only one reality

 my old electric lawnmower finally croaked a few weeks ago. it was a long and painful death that took a few years but she lived a long and fruitful life.  i thought the motor had burned out a few years ago but it was a sears craftsman mower and it refused to die.  this year it was the 2 rust holes that had me thinking it was the end of the line but trying to cut heavy wet grass killed her before she could rust away.

today the adventure was trying to dispose of her which  turned into an unplanned adventure.  the usual recycling depot was shut down  and the city told me to take her to a commercial metal recycling facility that turned out to be very difficult to find. in hindsight, i should have taken the new phone with me and used the map app but the phone hasn't left my desktop since i activated it.

it was a huge commercial operation with a steady flow of huge trucks dumping stuff and there i was walking around with a lawnmower looking like a migrant gardener until a employee came out of the office to tell me i was in the wrong place. when i told him that the city directed me there, he sighed and told me to leave it by some large bins.  upon reaching the bins, i noticed 2 bicycle wheels and being a hard wired scavenger i crawled over some junk and retrieved them.  son of bitch, they had brand new tires and were rock hard!  of course i snagged them and took them home. 

some realities might change, but i'll always be scruffy scavenger at heart. 

shifting realities

 so far i'm really enjoying my journey into shifting realities, it's almost the highlight the of my day. i've read a few articles on shifting realities where the *fool is instructed to have a destination in mind before beginning the quest. so far i've resisted thinking about a destination or goal, instead the only constant in my quest is my companion. my companion has 4 feet and really needs a bath.

one great benefit of the shifting reality is it's allowing me to see my problems and challenges from a different point of view. having a different approach to a problem can make life a lot easier. seeing my problems from a different point of view allows me to separate mountains from mole hills. hopefully i'll have a lot more mole hills than mountains in my future.

the one major change in my current reality is i am now a member of the collective. i hate to admit it but for the first time in my life i am the owner of an activated cell phone, something that i've resisted for decades. when i was working at the cracker factory, i refused the benefit of a free cell phone. the reason for now possessing an activated cell phone is my doctor ordered me to get one. i've had it for a week now and it hasn't left my desktop. in a few months i'll be taking it out to the back  yard to take pictures of the fish.

getting the phone was not a simple task. it would have been easy to contact one of the large providers and pick a plan, but i'm hard wired to find the cheapest alternative. i found cheap third party provider that was basically an on-line service with no human assistance. the company had a directory of physical locations but the locations given were nothing more than  mail drops. the first place i went to was real shithole with trash everywhere and an asian guy sitting at a desk covered in used electronic parts. when i tried to get service the only thing answer i received was "he not here".  when i asked if there were any other stores around, without looking up he said "go to mall".

the mall was like being in hong kong. there were probably 50 stores and about 20 were phone repairs and service. i thought that walking into a store and asking for directions was a simple and straight forward task, but no, not one person was willing to help me so i had to hop on the bike and pedal home to get the store number. armed with the store number, it was easy to find what i was looking for and luckily a young woman spoke english and was willing to sell me the service and install a sim card into the old iphone my princess gave me. all the signage in the store was chinese but through the miracle of modern technology she was able to hand me a contract and instructions in english.

*fool - i like to think of myself as "the fool" from a deck of tarot cards.

 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.