Tag: rain
A little wet, but much more normal
So it’s almost nine PM here in Pinellas County and for the day, the Pinellas County official rain gauge has registered over 2.5 inches of rain, and well over 14 for the year.
That’s a sharp contrast to last year where we had only 10 and a half inches of rain going into July.
W-T-F Wi-Fi Blame Game
I am not an IT guy. I am not a professional network administrator. I am not even an able bodied person. I’m a month off friggin’ head surgery for God’s sake!
With that in mind, I would appreciate it if someone would stop saying “You don’t, you can’t, you don’t, you won’t” and other such bitching and complaining when the wireless network at home goes down. I see the problem, I do what I can to fix it, I apologize for shit getting in the way. Now say thank you, bow before me and respect me.
The only WON’T or DON’T in this bitching fest is the willingness of certain residents in my home to learn shit about a home wi-fi network. Someone with better eyesight, someone with a brain that he won’t use. Someone who defaults to others because he’s a lazy misanthrope.
I’m sick of being blamed. You don’t like my shit or how I do it? Do it yourself.
Dry and true
So there has been rain in the Tampa Bay area the last few days, yay rain…
…Whoopty friggin’ do.
Anyone in Pinellas County that wants to think we’re in the clear with drought conditions need only look at the official Pinellas county rain gauge on their web site. It feels sick and cruel that the tally through today (July 2nd) is 10.59 inches of rain for the year.
2007 is half way finished and we’re only about one fifth of the way to the average rainfall total (Clearwater, Florida’s average yearly rainfall total is 49 inches according to Florida Living Network. The St. Pete Chamber of Commerce lists the city of St. Petersburg’s annual rainfall total at 48+ Inches).
We haven’t hit the Fourth of July yet, nor the peak of the hurricane season (two sub-tropical storms and only a bit of rain from both) and I’m fearing how our water outlook will come November.
Restriction-less
The St. Petersburg Times ran a story today about how watering restrictions are needed — Now — in Hillsborough County. It also went on to point out restrictions in place:
Commissioners put off until May 17 a hearing on whether to reduce watering to once weekly from two days. Some other area governments, such as Pinellas County and Brooksville, already impose that sound restriction. With the last heavy rain in February, and nothing significant expected for weeks, the region’s demand for water has soared. Last month’s demand was 22 percent higher than what utility officials expected. And for the first time, demand in Hillsborough outstripped Pinellas. Hillsborough commissioners should have seen the impact they could have made to help the region scrimp along until the wet summer months.
Excuse me, did you say Pinellas?
Living at the top’o’the’bay here in Pinellas county, I’ve seen neighbors watering twice a day every day for the past few weeks. I’ve seen absolutely nothing in the paper (be it the Times or the free Suncoast News ) suggesting Pinellas is restricting water usage, let alone enforcing watering restrictions.
I don’t know if this is bad journalism (I doubt it) or more like bad – if not terrible – enforcement and advertisement of watering rules in county.
The Myth of Rain
It is SO FRIGGIN’ HOT!
September in Tampa Bay is supposed to be just like August, or July, or June — hot, humid, and wet… The wetness is supposed to come from not only tropical showers but the chance of a tropical system (Tropical Storm or Hurricane) coming through the area. On average, Tampa Bay gets almost 3 and a half inches of rain in September.
In 2005? We’ve gotten two hundreths of an inch of rain.
Things are drying and dying out at an incredible rate and you have to wonder just when we’re goign to go back to severe drough warnings and conservation in the area…. We’ve grown since the early and mid 1990’s when we were last stuck in a drought and water consumption must be at an all time high…
The reason it’s so dry and hot? Thank both Hurriance Katrina and Hurricane Ophelia. Katrina sapped the moisture in the region as she headed for Louisiana and then Ophelia formed and not only absorbed moisture but blew dry winds from the Carolinas right over Florida…
With that wind pattern — all we have is heat and haze… It’s disgusting, it’s painful and there is no end in sight despite Tropical Storm Rita’s projected forray across the Strait of Florida.
I’m upset I am heading to Los Angeles early next month right now — I’ll be going rom dry and hot to dry and cooler… I’d like MOIST. I’d like RAIN… I’d like WET…
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Writing re-assurance
I haven’t tried this in a long time – the last story I published in part on this blog was never competed (“Peter’s Problem” just rambles on and on) and never got any opinions on pieces fo the story I DID publish.
At any rate, I told people about this story in an earlier entry… There is no title to it as it stands right now and it’s just a few hundred words… Let me know what you think if you think anything about it… Just click on more to view it.
The Religious Right has Taught You Well…
Just remember, Star Wars Buffs, that even though Revenge of the Sith is about to come out, and the Prequel trilogy brought to an end…. The Force is a Tool of Satan! Jesus is the Force!
Brought to you in part by BushCo®. Spreading Tax Cuts and Jesus since 2000!
But it's all right now! Just not for long
My GOD it is a gorgeous day here in Fllorida – Spring is very much in the air. The sun is shining brightly, there isn’t much of a cloud in the sky! It’s sunny! It’s bright! It’s warm! 75+ degrees! It’s perfect out there! I
But…
300 miles out in the Gulf of Mexico, it’s raining. Pouring actually. By tonight it will be overcast and for the rest of the week it shoudl be raining.
When did I move to Seattle? It’s been raining pretty well every couple fo days (for a few days) for most of March and February before it. In fact, last time I saw storm progression like this was the late fall/winter of 1997-98.
You know, the last severe El Nino year 🙁
If you want something done
I feel real weird sometimes when I accomplsih things for myself and by myself. Especially when it isn’t somethign that I have an official say over. Calling over cable problems a few weeks ago while my father ignored the problem and tried tos et up a phone line was one example of it. Today was another example of it.
For months – maybe longer – there’s been a lingering problem in the front of my yard – the water gutter has been cracking. Not just cracking but raising to such a degree it stops water from flowing down the gutter and to the drain. I’ve talked to my parents aobut it a few times and they have shrugged mostly at the problem. “Yeah, we need to get that fixed…. But what am I supposed to do about it?”
That attitude is something I’ve taken with me in life and being disabled to one degree or another, that attitude does not help me accomplish things I need to accomplish or SHOULD accomplish.
So Wednesday, before another bout of rain that we have had a good deal of here in Florida so far this year, I emailed the county about the problem. I expected to be ignored or hav emy problem lost in beauracracy and red tape.
Maybe it still will be but this morning it looked like somethign was actually going to be done.
First off, I get an email from someone with the North County Operatiosn center here in Pinellas. Standard wordplay with my complain being forwarded to appropriate parties and la-de-da. I thought this was proof of red-tape in the making.
…Up until someone showed up at the door a few hours later, asking for me.
A woman with the highway department had shown up and had talked to me briefly about the problem, I showed her the drain and how the water was being blocked by the rising concrete, which was being demonstrated while rain fell around us. SHe told me that they woudl be able to make the repair within a month and they woudl be in touch.
That’s mroe action on the problem in 24 hours than anyone in this family has had, besides talk, in several years.
The Year in Review — Yuccaneers indeed
“Four and Twelve seems like a real possibility.”
You know, I got a bit of bashing for having this bleak outlook at the Bucs this season. I saw things going in a direction that was counter-productive to what fans wanted and what the NFL trend was and you know what? The Bucs got just what they deserved, those who thought I was full of shit and expected another playoff-run got what they deserved and I get to deal out humble-pie for a change.
God, you do not know how much of a dick I feel like righ tnow and how bad I feel about it. I wanted to be wrong about hte Bucs this season. Hell, I needed to be wrong about the Bucs this season in order to be proved wrong about the state of the franchise post-Gruden acquisition. Yet I was proven right and there is this impending sense of dread with the coming offseason that the Bucs will try to jump right into contention again by spending on past-there-prime players and we’ll end up completely fucked because of it.
Jon Gruden, the man who can do no wrong in certain fans eyes because he brought the Bucs to the promised land, needs a swift kick in his ass and his yes-man office assistant, Bruce Allen, should be fired post-haste before they further fuck things up by doing what Jon wants to do without regarding the wellfare fo the team. There is indeed a way to get the Bucs back to contention and it isn’t by signing players for more than they are worth, going after names and reputations instead of talent, etc…
This off-season, the Bucs need to cut the bullshit with the free agent spending. It’s rebuilding time and instead of going after everyone on the market (and former Raider players) they need to go after young talent that needs a chance to shine in starting roles instead of on special teams or what not. They need to say goodbye to Michael Pittman and Charlie Garner, Mario Edwards and others that were brought in during the 2004 off-season and start a youth movement.
