thanks to a broken belt that I have never taken the time to replace...or have replaced.

I'm beginning to think my CDs will, before long, suffer the same fate as my LPs. I've begun ripping MP3 files...it's only a matter of time.

Another Secret Weapon Against Terror
As I drove home from the office today, I heard reports of the latest atrocities against privacy. Seems the Feds have been looking at SWIFT bank records since 9/11, looking to see who is transferring monies to and from the U.S. (and elsewhere, I am sure). No need for judicial oversight, of course. The Feds interviewed seem genuinely SHOCKED that there would be any concerns over such practices...how could we even THINK they would use the information they collect through such nefarious means in inappropriate ways? I wonder, as I write this and consider what other things I have written in this very public space...what will their reason be to come take me down to their offices for a little chat? If you're reading this, W and gang, I won't use a weapon to resist, but by god I will refuse to go.

Turtles and Such
Yesterday, and again today, at mid-day, I took a brief stroll from my office down to a creek near my office. It's not particularly pretty, what with the roughly-poured concrete on the banks to minimize erosion. There's an unremarkable bridge over the creek and not much in the way of housing or businesses in the immediate area, so few people have reason to walk down there. But I enjoy it. I enjoy it because it is a respite from the world of offices and fluorescent lights and parking lots, and smokers gathering around the doors to the building (I was one of them until September 2004, when my cardiologist told me, after the bypass surgery, that I would die if I kept it up).

The creekbed and the surrounding banks, except for the carelessly-scattered concrete, seem very wild. I looked down at the creek from the bridge and was mesmerized by two very large turtles sunning themselves on the bank, just an inch or two from the water. I saw fish darting through the water, popping to the surface, I assume, to suck down some of the mosquito larvae floating on the surface. A mother duck and four very small ducklings were swimming in the creek yesterday; when I leaned over from the bridge to get a closer look, the mother visibly tensed up and the ducklings madly paddled their webbed feet as if trying hard to move fast enough to fly, but instead succeeding only in jetting away from their mother at breakneck speed.

Today, I notice many dragonflies hovering over the water, seeming to be watching the water below for signs of food. Suddenly, they zipped down to the water's surface and skipped along touching the surface and then bouncing up again, as if they were pebbles thrown by an expert in skipping rocks.

This same spot is a frequent stopping place for blue herons, egrets, and other water birds that are so amazingly graceful. It only take ten or fifteen minutes for my stresses to melt away.

When I return to my office, the stresses seem to return before I even open the door.

Neologisms
The following was lifted, verbatim, from an interesting blog entitled Dick Jones' Patternan Pages (June 22 post). All the credit is his, and the email to which he refers as the source.

Hasbian, noun
A former lesbian now turned heterosexual. Also known as a wasbian.

SINK SCUM, acronym
Single, Independent, No Kids: the Self-Centered Urban Male.

Slackademic, noun
A perpetual student who prefers the safety and comfort of academic life over the trials and tribulations of the real world.

Body Nazi, noun
Extreme workout & weightlifter obsessive who regards his unmusclebound peers as mere drones in the great hive.

Chainsaw Consultant, noun
A consultant brought in from outside the firm to make utterly ruthless & cold-blooded decisions that will leave management with clean hands.

Cube Farm, noun
An office consisting entirely of identical cubicles.

Ideas Hamsters, noun
Employees with a morbid ability to generate ideas 24/7.


Mouse Potato, noun
One who survives on a diet of pizza, warm coke & the Internet round the clock.

Squirt the Bird, verb
To transmit a signal to a satellite.

Starter Marriage, noun
A 6-to-12-month marriage favoured by helium-brained film & pop stars, which, when it sunders, leaves no lasting traces in the form of progeny or property.

Stress Puppy, noun
One who thrives on constant levels of stress that would fry most people’s wires in 30 minutes.

Swiped Out, adjective
A debit or credit card that has been exhausted by excessive massaging of the magnetic strip.

Chips and Salsa, noun
Foodstuffs as symbols for, respectively, hardware & software.

Flight Risk, noun
The guy with the sly smile in your department who's believed to be about to hit the road for greater things.

Percussive Maintenance, noun
Hitting delicate electronic equipment with a weighted object, or simply the flattened or bunched hand, so as to make it work.

Uninstalled, adjective
No more "We're going to have to let you go". Just a key stroke & you're uninstalled.

Kinky Friedman: On the Ballot

Today, the results are officially in: Kinky Friedman will be on the ballot for Governor of Texas in November. An independent, much less a liberal-leaning independent, has about as much chance of winning the governorship in Texas as George Bush has at scoring (legitimately, at least) above 80 on a standard IQ test. But I'm glad Friedman is on the ballot...both the Republicans and the Democrats can now make their snide remarks, but I know they are worried that he and the other independent who will be on the ballot, Carol Strayhorn, will be spoilers. Nothing bad can come of a spoiled Texas election...not any worse that an unspoiled Texas election.

Talking about Tuesday

I went to a luncheon meeting today that was organized by a local association to which I belong. My purpose in going was as much to see friends and acquaintances who belong to the group as to listen to the speaker...not a bad speaker or topic, just not of current interest. As usual, the host hotel served hors d'oeuvres and glasses of wine while we milled about outside the luncheon/meeting room.

I was struck by how few of the participants I knew. Not too many years ago, when I served on the board of the organization and indulged myself in being a thorn in the side of the more conservative folks on the board, I knew everyone. Infrequent attendance on my part, as well as on the part of my old compadres, has made me something of an outsider. That's fine; I'm no longer interested in molding the organization to conform to my ideas of what it should be like...I no longer consider it particularly important.

Back to the friends and acquaintances...they were few and far between. I imagine there were only 5-10 of the people I used to see regularly. A few years ago, I would expect to see 30-40 of the "old farts" who shaped the organization in its youth. I miss seeing them...not on a deep, personal level so much as in a way that feeds my curiosity...I suppose it's a shallow, impersonal level.

Perhaps the root of what I am defining now as moderate disinterest has to do with the fact that these people are all involved in association management, people whose professional lives are wrapped around running the day-to-day and strategic direction of professional societies and trade associations. I used to have a deep, abiding interest in that. No longer. My interests have shifted dramatically toward things that, in my way of thinking, matter. Face it, if every association in the country were to disappear tomorrow, it would not be catastrophic (except for the people whose jobs disappeared with them). That is, on a fundamental level, associations don't matter. I'm more interested in things that do matter, things that can impact the world, or my tiny piece of it, in a positive way.

Anyway, my interest...where is it today? I am interested in things as diverse as agriculture and climatology, sociology and philosophy, woodworking and watercolor painting, welding and water purification. My interest does not translate into knowledge...not yet. One other thing that seems to transcend my interest in all of these things (and which has resulted in my retreat from conversations about these interesting topics)...a liberal point of view. The trick in this blood red state to pursuing something of interest with people who share that interest is to either: 1) avoid all discussions dealing with social and political discourse or 2) find the other person (as in, singular, one, only...the one) in the geographic area who shares both the interest and the political point of view. I'm not good at either one.

OK, enough of that. I'm off to our annual neighborhood association meeting. I wonder what's new with them?

Infernal Shinespots of the Mindless Son

Superstition...or Rabbit Truth?
I read something last night I rather fancied, on a long-neglected blog called Predatory Awareness, and I'd like to share it: "I don't know where this morsel of superstition came from, but I grew up knowing that good luck will come to you for the whole month if you wake on the first day of the month and say "White Jack Rabbit" before anything else."

