My 2012 Wrap Up

2012 Wrap Up

  Well, 2012 is just about gone, and what a year it was. But like most years, when I come to the end of them, I’m not all that sad to see it go. It’s not that I’m rushing to get to the end of my life. Somehow I just don’t relate the marking off of days from the calendar with the passing of my life. A major disconnect there I know, but I think most of us might be a little guilty of that. We know there’s an end out there somewhere creeping up on us, but we don’t like to consciously acknowledge it. Anyway, here’s my wrap up of 2012. It was the first full year of my retirement from the working world rat race…I lost by the way…the rat won. But in my case it was probably because I let him - I’m a notorious underachiever. But with all my newfound spare time, I did manage to write two books and get them published on amazon.com. And I’m just wrapping up the third one as we speak. All those creative juices have been there all this time, but didn’t get turned loose until I retired. I traveled to the West Coast to San Diego this year to visit my granddaughter, Elyce. So now I have officially been to all three coasts of the U.S. of A. There’s still much of this country I would like to explore, but the chance of that gets slimmer and slimmer every day. But that’s okay. I love our little place in Ivanhoe, TX and am content to spend my remaining calendar days there. Now here’s a list of my favorite Movies, Books, and Music of 2012….

Movies: The Hobbit, The Avengers, The Amazing Spider-Man, John Carter, MIB 3, Skyfall, Seeking a Friend at the End of the World, Looper, and Prometheus. And in the animated category: Tangled and Brave.

Books:  Prides of Sol, Flight of the Solar Archangel, A Nepenthean Solution, The Children of Danu – Imperator,  Last of the Chosen, Knights of the Chosen, Voice of the Chosen, Time Travelers Never Die, First Time, Lost Time, Some of the Time, Saving Time, All the Time in the World, A Thousand Miles Away, The Nice Guy, The Return of the Nice Guy, Up to Bat, Last at Bat, TimeKeeperS, The Second Ship, Immune, Wormhole, Season Of The Harvest, First Contact (In Her Name), Evolution of a Sad Woman, Mercury Falls, Mercury Rises, The God Theory, and of course my own two books: World of Destiny Book 1: Rescued and Book 2: Dissolution.

Music: I’m not that into music anymore…don’t know why. Only album I bought this year was by the Piano Guys and I downloaded only two songs and they were Adele’s “Rolling in the Deep” and Bruno Mar’s “The Lazy Song” which I quickly dubbed as my personal theme song.

Favorite Food in 2012: It’s still Lasagna but, since I’ve been on a diet this year, my wife makes it with eggplant instead of noodles. Yummy!

Favorite thing to do: Sit on the front porch in the morning drinking coffee with my wife.

Favorite thing that happened: Or didn’t in this case…The World Didn’t End!

So from the above lists it’s easy to see where all my time and money go. And the list of books above just represents some of my favorites and only about a third of the ones I read this year. I love my kindle!

I would have to say that 2012 was a good year overall. But out with the old and in with the new as they say.

Goals for 2013: Finish book three and get it out there. Write a private eye novel. Spend as much time as possible with my wife, kids, and grandkids. Make new friends…not that the old ones aren’t good ones…it’s just that I don’t have too many of them (my kids and grandkids joke that I don’t have any and it’s not too far from the truth).  Keep love and peace in my heart and try to stay positive about the world when I don’t see enough of it there. Happy New Year Everyone!

Being a Grandparent.

                                 https://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=4616909253362

                                                             Grandkids & Great-Grandkids

  All of these kids call me Paw Paw. The above pictures are of my three granddaughters, Brittainey, Presley, and Elyce, and my great-grandson Jayden. Also are my granddaughter's two step-children Kody and Kinzley. The video link above is one of my nephew, Austin Landry's new baby boy, Liam being serenaded with a lullaby by his grandparents from Ireland. You know I've heard the phrase "the gift that keeps on giving". Well my two children, Krystal and Kaanan, were such a tremendous gift to my wife, Linda and I, and it has been one of those kind of gifts that just keeps on giving. The above little group of people give me so much joy every time I see them. They fill me with pride and love and so many magic moments. With them in my life, I would have to say that my life is complete. There is nothing else that I need to accomplish that is anywhere near as important or meaningful. I know that I have been blessed with the privilege of being Paw Paw to these beautiful people. I hope all of you have such blessings in your life. And I sincerely pray that all of mine and yours continue forward in the coming year happy and healthy.

Random Thoughts at The End of The World

Random Thoughts Before the End of the World

  Well, all my thoughts are a little random most of the time, right? So this is not so unusual. But with all this End of the World as we know it hoopla going on, I guess my thoughts are pretty scrambled right now. For one thing, it doesn’t feel like the end of the world. Today was a gorgeous day here in Southeast Texas. Didn’t look like the end of anything. No earthquakes, meteors, asteroids, tsunamis, polar shifts, or rogue planets and hey look, I can see the center of the galaxy from here and…nothing. Well some have said that we might go out with a whimper and not with a bang. I have friends who are actually looking forward to Friday as being the end for various reasons. Most are because they think this is what the Bible prophesied, and they are ready “to go home”.  I don’t know what their hurry is. We will all get there soon enough. Why rush it? Anyway, I have already gone on record saying why I don’t think that particular prophecy will be fulfilled this Friday. Anyway, I wonder if now would be a good time to buy a house? My son just did, and my daughter is contemplating doing the same. Now there’s optimism for you. Anyway, it does seem that the whole world has their panties in a bunch over this thing…even more so than they did when the calendars rolled around from 1999 to 2000. I slept through that one like a baby - not worried at all. And I will do the same this Thursday night. One of my favorite lines from a movie was spoken by one of the Viking warriors in the movie “Thirteen Warriors”. When their Arab friend was afraid before a battle against tremendous odds, one of the warriors asked him what he was afraid of. His reply was, “Death.” The Viking laughed and said fear of death was a waste of time. He told him that he could dig a hole in the ground and pull the Earth over him to hide, but if it was his time to go, Death would find him still. So he might as well fight and be unafraid. Sounds like good advice to me. I will not seek out death, but neither will I hide from it or spend one minute worrying about it. I am deeply saddened by the headlines lately. But I’m not too surprised by them.  I read the works of Reverend Thomas Robert Malthus a long time ago and knew that he was right. He put forth his ideas in the late 1700’s and early 1800’s when most people believed that society would evolve and continue to grow and perfect itself to the point of someday reaching a utopia. It was what most men believed, and a great deal of the impetus for men to leave Europe and come to the so-called New World was to set up just such a utopia. Today’s headlines are just more proof that Malthus was right and the utopians were wrong. Malthus pointed out that when man’s numbers became greater than his resources disease and famine would shrink his numbers back down again to a more manageable amount. If that didn’t happen fast enough, we would rend and tear at each other achieving the same result. There is a lot of rending and tearing going on in the world today. And you don’t have to be a prophet to see that it will only get worse. So if in the middle of all of this, you can still call yourself an optimist you are blessed among men. Or just plain bonkers! I’m not so sure yet which it is. But I will remain ever hopeful that we will somehow find our way. In the meantime, I’m not going to take life too seriously. After all, no one gets out of it alive anyway in the long run.