That also means keeping around Derrick Brooks, Simeon Rice and some of the rest of the veterans on the squad. Not because the Bucs need to keep some aspect of contention but they need to keep some aspect of leadership and direction. Brooks gives them that and Rice give them taht on defense (along with Ronde Barber). Mike Alstott gives them that on offense along with Cosey Coleman, Joe Jervacius, etc.
They need to let Brian Griese walk isntead of further being cluster-fucked with the Salary Cap by agreeing to his 8 million dollar option. They should bring in journeymen QB’s and le tthem contend for the starting psoition against Chris Simms. You can make chicken salad out of chicken shit at the QB position — look at Jake Delholme. He was nothing until he got a chance to start with Carolina and the rest is history.
Gruden, with a roster of youth and hungry players, needs to run one fo the tightest ships he has ever run…. Along with one of the most intensive training camps that he has ever run. He’s been stradled with superstars since taking over head coaching duties for the Riaders a few years ago… Without having a huge cast of big-name hired guns, he might just get the clue that he’s going to have to have patience and actually coach and not just shout orders. He’ll have to lead and teach instead of just expect results from players that were brought along under someone else’s system.
2005 would turn into a painful experience for some – a hopeless endeavour… But then again, it would right the ship long-term by foricng the Bucs back into the building mode instead of Gruden’s ill-planned “retoolings” of the roster.
I expect retooling instead of building this offseason again, however :-(. I expect Brooks and Alstott to be cut instead of the true fat on the roster – the dead weight. All because Jon Gruden’s ego is so much bigger than his talent. He’s an overglorified Offensive Coordinator who’s gotten carte blanche of the Tampa Bay Buccaneer franchise and will run it into the dirt before he will concede that he’s fucked things up with his acquisitions and his preferences.
Thanksgiving
It’s occured to me a lot the last few days that it’s been almost exactly a year since I went under the knife… The difference a year makes is immense in so many ways and yet the more things have improved, the more they stay the same with various faccets of my life.
Today we had somewhere around 20 people over for dinner… well, 20 people would be a few too many but it fluctuated in the teens all afternoon. Uncle’s, my aunt, my cousin and her daughter, my younger brother (while Mike skipped out on things) and other family friends. It was a great get-together for the most part and I had a lot of fun with things.
I brought up what I am thankful for (“That I’m not lying in a hospital bed this year.” ) to a round of applause and through the liquor and the laughter I easily forgot where I was a year ago today or what I suffered through at the time (no, not surgery — watching George W. Bush and his faux visit to Iraq).
But someone had to ruin the day for me.
It wasn’t family – though their reaction did indeed bother me. It wasn’t friends of the family – though I notably started acting strange when some people showed up. No, it was the fact certain people turned up with both their kids in tote that I had problems with. I mean MAJOR problems. It basically ruined the evening for me….
The family pretty much embraced them and that made me further angry — as someone who has opened his arms after being stepped on and then gotten stepped on again, I couldn’t stand to watch this train wreck in action.
Speaking of train wrecks, I was happy to see Kylie was walking. Kylie being my cousin Amber’s daughter. I had gotten very upset during her first birthday party when I saw not only was she not walking but she looked like she wasn’t nearly ready for it. I’m glad I’ve been proved wrong on that one.
So… To summarize — a year later I am in good spiriits. I’m not wasting away in a hospital bed with only a friend at my side and a Subway sandwitch to eat. I’m happy I am spending time with my family and out and about… I’m thankful that I’m not having nightmares of someone’s blog or having Christmas Cards thrown out…
I’m thankful….
Time for the final sprint….
Polls closing in various places on the East Coast….
Plenty of time left elsewhere in America….
There will be rain if God wills it… Rain, baby, rain….
Surviving Jeanne
It’s Tuesday while I write this and it will be Wednesday afternoon when I finally get around to finishing and I have to tell you — I’m thankful… I’m greatly thankful.
It’s been two days since Hurricane Jeanne went through Florida… Two days or an eternity for those who lost power during the storm and haven’t gotten it back. It feels like an eternity because, in the Florida sun, the warmth gives away to the uncomfortable humidity and makes living feel attrocious. At least for the non-outdoors person like myself.
The storm went through Sunday and I lost power around 11:45 in the morning. Soon after my text messenger stopped working properly and I was cut off from friends who would later tell me they didn’t lose power or cable over the duration of Jeanne’s lashing of the Tampa Bay area..
It didn’t tkae long for food to spoil, or my parents to insit we gobble up ice cream and what not before it went bad. Outside, the wind howeled and I waited patiently for one of the trees in our yard to give-way to the relentless wind torrent and snap or tip over. Fortunately that never happened. Or unfortuantely? The thing si a very ratty Indian Rosewood that we would probably be better off without in our yard with it’s adventurous roots.
Time inched on and all you could do was try to read in poor light conditions or watch the storm. I kept thinking back to the fact we are so dependant on electricity that it isn’t even funny. Television? Computers? Even cell phones that worked, appliances, etc… This dependance is compounded in the Sunshine state because of the need for the ever-present air-conditioning if you are going to get through on hot and humid day.
By six or seven in the evening, the wind and rain had relented enough to venture outside. I honestly NEEDED to be outside at this point. Cabin fever not only was driving me nuts, but being stuck with my parents and older brother — I felt cramped. I felt stuck. Of course, I wasn’t leaving the yard as the wind still gusted to 50 MPH at times, but it was better than being on the inside — starring otu into the overcast and blustery conditions.
We got power back around 11:45 Sunday night (miraculously). The only reason we had it is because our house is on the same power circit, it would seem, as the stop light at the intersection several blocks away. It was a relief to get cold again from the AC… not just cold but drier than it had been with the windows open and the humid air flowing through the house.
Yet there are neighbors still without power. WIthout cable… And it could very well have been me and my family still trying to get by without power… so like I said, I’m thankful…
And I’m rambling without even putitng up something of substance.
Four and Twelve seems like a real possibility
I haven’t talked about the Tampa Bay Buccaneers for a real long time… I think the last time I put up a post was in January where I gave a general sports roundup. Of course, my sports eye has been on my primary love in Tampa Bay — The Lightning — and that means the Bucs (who I grew to love during their hapless years) have taken a back seat.
Before anyone lays into me about being a bandwagon fan, I support the Buccaneers and haven’t turned a blind eye because another team in town won a championship. The Bucs earned my love over the years from miserable to respectable, and the Lightning won my love since their inception and I place hockey just ahead of football because it was a sport I liked to compete in.
Anyway, I haven’t abandoned the Bucs but I have to turn my eyes because of the train wreck the franchise has become.
Lets go to January of 2003 first and foremost and Jon Gruden / The Tampa Bay Buccaneers winning the Super Bowl. When Jon won the title, little did fans know it gave him carte blanche over the Buccaneer Franchise. A team assembled by Rich McKay and Tony Dungy was put over the top by Jon and of course we all loved him for it because this was the Buccaneers finally reaching the paramount of the NFL after being as low as you could get for so long.
Things fell apart last year as Jon Gruden started to follow a trend that previous Buccaneer coaches have shown and fallen with — Absolute power corrupts absolutely. The Glazer’s catered to his every whim and the only guy who stood in his way was Rich McKay…
Was, past tense. Rich left the only franchise he had known and went north to Atlanta… Jon was allowed to keep walking the walk he wanted and the Bucs continued the downward spiral.
A trend from Oakland seems to be in place here — not just a desire for veteran players over building a team from the ground up with talented youngsters, but also a “Just win, baby” mentality that tells players their off-field antics amount to shit as long as they perform on the field.
Case in point – Michael Pittman remains on the Buccaneer roster even though he is guilty of ramming his car into his wifes vehicle with children inside. He faces possible jail time and Jon Gruden could give a shit.
The Bucs picked up another ass-clown from the Raiders in the form of Bruce Allen who cut one foo the greatest players in Tampa Bay Buccaneer history – John Lynch — and signed one of the most notorious players in NFL history — Darrell Russell, who drugged a girl and taped him and his friends raping her.