Slide Rulers
I was never smart enough to understand slide rules, much less use them. I wish I had learned, though, so I could trot out my anachronistic expertise in the presence of young people who would marvel at the ancient tools of the mystical Geezer. No! No! No, I don't want to learn now, so don't offer to teach me! The only way I would want to learn to use the slide rule now is through painless hypodermic injections of pure information, much the same way I would like to learn Spanish, calculus, Latin, how to field dress a freshly-killed javelina, and how to calculate the volume of a deepwater lake. I'm no longer interested in the messy aspects of knowledge acquisition. I want to acquire it through injection or, in a pinch, nasal inhalation of pure information. For those of you with a lust for slide rule knowledge and who are unafraid of the messiness of the process, I recommend to you a web site dedicated to slide rulery.

Unfinished Story...And You'll See Why
I started a story last night, but did not finish it, because I felt certain it would end badly, with aliens erupting from the telling of it. Here is the premise from which it started:

The streets...the actual surfaces of the byways over which automobiles pass...of a suburban neighborhood begin to change one evening while a resident, who I called Jarlan Sisco, was out for his afternoon über-walk. What had been just average mottled black asphalt with specks of white and gray and blue thrown in started looking "deeper." That is, just as the surface of a highly polished automobile seems to have depth, so too did the streets. At first, Jarlan could not figure out what was different on his walk, but as the changes in the streets became more pronounced, he gradually began to understand what was different. Jarlan slowed his walk so he could get a better look at this transition taking place in the street beneath his feet. He thought he saw vague outlines of moving figures take shape far beneath the surface, but he decided it was his imagination. Periodically as he stared at the street, he looked around to be sure no one was watching his odd behavior...leaning down close to the roadway, peering intently at the surface of the street.

The more he stared, though, the more he was convinced there was something down there. A black and green underworld was materializing before his eyes. He could vaguely see the outlines of swaying trees and bushes, flowing water, steep cliffs, and lots of pipes and wires...enormous volumes of pipes and wires. He could see the puffs of steam erupt from the pipes. As the minutes passed, he started to feel the world beneath him. As steam erupted from pipes, he began to feel almost imperceptible shudders of the ground under his feet. When branches of the trees he could see below him slammed into the sheer edge of a cliff, he felt an abrupt jolt beneath him.

The reason I stopped? Isn't it obvious? It is meaningless drivel and has no place to go but down.

Shipping Containers for Architecture/Housing

I've been interested in the use of shipping containers as elements of architecture for quite some time. I suppose my interest arose from the fact that one of my sisters has been in and around shipping containers in her professional career for quite some time, but that may be coincidental. Of late, I've started gathering information and resources about the use of shipping containers in architecture. I thought I'd share some resources here:


Shipping Container Architecture
Container architecture projects
Architect's Container House Sales Site
Treehugger article on Shipping Container Pre-Fab
The Architect's Newspaper--The Shipping News
Inhabitat--Cargotecture
Hive Modular
The Real Deal--New York Shipping Container-Based Cooperative
Shipping Containers as Housing
Business Week--Home is Where the Cargo Was
G3 Containers, LLP, a great resource for buying shipping containers--OK, I will come clean...I have a sister involved in this deal.

Now that I'm getting pumped up about this stuff, I think I may look into architects in Dallas who are into using shipping containers. Despite the fact that they've been around for a long time now and many "edgy" architects are using them, I think the time is nigh for pre-fab homes based on shipping containers to become a very, very popular thing. I'd like to talk to architects about the concept and, just maybe, get into some sort of business venture to explore the market.

Random Remarks on an Unremarkable Monday

A new staff member started work today, so we did our traditional thing and took her out to lunch as a group. We try to get to know new people during this first-day lunch. What we learned from her: she is an only-child; she is not a particularly raving fan of spicy food; she likes shopping; she lives in far north Dallas county and is not fond of Oak Cliff, where her mother lives, nor Irving, where she grew up. That's not much, but it's all we know. If I were interviewing someone to be a friend, I would keep looking. But I'm not. And I wasn't.

I've been reading lots of blogs of late that are written by fifty-something and sixty-something people who live in the northwest. These are erstwhile hippies who seem to have maintained many of their youthful principles as they have aged. And they seem genuinely interested in the world around them and...gasp...they come across as intelligent people! Would that I had moved to the Pacific Northwest years ago, just after college, and pursued graduate work and an academic position in a university. Well, I didn't. No use crying over spilt milk. But I do so enjoy the bloggers; I wonder where to find such interesting people in Dallas.

DirecTV just called to gush over me for making the decision to select them over Comcast a few months ago and to offer me six months of Showtime free (or a free receiver), if only I would commit to a year of DirecTV. I have no intention of going back to Comcast, now or ever, so I readily agreed and Showtime is now switched on until December 19.

Today's lunch for the new employee left my wife feeling very stuffed...so much so that she allowed as she was not interested in dinner tonight. More than that, she wants to go for a walk with me in a bit! Happy days! So, at around 8:30, when the temperature drops to about 90 degrees, we will go for a walk together!

Our house has a small flagstone patio in back, with 2" thick flagstones setting atop a sand base...no concrete pad. Decomposed granite fills the sometimes large spaces between flagstones and has a habit of encouring weeds to grow between the stones. I invited a local contractor out to the house on Friday to give me a bid on resetting the flagstone on a concrete pad and putting mortar between the stones. I also asked about extending the flagstone so there would be a 25 foot path from the patio to what may one day become a pad for a spa. The first piece would cost $3300, the second $2300. I informed the contractor that I would be planting dwarf mondo grass between the stones and creating my own gravel pathway. $5600! I was thinking maybe $750 for fixing the patio and another $1200 for the walkway...maybe I am stuck in the 60s.

My middle-age craziness keeps popping up. I have been drooling over small sports convertibles lately. This is not me. Sure, it would be fun to drive a BMW Z3 or Z4 (I think...I haven't driven one), but I don't need one. But still I keep looking longingly at them as they zip by, the drivers looking carefree and happy with the wind blowing in their hair. Then, if I happen to drive by a tractor dealership, I decide, no, I want a tractor...a compact, yet powerful, tractor with a front loader, a back hoe, a mid-mount mower, and a post hole digger attachment. I envision myself on my land in the country, working the land and building a place that will be comfortable, quiet, draped in shade, and awash in colorful flowers and the ocassional meat goat.

It appears psychosis has crept in on top of the middle-age craziness.

Thanks...to someone or something

I just read something Loudon Wainwright III wrote. It was for the NPR series, This I Believe. Wainwright's comments so closely echo my thoughts, at least some of them do. Of course, I never have to worry about becoming his twin when it comes to playing guitar, but his comments about giving a silent "thanks" when something goes well (even though he is not quite sure what or who he is thanking) reminds me of my own behavior. Me, the avowed atheist, saying thanks without thinking who or what I'm thanking, but knowing it is not a divine being. Maybe it's thanks to myself for finally letting my energy or creativity or...something...come to the fore. Who knows...I don't.

This is the same person who strictly observes certain traditions...eating black eyed peas on New Years Day, rabidly avoiding washing clothes on the same day, etc. What? Me, superstitious? You must be mad! I KNOW it's absurd to observe those ill-informed traditions. But, you know, it's TRADITION! Or, maybe, it's a nod to the memory of my past or a nod to the honor of that past.

Food & Shelter

First, the Food
My favorite wife and I went for an old-style drive in the country today, a very welcome return to something we used to do frequently. The cost of gasoline being higher than it was when this was our weekend routine made this a bit of a pricey endeavor, but well worth it. Our destination upon leaving the house was the small town of Tioga, Texas, about an hour or so from our home in north Dallas, if one were to drive directly to Tioga. We tend to meander a bit. Our more specific destination was a barbeque joint called Clark's Outpost, a place we'd been to once before but about which neither of us remembered much. Roadfood.com says nice things about it, so we decided it was worth a try.

