About Grenades

Well, is that the actual speeling? They could be 'Gernades' and would be just fine with me.

So I'm watching episode V of 'Great Alaskan Mystery' and our hero just tossed a Grrrnade at the bad guys. Our hero is played by Milburn Stone, Doc from the 'Gunsmoke' TV show. In this Great Alaskan Mystery of course, he's somewhat younger.

I just can't figger how he came by the Grrrnade though. In the plot, he's a former Marine pilot who is now civilian due to war wounds. Guadalcanal has been referenced several times, but we're not told the nature of our hero's wounds. So far though? I think the Japs shot him in the personality.

WHERE did he get the Grrrnade from? If they gave those things out as parting gifts to discharged WW2 pilots, I've sure never read anything about it.

Let's just assume he's a sloppy packer. Probably has a loaded Bazooka mixed in with his dirty underwear too.

But WHY do American soldiers bite Grrrnades? They do it every time. Yep, they bite the pin off the Grrrnade before throwing it. As a kid in California, bet I watched "Combat!" every week, starring Vic Morrow. On that show, American soldiers invariably bit the pin off Grrrnades before throwing them.

The German soldiers never bit their Grrrnades, not as I recall. Now, German grrrnades didn't have that metallic pineapple look that our anti-personnel devices did. German grrrnades looked like an oil filter with a stick stuck in it.

On the surface of it, that would seem humiliating. The Germans invented a 'no-bite' grrrnade, since they were the master race and all. Here's what I think...

The Nazi war machine HAD to invent a 'no-bite' grrrnade because all their soldiers had bad teeth. This project of course diverted their best Scientific minds for quite some time, which is why we got the A-bomb before the Krauts did.

WOW! The toothbrush is real reason us good guys won WW2? And all this time I thought it was because John Wayne was on our side...

This is Inappropriate!

There is no excuse for a writer not writing.

Hmmm... well broken fingers David, that'd be a good excuse.

Don't start with me David!

Life's certainly changed backdrops since I started this humble documentation of how I've managed to elude mental health authorities so well and for so long... so far.

But it's only the backdrop that has changed; the play remains the same.

It's the fight to define yourself without drifting into the Golden Calf construction biz. It's about struggling to do the right thing for the RIGHT reason.

Feed the hungry because you're so freakin' cool... well the hungry still get a meal, but some small amount of evil has been released into the world by that 'good' act.

Feed the hungry first because Jesus said to, and second with heart realization we're all hungry, all the time, but only in various ways? That's the right way, and no demons get fed by such an attitude.

That is what the play is about. A passion to define yourself, but in a way that doesn't dot the landscape with Golden Calves.

Calf is a very funny word. Why is the 'L' silent? I wonder if the silent letters in words ever get jealous of the letters that get pronounced. It's just like 'talk' now why is that poor 'L' the only silent letter in a word that describes the opposite of silence?

Uhm... what was I talking about? Oh yeah, the play! Well I started this blog with intent to remind myself and others, you might be 60 some day in the future. What sort of 60yo you are is up to you.

There are 60yo people who live fascinating (why is there a 'C' in fascinating? Isn't that redundant? Oh shut up David!) lives, while there are others the very same age who are owned by the forces of entropy. Who decides these things? I suppose we as individuals do.

I still believe that forcefully. But again? It's a right thing to decide what kind of old person you'll become, yet infinitely more valuable to make those choices for the right reasons.

I realize I have to be more diligent in scribbling in here, and I'll see to that. The play goes on; it's only backdrops that change really. How have I changed? Hmmm... well I tend to think less about what people owe me, and more about what I owe people. And I tend to smile a lot. Other than that though, I'm a disappointment in the metamorphisis biz I reckon.

Got to go to Olive Branch now...

It never fails

I'm getting older but not much wiser. My supply of answers can't ever seem to catch up with my supply of questions. I wind up saying, "hmm, that's interesting" a LOT more than I'd like to at this point in life.

Hey, did I tell you I'm growing my beard back? Well I am. Naw, not one of those ZZ Top beards, cause that's just creepy. More something well groomed and dignified I should think. I just can't do the little goatee thing anymore. Technically, I think that look is called a 'Van Dyke' anyway. Which is weird because I used to watch the Dick Van Dyke show a lot, and never saw any facial hair...

Uhm, what was I talking about? Oh yeah! Part of wisdom is your head is a peaceful enough place where supposedly antagonistic concepts can be friends. Like this for example?