Allen went so far as to compare Russell with former president Bill Clinton and said the rapist is guilty of less crimes than Clinton. (side-note, Allen’s brother is a Republican Senator in Virginia)
I could keep going with moves the Bucs have made and crimes their players have committed since the Super Bowl Championship, but I can’t. It’s watching a train wreck as it occurs and their are more people than just myself who can see this. For the first time since Raymond James Stadium was opened, their are tickets available on Ticketmaster for Buccaneers games this late after the initial public offering of tickets. The Bucs boast a season ticket waiting list of 110 thousand but all it takes is filling out a form online in order to do so. Somehow, my name is on the Season Ticket waiting list and I hate watching football in person. I didn’t sign up and I don’t have the foggiest clue how I got on there…
The number is artificially inflated and more than half of those on this waiting list would not invest in the current product on field.
I look at the Buccaneers this season and I see the train wreck in progress. I feel bad for guys like Derrick Brooks and Mike Alstott who are pillars in the community and who will be cut lose if it meant a marginal offensive tool could be picked up. The once vaulted defense is in shambles and Jon Gruden was given a contract extension before the season to continue is free reign over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
6-10 may be a reach but 4-12 is still a possibility this season. Break out the orange, it’s Yuccaneer football all over again.
It's getting ugly here
Dear god, I hate all the empty space that is showing up on The Stonegauge lately… It’s not like I’m spread thin on he Internet or anything, it’s just that I haven’t wanted to rant about anything that I could rant about. I mean, really, how many times have I already stated what a sham Iraq was? Or how incompetent / dirty the Bush administration comes off? It’s like shooting fish in a barrel to be honest with you.
I have been parlaying a lot of time toward my new online endeavor along with trying to help out the search engine placement for Rocheleau Cabinetry… Building an online community is tough but with the amount of downtime i have, it should be no problem. There is a problem however and that is trying to bring in people who already have message board communities and cliques of their own that they don’t want to abandon. I’m not much one for spamming but I am on for recruitment of smart people.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, it’s cloudy and rainy here in Florida. I don’t think it’s anything close to what people up north have dealt with lately but it’s miserable. You can’t believe how humid it is to boot. That makes it even worse.
Speaking of weather, how come it’s so friggin’ impossible to find the Tropical Update on Weather.com? It’s only a glut of people who need to know what’s brewing out in the tropics that could lead to potential hazards. Not like that’s important… :rolleyes
Got Type-casting?
So Brian Spilner… er, I mean Paul Walker is being courted to play Michael Knight or whoever the hero character ends up being in a Knight Rider movie…
As if they couldn’t do worse when it comes to finding someone to play the role.
Oh, I don’t mean to put down Paul Walker who I like regardless of the babble of a script that he was stuck with in 2 Fast 2 Furious, and the part he played in another mockery of another Crichton novel, Timeline. Regardless of all that, Paul Walker is the worst casting choice they could make for the movie — for both Walker and the Film itself for that matter.
As I started out this entry, Paul Walker is associated with Brian Spilner – the character he portrayed in the first two Fast and the Furious movies. Not only that, but Spilner’s character is supposed to be undercover law enforcement and a pretty good street racer (but he’s no Dominic Toretto – Vin Diesel’s character). Does he really want to be typecast into another Car flick? I mean, he was in a beat up car for most of Joyride” and the two Fast movies made big on the driving part…
And any role in Knight Rider would force him to further play the driver role. That being said, he’d be smart to turn the other cheek toward the project.
Now, whoever the hell is putting together the Knight Rider film does indeed want to cater a bit to the crowd of car fanatics that made the Fast movies big hits. They also want to distance themselves from the cheese of David Hasselhoff’s career. Fine, you can do that but dear god — if you want to imitate Fast and the Furious, don’t go so far as casting someone from those pictures to lead your film! You do not want Fast and the Furious fans coming into the theater expecting a third installment of the film series, only to find out that the flick is about a crime fighter and his talking, supped up car.
That being said, I still have hopes for a Knight Rider film, but they surely have to brain up unless this is going to be a spoof film all the way.
"The Edge" of Sanity
I decided to spin some tunes and do some writing – which hasn’t come easy the last couple of weeks — today. After some audio bullshit and sound card problems I finally got everything running smooth and I had a re-awakening from a song I used to love in Middle and High School —
Aerosmith’s Living On The Edge
I had written a paper about it years ago for my English class (Ms. Manson always supported us being free spirited and such… And encouraged us with music, poetry, writing, etc) and had taken the song too seriously, in a way, when I stated that one message from the song that could be taken was that we are living on the edge of sanity and sobriety.
Anyone who sees the pop culture and news headlines knows this to be true, so that was one thing that is very true about the lyrics of the song.
But then there’s a refrain that comes up twice in the song that I never really put two and two together with, even though it should be obvious for everyone.
If Chicken Little tells you that the sky is fallin’
Even if it wasn’t would you still come crawling
Back again
I bet you would my friend
Again and Again and Again and Again and a-
“Crawling back again” was the line that first hit me for social reasons when I listened to the first instance of this in the song, but then it started weighing on me about Chickie Little and the Sky falling. It’s talking about those who are determined to say that things are all wrong with the world — they’re too this, too that. Too much pollution, too much taxes, too much drug use, too much sex, too much media, too little intelligence, we’ve strayed to far from the church, we’ve got too much greed, too little oil, too few resour—
Hold it right there.
Something actually happens to be right in the world and even when we throw out politics and politically correctness and religion up to our asses. Everyone on either side off an issue knows the issue is wrong because they are experts on the issue and don’t want you to see the truth if it doesn’t fit into their billing. I don’t want to bring up any of my own political beliefs with this because I believe the song right now more than I believe in politics. More than I believe in government. More than I believe in religion and more than I believe in people.
Livin’ On The Edge
Hudson, Tyler, Perry
There’s somethin’ wrong with the world today
I don’t know what it is
Something’s wrong with our eyes
We’re seein’ things in a different way
And God knows it ain’t his
It sure ain’t no surprise
Livin’ on the edge
Livin’ on the edge
Livin’ on the edge
Livin’ on the edge
There’s somethin’ wrong with the world today
The light bulb’s gettin dim
There’s meltdown in the sky
If you can judge a wise man
By the color of his skin
Then mister you’re a better man than I
Livin’ on the edge
(You can’t help yourself from fallin’)
Livin’ on the edge
(You can’t help yourself at all)
Livin’ on the edge
(You can’t stop yourself from fallin’)
Livin’ on the edge
Tell me what you think about your sit-u-a-tion
Complication – aggravation
Is getting to you
If chicken little tells you that the sky is fallin’
Even if it wasn’t would you still come crawlin’
Back again
I bet you would my friend
Again & again & again & again & again
Tell me what you think about your sit-u-a-tion
Complication – aggravation
Is getting to you
If chicken little tells you that the sky is fallin’
Even if it was would you still come crawlin’
Back again
I bet you would my friend
Again & again & again & again
Something right with the world today
And everybody knows it’s wrong
But we can tell ’em no or we could let it go
But I’d would rather be a hanging on
….
Livin’ on the edge
Livin’ on the edge
Livin’ on the edge
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Livin’ on the edge
{You can’t help yourself)
(You can’t help yourself)
Livin’ on the edge
(You can’t help yourself at all)
Livin’ on the edge
(You can’t help yourself)
(You can’t help yourself)
Livin’ on the edge
(You can’t help yourself)
(You can’t help yourself)
Livin’ on the edge
(You can’t help yourself from fallin’)
Livin’ on the edge
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Yeah, you got to that now
© 1992 Swag Song Music company
Road to Nowhere – your tax dollars at work
Even by the standards of Alaska, the land where schemes and dreams come for new life, two bridges approved under the national highway bill passed by the House last week are monuments to the imagination.
One, here in Ketchikan, would be among the biggest in the United States: a mile long, with a top clearance of 200 feet from the water — 80 feet higher than the Brooklyn Bridge and just 20 feet short of the Golden Gate Bridge. It would connect this economically depressed, rain-soaked town of 7,845 people to an island that has about 50 residents and the area’s airport, which offers six flights a day (a few more in summer). It could cost about $200 million.
The other bridge would span an inlet for nearly two miles to tie Anchorage to a port that has a single regular tenant and almost no homes or businesses. It would cost up to $2 billion.
