FACEBOOK AS REALITY

What a night I had. I was up late surfing the web, fell asleep at the computer ( like that's anything unusual ), finally got into my actual bed, and then had a fantastical dream where Facebook was a total reality - not just your friend list, but the games, quizzes, and other sundry fun activities that are little more than a new-fashioned waste of time. Don't get me wrong, I stinkin' love Facebook and all the reconnecting I have been able to accomplish on it. I now can "talk" to a number of real friends everyday if I have the time and choose to do so, despite their residence in a variety of states from east to west coast. Heck, I even have friends in other countries who can keep up with me and I with them, if we so choose. I suppose this blog could take a more effective role in that particular aspect of life, but Facebook is a faster and more of a "fun" approach. Not a lot of thinking goes into Facebook posts or game play - although some would question the amount of thinking that goes into this endeavor. Either way, it doesn't really matter.

Now, on to my Dorothy Gale experience, before it totally slips from my mind.....

I was visiting my old school buddy Debbie Berend when we left town to go work at her farm. As we harvested various foodstuffs and did general work around the farm I received several notes (just appeared in my pocket magically) that I had other friends in town who wanted to see me and rekindle long ago relationships. Some of them Debbie knew, so she came along as well to accept this offer of friendship and camaraderie. We ended up in downtown Wichita Falls as it looked in the 60's and 70's - still a busy place with full storefronts. There seemed to be one main place where everyone hung out and this is where we headed first. I approved (?) my friendship with a number of people, including Sonya, and went about the task of investigating the cityscape. As I was exploring my hometown I became aware of a new "note in the pocket". I read it and was pleasantly surprised to see that it was an invitation to join in a military type game involving airplanes and bombs. My party of friends and I were suddenly in flight on a large bomber, wishing that either Bill Studdard or Joe Bohac were there with us to help us out. We even sent the aforementioned "notes in the pocket" to them, but they were not in the network to receive them. We just had to rely on ourselves this time. We were told the object was to pinpoint bomb different areas while making sure we avoided other areas. The bombs were white, very small (only about a foot long) with three red stripes on the end cap. There was a push button type of trigger on the very end, to detonate the bomb when it hit nose first. It was very cartoon-like in design, but lifelike in appearance. As we flew over our targets we just eyeballed the coordinates and hand tossed the bombs out the tail of the plane. Suddenly Mike Brown was on the plane and he showed us how to enable an automatic release that dropped a four-pack of the bombs at once. There seemed to be an unending supply of them, so we dropped bombs for as long as our fuel would last. We finally landed and went to see if our mission had succeeded. The even weirder thing was that there had been no attack on any of the areas we had just completed attacking. I took Sonya and went to find some food since there was still a supermarket standing. Just as we were starting to check out, a loud crash was heard. BOMBS !!! They were crashing through the roof. The noses hit the ground, but no explosions. Instead, we heard a very loud ticking commence. I picked up a bomb and examined it. Sure enough the ticking was coming from the bomb. I tossed it back into the store. I immediately grabbed Sonya's arm and ran outside. We ran and ran and ran. There started a series of small explosions, accompanied by Hanna-Barbera looking smoke clouds ( think of the Flintstones ). When we reached the Wichita Theater we stopped running as that seemed to be a safe distance from the action. As I stood there I noticed a couple of new "notes in my pocket". The first was from Bill Payne, thanking me for my assistance in his war game. The next one was an invitation to go to Mike Brown's house for a party. Sonya seemed to disappear, but it didn't seem unusual as she wasn't on the guest list. The only people I saw there were old school friends, just a little more adult in their appearance. We were laughing and talking about the days events when party crashers started trying to get into the soiree. We retreated to the backyard and let Mike's dad handle the problem. In the backyard we split into groups of two and explored the grounds more thoroughly with our partner. Evelyn Kaukel and I were partners for this part of the adventure. After traveling through the woodlands and over the hills in Mike's backyard we found a beautiful bridge that went all the way from the Brown's house to downtown. Before we had a chance to go back and see what damage had occurred in the aftermath of Bill Payne's advances, Charlie Brown, Mike's brother, not the cartoon character half of us would be if we were a cartoon character according to the quiz, grabbed my arm and wanted to know why I had not replied to his repeated requests for friendship. I had not seen the requests, but now I gave my okay to him. Immediately he gave me information on several other friends, including Paul Belvedere, who had some news for Evelyn. She and I searched him out, and upon finding him, discovered that his news was merely an invitation to a class reunion for her sister. Evelyn then took the invitation back to Germany to give to her sister. I went with Charlie and Paul back into the Brown's house to watch a little television. we were watching FOXNEWS and Keith Vaughn came on with his daily newscast. At that same moment he was knocking on the door of Mike's room. He entered with a laptop in tow. As he sat he logged into Facebook and started updating his status. The whole dream then started to fall apart as I noticed what he was saying on TV or what was on the feeder stream under the video matched what Keith was typing. I ran out of the house and into the backyard, under the fantastical bridge, and found several of my friends updating their Facebook statuses as well. As each changed their profile activities or thoughts, so did their actions in my dreamscape. I became aware of the fact that I was dreaming, and as I did so, I tried to manipulate it, as you can do so if you practice. It was too late though. I slipped free of the embrace of REM and moved towards a reality not so easily manipulated - that of the waking world.