The roads to Tioga, at least the route we took, take you through horse country...lots of people in the area have, for one reason or another, decided that something is right in the area for raising horses. Mile after mile of white plank fences mark properties along the roadway, punctuatged with large, majestic entrances to horse farms named after families and old Mexican towns and letters of the alphabet. Development is moving toward Tioga at breakneck speed. It's a shame to see cookie-cutter developments racing toward the open scrub prairies and pastures, knowing that the land will be blanketed with housing, strip centers, new roads, and massive malls before long.

Anyway, we got to Clark's Outpost just before the luncheon rush. Most of the patrons were, or seemed to be, locals who knew the waitstaff and other patrons. And most of them seemed to have recently been at church, though none of them offered to convert me. My wife ordered a chicen fried steak with cole slaw and something else and I had a beef (brisket) and sausage plate, with a side of fried zuccini with horseradish dipping sauce and a side of collard greens.

I was satisfied with the food, but not particularly impressed...but the character of the place (a well-worn country restaurant that serves as a meeting place for lots of rural folks from the area) makes it worth stopping again if we're in the area.

We took our time coming back, stopping to look at some model homes that were intended to imitate the style of Savannah, Georgia's gracious homes and dropping in to a few grocery and sundry stores. I was impressed with the model homes, some of which had large covered and screened porches, complete with rocking chairs.

Shelter
When we got back, I discovered that one of my sisters had forwarded a link to an article on SF Gate about shipping containers used as the basis for housing design. I've always been a fan of such things, so I took a look. I suggested to my sister via email that we should go in together to start a family compound in Falba. Later, when I discovered that the lower-end cost per square foot estimate ($76) does not include foundation, plumbing, electrical, etc., etc. I think we may have to be our own general contractors. But I love the idea of using shipping containers. For one thing, their appearance lends them to being used to imitate some of Frank Lloyd Wright's spare style, or maybe they're really more like Mies van der Rohe's designs. In any event, I like the way they look and I like the concept. I wish I had the money and the free time to ramrod a project like designing and building a house using used shipping containers as the base.

Does Religion Lead to Good, Too?

I read an article in the Los Angeles Times this morning that raised a number of questions in my mind. Does religion, about which I am always very likely to be be suspicious and of which I often speak in negative terms, do good, too? I know many of the bad things I have seen arising from religion (e.g., holy wars, Texas politics, Pat Robertson, etc.), but does it really do good?

Maybe it's just the media's bias toward religion or maybe it's a fact that, despite their tendency toward faith-based conflagration, people who are highly religious tend to have exceptional abilities to focus, to get things done. Whatever it is, there's a lot said in the media about the power of religion and how it impacts the lives of people.

I'm talking about the inspirational stories that appear in newspapers. You know, stories about some average person who is driven to do good through the power of god or religion or church.

I rarely read stories of people who are driven to do good, with no intervention by a higher power. I know they're out there, but I rarely read about them. Is it possible that, when people are so intently devoted to their religious beliefs, people are just more likely to "do good?"

Despite my rather significant misgivings about religion in general and evangelical behaviors in particular, I have to say it sometimes doesn't matter whether it's just media bias or whether religion--rather than simply living one's life--is more likely to give people motives to "do good."

The article I linked above, in case you have or choose not to read it, is about a former restauranteur who took it upon herself to try to "lift up" the Chinese immigrants who work in the restaurant industry. The people she is trying to help really do need help. Here is an excerpt from the LA Times article:

Nationwide, more than 1 million immigrants work in 41,350 Chinese restaurants — from mom-and-pop takeouts to mammoth buffet enterprises employing hundreds, according to the Fremont, Calif.-based Chinese Restaurant News.

Though many restaurants hire non-Asian workers, Lou's ministry concentrates on the Chinese — the people she knows best.

It's a subculture hidden from most Americans. Speaking little or no English, many Chinese immigrants must settle for dispiriting kitchen work — laboring 12 hours a day, seven days a week.

Many, here illegally, have no access to labor unions or social service networks. They live in cramped restaurant-owned dormitories or in rented garages without cooking facilities, bathrooms or running water.

To cope with their harsh living conditions and mind-numbingly mundane work, many fall prey to gambling, drugs, alcohol and prostitution.

Among the worn wooden chopping boards and flashing meat cleavers, hissing deep-fryers and walk-in freezers, the desire for a higher calling is fierce.

While I admire people like the lady about whom this story is written for the good they do, I remain highly skeptical not of their motives, but of the reporters who write them and the papers that publish the stories. Are there not people who do as much, or more, but who do it out of a spirit of helping simply because help is needed, and not because the bible told them to?

I know, I'm going in circles. I have to admit, in some cases, the deeply-ingrained faults of religion seem not to matter as much as what religion seems capable of accomplishing. What's going through my mind at the moment is, "Is the good worth the price?" Reading about the Chinese restaurant workers who have no hope, who are treated with disrespect due to their low social standing, and who seem stuck in a cycle of misery...reading about that this morning, I have to say it is.

Misplaced Machismo or Delusions of My Physical Peak

I have a tendency to overdo my exercise from time to time. Like tonight.

I've only been back on my 'regimen' for about five days, so good sense should dictate continuing to ease into it. But, on too many occasions, I leave good sense at the door and take with me, instead, something that I can only describe as misplaced machismo or delusions of my physical peak. Tonight was one such occasion. I don't think it was misplaced machismo tonight; tonight, it was a matter of "oh, damn, I forgot my 25th birthday was 27 years ago!"

My wife and I decided, after doing grocery shopping and stocking up on wonderful things like New York strip steak, a really fabulous-looking piece of pork, beautiful smoked salmon, and the like, that we really didn't feel like preparing a meal at home. So, we went to a sushi place near our house, a place we hadn't tried before. It was very good.

But that is all beside the point. We went home and I immediately decided to go for a walk. Initially, I had planned to make a simple loop around the subdivision we live in, which would have been a relatively easy walk without a great deal of stress on the legs, bones, and muscles. After I started walking, though, I thought to myself, "You need to push yourself a little further each day...failure to go a little further every day is going to do you no good." So, I decided to make a loop around the group of subdivisions beginning with mine and stretching north for about 3/4 mile to a minor east-west artery...then back west for about 1/2 mile, then back south 3/4 mile or so...I don't really know the distances (not really very far, but far enough for an out-of-shape, arthritic, overweight, water-retaining geezer who had just eaten a nice-sized meal). The 'thing' is, there is a gentle-looking slope on both the north-south legs that really puts pressure on my shins and the muscles on the front outter edges of my shins. And, the extra exertion seems to tie in nicely, for some reason, with getting chafed.

I arrived back home cursing myself for insisting on 'pushing my envelope' this evening. I'm angry at myself as I feel and see the large knot of muscle just above my foot on the outter front quadrant of my left leg.

Tomorrow will reveal whether my idiocy tonight will have consequences for my exercise regimen. I hope the chafing, etc. is not really bad and that it was just enough to remind me that I need to pay attention! Normally, I'd wake up on Sunday morning and make a nice pot of coffee and ease into the day by reading the newspaper, looking at news online, asking questions of the world and getting responses via sometimes unreliable Internet rsources, and generally kick back and relax. But I had planned on another 'real walk' tomorrow morning. I've decided to call it off. Tomorrow will be the perfect day to slip into the day slowly. Tomorrow evening, if tonight's negligence doesn't interfere, will present an opportunity to get back to the modest exercise I should be starting with.

