What If Coolio Is Right

                   






                                     
And we've been spending most our lives living in a gangsta's paradise and we don't even know it?

Thursday's Thoughts

• For months if I tell somebody I love them in an Email or ask about somebodies age or we talk about birthdays about 48 hours later I get hit with an Email for a, "Special Offer!" from Proflowers. Recently, I asked in an Email to borrow an extension cord from someone and 48 hours later I got an email offer from Amazon for home improvement products and tools. There is obviously an algorithm that takes note of key words and phrases and ties them to related products and services. Further, it has been determined if the contact is immediately after the triggering phrase is used it gets on peoples nerves and a 48 hour waiting period is the optimum amount of time to be recent enough that the ads will still be pertinent but not sooo close that people are being reminded our every utterance on the internets is tracked, logged and studied by our electronic overlords while we await SKYNET becoming self aware.
•  I need to restart Breaking Bad.
  
• Nearly every that day I wear scrubs I wear some type of graphic T shirt underneath. It might be somewhat subversive but most likely not- a concert T,  a quote and pic of The Black Knight from Monty Python's Holy Grail or one with a quote from The Raven, a picture of a flying pig... It is just a gentle self reminder that I'm not only what is being represented by the monkey suit.
• I am not an animaaaaal!
• If a nurse ever says she wears her scrubs because they're comfortable outside of work she is lying and saying what she thinks she is supposed to say.

  

  Here, have picture of JFK riding a robot unicorn on the moon

• Recently I stumbled across a blog that was about self immolation- all self burning all the time and nothing else. I don't even know how or why I got there.
• Was Jimi Hendrix the best guitar player ever? Of course not. He was great and unusual for his time and he died at his zenith making him more nearly a god than a mere legend. I don't even know where to start with better guitar players- Ty Segall, Ritchie Blackmore, Yngwie Malmsteen,  Eddie Van Halen, The guy from Rage Against Teh Machine, the guy from BUSH (nobody even knows their names, the RATM guy is the one who always covers his face with a ball cap brim and the BUSH guy is the one whose looks get compared to Jesus).
• I read today (11/20/2014) Ty Herndon has come out of the closet. That must have been the worst kept secret in the history of country music. A friend was a waitress at a Fort Worth club called The Rodeo Exchange. One evening 20+ years ago she said to the effect, Did you know Ty Herndon is gay?! No, I have never given it any thought I replied honestly. I then asked, How do you know that? He came in with his boyfriend. They weren't all over each other or anything. You could just tell- they way they reached out and touched each other. It was like they were the only two people in the whole place.
  

Wednesday's Digressions

There is an organization in our area that traps cats, sterilizes them and after notching their ear's releases them. Whatever happened to the good old days when cat problems were solved with a 5 gallon bucket of water or a shot of Fatal-Plus to the heart?

• My son is listening to Led Zeppelin- that is wild. The first time I remember listening to Zeppelin I spent the day with a couple of other miscreants cruising in a new 1979 Chevrolet pickup. This was one of the first as I recall, luxury trim trucks that was intended to be as comfortable as a car. My dads last car was a 1969 LTD that I think he paid 300.00 for, so I thought that guys truck was opulent. It was pouring rain so we rode around listening to The Rain Song over and over visiting other guys who were rained out of work.
  


• I cannot comprehend people staying in their houses when ordered to evacuate during a disaster. My brother has lived in Houston and areas south of there for years A hurricane or severe tropical storm comes- he boards up the house (with decking stored in the garage year round just for the purpose), takes what he wants and needs, secures the rest and heads north ahead of the weather and crowds. He then stops where it's safe, gets a hotel room and watches the storm on the Weather Channel. When everything is clear they load up and head home.

  

  Chandor Gardens does peppers along with their flowers for color. That was totally my idea first.



• Instead of powdered garlic I've started using California granulated It is very good- in fact I couldn't go back to powdered.


• If you think my dog is sound asleep but, suddenly he snorts out his nose, jumps up real quick and moves across the room and lies back down you better hold your nose- he just farted. He can't help it, he's a typical guy I guess.
• The above from a very old draft clean up day. I haven't had a dog in years.

  

  There are many ways to build a campfire- tepee, log cabin, the lean-to... Here I demonstrate the pile all the flammable crud you can find on one side of a log, pour a half a liter of stove fuel on the pile, strike a match and stand back method.

  
  
  
  
  
• Bass Drum of Death, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club and Ty Segall have been on the playlist a lot lately.
• Spacemen 3- Forged Prescriptions. I discovered them today (09/08/2014). I dig them the most and hope you do also.
• Is it "also" as I wrote or too?