The world is a VERY big place. The world ain't a big place at all, when you're in it. Those two concepts can't possibly both make sense at the same time, right?
But they do. And I don't care how many 'first three visits half price!' coupons I get from psychiatrists.

I was supposed to be watching the sun rise at Machu Pichu this morning. Yeah, no kidding. A bit of technical difficulty over the past few years interfered with that there plan though.

Machu Pichu is a long ways from here; that's just a fact. But the same sun that rises over Machu Pichu rises over Lexington, TN.

Nobody's been by here lately fitting me for a halo. I'd still rather be at Machu Pichu on this day, a particular day that has more numerical significance for me than I can explain.

But y'know something? (this is the part where I get all trippy) It's not what you look at, but the health of the eyes that look upon it. That's what I mean by the world being small when you're in it. Everything you can see in this big old world, you'll see it with your two relatively small eyeballs.

This world is as big or as small as your eyes. The mental/spiritual health of your eyes, the power of observation and analysis Watson. That's a lot more important than what you happen to be looking at, any given moment.

This world is as big, or as small as your eyes.

Deadly sex and instant zombies

I recall exactly where I was when first heard of what'd later be called AIDS. Early 1980's and I was driving a Pontiac sunbird home from Church.

The radio man said a mysterious disease was killing homosexuals. It wouldn't stay mysterious for long.

That was more than twenty years ago, long before we learned that Rock Hudson was homosexual. Heck, back then we weren't even sure about Elton John, but most of us had our suspicions.

I mention that to note my membership in the last generation to reach sexual maturity before there was a fatal venereal disease. It'd be pretty difficult to imagine all the ways that makes me fundamentally different from people now in their 20's. But I'm certain it's there.

Not that the reality of AIDS has made people more careful, not that I can tell. The culture seems a lot more sexualized now than it did when I was young. The effect is much more subtle; it's a kind of fatalism present that must be accepted generally and denied specifically.

I don't recall a moment I learned about Crack or Meth. I remember Richard Pryor catching himself on fire, but with the instant zombie plague awareness slowly came to me I guess. First came the awareness there was something cheaper and more powerful than powdered cocaine hitting urban areas.

And then the hillbillys got into the act with Meth. I'm not the first to observe how much Meth manufacture/distribution resembles the moonshine biz. But it has changed our culture a lot, the convenience of the whole thing.

We were a much different culture overall, back when getting high on illegal drugs was more inconvenient. Oh, I'm certain that drug users would protest how it's still pretty damned inconvenient.

But to me it looks convenient. That's changed the culture by drawing more people in. Instant zombies are no longer an easily identified subset of the population.

Nope, I'm not pulling a 'back in my day' rant here. Just observing those are two ways I've seen the culture fundamentally changed while I was knocking around a few decades. Impossible to say what other changes are just around the corner.

Don't spend a lot of time thinking on stuff that you'll never figure out. There's no profit in it. Try to steer towards thinking about what's unchanging among these shifting sands.

PAT!!!

It's Monday in Hooterville. Up in St. Louis, only 150 miles due north, they get 14 inches of snow tomorrow night. The only weather question here in my part of Tennessee is whether we get maybe less than inch of sleet/snow or massive thunderstorms. Notice how I used 'weather' and 'whether' in the same sentence?

That's called alliteration... or maybe a palindrome. All I know for sure is they shouldn't make HS students take English Comp. on hot days right after lunch. I'm getting sleepy just remembering about it!

So I went to the local vocational-rehab place today. I have a new product coming on line in March. The customer wants the product partially assembled before it hits his assembly line. Not much to it really. Form a plastic strap into a circle and start a 10-24 screw through the hole.

I go to vocational-rehab centers for that sort of job. Now is where we play perspective bingo... let's have fun!!!

Dude, instead of paying someone a decent wage to do that, you go to a place that employs retarded people! And the lower price they do the work for is subsidized by tax payers! BOO, HISS evil greedy business guy David!

Well I suppose that's one way of looking at it. When I explain my actions to anybody, is only because I'm fond of that person. It's me being gracious.

Considering all the enormously idiotic things our government spends tax payer dollars on, subsidizing steady work for retarded people is like the Apollo program in comparison.
Retarded people are like that for a variety of reasons. Not enough oxygen getting to their brains during birth. Mom had measles while pregnant. An extra chromosone. They're Americans too, and all of us came within a hair's thickness of being them.

Getting them out to a place where they can work, earn a wage, give their parents time to breathe and run errands, that's all good. I'm happy my tax dollars subsidize that. I'm happy to send them some work.