Karma (Part 2)

                                                             Karma (Part 2: Misconceptions)

 In part one; I talked about the common idea of Karma. But this idea is not the reality of what is believed and taught about Karma by Buddhists. To them karma is the accumulated effects of all your present and past actions upon the person that you are today. If you do or have done evil things, those acts of volition will taint your existence both now and in the future. Likewise if you have done good things. But there is no idea of being punished now or in the future for this behavior.  You just are what you are. But they believe that you can overcome bad Karma by always choosing to do good going forward. I’ve read things that sound very familiar when it comes to not being allowed in the presence of the Lord because your raiment is stained by sin and has to be washed clean by the blood of the Lamb before you can do so. Only in Buddhism there is no God who will judge you. Here is an interesting analysis from an article on Buddhism by Mahasi  Sayadaw:

“For instance, the table we see is apparent reality. In an ultimate sense the so-called table consists of forces and qualities. For ordinary purposes a scientist would use the term water, but in the laboratory he would say H 2 0. In this same way, for conventional purposes, such terms as man, woman, being, self, and so forth are used. The so-called fleeting forms consist of psychophysical phenomena, which are constantly changing not remaining the same for two consecutive moments. Buddhists, therefore, do not believe in an unchanging entity, in an actor apart from action, in a perceiver apart from perception, in a conscious subject behind consciousness. Who then, is the doer of Karma? Who experiences the effect? Volition, or Will, is itself the doer; Feeling is itself the reaper of the fruits of actions. Apart from these pure mental states there is no-one to sow and no-one to reap.”

 What I get out of all this is that what they are basically saying is that you are ultimately responsible for your own actions and by them receive your rewards or misfortunes. And that these rewards and misfortunes accrue over many lifetimes. Bottom line is that this philosophy doesn’t sound all that great to me and, except for the recurring lifetimes, not very different from what the atheists would have us believe. And furthermore, it is overall pretty pointless if the ultimate goal is just to become a spotlessly perfect human being who is always doomed to die and gets to do it all over again.

  So no, I’m not buying into the idea of Karma. And as I said before, the idea of reincarnation may be tempting, but I’m not selling the farm just yet to invest in that one either. I believe something else may be at work here that we don’t fully understand. I will keep my jury in the box and await further evidence. For now my faith in God will have to do. And with that comes the feeling that his plan is so much more and better than anything we can even imagine. 

Karma?

                                                            Karma (Part 1)

My wife jokes that she has bad key karma. It is true that she loses her keys a lot. But I hardly see where she could have done anything seriously wrong to a key in a past life so that she's having to pay for it now. Now as far as the idea of reincarnation - I've read many case studies of kids and people who remember details from past lives that are pretty convincing. So just maybe there might be something to that whole reincarnation thing. And all my life, even before I read the Bible or went to church (I sure didn't get any kind of religious indoctrination at home and never went to church until my aunt insisted when I was about twelve years old) I always felt two things that just seemed to be given without the need of proof or even questioning. First, I felt that there was a God, and secondly that I had lived many times before. In fact, I always had the feeling that I was here on my last go around and wouldn't be coming back here anymore after this one last time. Even as a five year old child I felt like an old person – tired of life and ready to get on with the next thing. Don't ask me where those feelings came from, but I still have them to this day. So although I may be tempted into believing in past lives, I'm not so sure about the karma idea. Let's say that I hit Johnny with a basketball and broke his arm in eighth grade (I did by the way), so that means in the next life lots of bad things will happen to me because of that. What would be the point of that? Its not like I can take back in the current life what I did in a past one. And where's the lesson I'm supposed to be learning? That bad things happen when you do bad things? Gee, don't you think your average run of the mill new soul would have learned that lesson in, oh I don't know, say the first two minutes after it was first created? I'm sure that simple lesson doesn't take many lifetimes to learn. At least I hope not. So okay, maybe that's too simplistic of a case. Let's say I killed someone in a previous life. So the idea is that in this one I'm going to live a life full of grief, pain, and deprivation? Maybe I'm missing something here, but don't we all go through periods of that kind of stuff anyway? So did we all kill someone in a past life? And what is the Earth shattering lesson we're supposed to learn from that...ah, if you kill someone...bad...you will suffer for it. Duh, that's not exactly rocket science you know? Are karma advocates saying that souls are basically stupid? And that it takes them many lifetimes to learn something that most children already know by the time they're five years old? So, okay, I guess you get my point by now. I'm not really buying into the whole karma notion any more than I do to that of predestination or fate. And before all you religious people out there start jumping on me about reincarnation have a look at what the Bible hints at on the subject. Isn't Jesus reincarnated? He was dead. He came back. And apparently in the flesh, wounds and all, because he let Thomas touch them to prove that it was him. Okay, technically he wasn't reborn as another person. So we won't count that one. But wasn't it prophesied that Elijah would come back which is who the Hebrews thought first John the Baptist and then Jesus was? And doesn't Revelations hint that Elijah and Enoch will come back and proclaim loudly on the streets in Jerusalem the truth about the Antichrist? Which will promptly get them dead again by the way. I'm just saying that maybe we should keep an open mind here. And forget about karma. Just do the best you can with what you have in the here and now. The way I see it, life was meant to be experienced and enjoyed surrounded by all the love and happiness you can manage. If that's not how you find it, then maybe you're just doing it wrong because you're too busy chasing material things. And in that case, you might have to come back again until you get it right. For the record, I'm not so sure that I have gotten it right yet either. I think Linda and I have been doing this tango for a long, long time and we keep screwing it up. Opposites do often attract, but they can be mutually destructive in the long run. Therein lies our challenge. But we're working on it.