Documenting the Rain Dilemma

I headed south this morning, planning a quick turn-around trip to Falba to look at some land that one of my brothers is anxious to try to buy. The idea was to get a sense of which portion of this tract of land that will be for sale might be most attractive. By the time I reached Fairfield, a bit more than half way, I think, I had been driving for a good half hour through horrendous rainstorms and high wind. I called my brother to say I was changing my plans and would head back north, perhaps making the trip to Falba another time.

A few minutes later, the sky opened with a vengeance. I don't believe I have ever seen such heavy wind and rain except in hurricanes. I stopped to get some bottled water, trying unsuccessfully to dash into the market without getting drenched. Just as I approached the register, a powerful clap of thunder and a brilliant flash of light occurred almost simultaneously and the store was without power. I paid for my water without worrying about getting change...no way to open the register and the cashier wasn't quite sure how to calculate how much I owed (so I figured it for her). I jumped back into my car and headed north. After about ten miles of heavy, heavy rain and cars inching along with their emergency flashers pulsing, the worst of it stopped.

The weather looked threatening by the time I got back to Dallas at about 11:30, but it didn't rain. My wife was at the office, so I called to see if she wanted to go out for lunch. She did, so we cruised up Harry Hines until we decided on a place to eat, Las Lomas de Zacatecas. We'd eaten there before, long ago. Nice, rich, very spicy salsa (complimentary with chips, of course) started the meal. My wife had marvelous chicken enchiladas with an excellent white sauce. I had an interesting meal of pork tacos (very greasy corn tortillas, though) with pico de gallo, fresh lime, and a truly unusual rice dish (heavily peppered...as in blace pepperP), with the obligatory refritos.

Then, back to the office. I spent some time getting my new employee's passwords set up, email account in place, etc. I hired her Friday to start Monday. This is my umpteenth attempt to fill the position. This better work out or I might zip right off the edge!

Now, I'm home, waiting for my wife to get here. She spent the day doing financials for our newest client, whose records really were in miserable shape.

Maybe more later...just had to document the dilemma.

Iced Coffee & Walking

Iced Coffee
I found out last night whether a large unsweetened iced coffee, black, at 6:30 pm would have any impact on my ability to get to sleep, and stay asleep. I do not recall ever having any problems with caffeine keeping me awake, but then I rarely drink coffee late in the day. The answer, incidentally, is that it sure appeared to have an impact; I went to bed at just after midnight and didn't get to sleep for what seemed like an eternity...and then woke up several times during the night.

The iced coffee, from Starbucks, was surprisingly good. In fact, it was outstanding. It was so refreshing and tasty that I could easily get used to drinking it on a daily basis. However, at $2.71 for a large coffee, that could get expensive. Starbucks, I must admit, does make a pretty good cup of coffee, at least when they stick to their basics. When I go into a Starbucks and am confronted with three coffee options, I generally find that none of them are to my liking. But when presented with the option of a "bold" cup of coffee, it's usually good.

Boston John, a wannabe geezer who's living in sin with my wannabe geezerista sister-in-law is a rabid iced coffee fanatic (in fact, he's the guy who got my on to iced coffee) who loves some damn doughnut shop's coffee (Dunkin' Donuts) (which is good, I must admit). Whenever I have a particularly good iced coffee, I think of him and silently express my appreciation for his willingness to be an impurist (one who drinks coffee that deviates from my purist requirements of black, hot, and unsullied by cream, milk, sugar, or other such impurities.

Walking
I'm still doing it, after just a few days...I hope I keep it up. Last night, I went out about 8:30 again and managed to walk further than I had the previous couple of nights, but in less time. My calves hurt like crazy after only a short distance (always have), but I kept going. I didn't measure, but I'd guess it was about 1-1/2 miles. At a pretty rapid clip, that causes one to sweat just a bit, particularly when the temps are hovering around 90.

Absolute Compromise

I grow weary of stridency, even my own.
I tire of fanatical certainty and steadfast principles based on emotion more than intellect.

Today, there is a poisonous passion sweeping the land that forbids centrist thinking and treats it as blasphemy.

I am tired of passion, even my own.
I grow weary of charges of blasphemy and political compromise.

We are afraid of one another, and fear breeds contempt, and contempt breeds hatred, and hatred breeds violence.

I am afraid of violence bred of hatred.
I hate to see contempt emerge from fear.

We're wrong, every one of us, whose reactions to another's certainty and principles are emotional outbursts unleavened by intellect.

Sometimes, compromise is good, even when certainty is sacrificed. Sometimes, principles remain principles only when tested through compromise.

Principles untested by compromise are not principles.
They are dogma built on fables, untested by investigation.

The only absolutes are fueled by compromise.

My Version of an Exciting Life

Yesterday, after a long and badly self-indulgent respite, I finally started walking again...as in "walking for exercise." I dreaded it. The temperatures in Dallas have been blazingly hot, causing beads of sweat to form on one's face simply from thinking about walking out from the air conditioned comfort of one's home into the hellish heat of day (or night). I really dreaded it.

But, my weight has been on the rise for months and I believe I have hit another record, so I decided it was time to stop talking about it and do something. So, I took a brisk walk for about 30 minutes, beginning at about 8:30 pm. Just five minutes or so into the walk, my dread had disappeared. It actually felt good to be out getting an admittedly modest amount of exercise. By 8:30, the temperature had dropped below 90 degrees, so it was not quite as horrible as I had imagined. I enjoyed the walk, particularly the things I would have missed had I been holed away in my house as I normally would have been.

First, I saw a mother duck and her three offspring (I assume they were hers...but you never know, a ducknapping ring may be operating in my own neighborhood). The offspring were too big to be called 'babies' and that is not the right term for ducks, anyway. Perhaps I should call them juvenile ducks. Later, as I was nearing the endpoint of my walk, I saw a cotton-tail rabbit in someone's yard. It stood as still as a statue until I had gone quite a distance past it, then it nosed about, looking for some tender grass to munch on.

I drank lots and lots of water last night, before and after my walk, following instructions from my physician. Today was the beginning phase of my "annual" physical (my last annual physical was probabably 12 or 13 years ago). It involved blood work, peeing into a bottle, getting prodded and poked front and back by the doctor, and getting a chest X-ray. They ran out of tetanus boosters and the EKG machine was broken, so those will wait until next visit. Back to the water; I was told to fast after midnight, but to drink lots of water. That was easy. The need to drink lots of water also gave me cause not to have my nightly alcoholic beverages, which I took as a sign that I should use yesterday's preparation as the beginning of an alcohol-free period, during which I get exercise, drink lots of water, and cut down on the volume of food intake.

That leads to this evening. I had hoped to have a low-cal dinner to help keep me in line. But I sensed my wife wanted to go out, so I did not insist. She selected a place called La Acapulqueña, a Mexican seafood place quite some distance from where we live, in a neighborhood that I would consider someone "dicey" after dark. I may be wrong; I may be middle-aged-white-paranoid, but I think it's place that one cannot yet reasonably expect to be safe after dark. It was very good.

I had camerones a la diabla, which were very spicy shrimp on a bed of similarly spicy rice, along with...a baked potato. That was new to me in a Mexican restaurant. My wife had huachinango al mojo de ajo, a whole (head on) red snapper that had been baked in a very, very garlicky sauce and had been scored to ease getting at the meat. It was delightful. But, there went my plans for a low-cal dinner. (We both drank iced tea...I feel virtuous.) By the time we left the place at about 8:00 pm, I was stuffed (with chips, three types of salsa, my entre, etc.), so I allowed as I would not be walking tonight for fear of bursting. But, after we got home, I changed my mind; slipped on my leather sandals and lit out. I saw the same ducks, but no rabbit this time. I didn't leave the house until about 9:00 pm, so it was beginning to get dark; it was rather hard to see by the time I got home half an hour later.