These “bridges to nowhere,” as critics have dubbed the two costliest of the high-priority projects in the six-year, $275 billion House bill, are one reason Republicans are fighting among themselves in shaping the nation’s transportation spending.
This simply enrages me.
The transit infrastructure of the Continental United States is said to be falling apart. In areas of dense urban populations, like New York, they are scrounging for cash to pay for transit developements such as building subways or new thoroughfares to relieve congestion in inner cities. Lord knows there are also plenty of highways in the US that simply need repaving, if not total redesign because of local sprawl (see US 19 for example).
But here we have someone from Alaska on a key committee and he pushes for bridges that will lead to no where. That will do nothing to aid these areas besides providing jobs during the construction of the bridges. This is the epitome of wasteful spending that every American should be infuriated by.
I’m big on a lot of things that can be considered pork — the Space program, medical research, and I guess other stuff on a case-by-case basis. But these bridge proposals in a time when the US Deficit is at an all time high, is just insanity.
Just write already!!!
Here I am — someone who can blog through his ass and back again and a wanna’ be story teller and what has happened? My shit attitude on top of some creative shortcomings has limited me when it comes to actually doing any writing.
I’ve struggled with a few paragraphs of an existing story… A story I need to finish which is dragging on. Me and Tim did some brainstorming what could happen to close out the story and we came up with a conclusion That I think I can work with…
Or can i?
The most difficult thing in storytelling after figuring out what you want to do is getting there… And once you get there, how you are going to draw your story to an end… It’s especially tough when you write about real life or something that could have happened in reality. Reality doesn’t end with “The End”, it goes on and on and a story can be drawn out into more stories or additional info about a tale.
I was stupid enough to paint myself into that corner when I started writing this fable which I am semi-proud of.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to get my ass in gear and try to finish this thing up.
The Melody and the Music
Someone close to me once told me that a lot of the current music out there makes you want to get up and dance. They were obsessed with Lenny Kravitz at the time (and remembering a song from High School that Lenny was wailing at the time I broke in, I can understand why) and of course I get to deal with Michelle being a music junkie of a friend too but I just can’t grasp the music and these times.
Why?
I posted on here a couple of days ago the lyrics to God Only Knows by the Beach Boys. I also have been playing the MP3 repeatedly along with some other stuff by the Beach Boys… It’s a good compliment to the Beatles, I guess, seeing that the music is fine and the lyrics can be clearly heard. The melody carries and you get lost in the lyrics.
“An endless refrain of Na-Na-Na’s” is how I’ve described the Beatles (Hey, Jude) and to describe the Beach Boys, it would be something outside of that but the same emphasis on the melody to go along with the music (“Mmmbop-bop,” perchance? Sounds like I am talking about Hanson but I’m just trying to give you a clue that I am talking about some of the backing vocals on Good Vibrations). You hear the name and you start thinking of surf music and I hate that. But even THAT had an emphasis on the melody. The problem was that it was vanilla flavored music.
So I’m thinking a lot about what I like and then I am thinking about what I get to see from music today — I don’t see a lot of innovation, I don’t see a lot of melody. I see a lot of performing and I see a lot of jamming but to find a pop song that is by an original artist, has a good tune, a backing melody… It just seems like it’s not going to happen. That’s my ignorance being re-introduced to sound after years of silence. I won’t totally grasp everything I hear but I know I can enjoy some of it.
One thing I know I like is a clear and concise lyric to a song – and a lyric that isn’t covered with slang in order to add grit to the song. I was reading a thread on Skyscraperpage about favorite lyrics and some of the shit posted is…. well, shit! ” Nigga’ ” “Fuck” “Bitch” — they’re all key words in some of what’s popular with young people today and it’s like these kids never heard MUSIC before… I mean something that blows them away. Something where they can see a couple of layers of music in the music and enjoy the song for what it possesses…. The MELODY, not going-through-the-motions singing. Not a beat box driving a song.
I might be praising songs for being clear but it’s not like I respect the canned-singers that are all voice and nothing else. I’m not a fan of American Idol-like pop where you just sing and have someone else write lyrics for you and someone else perform the backing music for you. Part of the reason I have such an affinity for the Beatles is because they did everything on there own. Brian Wilson was and is one of the Beach Boys and did a hell of a lot on his own but also had help here and there… So they are in the same area. U2 does it on there own. Nirvana did it on there own… But then again, Nirvana played loud and hard. U2 has one clear vocalist…
Good music in general makes you want to get up and dance, get up and sing… SO most of my opinions are worth shit because I’ve had every single type of music want to make me sing and dance… But I know my oldies are easier to touch and appreciate because of there ingenuity and their inventiveness… You can’t find musical inventiveness like this any more and if you can, I haven’t been made aware of it.
Even the fans are in Spring Training — in understanding baseball
Keith: Rain?
Keith: First fucking baseball game of the year, and it has to Rain in Florida?
Keith: bah! A Pox on the state of greyhairs!
John F.: rain?
John F.: are you serious?
John F.: it’s sunny here
John F.: was it yesterday? It was sunny THEN too
Keith: http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/scoreboard ESPN has all games in a rain delay
Keith: Or, they are testing their “R” key out
John F.: R stands for RUNS
John F.: LMAO
Keith: (blush)
Keith: fuck
* Keith goes back to bed
Backbeat
I used to own Backbeat back before I went to DVD in 1998. I started a VHS ban when I bought my DVD player in 1998 and that basically shut me out of watching my Backbeat video. Polygram Entertainment didn’t have the movie on DVD until just last year…
Well, I have it right now — rented it form Netflix.
I can go into detail about the synopsis of the film but that’s not exactly what I want to talk about. What I wanted to talk about because of a scene that just passed was John Lennon and how not only the movie portrayed him but how I know him from what I read… How different he is from myself but how much of the same he is too.
I’m into astrology a bit and I like Libras from what I have encountered. I know I can fight with Aries, I know I can have a good time with Gemini’s and Pisces’s, but it’s Libra’s that I can most identify with… I feel sort of a kinship with them even though we come from different backgrounds and different trains of thought in life – it all comes back to certain underlying personality traits to me.
John’s a Libra — Born 2 days after myself — well, but 39 years before me…
At any rate – there is a rage in Lennon in this portrayal by Ian Hart (who does an absolutely superb job. He looks like Lennon as a teen in the famous Wooten-Fete photograph) which coverts up known facts about Lennon – his insecurity, his troubled past. John’s father left him when he was young, his mother left him as well — dropping him with his Aunt Mimi.. She (John’s mother – who was immortalized in the Beatles song Julia) was later killed when she was hit by a car. John often covered this sense John’s anguish – his loneliness — is displayed well by Hart, especially in the face of the possibility of losing best friend Stuart Sutcliffe to a local girl (world famous photographer Astrid Kirchherr). The slow lose of Stu to love drives Lennon mad.
How many times have we all be jealous of losing someone to the world?
How many times have you been jealous having someone move on in life when you ant very much for them to stay?
I can identify with that quit ewell… But this isn’t the first movie that I could identify with one of the characters….
And to take John’s send off to Stuart and Astrid at the end of the movie:
Love me tender…. Love me sweet…. Never let me go…. Yiou’ve made my life complete, and I love you so…(followed by a “fuck it, lets go” )
Still on Team Dean
*sigh* — oh the Humanity…
John F. Kerry might be grinning like a schoolboy and John Edwards might be giddy too because they both have found new life after the Iowa caucus, but at the same time I have seen the Democratic Party take a severe hit. Mr. Dead and Mr. Inexperienced have gotten their new life and the villain — Howard Dean — from the Media’s take, is all but over as a candidate.
And if that’s the case, expect four more years of George W. Bush as president of the United States.
Look, this might look like sour grapes to certain democrats who see Bush as someone who HAS to get thrown out of office, no matter who it is facing him in November…. But the fact is John Kerry can’t carry the Democratic Party to victory in November. That’s been the case since he’s planned on running for President. Head to head, Bush would fleece Kerry in a general election not because of politics alone, but sheer personality. You see, Kerry lacks a personality… He comes off dead in both his looks and his attempts to show he has some shred of character. Riding motorcycles just won’t cut it, he comes off like Al Gore did in 2000.
Then there’s the “more of the same” dilemma to boot.