Peace. Joy. Love. Hope. Faith. And above all Love to all of you. And Happy Holidays.

Will We Survive?

The Tragedy We've Become

One tragedy after another hits us like sledge hammers, wounding our collective psyches. We shed tears and our hearts bleed. But we soon forget and go about our business...until the next one. In the movie Matrix Mr. Smith tells Neo that humanity is a virus, a disease on the planet poisoning our environment and devouring our resources. When those resources get scarce we turn on each other. A sad commentary on mankind, but pretty accurate, nonetheless. Our religions don't save us from it. Our morals and ethics don't save us. Our laws don't save us. Science and rational thinking don't save us. In fact a very large percentage of our scientists and money works towards coming up with bigger and better ways to kill each other. We are our own worse enemy. In December of 2012, everyone is distracted by prophecies of doom brought about by, a comet, asteroid, rogue planet, solar flares, polar shifts, or Biblical Armageddon. All outside agents of disaster that we would have no control over. The sad truth is that the one thing that will probably take us down the path of extinction is mankind's own insanity. Something that you would think we should have outgrown or evolved away from by now. After all isn't self-preservation one of our fundamental instincts? Yet as a species, we seem hell bent on destroying our habitat and the whole human race. We – not God, not “it”, not “Them” but us. We are destroying us. And we are getting pretty good at it. I used to dream about how marvelous it would be to go traveling around like Captain Kirk having adventures all over the galaxy. But now the thought of us out there scares me more than anything else. We're not ready to be out there. There's something seriously wrong with us. We're flawed in a way that we don't seem to be able to fix. I know, you're sitting there thinking, “I'm not flawed. It's those guys over there. They're the ones that are flawed. I'm one of the good guys.” Hitler was definitely flawed maybe even insane. But what about a whole nation of people that followed him and allowed so many atrocities to occur. Were they not flawed as well? Surely a few million good people could have stopped one madman. But they didn't. Twenty five thousand people die every day from hunger on planet Earth. Gigantic grocery stores are filled to the max with food. Warehouses and granaries overflow, yet still they starve and we do nothing. Wars rage all over the world non-stop in one part of it or another and the threat of a total all out nuclear war is always a possibility. Are we insane? Maybe as individuals we're not. But mankind when weighed as a whole would definitely tip the scales in that direction. So do we deserve to continue? Should we survive? If I were God looking down upon the Earth, I would say absolutely not. I would get rid of humanity and let the dolphins have their turn. Will we survive? I would never count mankind out, because we have this amazing ability to adapt. But we cannot survive as we are today. We must change. And we don't have time for something like evolution to do it for us. We have to take charge of our own evolution. We must change ourselves before it is too late – before we join so many other species that have gone before us into oblivion.  

Believe it or Not

Believe it or Not

  I’m often challenged these days on my reasons for believing in a creator or God, if you will. I’m not ignorant when it comes to science after all. I’ve read Darwin and his theory of evolution. I know the universe has been around for over fifteen billion years and the Earth has been here for a good portion of that. I do agree that micro evolution or adaptation of species occurs. But I don’t see any evidence of macro evolution and strongly disagree that it happens. I think that scientists assumed that it occurred even without the evidence because they didn’t want to believe in something they couldn’t test in a laboratory and they find the notion of God abhorrent. But like I’ve heard many times, you know what happens when you assume things? It makes a you-know-what out of U and Me.The popular notion is that random mutation is the impetus behind macro evolution. Yet every experiment I ever read about where fruit flies or what-have-you have been purposely mutated, the mutated subjects are ill-equipped for survival and die out quickly. And, at any rate, said mutations are always unable to reproduce.  Anyway, I don’t want to argue the point here. But it is the season after all when such matters come to the forefront. I see many of those same people, who argue with me about my beliefs, celebrating Christmas. The attempts to separate Christ from Christmas are really pretty ludicrous to me and are mostly done to promote rampant commercialism so you can HO, HO, HO your way to being PO, PO, PO. It represents a sad state of affairs to me, and would be a prime example of devolution rather than a case for evolution as far as I’m concerned. And yes, I’m aware that even while I’m shooting holes in their theories they can shoot just as many in mine. And that they can point to history and say look what religion has caused in the past. I would have to agree with them. Evil things have been done in the name of religion. Evil things have also been done in the name of science and are continuing as we speak. Neither of which has anything to do with God. Rather it’s only a sad commentary on Man. So why do I believe? I looked at both sides of this argument for all of my adult life and pitched my tent at various times in one camp or the other. But after years and years of wrestling with the issue, I finally realized that there is no easy answer. The question will never be completely resolved by reason alone. Perhaps it was meant to be that way on purpose. To me, it seems that this is why we’re here in the first place – to make a choice without concrete evidence. For if you had concrete proof handed to you on a silver platter, you wouldn’t be choosing. You would be given the facts and just have to accept them whether you liked it or not. I hope my children choose to love me, and don’t just do it because they have to. Once I realized that the choice was simple, I just chose to believe. Once I did so, it took away a whole bunch of fear and anxiety that my life is better off without. Peace of mind is not a bad thing to have. I will never tell you that your choice is wrong. It is why you’re here and you are free to make it either way. But I am happy with my beliefs. And I will wear them like armor against all of life’s slings and arrows not to mention a few barbs occasionally flung my way from those who have chosen the opposite side.  

Free Chapter

                                                            

Here is chapter one of my third book in the World of Destiny series:   

                                                         CHAPTER ONE

   “What?” Trevor asked incredulously as they climbed aboard.

  Mary repeated the message and relayed the sketchy details as they came to her.

  “I don't think I “heard” you right, Mary. There must be something wrong with this thingy you put in my head. I think it’s malfunctioning.”

  WE HAVE FOUND GOD, Mary reiterated.

  Trevor told the others about Mary's message. They looked as dumbfounded as he was. None of them quite knew what to say.

