the search continues

as luck would have it, the journey in search of a higher power took an unexpected turn. i can't remember what led me in this direction but i'm giving credit to my lucky coin which is giving me a lot of comfort. the source of the comfort is irrelevant, the bottom is i need all the comfort i can get.

what i have stumbled upon is shifting realities. my default reality can be challenging and if i am unable to change the terms and conditions of my present reality, why not shift realities? there are many ways to shift reality but it's not something you can buy on line and to truly shift realities and it should be done without the use of drugs. in other words, shifting reality requires a little work which is a good thing. if it was possible to snap your fingers and shift reality, it would be very difficult to take ownership of your new reality. 

on a very basic level, cable news in the united states presents different realities. one network praised the actions of past president while a different  network condemned the same actions. neither network presented a unbiased account of the person's actions, a simple statement of truth was not as profitable to the networks as was shifting the reality of the person's actions. this is why a shifting reality is something that you must acquire by your own actions, it is next to impossible to find a human without ulterior motives.

in the new pope, john malkovich does an outstanding job of presenting his new reality. 

god?

 a few weeks ago my brain did its best microsoft impression and decided to do an update and restart. all updates are not created equal and i found myself thinking that i was in a forest beside a fast moving stream. when my operating system was fully restored i found myself lying on the kitchen floor with water streaming out of the faucet at full strength. i was perplexed and as it turned out, quite thoroughly bruised.

after getting to my feet  i remember checking the clock on stove and it was 5:02 pm. the big question was, what time did the update and restart begin? my best guess was 4:45, so there were about 20 minutes to account for and the rip wasn't giving me any clues. i can't remember much of that evening but 5:02 is imprinted in my mind. being unstuck in time can be challenging.

several days ago i had this desire to find a higher power.  did the update and restart of my operating system plant a virus in my brain that was prompting me to find a higher power?  or perhaps the higher power took notice of a lost soul and gave me a nudge. i find myself having more questions than answers but that can be said of any right thinking person so the bottom line is i'm just another brick in the wall.

my first thoughts of a higher power revolved around jesus but i quickly realized that was because our society continually bombards us with religious rhetoric. it's wonderful that we have have the internet because it allowed me to rule out organized religion very quickly. jesus is still an option but if i head in that direction i'll cut out the middleman and seek a direct line.

is there a god?  as a young man i was a devout atheist but i now realize that there are millions of people way smarter than myself who believe in god so although i'm a non believer, i do realize that there is a good chance that i'm wrong.

however, if there is a god of the universe i am 100% certain that the version of god we have been sold is not the true gospel.

if god created the universe, the real 10 commandments are the laws of physics, not the stuff organized religion uses to try and keep us humans in line.

at first i thought the goal was to find comfort in a higher power but after a few days of contemplation i remembered that the best way to ruin a good project is to finish it so for now i just hope to enjoy the journey and a journey is no more than a very long series of connected moments.

so for now i'll just "enjoy the moment".

everything old is new again.

several years ago the blog became tiresome and the quality of bullshit i posted seemed to morph into horseshit.  bullshit is one thing but horseshit was a real wake up call.

so now i'm back, big whoop eh?

why am i back.......... ?

i have no idea why i'm back but the real question is how long will i stick with  this before some other shiny object catches my eye and lures me away.

now that i'm back, i need a new theme. no, not a theme.  

i need a good gimmick.

any suggestions?

no? well then i better log out and google gimmick.

hopefully i'll have a decent gimmick for the next post.

i feel this poor guy's pain.

coyotes

i spotted a starving coyote in the park and it was also missing over half of its fur so feeding coyotes has become my charitable cause for the season. the first 3 days i dropped off a bag of dried dog food each afternoon and when i checked the next morning, it was gone. i poured the food onto the ground so  some animal had to have came and ate it, this made me happy. but when i checked this morning, almost all of the food was still there?  wtf?

the first 3 days i had dropped off high protein salmon dried dog food but yesterday i dropped off chicken/rice. are the starving animals picky?

i think the reason is they're nocturnal creatures and can smell the salmon as they forage but the chicken/rice stuff doesn't have nearly as distinctive of an aroma. this afternoon i'm going to mix in a little real beef with the chicken/rice food and see what happens.

this little adventure is working out well. not only do i get a warm feeling from feeding the wildlife, i'm ending up with a cool little high school science project. i'm pretty sure that i can rule out rats taking the food. it either has to be coyotes or raccoons.

merry feckin' xmas

billy loves you sons of bitches.

seeds and knees

the giant chinese pumpkin seeds finally arrived and they sure don't look giant to me. in fact, they're the smallest pumpkin seeds i've ever seen. maybe i'll buy some giant seeds from the ukraine. there are still two orders from china in the mail so maybe something good will arrive but i'm highly skeptical.