OK, back to the doctor. Next visit I will learn the results of the lab work and, if all is well, will be admonished to exercise more, eat a healthier diet, and watch my blood pressure. I will also have the other tests. And then I will be sent off to another doctor for a colonoscopy. Since my gastroenterologist opted to leave private practice about a year ago, I have been sans gut-doctor. Fortunately, my Crohn's disease has not flared up for quite some time, since well before my doctor quit the rat-race, but it's probably best to have a doctor available, so it's good that I will establish a relationship with a new gastro-guy. I'm hoping the physical reveals nothing untoward and suggests I should live a happy and health hundred years.

Life at the office is tough these days. I'm having a tough time concentrating on what I know needs to be done, thereby risking relationships (and contracts) with clients. I need, I think desperately, a vacation to clear my head, but there simply is no time for it until at least the middle part of July. By then, I may have lost my mind.

In about half an hour, I will watch The Tonight Show, something I rarely do. I want to see it tonight, though, because the poster-girl for hate and intolerance in America, Ann Coulter, will be on, along with George Carlin. I am hoping George Carlin's wit is still as keen as I remember it, because there is no question he could embarrass and filet the woman's absurd logic. She needs it.

The newfound blog that I wrote about last night, Learning to Sequencehas some wonderful comments about Coulter: "Coulter's just the tarted-up version of this nastiness, and she's worse in a way because she claims to be using humor. Poison Supreme Court Justice Stevens? "Just kidding!" screeches Coulter. " When she says "this nastiness," she refers to pro-fascist, anti-Semitic, racist swill that was spewed by the likes of Joseph McCarthy and his ilk.

Today Bush swaggered through another press conference, making just enough tilts toward being a "real man with faults" to convince the imbeciles who support him that he is, indeed, a "feeling" man who cares deeply about this country's people. I have to admit, there are times when I hear him and think, "the guy might really believe what he is saying." When that happens, I begin to think, "If he really believes what he is saying, we're in worse trouble that it might seem. This man is too stupid to be allowed to vote, much less run for office."

OK, I should catch a few snippets of news before sports reporting interrupts it...and then, it may be time for fireworks with Ann and George!

No Fireworks
I just watched The Tonight Show. Jay Leno and George Carlin were both far too accommodating of the loathesome witch; they both listened to her and acted as if she were human (maybe she is in some sense, but certainly not human in the sense of being civil and having any emotional attachment to other people). Ann Coulter is, in my view, a dangerous woman; she spews hatred in every utterance and she is facile enough with language to persuade less intelligent folk that she is speaking logically and factually. She is a cauldron of lies. She is the perfect example of psychopathy...taken to extreme.

A Horrible Dream and a Snippet from a Blogger's Story

Dream
Last night, I had a horrific dream. I was with another man, walking down a country road. On the right side of the road was a huge field of grain of some kind, tall stalks of light green leaves that were drying out and turning straw-colored. The heads of the stalks of grain were dark brown, tinged with red or purple, the color of cordovan shoes. Apparently I knew the man I was with, but not well. I was uncomfortable being there with him for some reason.

As we walked along the field, we spotted a tall man in the field and he spied us at about the same time. He dropped low so we could not see him. The man next to me produced a rifle, something that looked rather small and powerless and he aimed it toward the area where the man had been. He didn't shoot it. Instead, he said, "I won't get him, I don't even know where he is." He handed the rifle to me. Just then, I saw the man rise up from the field and I took aim at him and fired. Just as the report from the shot reached my ears, I saw a look of horror and pain come across the man's face and he lurched backward as if he had been struck hard in his face. I felt a sense of horror and dread come across me like nothing ever had before; it was incomprehensible that I had just shot this man, who I did not know and who did not, that I knew, represent any threat to me.

The next thing I remember from the dream, the man I was with was introducing me to some people who looked like farmers, judging from the way they were dressed and from their leathery complexions. I felt afraid of them. Somehow, I knew that they were related in some way to the man I shot...brothers, cousins, or friends, I don't know. I was petrified that they would find out what I had done. And I kept thinking what I had done and wondering why and realizing how horrible it was. I had killed someone.

There was more to the dream, but I don't recall it. I have vague recollections of a barn dance and a crowd of people, but I don't know what else happened in that dream. I do know, though, that I have never felt quite the way I did in the dream when I realized what I had done to the man I shot. It wrenched my gut and made my mouth dry and I just felt a terrible sensation that I would never feel good about anything again.

Story
I read something on a blog today that struck me as funny. I'll quote just a touch of it and then send you on your way to read it for yourself, if you choose. The guy developed a painful rash and went to the doctor, who diagnosed it as shingles (one of my brothers has had it...it is awfully painful and I am not making fun...just find this description funny):

Shingles! It sounds so 19th century, like dropsy, quincy, pleurisy, the rheumatiz. It also sounds vaguely disreputable, like something you might contract by consorting with the livestock.

The blog is called "Perils of Caffeine in the Evening." The blogger is the husband (I think) of a woman called Isbelita who writes a very interesting blog that I stumbled across, entitled "Learning to Sequence." Neither of the two blogs are purely political...which I like about them.

Bye-Bye Bushie

I have nothing else to say this evening, at least not at this point.

Kehoro's Story

Kehoro sat at the window, watching the birds dart from bush to bush, snatching into their beaks the brilliant red berries from the newest and most flexible branches. The sun was still hours from reaching its peak, but already the window glass close to his face made his cheeks and his hair feel warm. A bird with a red-tipped head that muted to pink and then grey toward the base of its head flitted back and forth between a tree and a basket, filled with flowers, that hung from the eve of the house. Kehoro took in the red and blue and yellow flowers that surrounded each of the trees in the yard. They pleased his eyes and the odor of freshly mown grass filled his nostrils and made him smile. But then he remembered what he had been thinking about and his mood changed.

---

Kehoro was unhappy in a most fundamental way. He did not know what he wanted from life, but he was completely dissatisfied with what he had. He meditated about his dilemma from time to time, though not in the traditional sense. He considered what he disliked about his current, and lifelong, situation and then tried to determine how he could change, either himself or his environment, to remove the source of the unhappiness. But it was useless.

Kehoro sought out his realm of discontent. He didn't know it, of course, but he sought it out.

The nearest he came to defining what happiness might be to him was a moment in which he realized that he wanted simplicity. A simple house, a simple role to play, a simple diet, a simple exercise regimen, a small and close set of friends who shared his sense of right and wrong and his sense of happiness.

The trouble with this definition was that it involved sacrificing many of the things he had come to enjoy, things that he had come to appreciate having in his life: alcohol, casual sex, fine foods, and Cuban cigars, among other things. His inclusion of an exercise regimen in his definition of happiness also was out of place. Kehoro equated exercise with pain. Indeed, he equated many elements of the simple life as he defined it as being painful. He was an adamant opponent of pain.

Pain made him unhappy, a state of mind from which he was seeking escape, so the idea of engaging in things he would consider painful to achieve happiness seemed utterly at odds with logic. All of these thoughts came rushing in at almost the same moment he decided simplicity would bring...or at least facilitate...happiness.

Mind you, this moment at which he realized he wanted simplicity was the nearest he came to defining happiness for himself.