Kerry and Edwards are members of a group of Democrats who have failed to win over the hearts and minds of Americans as they have sat on Capital Hill. Not only have they failed on that task, they’ve failed to stand up for principles and values that are supposedly things that define the Democratic party. The fact they both voted for the Iraq war — and Kerry twisting the logic behind his yes vote shows his desperation to change history — is just part of the reason why I cannot bring myself to vote for either of them come November. It’s philosophical but at the same time, it’s personal. I’ve seen them both slander the lead candidate and twist his words, I’ve seen them both act exactly the same (in a non-impressive fashion) when speaking publicly…. More of the same, more of the same…
:puke
I don’t want more of the same. That was part of the reason I didn’t vote for Gore in the 2000 election — more of the same would have been scandals and his own flip-flopping on issues when speaking in public. Flip flopping specifically to seem more like his opponent and appeal to the moderates who were trying to guess who they would vote for. I certainly don’t want a candidate who is concerned about polling numbers and demographics when he tries to plot out how he would lead the United States. I want someone who’s not afraid to go against the grain, speak his mind, show some balls and kick some ass…
John F. Kerry, Joesph Lieberman, John Edwards and Dennis Kucinich don’t show that character… Al Sharpton may, but unfortunately he is also on the fringe. Howard Dean has consistently showed this and despite his loss in Iowa, despite the repeated airplay of his terrible Iowa speech blow-up, and despite what the media is saying, I still believe in him. I still back him… And I will continue to back him.
Heck, if Kerry or Edwards got the party nomination, I would sooner write Howard Dean in as where my vote was going than vote for them.
I believe in Dean.
One might get upset or urge me to think about General Wesley Clark, and for the most part — I’ve been thinking about him more lately as an alternative if in fact Dean is somehow eliminated in the near future (while Clark continues)…. The only problem with Clark is that, while he is knew to Politics, he comes off as a puppet of his advisor’s. THAT is more of the same as well — the same being George Walker Bush, the grand puppet of his advisor’s will… That isn’t something that appeals to me.
Dean appeals to me as being his own man… Someone willing to stand up and say “That’s not right!” and pick a fight over the issue….
Something Kerry failed to do.
Something Edwards and Lieberman failed to do.
Something Kucinich goes a little too wacky with his alternatives….
Something Sharpton needs to hone a little more…
Something Clark’s stances on aren’t always clear….
Something leading me to remain adamant that Howard Brush Dean, Medical Doctor, Former Governor of Vermont, is the one who should be the Forty Fourth president of the United States.
End of 2003 — thankfully
Hours left in 2003 and all I can say is GOOD RIDDENCE.
Between heart break, heart ache, hurt, physical difficulties, brain farts, anomolies, family fights, family plights, family deaths and trips to the vet, Bushisms, politics, unjustified wars, and even MORE bullshit, I am eager to see the year off and have hope that 2004 will be much more of a positive year for me and those around me than this year has been.
Here’s to you, 2003 — I entered you with optimism and exit you while in pain and misery…
Six years of Silence
You know, I was going to brush off this anniversary as another one that was a major milestone but also something I could forget because my day-to-day is busy enough without having to nit-pick at the past.
But it’s an interesting anniversary none the less — one that goes from silent to booming in 4 years and applies only when I’m lazy now.
I went deaf 6 years ago to the day.
I had an acoustical neuroma (egad, did I spell that right or wrong for the umpteenth time?) removed out in Los Angeles at St. Vincent’s Medical Center by doctor Derald Brackman and company… I woke up – not sure when, can’t recall what I was told in the past – with the only sounds in my head a constant tenninus and my own voice when I spoke. Of course, I hadn’t been able to hear much before that, as I had been constantly losing hearing in both ears since 12 or 13, but six years ago — my world went totally silent.
I can’t remember all the details – I checked in the night before to the hospital. I didn’t shave my head, like I should have done, and that resulted in a gnarly haircut… I do recall me quipping about the Big One hitting during the operation (“what happens then?” I asked those who were prepping me) and I can recall the immediate aftermath of surgery – being chained to a bed and being asked to touch my nose with my restrained hands.
Of course there is more to it – my life now with sound and the Auditory Brainstem Implant has beaten deafness. There are anecdotes from when I went deaf and the immediate aftermath to regaining my hearing in 2001 with the ABI… And of course me aborting setting up the ABI in March 1998 and delaying having sound back to begin with… but alas, that is for another time because my computer is in need of help.
Don't Chat For America
What does the word MODERATOR mean? What is it’s definition. Our good friends over at Dictionary.com have it defined as this:
mod·er·a·tor ( P )
n.
One that moderates, as:
One that arbitrates or mediates.
One who presides over a meeting, forum, or debate.
The officer who presides over a synod or general assembly of the Presbyterian Church.
Physics. A substance, such as water or graphite, that is used in a nuclear reactor to decrease the speed of fast neutrons and increase the likelihood of fission.One who, or that which, moderates, restrains, or pacifies.
The officer who presides over an assembly to preserve order, propose questions, regulate the proceedings, and declare the votes.
That’s just some of the definitions of the word moderator. In esscence, a moderator is supposed to step in and stop things from going to shit. THey are supposed to keep the fighting from happening. They are supposed to keep the balance.
I know this first hand, I administrated on FanHome.com, I moderated there before I administrated and got plenty of first-hand experience.
Why the hell these chat-heads can’t get the fucking clue what it means to moderate is beyond my. They don’t want to step in when one of the chat regulars starts blasting other regulars in the room. They “aren’t your parents” and they think everything should be dealt with in private.
Right, like someone who says “Fuck off, fuck you and don’t send me private messages” is going to deal with problems?
Lack of moderating shows cowardice by anyone on any web site that doesn’t want to be made to look like the bad guy. It’s just a fucking online world, people! You think some nitwit shoudl be allowed to bash the very people you are trying to coax into using your service? What are you, retarded?
This goes for any message board / chat room that you go into. You may tell me that “to go and stifle someone even if he isn’t being the best person in the world is censorship” is also something I believe is complete and utter horseshit. Censorship is when the first ammendment, in a public area, is silenced. To tell someone to restrain themselves in a PRIVATE web site, to step in and shwo someone physically that they are wrong for how they are acting by suspending them or booting them isn’t censorship either – it’s trying to kepe things worthwhile for everyone else.
Cops are supposed to be moderators. Constables of the Peace are supposed to keep crime down, keep the world livable for everyone else… Surely someone can’t complain that they are censoring you if you get arrested for a crime you commit… They broke the law, they infringed on someone else’s life.
Same goes for online chat. Or message board useage. If you break the law or infringe on someone else’s life, someone coming down on you should be expected.
And if moderators don’t have the balls to do it, then they should be canned.
It’s outrageous and ironic that htis is happening with Howard Dean’s campaign. He complains that the beltway boys in Washington won’t step forward and say / do shit against George W. Bush because they don’t want to look like bad guys. It’s the exact same with these nitwits who are overseeing chat. If they won’t step in and do something — why the fuck are they there in the first place? They sure ain’t moderating.
Hair Apparent / So I beg ya
Oh sweet Jesus, I got a haircut. .
Anyone who knows me, knows I tend to grow my hair in really long — a pretty good mop top. My hair was ratty and overgrown and not cut evenly (I had trimmed it twice myself and that was only to give me more visibility from my eyes instead of seeing hair) and generally was just a mess…
I’d give you a picture but I haven’t taken a picture in the longest time.
Now? Now I have a close cropped ‘do with no sideburns. Dear god — NO SIDEBURNS. I feel naked. I told the barber that I felt violated after I saw all my hair falling to the floor. It’s not just long hair, but it’s thick too (wonder if that will give the ladies any ideas? :tongue) and it was just… well, it was mine. Damnit, mine.
But now I am good to go another year without a haircut so :tongue j/k… I’ll probably keep things more closely cropped in the future, but who knows.
Meanwhile, I’m only 162 pages into Stephen King’s newest Dark Tower tome, Wolves of the Calla. I spent the entire day yesterday just sitting around in boxer shorts and reeding. The thing is over 700 pages long in total and that means I gotta put my nose to the grindstone with it.
I read slow though. Why? Because I enjoy it. I don’t shovel something into my brain, I savor it… Maybe that is why I am an impassioned, sensitive person? I savor what I experience — even if it’s negative. Does that make me a sadist too? :tongue I’d rather be a happy-ist, and of course those who have talked to me have seen me more like my old self lately….