last week i ordered some ink jet cartridges from amazon and mistakingly assumed that i was buying them from amazon but after the order was placed and paid for, i noticed the goddamned things were coming from china. this will be a test to see if amazon has better chinese quality control than e-bay. once again i'm highly skeptical and will probably end up buying a laser printer.

last week i went to the doctor for my annual  check up and to get the results of the blood tests and knee scan and received quite a surprise. my family doctor wasn't there so i had to deal with a different doctor from the same office. my blood work and urine were just fine so that was the good news. but the knee news was not good.

for years i've had a very sore right knee and my doctor told me it was due to a lack of synovial fluid and he also removed some scar tissue which helped but he always told me the the knee was structurally sound. the replacement doctor went through my records and showed me the history. it seems my knee has shown wear and tear since 2012 and they've just been waiting for the right time to tell me about knee replacement surgery.  this totally pisses me off, why the hell haven't they been telling me about the structural problems?????

it looks like the sons of bitches have been managing my expectations more than treating the problem. after a bit of research on knee replacement i've decided to delay it as long as possible and hope for improvements in the the surgical procedure. it seems that they've recently come up with a procedure which is less invasive and does less damage to the thigh muscles. maybe they'll be able to sprinkle a few stem cells on the knee in a few years.

i'll probably have a new knee before successfully growing a giant pumpkin.

billy loves you sons of bitches.

back in the game baby!

many years ago and several blogs ago i used to bullshit about all the scavenging i would do.  i would get up at 4:00 am and head to the park with ruby.  the youths and thugs would be out partying the night before and leave huge amounts of empty liquor bottles/cans and what ever else they lost while getting shit faced drunk. normal people wouldn't venture into the park infested with thugs in the dark but i had ruby. thugs and bikers like pitbulls.

i still pick up any empty beer cans i come across, maybe $5 a month, but i don't do it with the gusto of yesteryear. but last week i found a pair of converse chuck taylors in the park and today i came across an old stove in the lane behind some apartments. (i was on my way back from the supermarket where i had sampled several lindt chocolate balls) the converse sneakers just happen to fit me perfectly, an act of god if i ever witnessed one.

i've been on the lookout for old stove burners for a long time and finally got lucky. our stove has one burner that is on its last legs and the hardware store wanted $35 for a new one. i plugged a replacement burner in and it quickly went red hot. so i got that going for me too.

previously i've mentioned the bean soup mental happiness evaluation technique.  the more often i make home made bean soup, the better my state of mind.  so far i've made 2 pots of bean this fall and now some world class scavenging.  the bean soup index is far more reliable than any diagnosis from an over paid psychiatrist. brain be happy.

141 days until baseball season begins, i'll need about 10 big pots of bean soup.

billy loves you sons of bitches.

hello sunshine

yesterday was a glorious autumn day in the great pacific northwest but today is a stinker, cold and wet. but all is not lost, the weatherman tells us it will be warm and sunny for the next few days after this little bump in the road. it might just be the last opportunity to wash the bed sheets and let them soak up the sun for a wonderful bedtime experience.

the weather is promising  and last night was an excellent start to the world series, kershaw was on his game and the game was worthy of storage on the pvr. i have all the previous dodger games on the pvr and will add the remaining world series games to the collection. i'll watch these games throughout the winter. although i'll remember which team wins the series, i'll forget the the details and enjoy the encore, maybe more than once.

baseball is a state of mind, adding synchronicity and order to a world gone mad. watching the concentration and sweat drip off the pitcher's face as he shakes off signals from the catcher gives me faith in the human spirit.  it's a battle, the bases might loaded with nobody out but a good pitcher like kershaw doesn't despair, he battles.

i'm still on the hunt for a new glove but haven't been able to find the perfect fit. the sporting goods stores have a poor selection at the moment so i'll probably have to wait until spring and who knows, i might find my old glove in the meantime. the woman's glove i picked up earlier is a great glove, too bad the son of a bitch has all that pink trim. the rip needs a strong role model and a male human wearing a pink baseball glove might harm her psyche.

i've finished the gnostic gospels and it's just like all the other religions. it sounds terrific but there are a lot of strings attached with no guarantees.  the one good thing about gnosticism is good old mary magdalene gets a fair shake, not like the raw deal she was given by those misogynists padding their expense accounts at the council of nicea. countless strings attached and no guarantee of eternal bliss, i'll remain a religious free agent.

faith solicited does not equal faith freely given and the guys in charge of religion don't give much stuff away for free.

billy loves you sons of bitches.