When he found himself unexpectedly enjoying a moment, he caught the sensation and prevented it from getting out of control. "It's great now," he thought to himself, "but it can't last. Even if it could, it would lose its luster and its appeal fast and I would no longer enjoy it. But it won't last that long...never does." Sure enough, Kehoro's momentary jubilation, if you could call it that, dissipated in the blink of an eye. The pleasing taste of a glass of nice red wine gave way to concerns of a hangover. A night pierced by erotic pleasures with an attractive woman brought the morning and an awkward goodbye. An evening with a multi-course meal at a five-star restaurant ended with thoughts of too many calories and shame for spending money on such a meal instead of contributing most of the amount spent on the dinner to a food bank. In an attempt to return to a mild sense of happiness and satisfaction after the fine meal gone bad with guilt, Kehoro would smoke a Cuban cigar smuggled to him by a Canadian colleague. That, too, was redirected toward guilt for complicity in smuggling and fear of throat cancer.

---

Kehoro looked at the birds with envy; they looked to him as if they were happy, content with their lives and undistracted from the simple task of finding food. His sense of pleasure was interrupted. He had forgotten, for just a moment, the most important part of his story: he was a seeker and his realm was discontent.

Dream within a Dream

It was not until I posted this item that I discovered (by doing a Google search) that Edgar Allen Poe wrote a poem entitled Dream Within a Dream, so I decided to come back and acknowledge that. My story has no relationship to Poe's.

I intended to write about this earlier, but simply forgot.

I had at least two dreams last night...they may have been intertwined, but I am not sure. The first one was very odd, as it involved a dream within a dream. I was in the hallway of my office at work, possibly toward the back of the office suite. I looked up, across the hall, and saw an open full-sized door that revealed a very shallow "closet" only a few inches deep. I immediately recognized that someone had removed the sheet rock from the hallway side of the wall and had then re-sheetrocked inside (in my dream, it was a few inches deep--maybe 6 or 8 inches--in reality, had it been done, it would have been limited to about 3 inches deep). I looked down the hall and saw that there were marks all over the hall of seams where sheetrocking mud had been applied. I realized that this couldn't be, because I would have known about it. I then started saying "Is this a dream?" over and over again. But while I was asking the question, I started to realize I might actually be talking in my sleep so I became conscious of not wanting to wake my wife. Finally I was "awake" and out of the dream...standing in the same place in my office, realizing I had just awakened from a dream. I did not question the fact that, if I had just awakened from a dream, I would have been in bed, not standing in my office hallway.

Just then, I started speaking to someone about a trip I would be making to New York City. I don't know if it was part of the first dream or not. At some point, the dream seems to have either ended or cut over to being in a new dream in which I was in a taxi in New York City, very late at night. I was in the taxi with someone else, but I don't know who he was. I remember thinking that the flight had been very late and that we had rushed out of the airport terminal and taken the first cab. I told the driver the name of the hotel, which was utterly bizarre...something like "Attitude Accordant at Edgemont" (that's not the name, because I don't recall it...but it was something wierd like that). The other guy and I sat in the back seat, silently, as the cabbie drove and drove and drove. I looked over at the other guy and he was asleep. The cabbie started asking where the hotel was and what street it was on and I remember saying I did not know but I thought I had the address in my notebook...but when I pulled out the information, I could not read the address or even the hotel name. About this time, the cabbie said something about the hotel being in a really dangerous area and he knew exactly where it was. And then I realized I had not checked to see if I had any cash on me and I did not know whether this other person did, either. It may be that this other person was a client...not sure. Anyway, I started panicking that I might not have the money to pay the cabbie and I remember thinking the cab ride would likely be several hundred dollars.

That's all I remmeber.

It was so odd, dreaming that I was having a dream. I think I have had similar sensations in my dreams before...dreaming that I was having a dream. I wonder if that is common and, if so, if there is any significance to it. Probably not.

Personal, Political, and Perfunctory Musings

Calling Mexico
I sent a message this morning to an attorney I know who, a few years ago, moved to San Miguel de Allende in Mexico. I had a simple question: how does he have a U.S. Dallas-based phone number (with 214 area code)? I've not called the number, but I believe he once told me it rings to his office in Mexico. I'm interested in knowing how it works and how much it costs.

Another Birthday
My Falba-based brother is having a birthday tomorrow, June 12. It's a milestone birthday, so if you know him, call him to wish him a happy birthday. For his birthday, I think he'd like 100 acres of land and some cattle (along with a cash stipend of about $200,000), so if you have the abilities and the inclination to make a gift of such on his birthday, I'm sure he would be grateful.

Phillipine Independence Day Corresponds to My Brother's Birthday
June 12 is also the anniversary of the 1898 Philippine revolt against the colonial government of Spain, which Manila celebrates as the Phillipines' independence day. Apparently, not everyone is happy about that, as near-simultaneous bomb blasts occurred in various places around the Phillipines in connection with independence day; the bomb blasts are asserted to be related in some way to independence day.

Chilean Student Protests
Students participated in a national strike in Chile last week. President Michelle Bachelet promised to address students' needs by implementing various reforms intended to improve the quality of Chile’s public education system. In a speech a week ago Thursday night, she offered to finance the college entrance exams and transportation fees for the poorest 80 percent of Chile’s public school students. She also promised to increase the number of free school meals given to students, to provide scholarships for technical students during internships, to increase family subsidies, and to repair dilapidated facilities in the nation’s public school system.

The President’s plan will cost upwards of US$137 million annually, according to Finance Minister Andrés Velasco. In 2006, the funding for the plan will come from existing government revenues, while thereafter the costs will be paid for, in part, by new revenues coming to the government as a result of windfall copper profits. What the article I read in The Santiago Times did not say, though, was whether the students' demands for what amounts to nationalization of the school system are being seriously considered. As I have written before, I hope not.

Scary Mexican Politics
Andrés Manuel López Obrador is running for President of Mexico as the Democratic Revolution Party (PRD) candidate in what is becoming a very, very tight race. A few days ago, on the day of the last presidential debate, an armored car carrying Celia Gurza and her three children (Gurza had threatened to release videotapes said to show aides of López Obrador taking bribes) was fired on by gunmen. National Action Party (PAN) candidate Felipe Calderón, who had fallen behind recently, is now closing the gap. No one seems to know who might be behind the attack on Gurza, but speculation is that López Obrador's forces are, while other speculation is that Calderon's people staged the shooting to set up their opponent. Pundits are now saying Calderón will win by a slim margin, but it's really too tight to call, from what I have read. Regardless, the violent attack on Gurza's vehicle and the charges being flung by all candidates makes for a scary race. July 2 is election day in Mexico.

Beijing Vice Mayor in a Bit of Trouble
The Vice Mayor of Beijing Municipal Government, Liu Zhihua, was stripped of his post due to 'corruption and degeneration', state media reported Sunday. The decision was made during a meeting during the Standing Committee of 12th Beijing Municipal People's Congress, according to the Xinhua News Agency. Believe it or not, I do not care about this. I'm not sure why, but this matters not a whit to me.

Spaniards Rally Against Government Plan to Enter Talks with Basque Separatists
Hundreds of thousands of Spaniards demonstrated in Madrid on Saturday, demanding that the Spanish government cease plans to enter into peace talks with the Basque separatist group ETA. The organization is blamed for more than 800 deaths in its fight for an independent homeland in northern Spain and southwest France. Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, the Spanish prime minister, had advanced the plan as a way to end 38 years of violence. ETA had declared a cease-fire in March of this year.

Saturdaying

I finally bought a pair of decent leather sandals, the kind with adjustable straps with velcro closures. Time will tell whether I like them. I'm perfectly happy with my cheap flip-flops, but they do tend to be problematic sometimes when I am driving, so I decided to go for something a bit safer, but still open enough to let air flow around my feet. It's not even mid-June and temperatures here have exceeded 100 degrees F, so I felt a certain urgency to get prepared.