I begrudgingly left the comfort of the Serta and joined those unknowing souls clamoring about for their piece of the pie. If only they knew that we are slaves to our own postings on our own personal Facebook.......Somehow I must let them know.......but how?......I am not quite sure..... wait.....I know.........this has got to work..........

SOYLENT GREEN IS PEOPLE ! ! .......... PERCEPTION IS REALITY !!!

What Congresssional Budget ?

From Bloomberg.com News:

"The $9.7 trillion in pledges would be enough to send a $1,430 check to every man, woman and child alive in the world. It’s 13 times what the U.S. has spent so far on wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to Congressional Budget Office data, and is almost enough to pay off every home mortgage loan in the U.S., calculated at $10.5 trillion by the Federal Reserve."

Tell you what...Forget every person on the planet, let's be Nationalistic about this because we already are the world leader in aide to other countries, even those unfriendly to us, and split this amount up amongst all LEGAL CITIZENS OF THE UNITED STATES. Are you smart enough to recall that IT IS NOT CONGRESS' MONEY ---- they did nothing to earn it other than spend millions getting elected --- IT IS 100% TAXPAYER MONEY. I WANT MY MONEY BACK.

And how about this as a further lean to the left for me -- since " THE ONE " / " THE BIG O " wants to make it illegal for business heads that have 'borrowed' from the government to be paid more than $500K per year, we should make sure that NO ONE - not even Whooppie or Oprah or Gore or any other Supreme Being Type such as they are -- who profits in any way above $500K should receive any of this bailout of the American people. Their part just gets put back into the mix and redistributed to us lowly serfs. We would have to provide a birth certificate or some other positive proof of citizenship though. You couldn't just use your driver's license or some other poor excuse for residency. ( Oops, sorry about that "BIG O " ). I think we need to reward us little people for putting up with the morons that got us into this mess.

Okay that is about all I can spew for now as I am starting to more veer than meander, and this is not "Visceral Veerings", but "Mental Meanderings". Somedays I am just going to have to remind myself of that fact.

A BRAVE NEW WORLD

Well, the day is upon us....we are seeing history in this, the greatest country on God's green earth. We have seen past the color of a man and looked into his heart. We now have a black man for President of the United States. Actually, he is a mulatto, but most people have no clue what that is. My advice to you, if you are in the uninformed group, is to find a good dictionary and look it up........it's okay, I'll wait......take your time.......I'll be here, waiting....

