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

Wednesday's Digressions

• Recently I was reminded of the old fear that hospice care will hasten (and is in fact its purpose) a persons death. Most people know better and just a minutes clear thinking would show the problems with that kind of silly thinking but, once I really had a good object lesson on that worry. I was called in on the case of a woman on hospice for end stage heart disease with pain, shortness of breath, wasting and imminent death for continuous care criteria for nursing at her bedside until her death. On entering her room I encountered a gray complected, larger woman with very shallow respiration. Her eyes were closed and family reported she was sleeping and had been for past 18 hours. To make a long story short she was suffering from overwhelming pain which caused her to withdraw to a sleep-like state causing her blood sugar to get off and cardiac problems to worsen because her diet and meds were disrupted. Although she needed supplemental oxygen she did not appear distressed- she was breathing too shallow but, to an inexperienced person may have not looked in trouble.
• I put her on oxygen. Elevated the head of her bed. Talked to the family about administering morphine to strengthen her heart and improve her respiration. We then put her back on a heart med, water pill and steroid that had been (rightly at the time) discontinued.
• The last I heard the nurse who relieved me did not get to finish her shift because the patient had improved too much and had to be cancelled from crisis care. She was up on a walker with assist and had dinner in the dining room with family from out of town whom I'd been asked only to try to help her live long enough for them to see her alive and say their goodbyes.
• As I writes this (05/17/2014) at the pool a strikingly hawt female stopped in front me to make sure I saw her very decent for a 40 year old backside and then she engaged me me about the temp. of the water and kids etc. Admission: I got some instinctive butterflies. In my defense: The first thing I thought of was FG and how hawt mama was wasting her time and breath. I was actually listening to music in the background on the laptop that reminded me of FG.
  

  

  The Phantom Korean Photographer disturbed people at Scarborough enough they physically steered clear of him.
• There is a big deal being made over Dale Hansen's diatribe regarding where the homosexual football player fell in the draft, how there is no way there were 258 better players than him (based on his rank in the draft) and blah, blah, blah... while also in typical Hansen fashion bullying the audience into believing whatever it is he is saying. A funny thing about that- nobody cares about the guy's homosexuality and even though I make no effort to keep up with sports I have come to understand through osmosis he was maybe only drafted at all because of his gaydom- the NFL was not going to allow him to not be as it would make them look monstrous and backward. Scouts and talking heads all had him at 6-8th round based on his stats, health and presentation.
• Sad thing about this subject? I am not sure of that guys name. It is Sams, Samm or Samms-right? I have no clue as to his first name and couldn't confirm or deny if I was hearing it correctly if you said it in front of me.
• In people's minds he is, The Gay Football Player.
• We are our own worst enemies.

  

  Artisan at SRF being artisanal.

Don't You Monkey With Teh Monkey

My day started with Coal Chamber's cover of Shock The Monkey featuring the inimitable Ozzy. How did yours start?


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Monday's Missives

• Do all the people freaking out over genetically modified foods- they call GMs and very inventively Frankenfoods (I really like that one) realize all the foods they, we and every person in the world has ever eaten in their lifetimes is genetically modified? As soon as man began an agrarian lifestyle he modified genetically the foods he grew for desired traits.
• A liberal friend who took jillions of sociology, psychology and every other 'ology class ever offered once mentioned, You can tell how important something is to a society by how many slang words they have for the object or activity. 
  
• Self censorship is a way of life for us now as we are absolutely terrified of being labelled racist, xenophobe or sexist or...
• I only heard most of the Donald Sterling conversation between he and his girlfriend. He is heard telling her to never bring black guys with her to his games. Did he say black people were terrible, ugly or that their mothers dressed them funny? If he did, I missed it but he will forever be labelled a racist-as in he will be referred to as such long after he is dead and gone. I'm not defending him I may have missed something but the only person in this world I heard making anything like a defense of him was his wife. Every single white person in this country is terrified at the thought  of trading places with him- and not because of that mugly girlfriend.
• Connected thought: I set these thoughts to post some months after they came to mind.
  

  

  FG at the tree light Xmas 2013

• I'm at the pool and Zac is working the babes while sister practices her cannonball technique.
• My respect automatically goes up a notch when a lawyer refers to himself as a lawyer instead of attorney.
• Don't like lawyers? Cops or lawyers- takes your choices and takes your chances. Wait- better English? .. take your choice and take your chances or make your choice and take your chances or make your choice or take your chances...
• Whoa either way, that was pretty good. Give me credit when you use it.
  

Friday's Dispatch

A funny flashback.  Recently I came across the GPS receiver I used downrange. When I powered it up it took a second to process what B2 was that lay at a 37 degree heading 7227 miles away from Weatherford America. Then it hit me-  B2 was a checkpoint for route reconnaissance along route Boston in Iraq. It would be called, Charlie Papa Bravo 2 in Armyspeak.

• An ex tried to stab me with a pair of scissors. She would have buried them in my skull if I hadn't turned in time to see them coming down. Interestingly, I was walking away from her and only turned back as I processed the slight scraping noise I heard behind me was the scissors being lifted from a chest of drawers. I had taken note of the fact the scissors were the only thing on the chest as I had walked by- they seemed out of place. It pays to know you're surroundings I suppose.

  

  Food in a bowl made of other food- fancy.