The temperatures and lack of rain are, again, causing problems for north Texas. There are water restrictions in place all around us, including Dallas. I hope people understand the reasons for the restrictions and adhere to them. It's no trouble for me to live by them; I simply set the irrigation system to water only during periods of the day when it is permitted. I might cut back even more, but for the fact that my foundation has had severe problems with cracks and buckling in the past, costing well over $10K, and I cannot afford it again...nor do I want to. I would rather keep the ground sufficiently moist to prevent the problems.

With all the complaints I (and everyone about me) has about this weather, it sometimes help put things into perspective to think about people who were in this area 100 years ago. In 1906, there was no electricity or telephone infrastructure, no air conditioned home, no air conditioned (or otherwise) cars, no modern sewer system and water distribution system. Yet people got by. So can we. The people in 1906 were idiots, as are we, for settling in this area unfit for man nor beast, but they were survivors. I shouldn't complain so much. People tend to adapt very quickly to modern conveniences, to the point that those conveniences become...or are perceived to be...necessities. I suspect people can just as easily adapt in the other direction.

I heard a sobering thought along those lines (adaptability) recently in a news story on the radio about people considering high-mileage cars due to the high price of gas. The guy talking about people adapting said people can quickly adapt if they need to, but he was not optimistic that people would stay with a "cutback" adjustment if gas prices were to drop again. Rather than recognizing that they are capable of dealing with it, he said people would quickly start buying gas-guzzlers again, abandon any conservation measures they had taken, etc.

More later...whenever.

Fogged In

I know...I should be blogging and telling stories and making it worth your time to stop by this blog. My attention span during the last couple of days has been short, so what I have (or have not) written is, let's say, lacking. And it continues. I'm fogged in.

Let me see, I have to write about something...if only a little bit. Well, tonight my wife and I went to a play entitled Take Me Out. I won't get into the plot for the moment, but I will relate an impression I got from one of the characters...and it has nothing to do with the play. One character is a remarkably uneducated, bigotted, and generally obnoxious redneck with the IQ of a grapefruit. The voice, inflections, and tone of the guy playing this character reminded me so much of George Bush...and it made me wince to think the rest of the world probably thinks Bush sounds just like that: a remarkably uneducated, bigotted, and generally obnoxious redneck with the IQ of a grapefruit.

OK, that was enough. More when my brain switches back on.

Temperatures Tell a Story

According to CNN's online weather service, it is (at 10:30 pm in Dallas) 84 degrees Farenheit in Chapala, Jalisco, Mexico. That is hot. That is miserable. That is not comfortable at all. How can people live like that? It's probably a few degrees cooler in Ajijic, on Lake Chapala, and maybe a bit cooler, still, at the foothills surrounding the lake.

According to weather.com, it's 90 degrees Farenheit in Dallas, Texas. It feels hotter. And it feels more humid than the 36% that weather.com reports. That's not comfortable, but I can tell you from experience, it feels miserable when one goes outside.

Dallas is a big, unattractive, neighborhoodless city. It is not designed for people to live outdoors. It is not designed for people to know their neighbors. Ajijic is. It is much smaller. People who live there seem intent on learning about their neighbors. People in Ajijic seem to value the concept of neighborhood.

I really, really want to get out of the rat-race. I do not know how much longer I can last in it. I may not have long for this world...who knows how long we have...and I do not want my last breaths to express my regrets for having decided to live a life I do not like. If my wife would support the idea, we would move...whether to Mexico or to Falba or to Dubrovnik or Costa Rica. I do not know...this ugly world sometimes seems silly in the way it coops us up in places we don't want to be.

Inspiration

Part I

I sometimes wonder why it's so hard for me to remain positive and optimistic. Not long ago on my blog, I committed to being more positive and to focus my efforts to make things better. Then, as I face the daily grind and the disappointments that naturally come with living one's life, I seem to allow myself to slip down. I become depressed, engraged, annoyed, and in generally a foul mood. Not a joy to be, or to be around. It doesn't help that, right now, I'm buried in work with not enough staff...and utterly unwilling to put in extra hours the way I know I should to satisfy my clients. Instead, I refuse...I want OUT of the office and when 5:00 pm comes around, I am antsy to leave. And it's hard to get up early to go in to the office. My weekend habit of popping up at 5:30 or earlier is not evident weekdays.

Well, I'm going to try again. Be happy. I need to understand, and act on the fact, that I need to focus my attention on what I can influence and ignore things I can't.

My sister-in-law suggested that my wife and I plan to visit them in Mexico in July, and I am really interested in going down. I need some more mental health time away from the office. I need time to think and reflect and decide. I don't need to see the sights, so much, as to experience being there. Or someplace.

Tomorrow is my youngest sister's birthday...an important one (but they all are). If you know her, be sure to send her birthday greetings! I will try to call her, between the multiple meetings and commitments I have. I'd take her out to Roy's if she would come to visit...or if I were there, I'd take her to the wonderful place she and my nephew took me to have mussels when I visited them (unless she had another choice).

The copper fountain outside the large windows in the living room looking to the back yard is pretty, with gentle streams of water flowing from the bulb at the top into the small basin just below...and then flowing into the larger basin underneath. Flowing water...and the noise it makes...is comforting. Where is my Buddha? There he is, looking fat and happy and sitting on my desk, as always. Teach me, Buddha, to be calm and meet the world with a strong greeting of my own.

Part II

I am not a Christian. I have nothing against them, but I simply don’t believe what they believe. God is, or isn’t, what you want him/her to be. If you believe god is a supreme being that created earth, etc., go crazy with your belief…but don’t be too upset that I don’t buy into it. If you are “spiritual” in the sense that you feel a person’s mind can go deep into ideas that are not often “public” and that help define an individual’s morality, then you have my “blessings.” But understand that I am not religious. I am, in fact, agnostic at minimum, but more likely atheist. Much more likely. That having been said, I can be inspired and impressed by people who are unabashedly Christian…true believers. That can happen only when their inspirational stories do not depend heavily on Christianity and biblical interpretations of reality. Tonight, I have been watching Wayne Dyer’s program on NPR. In some senses, it pisses me off to see an unabashedly Christian sales job going on…but it has lots of kernels of good, valuable information and really does address tolerance. I wish a charismatic leader of atheists…someone who can inspire interest and respect outside the atheist community…would emerge. It is not me. Would that it were.

It's My Blog and I Can Rant if I Want To...

The temperature in Dallas today reminded me, yet again, why I consider this area of the state a very, very unfriendly place for much of the year. When I left my office, the temperature was 102 degrees. That is miserable. I don't care how low the humidity might be in Arizona, in Dallas everyone knows that 102 is hot and miserable. When I experience a day like this, my thoughts turn to Mexico again. I sent my sister a link to a hotel for sale on a Mexican beach, at only $220,000, but have not heard back from her. If I could buy it, and convince my wife to join me, I would. The foundation of my house is stressing at the heat. This morning, as I tried to shut the bathroom door, it complained that the fit was not quite right. This is a bad sign.

To get our minds off the heat, etc., my wife and I went out for a very nice meal this evening. We went to Roy's, a very upscale national seafood chain. My wife had arranged to get a $100 certificate (didn't cost us anything...I like it), so we used it. It was wonderful. We calculated rather well and the final bill came to $3.38. After adding $20 for a 20% tip (service was outstanding), we paid $23.38 for a fabulous dinner that started with a wonderful mixed platter of sashimi (2 or 3 types of tuna, salmon, etc., etc., and wonderful wasabi and super-good seaweed, etc.), then I had very, very rare blackened ahi and my wife had a wonderful fish whose name I forget...along with a marvelous pasta side dish stuffed with delicious goat cheese. I could get used to this sort of stuff!