But that's not what I wanted to talk about; I was being gracious just then. What I want to know is why retarded people are more friendly than we 'normal' folk with our triple digit IQ's.

A man in his fifties with a walker next to his chair turned around and said, "I'm Andrew, I'm from Lexington. Who are you? Where are you from?"

A man in late thirties with Cerebral Palsy AND mentally retarded (how's that feeling sorry for yourself thing working out?) walked up, told me his name was James, told me he was glad to see me.

A young man walked up to me. Hair parted in the middle, soft blonde curls. He could've stepped out of a Rembrandt painting really. He smiled broadly at me, patted his chest and said, "Pat!"

I thought, 'well son, your parents sure did name you right, as it turned out' but what I sincerely said was, "Pat, I'm very glad to meet you. I'm David."

I could've been any of these people. You could've been any of these people.

Had my meeting with the center managers, then went back to my factory, where we all have triple digit IQ's. On my way out the door, James asked if I knew his Momma and Daddy. Told him I don't think so.

What I wonder about is why are retarded people friendlier than smart people?

Where's my List?

I like to make lists of things to do, and then cross them off. It's very satisfying. I've even made lists of lists I need to make.

That's not obsessive/compulsive behavior. The way I am about worrying while at work did I turn off the coffee maker, now that's obsessive/compulsive.

Making a list of tasks to be done has about four rock solid benefits...

First, it's an aid in thinking about what's important. Act of making a list takes you briefly from the reactive to proactive mode.

Second, the list is often useful documentation for later. As in, 'yeah I turned off the coffee maker' for example.

Fourth, I'm not just really good at math, I know bunches of other stuff too. One of those is how we can trick our brains in our best interest. A lot of good things you should do, they may not yield immediate gratification in the realms of human endeavor. Your brain, aside from the many wonderful things it can do, is just another bodily organ. It runs on glandular secretions too. IF you can adopt a routine of crossing items off lists, you can get your brain to shoot you a little endorphin (AKA happy juice) so that's a good thing.

This is why I make lists. Lists are important to me. So... where's my list of people I pray for? I pray for LOTS of people.

Why hasn't my organized approach to daily life extended to my prayer life? Is it that I don't take prayer as seriously as I do engineering?

My Ride's Here... Again

"he said Bravos you better ready to fight,
or we'll never get out of east Texas tonight"
Mr. Zevon (1947-2003)

Are you much of a risk taker? Well think about it, are you?
I'm not much of a gambler myself, not really. What's always looked daring to others seemed fairly mundane to me.

Only times I've ever taken a big chance was when I found myself in big trouble. Those times, you've got precious little left to lose either way the dice land.

Some would say my opting to leave the Batesville job for Lexington was a risk. The only real inherent risk there is whether I can be in Lexington every day without eventually choking somebody. I was driving 700 miles a week with the Batesville job. Really bad wrecks on that commute at least once a week.

The challenge with Lexington was whether I'd go there a petulant, resentful child or with the right spirit. I certainly wasn't scared about jumping into a totally foreign manufacturing technology.

That's because I've got a lot of talent. You do too, if you'd just stop and take inventory now & then. Every person has many amazing abilities. You shouldn't feel discouraged if your abilities don't appear to be very marketable. No matter how mediocre you think you are, you were provided all needed tools to build a joyful life. Learn to use YOUR tools, we're burning daylight here!

Me, I'm still sitting right beside you in God's big Shop class. Uhm... what's all this 'We can beat Notre Dame' junk got to do with taking risks? Well you see, it's like this. The top tray in my personal tool box? All hammers! Yep, no kidding!

A book about me would make intensely boring reading. At least 150 pages would be nothing but 'Bam bam! Bam bam bam!' But I lift up that top tray, there are other tools in the box. It could be more hammers, which would be TOTALLY AWESOME, but I suspect it's strange new tools. You can't pick up the new tool David, unless first you put down the hammer. That there friends is risk.

I believe in omens and spirit guides. The Tudor cottage was shown to me via odd circumstance. The owners are moving out of it this weekend, after having a 'For Sale' sign in the yard for 18+ months. They wish to move to Colorado and so they're going. I'm already renting an apartment. A lease/purchase opportunity is in front of me.

Hammer says houses aren't exactly selling fast in north Mississippi right now, wouldn't it be prudent to stay in a holding pattern for now?

Just about 100 percent of gambles I've ever done, they were forced on me by external conditions. I don't think I've ever run up to a risk and thrown my arms around it. Maybe it's time for me to experience that.