  Apparently, one of the ships that had been long-lost had recently returned to Mary’s world--Trevor noted that they needed to stop doing that...Mary's world needed a human name too. It reported meeting with the Supreme Being, aka God. A delegation was being put together to retrace the ship's steps and meet face to face with the Creator of all things. Georgia and Mary had been asked to join the delegation.

  “Can we go, too?” asked a skeptical Trevor.

  Mary only hesitated for a few seconds and then replied, Yes. You may go with me.

After a brief discussion, it was decided that Trevor, Harella, Amir and Sarah would go with Mary to see what all this fuss was about. Flint, Freddy, Wynnie, Jovi and Alex were pretty much of the same mind. It had to be some kind of mistake or misunderstanding. At any rate, they were not up for another space adventure just yet. They were only too glad to stay behind on this one. It was too good to be home to think about running around the universe looking for some mythical character that none of them even believed existed in the first place.

  Jovi opted to go back to stay with his father again, while Freddy, Alex, and Wynnie would go with him so that they could reunite Alexander with his long lost brother. Freddy was actually looking forward to seeing the look on his father's face when he showed up with his uncle.

 Trevor asked if they had time to swing by Father Joe's for a couple of reasons. First of all, Trevor wanted to share his future plans with Father Joe about building a house near his. Secondly, he knew the good Father wouldn't want to miss this trip for the world (or worlds!)

  Father Joe was thrilled to see them all. When he heard where Trevor was headed, though, he didn't hesitate and insisted on coming along for the ride. Although he was certain that the ships had made some kind of mistake, he still wanted to go along and see what this was all about.

  “You can't just get in a space ship and go see God whenever you feel like it,” he chuckled. “This is just crazy.”

  But there was no persuading him to stay behind. He was going, and that was that. Mary seemed to be in a rush to join her companions, so it was determined that they would leave everyone who wasn't coming there at Father Joe's place. Freddy and Alex seemed to be the only ones a little disappointed by this since they were in a hurry to get to Dardie's place. Flint, however, was delighted with the idea. He promised to lead them to Riverside and get them there safely.  After that, Flint told them he planned on striking out from there on his own. Flint wanted to do some exploring and felt the need for wide open spaces once again.  Father Joe told the ones that were remaining to stay as long as they liked in his home. They assured him that it would only be for the night so they could rest up and gather a few supplies. They intended to leave first thing the next morning. Father Joe told them to help themselves to any food they wanted to take from his stores since most of it was perishable anyway and would be spoiled by the time he got back.

   “Just water all my plants and garden before you leave. Oh, and feed the meercat that comes around every morning. It loves cheese. On your way out of here let my one and only neighbor know where I'll be. He will take care of everything after you're gone,” Father Joe asked.  He was a little worried about leaving his new pet to fend for itself. The small mongoose-like animal reminded him of a meercat even though its fur was a dappled red in color. He had been feeding it for a month now and hoped to eventually domesticate it. Father Joe missed his pet tabby cat from back home on Earth and thought this species would make a good substitute house-pet if he could get it tame enough. He enjoyed the way it stood up and begged for food. It had taken him quite a while to earn the shy creature’s trust to be able to get close enough to feed it by hand.

  After many hugs and good wishes, the two groups parted company. Flint and the ones remaining disembarked and waved to their friends as the ship’s ramp pulled up and the door closed slowly. Mary rose up into the brilliant morning sky majestically, and then waited for Georgia to join her. When her sister ship showed up finally, they whisked off together into the heavens gleefully headed to the portal singing their mission to the stars. They would be rendezvousing with several of their companions on the other end of this wormhole.

  Just after they drank down their sedatives and snuggled up together in the bed that Mary had provided, Trevor put his face near Harella's ear and whispered, “I think I love you!”

  Harella smiled, and whispered back, “It’s about time!”

  They were both asleep within seconds. The deep, chemically-induced sleep was necessary to protect them from the built in backlash of the wormhole. Mary still wondered about the engineers who built the wormhole system that permeated the galaxy. They had obviously been very advanced and adept psychics who didn’t wish anyone but fellow psychics taking advantage of their handiwork.

  Mary could sense the presence of the wormhole entrance when she got near enough to it. The wormhole broadcast a psychic hum into the ether in every direction. It was only necessary for her to send a telepathic thought back towards it for the wormhole to blossom open before her like a flower opening to the morning sunshine.

  Mary dove into the mouth of the wormhole without a moment’s hesitation. She was followed by Georgia moments later. The two sister ships disappeared from this region of space, and the wormhole closed up again behind them.

Killer Robots

                                                           The Three Laws (+ one):

     0. A robot may not harm humanity, or, by inaction, allow humanity to come to harm.

1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2. A robot must obey the orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws.

Sounds like good rules to live and let live by, right? A rational society beginning to build intelligent, independently functioning robots would be bound to incorporate such laws into the basic programing of their artificial creations. A society who would build such devices without such restrictions would have to be insane and hell bent on their own destruction. Isaac Asimov was one of the first visionaries to explore the ins and outs of human/mechanical relationships. Though these three laws sort of evolved over the course of some of his earlier short stories, they came to full fruition in his The Caves of Steel, The Naked Sun, The Robots of Dawn, and Robots and Empire series. These were my favorite books growing up and inspired me to write my own sci-fi stories. Although I’ve already gone on record saying that I don’t believe we will ever create a totally self-aware robot, it seems we are on the verge of creating some that can at least function independently from human control. It appalls me to learn that no such laws as the above are even being considered to be part of these robot’s programing. And that they are being specifically built for the monstrous purpose of unsupervised combat by DARPA. You can read about this outrageous endeavor here: http://www.thecommonsenseshow.com/2012/12/05/nowhere-to-run-or-to-hide-from-the-new-killer-robots/

  Now I ask you, is it too soon to start a grassroots movement against such insane use of technology? We need to get a petition going to stop this development in its tracks, and to insist that any independently operating robots be hardwired with the unbreakable directives listed above. If we don’t stop it now, someday we will be fighting that war against Sky Net and its machines. And we will lose!