  

  Did I notice before that these steps are millstones? Holy smokes I walked across them a hundred times before that jumped out at me. That is the magic that is Chandor Gardens.

  
  

  

  They even have cool places to take a load off.

Monday's Missives

• It would not surprise me at all if half or more of the western wildfires were started by part time firefighters and/or pyromaniacs who get a thrill from the scope and attention the fires get with a relatively low risk of death to people. Actually, I'll say I would be shocked if 50+%  weren't  human caused and the balance started by lightening and legitimate accidents
• Recently I had to go undergo training required for participating in CDC studies. It was about problem solving and organizing processes from a goal or problem to achieving the goal or resolving the problem, collaboration, information gathering, data collection and etc. I'm not sure why or what but I have a sense someday those lessons will serve me in a big way outside my clinic and I tried to absorb everything presented, took notes and kept all the literature and intend to borrow as offered the related books from the instructor.
  
• To be placed in the overheard at the pool category: Your house is better than my trailer! 
• The conversation progressed to being about one woman and an on/off boyfriend needing to leave the area to avoid some type of legal/financial problems. They mentioned going to Mexico referring to it as Old Mexico. Yeah, no money, wrong color and no language skills- you'll fit right in and people will be lining up to harbor you.
• There is already as I write this (05/17/2014) a movie in the works about the lost Malaysian airliner.
• The Australian government has pledged 50 million for the search of that aircraft. Why?
• What is the Aussie currency? They probably call it  lobberwocky or somethin'.
• One thing every government should admit and remind themselves of frequently when dealing with the ascendant terror groups in the world but especially West Africa and especially if they're AQ affiliated: Regardless of what we do or say- They're way ahead of us. And as a bonus: Anything we say or do- including nothing may be wrong.

  

  Found during my bike search. Good grief.

  
  

Friday's Dispatch- The Dregs

• I've slept outside with my son 4 nights recently no tent just a sleeping bag a blanket a 90lb dog a 15 month old boy and me. I have to tell the dog to lay down on the corner of the blanket or he'll sit beside us just watching over us. He sits with his rear end touching my leg and pushes back hard. The touch must comfort him, it seems important to him anyway.
• Three nights in a row I've heard a cottontail rabbit screaming as something kills it. If you ever hear that sound, you'll never forget it.
• All four nights coyotes have started howling 50-100 feet away from us, setting all the neighbors dogs off.
• In the morning after these nights I feel strangely refreshed as well as no surprise-beat.
• A recipe for you: peanut butter on toasted whole wheat bread with sliced bananas and sugar frosted corn flakes. You'll be surprised.
• Even strangers say, You need to get an agent for him (my baby), he needs to be acting or modelling! What would they say if he was unusually ugly instead of unusually attractive? I had a friend once whose child when a baby was I guess pretty ugly. I remember her nickname was ALF after the TV show about the alien who crash landed in the Tanner family garage and then lives with them while trying to repair his craft. She's grown now, very smart and strikingly beautiful. She's in college and will make the world a better place when she graduates.
• The best women to be around according to most guys are those that when young were ugly but, grew into being beautiful. They had to develop personality, a sense of humor and are usually not full of themselves. How does a guy find someone like that? A Craigslist ad?
• Above from an draft clean up day.

Tonight At the WC

                                                

Thursda's Thoughts

• At least two different times in my life, once as a soldier and another at a civilian job a supervisor had been heard to say in so many words they would fire me if they weren't afraid of what it would do to the morale of those I left behind. There might be some lessons and at least plenty of observations about my personality and character to be made from that thought- not all good and not all bad.
• For my part, it was basically flattering and if nothing else funny.

  

  Speak It Advice Mallard

• When the proverbial Iron Curtain fell we were too busy gloating to step up and help Russia which may have prevented a lot of today's problems faced by her neighbors and ourselves in dealing with the ascendant Russkie Bear.
• While I was in Iraq none of my ammo magazines or ammunition had my fingerprints  on them. I would not touch them without gloved hands and after maintanence of them would wipe them clean.
• Sometimes, even if you have done nothing wrong, nor do you intend to do anything wrong, you need the option of plausible deniability.
• In another life I was big time hunter and lived for duck and dove season. For that reason it seemed odd to people I knew, that I had never killed a deer and have only made two half hearted attempts at hunting them. I have nothing against it- it just never worked out that way.
• American horror Story is good- really good but it is not like I thought it would be as I thought it was the one where each episode was a stand alone show each written by a different writer. Instead, each season has a story line that develops from beginning to end with the same cast of characters. Maybe I misread or misheard something somewhere. Regardless it is gooood. Jessica Lange literally steals the show in the episodes I have watched.
• And yeah- she is 65 years old and smokin' hawt.

  

  He wants you to know