• I did not know until I just watched a commercial featuring her that Minnie Driver is English. It was meanfunny to recognize her because of an American Dad! episode where they make fun of the size of her head.
• It is 11/08/2014 and I have already had 2 fires in the fireplace. 

  

  I generally eschew things that are described as, "encrusted" but this dish was very good. But still- eeew.

• Red Dawn (the real one) is on Esquire Network and almost over. It is a great movie- for all the reasons critics hate it. Anyway dude- it isn't a documentary.
• My best friend in the Army was best friends growing up with the kid who hangs out the window after being shot by the Cuban paratrooper at the school in the opening scenes. Interestingly, after he and that kid parted ways in junior high the kid actor became best friends with another kid in another state in high school. Once in the Army my buddy was shocked to hear a guy telling a story about being best friends with the kid in the movie who was shot and hangs out...
• Another of my few degrees of separation for Patrick Swayze.

  

  On my commute home. 'Murica

  
  

  

  Was so all over the road while texting- it caught my attention in my rear view mirror while they were a mile behind me.

  
  

  

  I think this is the gearbox to a wind electricity generator.

  

  This sunset was so searing due to the exact right time, elevation, lay of the streets and haze in the atmosphere that everybody regardless of direction of travel, speed or maneuver they were executing was stunned for a second. Everybody in my field of view hesitated or even swerved a bit.

  

  Broke out because keys were locked in the car?  Odd though- why is there a hole in the Plexiglas patch?

• Yesterday I offered to buy my nursing buddies's lunch. When I reached for my card it wasn't anywhere to be found in my little wallet. Embarrassing. Even worse, as he was paying for our lunch I found my card in the compartment where normally only the cash is stored.
• Flounder are an interesting fish.
• The only zip lining I have ever done was one made by some friends- 30 years ago. You had to lift your legs halfway to keep from smashing into a peak left in the middle of a gully. Your butt would brush the weeds as you went over.
• Hill Country Adventures
• Ken Burn's contribution to this country cannot be overstated.
• Gladiator is still a great movie. The opening sequence is still mesmerizing. I am glad I saw it in a theater.
  
  
  

  

  There must be a mudbogging track around Wise County somewhere. I saw 10+ rigs like this near or in Decatur.

Thursday's Thoughts

• We went to see Young Frankenstein at the WC last night (11/01/2014). Except for some audio issues it was was really good and fairly ambitious. They even recreated the revolving wall bit. My daughter was in awe of the actors and was high fiving them all at the meet and greet and telling them how awesome they were. 
• They should consider doing it every year around Halloween and Its a Wonderful Life around Christmas.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  

  From our pumpkin decorating contest at work.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• It might be easy to forget what a stud James Stewart was especially as he came across so down to earth. He flew B24s on bombing and path finding missions in WWII and stayed current on all USAF bombers into the 1960s including the B52.
• On a show about Bigfoot on the History Channel just now a so called expert is in an effort to look more credible wearing a suit and tie- a very outdated and cheap suit and tie.

  

  I would say she was concentrating on everything but driving but she was concentrating on one thing- texting. She actually caught my attention in my side view mirror as she was all over the road as she came up to pass. I was slowing for a red light and  she shot over into my lane and stopped. That is why the car appears so crooked in the frame. There wasn't even enough room for her to straighten the vehicle out to complete the lane change.

• A recent patient hugged me as she was leaving to move to another state.
• She came here to be with a guy she went to high school with and with whom she rekindled the old flame on the facebooks. Of course, he was nothing like he said online and it lasted less than 2 months. I cannot tell you how many times I have heard that story.
• Aside from the very occasional perfect nap I never sleep well and feel rested afterward.

  

  Found at Sunshine Lake

Wednesday's Digressions

Out of control nightstand is out of control

• The Swedes have recently detected a sub in their waters- a sub the Russians have denied ownership of and which they have told the Swedes may be Danish in origin. If I were the Swedes I would have said, No, we already asked them and they also said they were pretty sure it is yours. So if it is cool with you we will  start dropping charges and capture anything that surfaces and then hang up the phone. Within an hour the Swedes would have received a call back and the Russian middleman would have said, The situation is developing but there may be a climate research sub near that area that has lost comms...
• There is only one way to deal with the Russkies.
• To presume everybody on the planet's mind works the same way and that we have the same wants and needs is odd and wrong and the trouble we try to avoid by thinking that way will almost always become inevitable.
  
  

  

  35 MM film lying in the dirt being poignant and anachronistic.

• Yesterday a co worker was concerned about my suffering due to seasonal allergies and gave me an E Mer Gency (or whatever it is called) drink additive. It was nasty- literally foul but  nothing worse happened to me the rest of the day so there is something to be said for that I suppose.
• I just read (it is 024 on 10/22/2014) some towns in the US are paying 2900 dollars to sterilize wild doe deer. The headline correctly said, The World Is Being Run By Crazy People.

  

  Green house by the restaurant in Botanic Gardens. It wouldn't bother me a bit to live in there.

• An old saw that I don't even recall the origins of but I loved as soon as I read it somewhere years ago: A Russian wants to be feared. A Brit wants to be respected. An American wants to be liked. These may not be 100% true in 100% of the cases and the knowledge of this adage may not help these 3 groups understand each other in every case but I think it is probably a good place to start understanding each other. If nothing else, it is a succinct way to remember- we really are different.

  

  A wall in my brother in laws garage. The wood came from our families old house we call, The Old House.