Please go to the "We The People" website and sign my petition against independently operating killer robots:
https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/stop-darpa-or-any-other-organization-creating-and-using-robots-can-function-independently-human/cwnBlrgg

Failure to Communicate

Failure to Communicate

 “What we have here is…failure to communicate.” That was a line from the 1967 movie “Cool Hand Luke” starring Paul Newman. I find it odd in this day and age of computers, cell phones, ipads, etc. that we still seem to often have a “failure to communicate”.  I bought my first computer in 1994 (Windows 3.1) and it was an amazing thing to me. It opened up a whole new world. I was living in Nashville, TN at the time and most of my family still lived in Texas. My father was the first to get a computer and encouraged me and my brother to do the same. We were fascinated by how easy it was to keep in touch via e-mail. Then my brother and I discovered MIRC. It was a chat platform quite a bit better than AOL’s chat lines. At first we loved chatting with people all over the country and even the world. But then they came out with tons of these little pictograms which were pictures made from the characters on your standard keyboard. That got annoying enough after a while. Then they came out with something called .wavs. These were bits of songs or music that you could post in your chat room and everyone else could hear it. Soon that’s the only thing showing up in the chat rooms. My brother and I created our own chat room…no pics or wavs allowed! Only chat. It was great for about a year, but it dwindled until my brother and I were the only ones still going there. I moved back to TX in 2000 so face to face communication was back in. I heard it talked about a lot around that time about how e-mail was killing the U.S. Postal Service because everyone was just writing emails and not sending letters anymore. I got big on email too for a while. Then all I kept getting was spam and forwarded “joke of the day” that I never read. I have the same email account I had back in the ‘90’s and it’s still mostly filled up with spam. No one writes anymore. I don’t think the Post Office needs to worry about that. E-mail got replaced by texting on cell phones. And so obviously did spelling and grammar. Now those will probably get replaced by something like Skype and writing will disappear altogether. There are already computer programs that let you talk to your computer—no need to type anything ever. I have a feeling that someday, my machine will talk to your machine and leave you and me out of the loop completely. The biggest problem I see, though, with communication these days is that if you take away idle gossip, most people don’t have anything else to talk about. Or they are afraid to express their opinions because there is a need to be “politically correct”.  People are afraid to talk about Religion, Philosophy, Politics, or even Current Events for fear of offending someone -- except on the internet where they can do it anonymously. And then they are called crazies. So if we communicate at all, we prattle on about nothing but mundane things. If you could put together a book with all your text messages in it from over the past year, do you think it would be worth reading?  So it seems to me, even though we keep coming up with better and better ways to communicate, we’re doing less and less of it.

Bowl of Cherries

A BOWL OF CHERRIES

  You know, my life hasn’t been a bowl of cherries or a bed of roses. All my picnics featured heavy doses of ants, flies, or mosquitos. And all my best laid plans just about always went awry. But looking back, I don’t think I would do too much of it differently.  If I did do things differently, I probably wouldn’t be where I am today. Yeah, right! How many times have you heard that said? Well, there are a whole bunch of things I would do differently, starting way up at the beginning of this rodeo. And yes, everything would be different, and I wouldn’t be where I am today. Maybe. Hindsight is 20-20, but after all the pain and grief I lived through and put some other very important (to me) people through, tweaking a few things here and there sounds like a good idea to me. So bring on that time machine, and let’s see what happens. I was a very shy kid growing up, and most of my childhood was miserable. Not too much I could change there except that if I could go back, I would slap myself so hard and make myself get over the shyness stuff. I had to do it eventually anyway. Not being shy would have at least made high school and dating much more fun. Next, and this one’s the biggy, is I wouldn’t give in to peer pressure and break up with my girlfriend before I went into the Army. I didn’t break up with her because I didn’t love her. I broke up because my buddies convinced me that no one would wait around for four years for me. She proved to be totally devoted to me, and I have no doubt she would have waited. She didn’t give up on us until I married someone else. I won’t go into details here, but from that point on my life was one big rollercoaster ride. It had its ups and positive things (my kids!). But it also had some terrible downs with long lasting consequences that affected me and everyone else that has ever been in my life. So yes, there are plenty of things that maybe I should have done differently. But since I know that you can’t go back and change not even one little thing, I resolve to just enjoy the rest of the time I have and try not to make too much of a mess of it. After all, life is messy, noisy, and very unpredictable. And maybe that’s the point of it. I often hear people complain and ask why God allows it to be so messy? Why does he let bad things happen? And since they do happen, those people chose not to believe in a God at all. I still say that heaven on Earth would be…well…boring as hell! So if your life is messy, and things always seem to go differently than you would like -- I say pull up your boots, plaster a smile on your face, and get on with it the best way you can. The rollercoaster always pulls into the gate sooner or later.

                                                 Life is just a bowl of cherries;

                                                 Don't make it serious;
                                                 Life's too mysterious.
                                                 You work, you save, you worry so,
                                                 But you can't take your dough when you go, go, go.

                                                 So keep repeating it's the berries;
                                                 The strongest oak must fall.
                                                 The sweet things in life
                                                 To you were just loaned,
                                                 So how can you lose what you've never owned?
                                                 Life is just a bowl of cherries,
                                                 So live and laugh at it all.

                                                 (by Lew Brown and Ray Henderson, sung by Ethel Merman in Scandals -1931)

Head in Sand

Not the End of the World

  If you’re one of those convinced that December 21^st will be the end of the world as we know it, shouldn’t you be getting really scared about now? Me personally, I’m not feeling it. I know how close we could be if someone does exactly the wrong thing. But hopefully, no one is crazy enough to unleash nuclear weapons on the world. Hopefully! But there are other terrors that could kill us all just as easily, and it scares me that some of those might be turned loose accidently. But unless it’s a totally devious sneak attack, I don’t feel it coming. Not yet anyway. Now for those of you who think Bible Prophecy will be fulfilled next month….hmmm – No. First of all, Daniel, Jesus and John said that there were several things that had to happen first before Jesus would come back. The main one is that a new temple would be built in Jerusalem where the old one was. There’s one problem there. The Dome of the Rock sits there already and would have to be removed before you could rebuild the Jewish temple. Remove it and that would assuredly be the match that would lite that particular powder keg. Also, there’s the matter of the two witnesses (Elijah and John it has been suggested) killed on the streets of Jerusalem for denouncing the Anti-Christ. And where’s the Anti-Christ in Jerusalem proclaiming to be God?  Haven’t seen any of this on CNN, so I wouldn’t think that particular doomsday scenario is in play yet. Now there are those out there that say we are not ending - just moving to the next level or vibration. I’m still not so sure what they mean by that, and I’ve read all about it. Supposedly we are currently on this fourth level of existence and, if we’re enlightened enough, will move to the fifth level on Dec. 21^st when the solar system exactly aligns with the galactic center. Ok. I’m still not sure what such an alignment would have to do with anything. And I can’t figure out how life would be any different if we were living on another level. Is that place going to be all rainbows and lollipops? I’m not sure because none of them are saying. So the world is not ending anytime soon folks. There are many real problems that we are facing, but not many are helping to put forward real solutions. I think as a country we all have our collective heads stuck firmly into the sand. Waiting for the end to come so we don’t have to work on the hard problems we are facing is not a real solution. I for one will be glad when this particular deadline has passed,

so we can get on with it.

