Thursday's Thoughts

• Two guys in the pool (07/13/2016 @1814) are quoting Toy Story. One of the guys girlfriend is probably of age but man- she looks more like 13 or maybe 15 and he looks way older than he probably is.
• That makes for an unsettling combination.
• The other day somebody told me about a tattoo a family member has that is a cowboy superimposed over an American Indian. They acted like it was the coolest thing ever. It sounded retarded.
• Today (07/16/2016) I had a very mediocre burger at Logan's
• Today is 08/05/2026 and me and Zac are at the pool. There is a guy I see all the time here. He is with a new girlfriend. Her head is too small for her body. It is freaking me out a little. 
• Another guy whom I interact with often and would call a friendly aquaintance is here with his new girlfriend. He is a stud and while quite nice and funny she is older and a bit of a sapphire type. They seem very mismatched.
• If I had it all to do over again I would have been a firefighter.
• Did you bring alcohol? Cuz you're gonna need it over here! What one of the wits said to a newcomer to the pool.
• After Zacs flesh mother dropped him off I saw she bumped into my ex girlfriend on the way out. They chatted for an easy 15 minutes.
• So, that is not terrifying at all...
• Sometime when I clear my history it logs me out of Gmail and other times it does not and it does this (or does not) without me changing settings. As a matter of fact- these inconsistencies will happen multiple times on the same day with the same device.
• An interesting two view video of a VBIED attack in iraq- one from an IS camera and one from an Iraqi soldier.

Politics- As Usual

• Some smart, well informed people believe war (at least naval and air to air) with China is inevitable. They are probably correct. Out first mistake with China was selling our souls to the Devil by allowing them to finance our crazy with loans. Then we let them outmaneuver us everywhere that has water that arguably comes back to their shores and finally- we let them outsmart us in regards to Russia; as every day their ties to each other grow and our relationship with Russia deteoriates.
• Recently a homeless person came into our clinic to be screened for shelter clearance. She was wearing a C spine brace also known as a halo. If she had no home she should have been in a nursing home. Instead, she was riding a bus and being jostled around while she jumped through hoops to be allowed a bed in a warehouse. This was happening while we are importing into this country more poor people than the rest of the world combined- poor people who will get medicaid, housing and yes- Social Security benefits if they are disabled.
• We are crazy.
• For the most part I presumed people who were screaming about Hilary's health obviously had their own toxic agenda and were maybe even straight up lying but wow- that video of her fainting at that 911 memorial looked bad. People can randomly get a pneumonia but they should not randomly get a pneumonia (presuming that is what she had and is all she had). You have to consider- what was the underlying cause?
• I could be convinced she has Parkinson's but regardless something is up- she doesn't even look right.
• On the 10th of September I was asked to hang out with somebody the next day as they did not want to be alone. I cannot think like that if for no other reason than reliving horrible moments like that doesn't allow for healing. Our brains are notoriously bad at deciding what is real and what is not and what was then and what is now and I did not want to be stuck watching replays of that day.
• Yesterday I saw a an article with the headline to the effect of, "Air Force general unsure of what US response will be after North Korean nuclear bomb tests." My first response was, Um, probably what we always do- walk around in circles with one thumb up our butts the other in our mouth while meowing the Meow Mix jingle and then we back a dump truck full of money up to Kim Jong Un's palace?!
• We have a minimum age for President but no maximum.
• You can say what you want about your most beloved aged historical figure or your sainted granny but an 80 year old brain does not function like a 50.
• Recently I saw a picture of President Obama and Vlad Putin meeting at some summit or whatever. President Obama looked like he was going to terror-vomit.

Saturday's Soliloquy

• To be filed underI may not know much: It may not be time to leave if a woman you are with makes it known to all her friends when she is mad at you but if she starts furiously texting away to tell people how bad you are every time she is mad at you - it is a big problem that will only get worse. Again, it may not be time to leave- but it is time to take care of yo business homes.
• You can look it up if you want but Washington's decision to inoculate his troops against smallpox has been considered a decisive factor for the Continentals winning the US Revolutionary War. They went from losing more guys to the pox than from battle to losing nearly none to the disease.
• Recently (today is 02/12/2015) I heard that an area nursing school still requires students to wear white scrubs and the cap during clinicals. I have a tough time buying they would still hobble their students like that but it made me think first of all and foremost: If they do still require those practices- what else do they get wrong?
• I think I got some bad scoop from nursing underworld buddy- they can't do that anymore- right?!
• This morning (02/13/2015) I warmed a turnover in the microwave. After 7 seconds it was no warmer to touch than when it went into the machine. After returning it to the oven for 5 more seconds it was too hot to touch much less eat. That makes no sense to me. What manner of witchery is that?
• This morning (02/17/2015) on the way to work a small car passed me with a Ford F150 tailgating it not more than 3 feet away. They were going at least 80 miles per hour.
• Crazy

Today Is The First Day Of Fall (so called) And The High Will Be 96 Degrees. The Humidity Is 77% As I Write This

Kill Me

The Label Lies,

if it was Fun Size- it would weigh 3 pounds. Interestingly, I poured several of them out of my jacket pocket and this one landed on the junk mail with the guy looking up at it like that.