Fire and Rain
I’ve seen fire and I’ve seen rain
I’ve seen sunny days that I thought would never end
I’ve seen lonely times when I could not find a friend
But I always thought that I’d see you again
Rejection
If I don’t already have enough of this in my life….
I was rejected from Glimmer Train Press’ Very Short Fiction contest. :sad
One down, two to go…
Abilities
Some people in the world will never have to experience the nuisance of a muscle pull or will barely notice it. Others will never have to go through the aches of a broken limb and the difficulties that transpire because of it. Some will never meet someone with Downs Syndrome in person or perchance will never see someone who is wheelchair bound – if you can believe that.
Some people will go through life never having limped around for weeks because of a sprained ankle. Some people will never know how demoralizing it is to go through the world in a wheelchair when certain places in the world do not consider you a person. Some people will never know how it feels to have muscles fail on you not from exertion but because of injury…
Some will go most of there lives without being in the hospital for more than a couple of hours to see a birth. While others won’t even comprehend or try to understand the limitations that people have and the difficulties these people have going through life.
Blind. Deaf. Amputee. Arthritis. Those are just some basic things that can limit someone…
The whole catch to this is trying to understand these people and the problems they face. Most of you — and I am assuming about the reader base — will never have to know some of these problems and I’m glad to know it. Others know it full well. Some can comprehend, some can’t. Some won’t even try and I pity them…. Others think they know it but demoralize in there attempts to help.
Here’s hoping you never have to go through some of the shit I am right now — struggling to do basic things, struggling to make my life feel normal (which it isn’t). Here’s hoping you can comprehend the difficulties that others face… And that you’ll know how to act (and not avoid, or look away) when faced with problems from others or even yourself.
Thoughts….
I’m thinking too much right now….
About my pager and the conversation I had today with Michelle who gave me props for the story I made mention of on here yesterday….
About Melanie’s new journal online – Which I recommend.
About the fact the Marlins just whooped the Cubs…
About how Mike was pissed when he found out I got him a 100+ dollar birthday gift last month (even though his Birthday was in August) and how he started nagging me for what I wanted for my birthday….
About Glimmer Train Publications and wondering if I am wasting my time waiting for them
About the truth, about the lies, about the silence, avoidance, dismmisal… The wall.
About how Bill just dropped me a lien from my old computer, set up in his apartment in Orlando. Unexpectedly but pleasant all the same.
About how it seems Bill already has the blaster worm. Damnit.
About “Peter’s Problem” — the fact it needs a title and the fact I need to get my ass in gear and finish writing that thing.
About the fact that there are other things I need to write that could lead to bigger things — vague, yes, but a previous post I made that is also vague is part of the explination…
About how I had no idea what to write today except song lyrics. I never heard One Headlight by the Wallflowers but I wanted to post the lyrics.
About ‘Round Here:
But the Girl on the car in the parking lot says, “Man you should try and take a shot
“Can’t you see my walls are crumbling?”
And she looks up at the building,
Says she’s thinkin’ of jumpin’
She says she’s tired of life,
She must be tired of somethin’!
‘Round here
She’s always on my mind
‘Round here (hey man)
I’ve got lots of time
‘Round here
We’re Never sent to bed early
And nobody makes us wait
‘Round here we stay up very very very very late
….
Oh man, I said I’m under the gun ’round here….
And I can’t see nothing. Nothing. Around here….
That’s what I’m thinking about…..
When you're strange
People Are Strange
(by J.D. Morrison)
People are strange when you’re a stranger
Faces look ugly when you’re alone
Women seem wicked when you’re unwanted
Streets are uneven when you’re down
When you’re strange
Faces come out of the rain
When you’re strange
No one remembers your name
When you’re strange
When you’re strange
When you’re strange
"The Art of…" Writing
SoN I’ve been giving a lot of people crap over the last few weeks aobut a story I had been working on – it’s a story I came back to about 2 or 3 weeks ago and just decided to finish with regards to finally putting the idea down on paper and … well, FINISHING it.
It’s a nice piece of work, IMHO. I have to thank Tim for helping me out with a suggestion for the end. Big props!
This is the first story I’ve written without being tied to Long Ridge. I’m still a student, but I did this thing on my own and I’m pretty proud of it. Just shy of 3000 words, so it’s a bit longer than most of my stories I have written so far, but there are required thoughts because I did something with this story I never do with my writing:
I wrote it in the first person.
This isn’t an autobiographical tale, of course. It’s about a guy who gets fired and puts off dealing with it and gets in more trouble with his life. If and when it gets published — big If seeing how many authors are out there — I’ll post it here. Maybe I’ll submit it to Glimmer Train before the month is over?
It’s a good story. Those who are interested in reading it — just drop me a line.
Now all I have to do is get back to another couple of stories — Peter’s Problem for instance – which I am trying to write about in a notebook offline seeing I have reached an impasse with the story on my computer.
*Sigh* escape.
Just a little taste — part two
In a previous entry, I had given the opening of an ongoing story I am writing that hasn’t yet reached it’s end point and hasn’t yet been edited.
I think some people read that piece of writing and jumped to the wrong conclusions and got on me in part for it — others were just bored to shit and didn’t know what to make of it.
I’m posting the next little snippet just to keep myself occupied….
Read More
Night note
I was right… :rolleyes
Anyway, my day was bah humbug for the most part. Not that I was sour towards my birthday or things happening but nothing much happened. I DID however have a kick ass workout and surprised my trainer with my strength. That made me feel good for the entire day.
I also had a couple fo dreams last night that I am still trying to understand. I can’t remember all of them but I know I won a writing contest… no, correction… I came in second place (as “stonegauge” — not as my real name) and had money coming to me. I then had a bunch of stuff happen and I snuck off — grabbed a gun from someone and went to deal with Mexican revolutionaries inside a cave who were shooting a movie? Strange… I killed Pancho Villa and a couple of other guys… They thought the gun had blanks… sucks to be them huh….
Now if only that made more sense to me.
As of right now, 2 percent of the precincts in California are reporting and CNN and the media is declaring winners. This really pisses me off because they screwed up like this in 2000. Why declare it so early??
Well, I can’t say much more… Actually I could but it’s not my time to talk.
Another Glimmer Train contest
Poetry.
Anyone who knows me knows I did a good deal of poetry in my time and that I have a collection of some of my favorites on the site . I’ve been encouraged by others to go and have my poetry published and have tried in the past – only to be discouraged.
Well, I’m willing to give it another shot with Glimmer Trains LAST Poetry Contest.. I figure I have two outstanding (no pun intended) submissions with them as is, why not add a third or a fourth.
That’s where YOU come in though.
You see, I could easily submit one of my favorite poems on my poetry page to them, but I don’t know if that would be wise because it’s not the favorite that my friends have. Actually, I’m not sure what people’s favorites are on my poetry page. Give me your thoughts on this, I could use some guidance from people…
Slow Day
This was a day of surprise and un-accomplishments. A day of procrastination and aggravation along with laziness and hope. It was a day of knowing what i have to accomplish and not going out and doing it — you can be shown the door, shown the path, but only you can walk it through.
I know I have to get back to writing – I have to try to contact Lou Fisher once again and just let him know I am ok and all that. Long Ridge’s website wasn’t working well for me before and after my operation and I am hesitant to try-try-again. I haven’t even looked at Assignment 5 nor have I done an edit of Assignment 4 using Lou’s recommendations but I know i will have to put my nose to the grindstone soon on that.
I haven’t heard from PIF Magazine or Glimmer Train magazine with regards to my entries to their publications from last month — one was a contest entry and I shouldn’t hear back until November (from Glimmer Train) but PIF is supposed to be a monthly publication and I have heard crap from them.
So what was the surprise? Take the good with the bad. It was sort of wacky the fact I had thought to re-iterate to Sarah yesterday (but didn’t, mind you) that she can use my journal to vent any time she wants to. Lo and behold an email from her this morning saying she had done just that after a crappy night. The other surprise — of the bad sort — is my left leg continuing to be weak as hell. Not just that but the fact fo the matter is I don’t know if the leg is there, from how it feels, and it effects my balance and everything else. Walking is a burden with it because I can’t seem to control my knee or my ankle.
Yeah, bad news folks.
And you thought all my entries were going to start being of substance and quality again? Shame on you!