Meat Robots

Mind Over Matter

  Most scientists and many of you out there think that we are nothing more than meat robots, born a blank slate awaiting input from our programmers (parents, society, etc.). Scientists keep probing deeper and deeper into our brains and its chemistry trying to pinpoint our consciousness or our minds. Not able to find anything to measure other than electrical impulses and chemistry, they postulate that there is nothing else to find. And they conclude that when we get here, our brains are indeed a blank slate: a computer hard drive with no operating system installed yet. I heard that same argument when I was in college taking Psychology 101. My professor never had any children, and I had two. I told him that if he had raised a couple of children he would know better. My two children were born with distinct personalities, likes and dislikes, and were completely different from one another. None of which was learned behavior. They manifested these differences in character from day one. So I wasn’t buying the blank slate argument even back then. Arguing the case from either perspective is pretty futile since both sides are pretty steeped in their own belief systems and not likely to come off them by one iota. I argued till I was blue in the face with my college professor, but when it was test time – I put what he wanted to hear…hey, I’m not stupid and I wanted that A. When I see a computer sitting on a table, I can’t look at it and imagine that it didn’t have someone that built it. And when it opens up with windows and says “welcome”, I can’t imagine that it didn’t have a programmer even though I never met one or saw one, but I know without a doubt they ‘re out there somewhere. But all that aside, I can’t help wondering that if we are simply meat robots, why were we programmed by evolution the way we are? It could have gone either way as I see it. We could have been completely rational solving all of our survival issues with pure logic and instinct alone. Why have emotions and feelings to accomplish the same thing? Emotions and feelings are so much more messy and unreliable at times. Why do we need to feel love, hate, happiness, sorrow, grief, etc.? Why would we need any of these at all? Wouldn’t it be better to let logic tell us to just run from danger, fight when it was unavoidable, leave our dead for carrion when the time came and move on. Why have feelings to muddle things up and blur the lines? I love sci-fi and the stories of self-aware robots are among some of my favorite. But I don’t care how much memory we give it, or how much programing we put into it, I don’t expect that there will ever come a time when we in fact do create a truly self-aware robot.

Red Dawn

     Will You Fight?

  One thing that bothers me a little about movies like this is that I'm sure that other countries have game planned the various ways they might come in and take us over. And I'm sure they've looked at every scenario they could think of. But just in case they haven't, its probably not a smart thing to give them any ideas. However, let's just say that another country like North Korea could come in without much of any kind of resistance from our military. For that to happen, our country would have already collapsed financially, and our military all went home because they weren't getting paid. Even then that scenario would not likely hold up, because you would probably get enough unpaid volunteers just from the great states of Tennessee and Texas to man up a pretty good size militia. And you're thinking that, oh, maybe they would do something like they did in the movie and disrupt our whole power grid. Well, I don't see how that would bother our military too much. They're pretty good at fighting in the dark. And I've heard talk of an EMP burst above the country that would take down not only the power grid but anything that needed electricity to run, like all types of communication (other than smoke signals), generators, cars, planes and trains. If you noticed in the movie vehicles and generators were still working. But even with the EMP thing, I know that our military has shielded darn near everything against such an attack. It wouldn't stop our nukes or most of our combat aircraft. So the EMP thing might cause a lot of confusion and panic in the general public but, as soon as we found out who was responsible, they would get nuked.
  But, hypothetically, let's just say they managed to get a sizable number of boots on the ground without much military resistance. Most people I asked said that they would fight if it came to a scenario like that. That's a pretty easy thing to say when you're sitting in your recliner watching the ball game or comfortably sitting in front of your computer contentedly pecking away at the key board. I'm not so sure there would be all that many that would actually take up all the weapons they could find and head for the hills (or marsh, swamp, or piney woods around here). Many of those that did, would probably just get themselves dead in a very short period of time. Let's just hope I'm wrong. Regardless, even if this scenario is a very remote one, would you really want to be caught flat footed and unarmed by your own government ahead of time? Think about it when you're going along with those in our government that want to get rid of our right to bear arms. I do not consider my self an extreme right wing sort of person. I am very liberal on some things, conservative on others and generally an independent politically. But I would never voluntarily give up my right to bear arms. Those that have historically, lost their freedom pretty rapidly afterwards. Our last couple of Presidents have steam rolled over us in the dark of night when no one was paying attention. Or they by-passed Congress altogether with Executive Orders and taken many of our rights already without much of a fight from any of us. But if you let them take the right to bear arms too...you will quickly find yourself someone's prisoner. Then you will be like the Palestinians throwing rocks at tanks and airplanes when they start poking and prodding you like cattle to get you to do their bidding. So my advice is to chose your battles wisely and hope you never have to fight. But just in case, you better make sure you have something in your hand to fight with.