Pre Brazos Float Trip Talk- A Brazos Float Trip That Is Now A Long Ago Pleasant Memory

The Brazos float trip is still a go but with a weird twist. The conversation went like this:

Woman with whom I have lately been spending time: Yeah it is still on.
Me: Good, I'll pick up some food.
WwwIhbst: They want hot dogs.
Me: Huh?! Wait, what? I can make some Mountain Pantry chicken fettucine with a can or two of green beans and some asparagus in half a jiff.
WwwIhbst: They want dogs
 Me: That makes no sense. There are condiments, multiple ingredients... a lot of trouble. Special storage and handling etc- to eat garbage. When we could carry paper plates and after we eat some good food throw the whole mess in the fire and pack out the two non flammable packages.
 WwwIhbst: Its fun.
Me: It is garbage- snake anus' mongoose lips llama vulvas... it is garbage.
WwwIhbst: It is fun.

That settles it I guess- it is fun.

Friday's Dispatch

• I just (it is 1853 on 09/03/2016) got bit by what looked a baby jumping  spider. It burned like mad. I better get some serious superpowers out of the deal.
• Zac registered for Little League today.
• Countdown to phone call begging me to coach  3,2,1...
• The water is alreafy chilly in the pool.
• Alreafy?
• Dinner at Sake last night was great. They have added bean sprouts to their vegetables.
• Saying vegetables sounds pretentious but saying veggies sounds ridiculous.
• On a reality tv show I watched for a few minutes earlier today a business name was incorrectly punctuated.
• Stranger Things continues to be great (I just finished episode #5) but I could see it jumping the shark and I do not know why I feel that way.
• It is staying dark longer in the morning.
• Aside from passing through and getting gasoline It has been over 10 years since I have been to Denton.
• The new Jerry Lewis movie Max Rose looks great.

Thursday's Thoughts

• This morning (02/10/2016) on NPR Sam Baker said after a dramatic musical bump to the effect, Bernie Sanders convincingly beat Hilary Rodham Clinton in the New Hampshire primary. This was followed by a Bernie Sanders sound bite from the primary. A moment later Baker said something like, Finally, on the other side Donald Trump won the nomination. and then nothing- no sound bite or quote from Trump. You could practically hear Baker's eyes rolling.
• You would have to very intellectually dishonest to not see NPR's left leaning.
• I personally know 2 different people who only voted for David Walker for sheriff as he door knocked their homes and spoke to them while campaigning. One of them was thinking about another guy as he had heard something good about him and the other did not care at all about the sheriff's office (although he felt highly invested in other positions and was a well informed voter).
• The snails have made my aquarium water so clear it is almost distracting.
• If cost was no object what is the one thing you would leave as a legacy, that thing your descendants would rememember for generations? For me it would  be to have an amazing library of rare, old, autographed or otherwise worthwhile books. This might even include a Guiness book of World Records collection of autographed works.
• Isn't there a guy/group who own a Bible signed by tons of famous people including multiple Presidents and astronauts?
• A suicide bomb truck AKA vehicle borne IED destroyed by Javelin missile.
• I have books autographed by David Mcolluch, Nguyen Cao Ky and another Vietnamese general whose name I don't recall at the moment. Why the Vietnamese authors you ask? One of my friends is a part of the once South Vietnamese military now a resident of the US underworld Vietnam dudes who personally know Vietnamese authors club.
• Yeah- it is a thing. Look it up.

New Gear From Atop The Mighty Steamer Trunk

The stuff sack for my down bag is dual purpose. For storage you allow it to fluff out into the mesh part so the down doesn't get unduly compacted. For travel, you push it down into the sack part to compress it. I believe an engineer might call this an elegant design. The bag itself is an REI Helios 55 degree which I got on sale and used a discount code to buy. If you buy the long bag in most any brand you normally won't hate yourself. That way you have room to readjust for comfort and wear more clothes or even use a liner in cold weather. If you always buy down bags the extra weight and bulk of the long size won't amount to much.