Back home, the heat offends me again. The air conditioner is on full-bore and will be, no doubt, for hours and hours...expensive. You can't live without it here.

On a different topic, I've been busily forwarding Greg Palast's promotional materials for his new book (which I haven't bought yet). I heartily encourage you to buy it...encourage friends to buy it. Or get a copy from the library and lend it around. Or buy it and lend it around. I am not interested in making Palast rich...I am interested in getting his information to the rest of the world. I'm getting scared of America. It's becoming too RELIGIOUS and too CONSERVATIVE. Diversity and tolerance are being increasingly viewed as bad things. If I don't have a religious fish on my car, along with a "ban abortion" and "keep your eyes on Jesus" bumper sticker, I am viewed with skepticism. I pity gays in this state...their sexual orientation is viewed by many as the expression of god's hatred of them (I use lower case "g" just to piss some people off...I hope it works!).

Like the bumper sticker on the car of my colleague says, "Support Our Troops: Bring Them Home," I value their willingness to put themselves in harm's way to support Iraqis and to do the bidding of our commander in chief...but I wish their willingness to sacrifice was viewed with some sense of responsibility by the idiot in the White House. Bush supports a Constitutional amendment that would ban gay marriage. If we had successfully prevented sex between humans and earthworms, we would have avoided Bush as president, so maybe he has a point...on his stupid little head!

The Rule of Law

I just read a piece from NPR's This I Believe series. I recommend reading what Michael Mullane, a law professor and director of the Law School Legal Clinic at the University of Arkansas, has to say about the rule of law. It's a message that should appeal to Republicans and Democrats alike and one that should be palatable to atheists and religious zealots. And it is a message that can be ignored at the peril of life as we have come to know and value it in these United States.

Of course, I do not believe many people will read it. And I don't believe many who read it will change their views. People who do not already understand the concepts advanced by Mullane are not likely to grasp them now; instead, they will pick up their bibles, their guns, and their signed "thank you" letters from the George Bush political dirty money campaigns and spit on the NPR stations that promulgate such anti-family and anti-Christian filth.

Early Breakfast

It's early...not yet 5:30 am...and I'm awake, and alert. As usual, it's a weekend morning. I wish I could figure out why I seem to able to pop up so early on weekends and have such a tough time getting up by 7:00 am on weekdays.

The first pot is already made and I've already begun my morning scamper around the Internet. Outside, the morning light is just barely beginning to creep into the edges of the night. I like this time of the morning. It belongs to me and I donot have to share it with anyone. Just as soon as the morning light makes it safe for me to walk outside with little fear of tripping over cracks in the sidewalk, I will go outdoors and take a brief walk. It's 73 degrees, very warm for an early morning, but cool enough that it will be comfortable. I am amazed at the temperature...what idiot thought to settle in Dallas?

If I were really energetic, I would go out and buy some bacon so I could create a really good, if really bad-for-me, breakfast. I doubt I am that energetic. And my wife, who will probably remain in bed for hours, would object. Maybe I can go out and have breakfast on my own today. I will need a clean shirt and real shoes, not fli-flops, which will be hard to get, since they are in the bedroom. Maybe I will try, though. Breakfast on my own at a restaurant...sounds intriguing!

The Dixie Chicks

Larry King's interview with The Dixie Chicks has replayed at least a dozen times during the past few days, but I have not tired of the conversations. I enjoy their music (though I am not a huge country music fan), but their political positions are even more attractive to me. Natalie Maines' comments about George Bush echo my own sentiments. The uproar over her comments is beyond me, though I guess ignorant rednecks WOULD take issue with them.

I'm a bit surprised by the two sisters who are part of the group...they seem to be less focused than Natalie. They are, frankly, more attractive physically than Natalie, but she is more attractive intellectually than they are...which makes her more attractive in a general sense. I'm a bit disappointed that the sisters are not more aggressive in their defense of Natalie and in their position on the issue.

The bottom line for me, I suppose, is that it does not matter to me whether the Dixie Chicks (or anyone else, for that matter) object to this Administration's policies. What matters is that I OBJECT! We should not have to wait for a musical group to articulate our positions...we should do it immediately! The fact that the Dixie Chicks (specifically, Natalie Maines), have expressed embarrassment that George Bush is from Texas is good. But what matters most is that I personally feel that embarrassment. I am so completely, utterly embarrassed. It is too bad that embarrassment carries with it a sense of responsibility for the death of thousands of US soldiers and foreign civillians.

Musings on "Stuff" this Saturday

Like clockwork...the calendar turns over to Saturday, and my internal clock makes its regular adjustment so I awaken before daylight, feel energized and alert, and get out of bed ready to take on the day's challenges. If I could somehow get the calendar to go along with my plan to make every day a weekend day, I could be energized and productive all week long.

Chile's School Protests
I've been ignoring Chile for far too long. I had not been aware of the massive protests by secondary school students and their supporters until yesterday, when I took a dose of The Santiago Times. According to the newspaper, about 600,000 students and supporters took to the streets in protest of the country's ailing school system. They have already gone on strike once and are threatening another massive strike on June 5 is the government does not yield to their demands, which now include a total governmental takeover of the school system. The demands began with an insistence that the government provide reduced price or free transportation, both to and from school as well as at other times. Thanks in part to the government's failure to take their demands seriously, the students ratcheted up their demands to insist that university entrance exames (and retests) be free.

I'm inclined to say to the students, "enough is enough." While I am sure many of their demands are legitimate, the concept of nationalizing the school system is, in my view, horrible. Look at this country's feeble attempts to direct education through its "no child left alive" program. I would be especially wary of placing in the federal government's hands responsibility for curricula since it could be far too easily dumbed-down or, even worse, sterilized so as to discourage creative thought. For Chile, the students should step back and listen to rational voices. I'm all for giving people educational opportunities, but not at the expense of creativity, democracy, and ultimately, quality. I want Michelle Bachelet's presidency of Chile to go down in history as a supremely powerful success story; I hope she and her government successfully deal with the challenges of this strike.

Next Year, Moscow
A client association's European unit has, according to word I got yesterday, selected Moscow as the site of its 2007 meeting. If I continue to be expected to attend, that will mean a trip to Moscow next year. Interesting.

A Real Neighborhood Place
Yesterday afternoon, my wife and I had dinner at a place that bills itself as a real neighborhood joint...I think its boast is true. It's a restaurant that is attached to a gas station/convenience store a bit off the beaten path...right in the middle of a neighborhood that includes single family housing, apartments, a few other businesses, and some vacant land. The restaurant is a grill with limited indoor seating, but lots of outdoor seating on a couple of decks off the parking lot. The outdoors area is decorated with lots of old, rusty stuff like bicycles, lawnmowers, transmission cases, etc. that have been cleverly affixed to the walls or fences that define the space. It is a bring your own booze place. As we sat outdoors under a trellis-covered seating area (complete with outdoor ceiling fans), a troup of geezers and a grandbaby arrived and took over a large table near us. The geezers knew the asian woman who served as our waitress and they knew the name of her young child, who I would guess is about 4 years old. My guess is that the waitress' husband is the cook and maybe the owner. The geezers brought with them an enormous ice chest filled with beer. We overheard a comment that there is live entertainment on Saturday evenings, so we may check it out. The place is right across the street from a huge apartment complex, so my guess is that most of their business comes from there. It is really out of the way...quite a few blocks from the nearest street with any appreciable traffic. A neighborhood place that, maybe, I can learn to like.

Time to get that second cup of coffee and explore...maybe a long walk this morning.