Mourn or Move on
I’m conflicted about tomorrow. Not conflicted as-so-much I don’t buy into the big thing a lot of the media will make tomorrow out to be…
A day of sadness, a day of mourning, a day of recollection, a day of worry, etc.
9-11 was a tragedy and the United States is doing a lackluster job both trying to avoid a repeat of such a tragedy as well as trying to move past that grisley event.
I’m not someone who wants to avoid the issue and dismiss what happened as nothing more than an event in life. I have saved video clips of the towers being struck specifically so I don’t forget. I would like to buy CBS’ 9-11 documentary because it brought back the fires in me over the attack every time I watched it….
But at the same time — I think it’s time we show we are moving on.
I start thinking about those who died in the attacks and wonder how they would take everything that has happened and after the shock wore off, they might get upset at how we are dealing with their memory and how we seem to die ourselves on this date (as we did with the 1 year anniversary), I think they’d be pissed off. Pissed off that there lives are memorialized though sadness.
While I was down and depressed the last week, I’ve been thinking a lot about “Hey Jude” and a reference to it that I made in “Ignorant Bliss” which is posted on my writing site. The song goes on in multiple layers with that endless refrain of Na Na Na’s at the end…. And it appeals to me with regards to 9-11. Why? Why should it? Because I am a Beatles fan? No, it goes beyond that — the song displays sadness and it also tells you that you have to go out and do and things will get better. Not just that, it shows UNITY at the end with it’s sing-along refrain… And there is strength in unity.
Something the United States has forgotten since the attack.
Six Flags Water Park
I was healthy enough to go to the wonderful Six Flags St. Louis park today, so I woke up at 8 am to my stereo. The week before I moved in, there was a blackout because a transformer had a problem. Today they were fixing the problem, and they pre-warned us that the power would be out from 6 am until 11 am today. So thank God I put batteries in my stereo before I left home, just in case. Otherwise my roommate and I would have had to wake up to a cell phone alarm.
Also, my dorm happens to be in the basement, and for one reason or another, they never installed emergency lights. As soon as you walked into the hallway, the only light was the exit signs at either end. The bathroom had some light in it, luckily, because of the window. About 45 minutes later, my roommate and two other girls from my floor were ready to go. I was thinking about grabbing my jacket, but then I decided that I wouldn’t want to carry it with me if I didn’t need it.
That was a mistake.
We got on the bus and you could tell it had been raining all night, and it was sprinkling. The sky didn’t show any hope for clearing off, but we thought it would surely stop sometime during the day.
The park was great because there were no lines. We rode Mr. Freeze, Batman, a Scooby Doo ride (you had laser guns that you could shoot at targets while floating through this ride..and yes, it’s made for little kids), Ninja, The Boss, and some other little fair rides.
However, the rain never stopped. In fact, it began to downpour. I didn’t have a part of my body or a piece of clothing that was dry by noon, and we weren’t going to be picked up until 5. The rain stung your face when you were on any fast moving ride so opening your eyes was unthinkable. We decided at one point to try to get out of the rain and go to a show. It was so cold because of the air conditioning that we left before the show even started. So we stood. We stood and waited under awnings, we found a place selling hot chocolate, and then we stood there for probably a half hour. Occasionally I would go to the bathroom and wring my shirt out because it was so wet.
Then we heard that the park was closing at 3 instead of at 8pm. But wait, our bus wasn’t coming until 5! We wandered around, riding some other things for another hour until 3pm. We found a pay phone and called the coordinator for the trip–thank God two girls I was with remembered the number he dictated to us on the bus before we left.
He said he’d call the bus company for us and be sure that it got there early. It was already 3, though, and we were at least 40 minutes from our school. We didn’t expect the bus until 4. About 3:20, we were told by a security officer to go out to the pavilion where people purchase their parking passes and wait for our bus.
No more than ten minutes after we had been moved to the pavilion, the coordinator for the trip showed up. He couldn’t get hold of the bus company. The dispatcher wasn’t working or some B.S. like that. So we were stuck there until 4:30, freezing cold and soaking wet.
So, now that I’m feeling healthy again, I only hope that today doesn’t send me into another sick spell. I have to admit though, today wasn’t a total loss. I met some new people, got to ride every ride I wanted without a wait, and had some fun doing it all.
Glimpse of Heaven
I saw a beautiful and rare sight today as I went to class at 8 AM. On my way towards the stairs I heard that it was raining outside so I grabbed a jacket out of my darkened dorm and made my way to the lobby of the Griesedeck Complex. It was my first time to see the campus after a downpour. The trees were dripping, grass seemed greener, and one could smell the dust that was beaten down in the rain. It was relatively calm all around. As I gazed across the campus skyline, I saw the powerful steeple of the University Church jutting into the air. It seemed as if a person could climb to the top of the steeple and leap into heaven. You see, the storm was building on the right side, and other ominous clouds were crowding toward it on the left. The sun could barely peek through, but the light that escaped through this gateway was brilliant and of a rich color. I think this morning while God was “moving some furniture around” (my excuse for thunder when I was little), St. Xavier, the patron saint of the church, was smiling on all of the freshman leaving Gries for their 8 o’clock class.
I’m sure everyone wonders who I am. John isn’t in college… he doesn’t live in a dorm. My name’s Sarah. This is my entry. John left this in my hands for the next couple days while he’s undergoing surgery and recovery. I have great faith that he will be back in only a few days and you will not have to deal with my crappy writing.
I’ll give you a bit of my background just for the hell of it basically….I’m from a small town in Illinois, just outside the Quad-City area. I’m 18 years old and I’m now attending Saint Louis University, home of the Billikens. Woo Hoo! My graduating class at home was 59, and I have twice that many people on two floors of my dorm. It’s and adventure so far, but it’s definitely an adventure that I’m learning to love. The paragraph above about the clouds this morning was written between classes of mine, and I decided to include it in here as kind of an opening.
John and I met in a chat room over a year ago, and although he never says my name in his journal entries, he’s talked about me once or twice. Actually more than that even. Usually I appear in here when we’re arguing about something..I don’t really like arguing with John because it takes so much out of me, but shit happens I suppose. I know he realizes this, and I do to….I always come back. It may take a few days, weeks or even months, but I do. Although we’ve never actually met in person, I think we probably will someday. I don’t know if he thinks that, but I still do.
Well, until tomorrow folks, take care and God bless. (And I promise tomorrow will be better!)
The day the earth stood still
The title of this entry says it all.
five days of rain once again…. Nothing much else to it all… Legs are failing, people are failing – I’m failing them as well.
Dejà-VooDoo than I Do
DejÃ-Vu.
Very, very dejÃ-vu…
See, about a year ago I had some things happening to me that made life a big worry… A worry much bigger than your day to day but not so incomprehensible that you would think I’m an alien or something like that (though the Men In Black would argue that)… It’s just something that hung over me much like a new job, moving, or some other great unknown worry would have this feeling of heaviness over you. There’s anxiousness and anxiety to go along with it and a question of just where this will take you.
That was a year ago and I’m repeating it this year.
Yep, John’s got a scheduled date for surgery now – Wednesday, August 20th at Tampa General Hospital. Pre-op on Monday the 18th. I’m thinking of other odd things going on — Bill’s sister is due to have her 2nd kid about that time and — it’s SO STRANGE because that is what happened last year while I was in the hospital.
Very strange, very deja-vu.
Of course this year I won’t be writing to anyone on the pager, telling them soemthing I should have told them the night before I had the operation…
…Nor do I think I’m going to be out of the hospital in 3 days. Hell, I don’t even know if I will be back to walking anytime soon after surgery. I’ve talked about my legs being weak as is right now – I got to imagine if everything goes fine I’m still going to have weak legs and on top of it I might have to “learn” how to use them again.
I don’t know if I will need rehab or what… I don’t know if I should be looking intot he ibot or the Segway because of future lack of mobility… (then again, I want to look into the Segway no matter what so that whole point is moot).
At any rate, after a night off from the computer, I’m writing again with another story… Maybe assignment 4, I didn’t look at the assignment as much yet but I’m writing with constraints just because. Sort of good story but I think it’s been done before…
Also, Melanie will be glad to hear that John got disc 5 of 24 season 1 in the mail. I may very well have that watched by the end of the day… God I love that fucking show
Disappearing Act / There Ain't No Comin' Back
Yes, I am back. Johnny boy went on hiatus but I didn’t leave you guys flat. Could you imagine me doing that? Never!