Wednesday's Digressions

• Last night ( today is 05/21/2016) I had a super realistic dream in which I caught a wild turkey. It had a strange, strong smell. I can still smell it. 
• Two male mockingbirds are fighting like mad on the the other side of the fence. 
• Recently I have been seeing a lot of very light colored Eurasian collared doves (there are 2 on the fountain as I write this which are nearly white). Whether nature has selectively changed their coloring or it was done by humans before they became feral I do not know- but they are different.
• Day before yesterday a nursing buddy returned to work after a surgery. She was not able to tie her shoes before leaving home. I tied them for her. She is hot but I would have done it for were she a pig; as I am nice and she is nice. Nice people should watch out for each other.
• While I know a little about why she had the surgery and what was done; I do not know why she is required to use an inflatable doughnut when sitting for extended periods. She held it up and said, Nice huh? Well, no one could pull off an inflatable doughnut like you! You still got it going on.  I replied playfully.
• Bloody Kisses is still one of my favorite album names.
• One of my friends has done karaoke only twice in his life. He and his friend's wife once did Afternoon Delight and on another occasion performed Crazy. For some reason that was hilarious to me and as he recounted those times I laughed like crazy.
• Recently, I heard a friendly aquaintance from another country use the word, negro in a sentence. Was she being racist or at best horribly insensitive? Nope- in context she was speaking of a time long ago and she was really not sure where the person she was speaking of was from.  She actually caught herself in mid word using the term, African and searching her bilingual mental database came to the unfortunate term, negro instead of, black.

Brunch Drunk Love

Guess where I am at in these pics and win a prize- or probably not- I make lots of promises I won't keep.



Mimosa: An alcoholic drink specifically created so middle and upper class white ladies can start drinking at 10 in the morning and not feel like such a wino.



 

For Some Reason

when I realised the truck depicted in these warning signs is an old timey fire truck instead of a modern representation it became so interesting as to be almost distracting- I couldn not unsee it and still look when I see one at distance to see if they have been updated in any way.

Meet My Great Grandfather

His name was Howard Morton and is the grown male sitting in that pack of kids, staring you down like you owe him money. He was born in Casey County  Kentucky and died in Petrolia Texas at the age of 73 in 1941. Other than those facts I know nothing. He looked grumpy.

Monday's Missives

Piece of plastic found in my Panda Express teriyaki chicken, Mmmm... plastic-ie.

There is a lot going there for a sticker I found on a banana. It looks vaguely comminist. I don't trust it.

My patients love me.

• Recently through an odd, and tortuous route I was reminded of an old girlfriend. She is a very gifted salesperson. A component to the story is I was reminded of a  product she marketed by seeing part of a dumb unrelated infomercial and using that as a basis for a little online stalking got back in touch with her by Email.
• She was glad to hear from me ( she even mentioned recently trying to contact me by an old cel number) but isn't it a little weird you can randomly stalk people like that these days?
• A connected thought: I haven't had that cel number in years- how could it not have been taken by somebody else by now?
• Another connected thought: I hadn't spoken to that woman in a few years and hadn't even thought of her in a long time and within 2 weeks of thinking of her and attempting a contact she did the same for me?!

  

  Green mamba some idiot collector released or rough green snake?!

  
  

  

  Hmmmm...

  
  

  

  Still smiling 5 minutes after being bitten- probably rough green snake.

  
  
  
  
  

  

  Baby eagle found on the ground after a storm. I call him Popeye as apparently fire ants found him before I did and ate his eyeball. He keeps the rat and squirrel population down around my place.

• PS the above child was not bitten by the snake and that is not an eagle named Popeye who feasts on rats and squirrels around my house.
• I call him Murica!
• Normally I have my children on Wednesday nights but won't tonight as their mother and I traded some days around. I am simultaneously relieved I don't have them and ashamed for feeling that way.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  

  My kids are good fishers

  
  
  
  
• A black friendly acquaintance is aware that my children are pretty widely separated by age and has heard me during the course of conversations mention my adopted child's mother (without mentioning said child is adopted). Consequently, she has gotten it in her head that they all have different mothers and says things to me that start with, Do any of you baby mamas ever...?

  

  My children have played chess against John Malkovich

• As of this writing (09/09/2015) I recently was asked by a woman with whom I have been spending time (WWWIHBST) the number of sex partners I have  had throughout my young life. When I told her the number she reacted with shock that bordered on disgust. Some things are none of your business and if you don't get the answer you were looking for- why did you ask in the first place?

  

  Aside from being a bowling ball with glass baubles glued to it I don't know what this is but yeah- we live in  world where a bowling ball with glass baubles glued to it would absolutely be stolen from the Botanic Gardens in Fort Worth were it not chained and padlocked to the ground.

• So exactly who are, Richard Stoltzman, Bob Acri and Mr. Scruff anyway?

Wednesday's Digressions

Somebody thought one of the greatest westerns ever made needed a reboot with Tom Skerritt starring. Ridiculous.

