Category: Blog Entry
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Lesson #71 – Dances With Stones
Diet be damned! Lifestyle be damned! Environment be damned! Kidney stones are genetic so suck it up and learn to live with it. My father had stones, my mother too, albeit hers were of the gall bladder variety, and I just listened to my sister recount her latest adventures in pain and her growing fondness for Demerol.…
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Lesson #80 – Piping For Fun & Profit
There is precious little fun and no profit that I’ve yet discovered. It is hard, hard work and if you’re looking for return on investment, after 40-ish years I don’t think I’ve reached break-even yet. I’m not complaining, I’m just making an observation. If I had any sense, I would give it all up, hang my pipes on…
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Lesson #99 – Teachers Teach
It appears obvious, but it’s not. I’ve had teachers who have educated, teachers who have administered. Some have delivered an agenda while others have followed a course outline. However, I can count on the fingers of one hand, and still have a digit or two left over, the teachers who have actually taught me something. So here I would…
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Lesson #98 – He Was A DORK
The experts, the scientists, the doctors and politicians, in fact, all those who are supposed to know, have told us that this will be a holiday season like no other. We will be shuttered in our homes, facing hunger, loneliness, despair. But most of us can see that there is a glimmer of hope in…
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Lesson #97 – Hubris
Disclaimer – I do not practice all of my beliefs. I may be able to uncover why that is so in the course of this exercise, but I am a self-avowed hypocrite. Sometimes it’s a tough old world and you’ve got to bend or you’ll break. But keep in mind: All Options are open, bend or break,…
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Lesson #100 – You Are Not Required
This is (not) the final lesson in my list. It may seem an odd topic on which to (not) end, but of course, it’s not an ending. I feel like a yo-yo that has come to the fullest length of the throw, spun idly for a while and is about to accelerate in a new direction. Not…
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Lesson #94 – New World Order
I was asked to review and comment on a Messenger posting that pointed to an article by a Doctor Carrie Madej. I looked at it. I pondered it. I considered it. To be fair, here is the link for your consideration. Please use your own critical faculties. …
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Lesson #22 – Choosing The Chair
(ghosts of summers long ago. ) An Excerpt From “THE PORT – The Beach Carnival Darkness and the first echoes of “UNDER THE B” was the signal to put on jackets if there was a breeze and wander down towards the lights and mounting excitement. When you are very small the noise and hustle…
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Lesson #25 – Good Deeds
Good deeds seldom go unpunished. We all wander through life looking for some sort of salvation, or forgiveness, or maybe absolution for our sins and shortcomings. maybe we’ve left some wreckage in our wake, some hurt or wrong done to us, or by us. It’s a messy business. But when the show is over, just before…
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Lesson #31 – Sin And Damnation
Lesson #31 – Sin And Damnation First a declaration: I don’t plan to define Sin, nor Damnation. I am not qualified except perhaps by close association.I try to make it a point to pause before speaking and hesitate before acting. Not that I’m Adam before the fall, but I try. A word once said cannot be…
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Lesson #32 – Damnation and Redemption
I believe we have all done something in our life that is worthy of Damnation. Despite what you may think, the road to Hell is truly paved with good intentions and the brakes have failed. There’s a banana peel somewhere in your future. So even if your life appears to be exemplary, you must have…
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Lesson #41 – Other Days
Lesson #41 – Other Days You Must Do This! You Must Do That!! You Must Do The Other Thing!!! Ahhh ,,, No. Don’t think so. There’ll be other days and other days. Other days for this, other days for that, and other days for other things. That’s called hope. The basis of salvation so I’m…
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Lesson #62 – What Turns Your Crank?
Lesson #62 – What turns Your Crank? Took part today in a discussion on motivation and the role it can play (or not play) in depression. We concluded that motivation is the driver behind how we arrived at our unique states of depression. I thought about it for some time and I’ve concluded that there…
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Lesson #85 – The State of the UnionThe State of the Union
Given the current state of affairs, I felt it appropriate to search out my raggedy-ear’d paperback copy of that old King classic The Stand. The parallels were just too uncanny to ignore and the similarities to the shit going on around the globe make you wonder about the reality of prescience. I mean, who woulda…
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The PORT – Revisited
If the date at the end of this piece is to be believed, I finalized the last revision in July of ’94. As of today that would be 27 years ago. Of course, I began work on it years before that, so let’s say it’s been 30 years or so since I began fleshing out…
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A Working Title (until I think of something better)
I stand corrected. I once implied that BRIDGE didn’t seem to provide enough depth for the implied promise of its title. I expected too much and doubted the alignment to my needs with the program’s promise.Today, Thursday, May 13th, I withdraw my concern. It was as if the…
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Ian Anderson Jethro Tull
Thick as a Brick Since the early ’70s, Ian Anderson (Jethro Tull) was a virtuoso of chord changes, major to minor, order and anarchy, unorthodox progressions, sudden rhythm changes, master of the concept album. A dancing, prancing, wild-eyed imp leaping across the stage in his harlequin clothes, red hair ablaze, brandishing his flute like a mad…
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Joy
The startled look on a child’s face at discovering something new. A moment of peace and quiet in a world of chaos and noise. Finding that eureka moment at trail’s end of frustration. Music that strikes a sympathetic chord within the heart. Reaching out in the dark to find an outstretched hand. The day’s end…
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Borrowed Time
From the time we exit the womb, we consume our borrowed capital and, I might add, an escalating interest rate. If you don’t start paying off the principal, you soon begin to sink. How do you keep your head above water? Invest what you have. Invest in the betterment of others. Invest in personal infrastructure. Invest in…
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EDGE – Warning – Poetry Alert
Faint Ghost of half-remembered dream Of time and tide, not what they seem, Leading down to water’s edge. Promises of dawn, dissolving night Faint blush on eastern brow in sight Leading near horizon’s edge. Gentle brush of silken hair Soft whispers on the misty air Leading souls to passion’s edge. Mere sylphs of floating spectral…
Notes In The Margin 