Had to take apart my computer and desk in general because the new one was set to arrive yesterday (it did — late) and I needed to just store everything in general because I couldn’t very well have both desks set up at once in this room. Impossible.
The new desk is nice — everything is so CENTRALIZED instead of being spread out on two seperate desks, it is awesome in that way! Though the color is sort of dull because it’s only one tone, it’s better than the pieces of crap I had been using as my desk. Now I have my Phone, my printer, my scanner — all on one desk. If I could find a place for my speakers, I’d have it made!
Anyway, just a short update for the sake of keeping it — well, short. I leave you all with my newest pissed off anthem that I penned weeks ago. It’s been availible on the web for a while (what site, I won’t say) but now I am officially releasing it to the world… To every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction – even if you can’t comprehend it.
There ain’t no comin’ back
There ain’t no comin’ back
Find my worth’s reduced to zero
Feelin’ less than a fuckin’ hero
Her silence tells the total tale
And there ain’t no goin’ back
There ain’t no goin’ back
Tore me down for the wreck I was
Ripped my soul without a pause
Singed my heart for a fucking cause
Chained me to your iron bars
You check to see that I’m “OK”
Wanting you in the baddest way
Now your crimes take away the day
Anything you say
Anything you say
Picked the lock and forged the key
Blessed by silent misery
Dwelt on pain and lost my way
Yet found some sun to stop the rain
The key to song is melody
The key to story is fantasy
The key to the soul is through the mind
The key to your panties is too much wine
You called me up the other day
Crying sorrows and whining pain
Tried to reach with a bit of tact
But hell, my dear, you’ve forgot a fact
You pissed on us and tossed away
Spit on memories every day
Shit on me and screwed the pooch
Wake up, honey! You were bound to lose!
So listen close to this lessons end
Your actions are nothing that you can defend
Don’t try to get me back on your track
‘Cause there ain’t no comin’ back
There ain’t no comin’ back
© 2003 John P. Fontana
No true entry because this old poem sums things up…
What Am I….
What am I supposed to do?
Just call her name
And get off the train –
Loneliness
Southbound
Cartoon Express
A fixture through the mess –
Her face, and my memory there of
And the desires unquenched
As the fifth Beatle
Who has never crossed Abby Road
Artfully dodging –
Responsibilities
That take place in love:
Speak
Feel
Express
Not repress
To me It’s all a fantasy
Like a child going through a toy chest
© 1997 John P. Fontana
Disturbed, Frustrated, Confuse-ed
Well, my day was mostly uneventful and I will get to that in a minute but I am having some trouble collecting my thoughts here…
*John rummages around his brain and tries his best to collect his thoughts*
OK, I think I found a writing concept for this journal entry that works — I should start at the beginning and go from there. The beginning is a good place to start, right?
I woke up this morning with a partial plan of action – I had to look into a job with a Dry Cleaner a few hundred feet from my house. I went there around lunchtime and I was basically told I needed to call someone to inquire about part time work with their company.
“Call” being the word that struck me out from that job.
So I am getting extremely frustrated right now with looking for a job – it seems like everything would either put me into a pointless job or would just brush me off because I am not a common member of society. I don’t hear great, I’m deaf, I’m not normal, I’m not right, I’m strange, move on soldier – move on.
I don’t even know if I should go into confused for sure…
Disturbed? Why am I disturbed? Well, lets just put it this way – the nation has turned blindly loyal to Herr Bush and his Bushshit regime, vowing that Dubya must be supported because “We are at war.”
Correction, my Fellow Americans, we are at “Police Action” seeing the United States Congress never issued a declaration of War on the sovereign nation of Iraq.
Iraq is supposed to have weapons of mass destruction and all these bad bad things and at the same time — the nation is being bombed to shit and they don’t use them to get the invaders? What’s the logic behind that? Maybe, just maybe, things were — GASP! — destroyed? Maybe, just maybe, this war is not — GASP! — justified? Maybe, just maybe, there’s a bigger threat in this world? Maybe, just maybe, there are problems in the US that won’t be solved with tax cuts? Maybe, just maybe, Dubya is evading them and riding this war straight to the polls?
I’m going to be sick now… :puke
Wall Off Wal-Mart!
Last night I finally got a good night of sleep after tossing and turning all weekend and getting up early. Nice refreshing change back to the norm – me sleeping in….
I went downstairs and I read the newspapers like usual and one of the top stories in the local “North Pinellas Times” section of the St. Petersburg Times simply enraged me. I ought to find something normal to get pissed off about, because politics and business (especially here in Florida) will be the end of me…
You see, Wal-Mart is proposing a new Supercenter along the bank of Lake Tarpon, which is entirely ridiculous. Where the building would be is not more than 10 miles from another Supercenter, nor is it 2 miles from a current Wal-Mart location….
The story’s headline? “Wal-Mart proposal includes traffic signal”…
You mean to tell me that a building that 1) adds to sprawl in North Pinellas, 2) hurts the environment, 3) Paves over a wooded RV Park and D) is useless, should make me feel more comfortable because they would add a TRAFFIC SIGNAL at their entrance point? Give me an f’n break!
I ended up going all out this morning over this – I emailed the stories writer with a complaint that he did not include the information that the proposed store rests only a few thousand feet from another Wal-Mart. I also went out and emailed my County Commissioners expressing displeasure over the proposal which now rests in their hands:
Commissioners:
My name is John Fontana and I’m a Pinellas County resident in North
Pinellas County. What I read in the newspaper today disturbed me and it
also made mention that the County Commission controlled the outcome of this
planned development – so I am emailing you in order to voice my displeasure
and concerns about what has been proposed.Walk Mart Corporation and Wilder Corp development have proposed a
Supercenter to be built adjacent to Lake Tarpon and U.S. 19 south of
Klosterman Road. While Wilder Corp argues about how the region suffers from
a lack of shopping (which has been their public argument since attempting to
build a Target and Lowe’s Home Improvement center on the property), it does
not seem to take into consideration why people oppose it and why residents
do not like the proposed.For starters, Wal-Mart has both a Supercenter and a standard Wal-Mart store
within driving distance of the proposed location. It is not a problem for
any resident to drive from Klosterman or points around the area to either
Alderman Road or Oldsmar where the locations of Wal-Mart’s stores are. The
proposed construction also adds more apartments to an already over-saturated
market here in North Pinellas. Innisbrook Resort gutted it’s property to
add hundreds of apartments within the last 5 years, and other Apartment
options surround the area…. Adding a new set of apartments would not just
drive down opposing apartment complexes value, but just continue to add
clutter to the sprawling North Pinellas area.Another problem with this proposal is environmental impact. Wilder Corp’s
plans would gut it’s wooded RV park and pave over the spot… It would also
disturb the Lake Tarpon ecosystem due to rain run-off that would end up in
the lake from the parking from both the proposed Wal-Mart and also the
proposed apartment’s.What is to become of the Wal-Mart that is currently located at Alderman Road
and U.S. 19? Would it be vacated and left to be an empty and ugly “box”?
Don’t we already have enough of these in the Bay Area and Pinellas County by
carpet-bagging developers? How much development are we going to allow to
tarnish Lake Tarpon? How many green-spots in Pinellas County are left to be
paved over with additional suburban sprawl? Is Wilder Corp’s vow to pay for
a traffic signal at US 19 and Cypress Pointe supposed to put my mind at ease
that my tax-payer dollars will not be spent on this? If that is the case,
it doesn’t. This development should be stopped in it’s tracks. There are
other uses for the property that are more sound than the current proposal.
That was sent to four of seven County Commissioners… I only pray they don’t just file this away and ignore the complaint.
I’m so sick of backing up and giving ground to large, ominous corporations…. I’ve done it with Sony and Apple Corp LTD…. I’ve bowed to the Corporate structure by getting a minimal job with Target Corp…. What’s next? I have to name my first born Microsoft Fontana in order to get to use Windows XP 2.0? Or have UPC codes tattooed to my skin in order to be able to purchase items from a specific company? Will I have to move because someone wants to build a gas station on my property and the County uses some hidden law to evict me? I want to fight it, I want to lobby against it, I want to protest it… And yet I can’t find many like-minded people near me.