Infinity

“To Infinity and Beyond”

  The quote above from Buzz Lightyear sounds good, right?  But could you possibly say anything more meaningless? To infinity? If a thing is infinite, by definition you could never reach it. It has no borders. And to not only reach it but go beyond, well that’s just absurd to the max.  As we speak, the whole question of infinity is still being debated when it comes to the size of the universe. To me that’s a little absurd, too, as by definition when you say universe you mean all of the cosmos. Is there anything else? But here’s the essence of the debate. Some cosmologists believe or have believed that the universe is infinite going out in every direction infinitely (no end or beyond anywhere). They essentially call this the flat or level universe. Modern day cosmologists and proponents of the so called “Big Bang Theory” envision a curved or round universe that expands, carrying space along with it, into a larger (who knows how large?) volume of nothing. The word universe comes from Latin where uni means one and verse (versus) which means turn into. So literally it means “turn into one”. Which is another way of saying everything we see out there is one thing. I’ll give you that with reservations. Anyway, I have a problem with the whole Big Bang concept in that it is described like a balloon inflating with a bunch of dots all over the surface of it. The dots (each one representing a galaxy) all get further and further away from each other as the balloon continues to inflate.  And what we think of as space is carried along with this expansion. Since we can only travel through space we could never go “outside” of this growing bubble to check and see what’s there (by their definition there is nothing there…no thing…not even space.) I often wonder that as we travel outward, what is left behind? The volume in the middle of the balloon…is it now space too or does it return to being nothing? If we had an unimaginably fast ship could we travel across this area and go directly to the opposite side of the expanding bubble from us? Or do we have to travel the circumference and go all the way around to get to the same point? And if we’re on the surface of the expanding bubble, when we look away from the center of the bubble, why don’t we see nothing but, well…nothing? Looking back towards the center we see the earlier versions of the universe as it was in the past supposedly. But if that’s the case, and as they say the light from that point has taken billions of years to reach us across such vast distances, then are we traveling faster than light essentially outrunning our own shadow? I thought Einstein said that wasn’t possible? As it stands today, it seems that when you point a telescope in any direction you find galaxies. Countless billions of them! They say that when you peer deep enough into space you start seeing things like quasars and proto galaxies and it is said you are seeing the past of our universe as it was many billions of years ago. Maybe. In that case how do we even know for sure what the universe looks like right this minute? Is it even still there as we speak? No way to tell for sure. We could just be riding along on a spark like an ember from a fire rising up into the dark night sky. Everything we see around us is just afterimages of similar sparks that have already faded into oblivion. The question is how long do we have before our spark too fades into nothing? The following passage is from Wikipedia:

 “If, on the other hand, the universe were not curved like a sphere but had a flat topology, it could be both unbounded and infinite. The curvature of the universe can be measured through multipole moments in the spectrum of the cosmic background radiation. As to date, analysis of the radiation patterns recorded by the WMAP spacecraft hints that the universe has a flat topology. This would be consistent with an infinite physical universe. The Planck spacecraft launched in 2009 is expected to record the cosmic background radiation with 10 times higher precision, and will give more insight into the question of whether the universe is infinite or not.”

I guess we will just have to wait and see what the evidence tells us. But for my money, I’m betting on the flat infinite model.

What in the World?

What is the World Coming To?

  From space, Earth is a beautiful place. Makes you glad you're already here, right? And when you visit places of beauty like mountains, beaches, forests, and lakes you take a deep breath and try to breathe in that eneffable something that you always feel when you're there. Just to take a little bit of it back with you when you inevitably have to return to your everyday, humdrum life. Where you live, its not so beautiful. The air is not so fresh and clean. Well, at least for many of us. There are a lucky few. But the world as a whole is still quite an amazing place. And yet we humbly must admit that it is only a small oasis in the vast desert of space where cold, hostile emptiness reigns supreme. Yet don't we all feel a tugging to sail that emptiness and see what else is out there? We can't even wait for our technology to catch up and make that dream come true. We keep building bigger and bigger telescopes to try and cheat and see what's there from here. Judging from the way things stand on Earth today, I would say we are not ready to go out there. How could we possibly offer our selves up in friendship to what ever kind of life we might find elsewhere in the galaxy when we can't even befriend our neighbors right here on Earth? When all men can sit down together in peace and plan our adventure outward, then we will be ready to make the trip. Until that day, our number one priority should be to get our own house in order. The world is our cradle, and we should learn to take care of it. What a great sadness it would be if we had to leave it before we were ready because we had rendered it no longer livable. Or worse, never got a chance to leave at all.

  With that said, how long can Mother Earth sustain an ever increasing human population? A thousand years, a hundred, a few more decades, or have we already reached the tipping point? Over 25,000 people die from hunger every day. I think the tipping point was reached some time ago, don't you? So as far as I'm concerned, I think its well past time for us to beat our weapons into plow shears. I hear all these theories that the so called illuminati have a plan to get rid of most of us as their way of solving the problem. And the constant beating of the war drums is just one part of that pogrom. Is that the best we can do? The only solution great minds can come up with? I hope not. My greatest fear is that either Mother Earth will turn on us or human insanity will before we put our heads together and figure this thing out. So where do we start? Do we wait for someone else to get the ball rolling? Or should we start making that effort here and now, just you and I? The problem is obvious. The sollution is not. Got any ideas? Lets hear them. There's a place below called "Comments" where we can at least nudge the ball and see if we can make it roll. So how about it?

Secede or Not to Secede

Should We Stay or Should We Go

  I have gone to the government website called “We The People” and saw the many petitions submitted there. The website states that any petition submitted there that gains more than 25,000 signatures would be addressed by the government. Many people from various states have posted petitions for their states to peacefully be allowed to secede. Most of them only have two or three thousand signatures so far. Texas, on the other hand, has 106,870 signatures so far and counting. The question has been raised, “Is it legal for a state to secede?” Many Texans think it is, but they are wrong. When the North won the civil war, they made it illegal for any state to secede going forward. This includes Texas. So the only way for that to happen is to fight another war and be victorious. Not likely to happen and we couldn’t win. So it all boils down to a lot of talk and wishful thinking, but it ain’t gonna happen folks. Not unless the country completely collapses, and then all bets are off. I fear, however, that in the event of a complete financial breakdown and collapse that some other more powerful nation would swoop in and take us over. Or perhaps the U.N. (our De Facto government anyway) would step in and do it. Which may be the plan to start with and the reason we will be allowed to crash and burn. So my advice is to not waste your time and energy worrying about or advocating secession. Better to try to work towards fixing the broken government we’re stuck with now. And quick, before it’s too late. If it’s not already.

Countdown to Dec. 21st

Countdown to Dec. 21

  I don’t know guys. I have mixed emotions about this whole end of the world talk out there. Honestly, if our time is up for real, I’m ready to go. But my gut tells me this is going to be another one of those Y2K scenarios. I have to confess that on Dec. 31^st , 1999, I went to bed a little apprehensive. I made no preparations, however, to face all the supposed doomsday prophecies. Worst case scenario, as far as I was concerned, was that my old clunker computer might not work when I woke up the next day. So first thing I did when I woke up on Jan. 1^st 2000 was to fire it up and log on. It worked just as well as it always did. The electricity was still on, and my bank card still worked at the bank. The whole thing fizzled. My gut tells me this coming winter solstice will come and go just like all the rest have. So don't postpone your Christmas shopping until after Dec. 21st.  