• Today is 08/20/2016 and Zac chose and is watching Lawrence of Arabia. Tomorrow, he will be studying Seven Pillars Of Wisdom I am sure.
• Regardless- he is loving the movie and is asking about the real T.E. Lawrence of whom I know enough to entertain a 10 year old boy as I was already reading about him at that age.
• When do I tell him about the gang rape of Lawrence when the Turks captured him?
• The sandwich artist at the Subway we ate at today was as high as a kite.
• We found 2 Texas brown snakes on a sidewalk at Holland Lake. One was tiny and one was a smallish adult. I am not sure if the larger was the momma, she was a cannibal stalking the smaller one or if their proximity was coincidental. We shooed them off the trail.
• Predictably I did not have my camera with me (although I picked it up at the house and considered bringing it).
• While at the park we put 2 grasshoppers on a harvester ant mound and watched the hoppers be dissassembled.
• It is the little things....
• A friend has not been seprarated from her hubby for a month and she has had sex with 3 different dudes.
• Watching LOA's desert scenes gave me a bit of a flashback. It gets so hot in Iraq that with physical exertion you literally cannot stay ahead of your water loss- you will lose more than you can possibly take in. On two different occassions over a 24-48  hour period or less I lost so much weight my clothes no longer fit. My belt was cinched 4 or even 6 inches tighter and my joints ached like I was an 80 year old arthritic coal miners. My boots became 3 sizes too big- honestly, I could feel my feet flopping around in them no matter how much I tightened the laces. As a bonus, during the worst episode - my face looked like a skull and I had coon eyes. That time, we were poisoned at the chow hall. At least 1/4 of my company was laid out with the diarrheas. If you told me I had lost 25 or even 30 pounds over those 24-48 hours I could not have argued.
• The director of LOA wanted the musical score on the intro and intermezzo to played with a black background to set some kind of tone or something- ridiculous. It is mildly annoying is all he accomplished.
• Almost any time you overthink something that is otherwise simple- you will come to wrong conclusion.
• I wrote the notes this post is derived from in pink ink
• Pink ink- that rhymes.

Monday's Missives

• An old friendly acquaintance crossed my mind recently. She was gorgeous, funny, smart and sweet and coincidentally had a rockin' bod. She was also married. There was some tension between us that was made worse by the fact I know she dared herself to jump the fence with me. Thank God it happened late enough in my life I was strong enough to resist ( I am an oak after all). Her hubby had several health problems and was unlikely to live a statistically full lifespan. Some time after she and I parted ways I thought of her and the question, I wonder if he is still alive ? involuntarily crossed my mind. I hope the fact that I felt like a monster for thinking that, made me less of a monster.
• Although she lived in Dallas, an uncle who had for the most part raised her was buried near Weatherford. She called once and ask if I wanted to meet up for lunch as she was at the cemetery- a cemetery which I was coincidentally nearby so I swung in and we walked around together. We stopped by some railing on a trail that winds through the cemetery. I leaned back and put my hand on the rail. She leaned back and accidentally on purpose put her butt on my hand; then with faux shock she jumped away and we laughed. She then sighed and leaned into me and put her head on my shoulder. My heart jumped up into my throat. We did go eat lunch but I never saw her again.
• Why?! Because I am an oak. 
• After telling a younger person about my life growing up in Decatur TX she said, Wow, that sounds perfect! To which I replied, Yeah, it was like leave It To Beavertown but all the grown-ups smelled like cheap cologne and makeup, fried food (or barbecue) beer and stale cigarettes.
• When I was way too young to be doing so I would disappear from the house and be gone all day. There are memories of little old ladies giving us lemonade and cookies and of course there was always random hose water but how did I not die of a heatstroke, get run over by a car or be sauteed by Albert Fish's grandson?
• Jesus
• A woman asked me for my cel phone number yesterday. That is always a mild thrill and nice little validation.
• The other day I saw a patient in a restaurant and had to catch myself before I said hello to her and her friends found out I was her tuberculosis nurse and we had met at a TB clinic.
• Consumption.
• My 9 year old is getting an Ipod for his birthday- a device I could not have comprehended at his age. He is about the same age I would have been when I  picked up Coke bottles to buy a used AM/FM radio from a neighbor lady who had offered it up at her yard sale. She saved it for me until I had the money. I wonder where that thing is? It followed me into adult life as I recall using it when I did make readys for an apartment complex during the summer while in college and think it may have even been used in a garage in my married life but have no independent recall of when it finally gave up the ghost. 

Today At 0704 and 58 Seconds

I felt my first ever earthquake. The bed kind of rolled and the wall behind my head flexed and popped. I knew what it was as soon as it happened. It was a weird, slightly disorienting experience.