  I did read this one weird article that said that Dec. 21^st is a deadline given by India to the rest of the world to come clean on what they know about aliens and UFO’s or else they will. The article went on to say that even the aliens, that supposedly the U.S. has been in touch with and has treaty agreements with since the Eisenhower administration, have also given this date as a target date for making their presence known. If the world governments don’t come clean, then the aliens will. Now that is something to look forward to as far as I'm concerned. So, either the world is going out with a bang, or the aliens are coming. I’m cool with either one. How about you?

The Problems of Time Travel

As I See the Problems of Time Travel

  First of all, is it even possible? Well, we seem to be traveling forward in time as we speak. So going from the present to the future is happening all the, well, …time. The operative words in that sentence are “seem to be”, and a whole philosophical discussion can proceed from there. But for our purposes, let’s just say that we are moving in a singular direction from present to future as we go about our daily lives. I will try to avoid, at least for the most part and for the sake of this discussion, the whole consciousness/persistent illusion aspect of reality that Einstein alluded to. So far, none of us knows how to turn this about and go back from whence we came, otherwise, you wouldn't find too many old people (or me) around.

  So, according to what we know today and what is possible according to Einstein’s theories, time travel might be possible but in one direction only. And that would be only from the here and now to the future. It would be a one way trip. To do so would require a lot of energy and travelling very fast. Caution: this sort of time travel should only be taken advantage of to avoid impending doom or unsavory present day circumstances; because everything and everyone you know and love will be dead and gone by the “time” you get to the end of your journey.

  Now let’s look at a somewhat misleading word in the whole time travel scenario. The word “travel” implies that you have to go somewhere…move from point A to point B. But we all know that I can just sit here going nowhere and stare at this screen, and, low and behold, the hands on the clock have moved whereas I haven’t. So to “travel” through time does not necessarily imply that motion is required. So the old adage, “Time waits for no man,” seems to apply. That would then imply that time is somehow this outside separate force of nature that moves on relentlessly whether we like it or not. But is it really? Is it something palpable like water flowing through a pipe, or electricity flowing through a wire? Is time flowing through the matter and plasma of the universe like some unstoppable river? In other words, when we say things like “space-time” what are we really saying?

  In the quantum physics realm these days the boundaries of the physical world are becoming more and more blurred. Matter itself is no longer seen as some solid particles that bounce around like billiard balls. Instead a sort of shadowy realm of infinite possibilities exists and only manifest into what we call reality when an observer is present. So if matter is only potential reality, what then is space? We usually think of space as all that emptiness in between the hard stuff (matter). But then what is this emptiness? The ancients used to call it the ether but that notion has pretty much fallen to the wayside. Now scientists are talking about dark matter and dark energy even though the only sign of it is that one of their pet theories doesn't seem to work without it. Space. Emptiness. Nothing. How can this nothing only sparsely populated by more ephemeral nothingness be wrapped up in another flowing invisible force we call time?

  My point here is that if all this outward stuff that we call the universe really only exist within our own perceptions, then perhaps time, too, is just a persistent illusion. So then, how do you travel through an illusion? It would seem, therefore, the only real way to travel through time would be somehow to remove your conscious perceptions from the here and now to somewhere else in the continuum. Not likely that this is possible. This sort of time travel however is free from the paradoxes created in sci-fi imagined time travel at least. It would be more like taking a light source and lighting up a particular piece of a long movie film strip. You might be able to be a witness to that part of the film and experience the illusion of time passing as you moved your consciousness from frame to frame. But you would not be able to alter the outcome of the film in any way. (Therein lays another whole discussion about predestination.)

  So will we ever be able to invent a time machine and, like H. G. Wells’ character, get in it and just go else-when?  I’m going with Stephen Hawking on this one. If we could, then we probably would have already been visited by many such time travelers (maybe even our own future selves) from the future just like Bill and Ted in their excellent adventure. But in spite of all this, I still love a good sci-fi time travel story.

Almost Home

Almost Home

 Do you know that feeling you get when you've been away for a while and then you get close to where you live? That "no place like" feeling that comes over you? That's not to say you didn't enjoy your getaway, or that travels are not often exhilarating and fun. Sometimes you have to be away whether you want to be or not. Or you just have to go to work and put in some long, tough hours doing things that you don't really want to do, or like to do, but find it necessary because, well, it's the only way you can come up with to keep that homestead of yours. I think most of us are familiar with that little sigh of relief moment; that lifting of a ton of bricks off your shoulders moment when you get close to your home. The one place in the world where you really want to be. "Home, where my thoughts escaping, Home, where my music's playing, Home, where my love lights waiting silently for me."  Yeah, that place. Well, that place for me is on that little road that you can just make out there on the right in that picture above. It's where I wish I was right now. The air seems so much freer there; so less troubled. Its one of the most relaxing places I've ever been. 

  I don't know what took me so long to get there. Life I guess. It has a funny way of twisting you about to and fro to places you didn't really want to go with people you didn't really want to be with. This little simple place in the picture above is where I should have been a long time ago. And there is still much that keeps me from it a good bit of the time. Right now I'm at the point in life where it seems I have more behind me than ahead. And sometimes, when I think about it, I get that same feeling of traveling and of being away from home way too long. When I get to the point where I can see the end of the road just ahead, I for one will sigh deeply and think, "Thank goodness, I'm almost there! Home at last." The journey has been a good one, all in all, but Home is where I really want to be.

  This Thursday, I'm getting on a plane (American Airlines--oh my!) and flying to San Diego, California to visit with my granddaughter. My wife and daughter are going with me. I'm so excited about the trip and can't wait to see our beautiful youngster and her husband again. Not to mention that I have never been that far west before and can't wait to see what it looks like. Making new memories, seeing new sights, eating at new restaurants, and meeting new people are always something I enjoy doing. But even now, I'm anticipating that moment when I drive down that little country road and get almost home. I hope that each and every one of you has such a place in your life where nothing else matters, and you can just be yourself.