There, I told you I wouldn't go anywhere. I was right, wasn't I? Barack Hussein Obama II is a mulatto. Not that anything is wrong with that, just a verbiage that was never uttered in his ascension to the presidency. It's just really too bad that in this day and age of Excellence in Education that we seem to have lost yet another one of our most important ideals. Communication is based on the understanding of a common language with all of its intricacies. We seem to be a people so ready to give up our borders and language that we don't even notice what we have lost. If we hope to keep this country intact we would be best served to remember this before we fritter it all away. I hope that now, in this age of social enlightenment, we recall what it is that makes us great and draw from it.

As a proud American I will remember what I saw today so that I may give my offspring my own recollection of it in the future. It may or may not be what some others recall, but we all approach life with unique thoughts and prejudices based upon our own life journey. It is the tapestry that we weave together that makes us strong. The more fibrous thread holding the weaker at points of stress. Then they change thicknesses at the next stitch. Let the most resolute among us hold the most suspicious among us aloft at this venture. The favor will be returned when you need it the most.

THE PENNY STORY

(This originally was going to be my first post, but time prevented me from using it. In other words, this is not a particularly short post......)


I found a penny the other day. I was walking to the car and saw a penny on the ground just by the door. Now I was raised by parents and grandparents that made sure I knew the value of money. Translated, I picked it up. The first thing I noticed upon inspection was the fact that it was a wheat penny. When I looked at the date I noticed it was from 1944. My initial thought was that my mother was born that year. My brain then experienced an explosion of questions and scenarios concerning the history of that one, particular, lowly penny.

Perhaps it was put back by my grandmother to commemorate the birth of my mother. Maybe my great-grandparents put it away with some other money to give my grandmother when she came home from the hospital. My grandfather, who was fighting in Europe with the Army, could have gotten it in change at an Army base and kept it to remember this year. He could have given it to my mother upon his return home.

It also could have played a role in my father's life. He could have received it from the Tooth Fairy for his first lost tooth. It could have been part of his Christmas or birthday presents. He grew up in a household without a lot of money and it would have been a nice gift that could be used for that ultimate kid favorite - CANDY !! He also could have put it away into his piggy bank for a later use. Maybe he earned it in a chore around the house or for a neighbor. It might also have been put up to remember the birth of one of his brothers that same year.

On a wholly different train of thought, that penny could have jingled in the pockets of numerous individuals. Whether they were the normal working class of my family, or the Rockefeller class that lived a world away is unknown. Most likely it saw both sides of society and all in between. East Coast, West Coast, Middle America, the South; wherever people were, that penny went. Could it have been present at a Hollywood opening? Perhaps a party at the Hearst Castle? Pitched in a New York City alley by hobos? Put into a Salvation Army kettle by a young child in Saint Louis? Given by President Kennedy to his son John to play with one evening in the White House? Maybe Babe Ruth paid for a piece of gum with it? Or did Marilyn Monroe carry it around in her purse for a period of time? Was it part of a bank robbery carried out by my famous relative Clyde Barrow? Was it used to pay one of my relatives in their jobs? I might even have received it myself while a child.

How, I wondered, did this little penny make all of these magical trips and then end up on a parking lot down the road from my house? What stories could it tell if it could talk? If it was in the right pocket at the right time it might know the truth behind the Kennedy assassination. It might know what REALLY happened at Roswell, or what happens now at Area 51. I'd love to have just one day to have a few beers with that Honest Abe and hear just what he could tell me. I bet that one day would not be nearly enough time to hear it all.

This one simple penny brought to mind so many thoughts and memories of those both known and unknown to me that it momentarily took me aback. I realized at that moment that it wasn't the penny itself so much that mattered, but was, instead, the mental journey I had just completed. The memories of those around me, as well as those no longer living amongst us, was what had made that one particular penny so important to me. It had reminded me not to take anything for granted, because you never know just when it may disappear. Forever. It had reminded me to always tell those that are important to me that they are important to me. Whether friends or family, you should make sure and actually tell those that you love how you feel. It would be a shame if one day you were gone and, although they thought that they knew how you felt, they couldn't be sure because they had not been told. Or, if they had, it was so long ago, that they had no memory of it. We all owe it to ourselves and our social networks to make sure that this happens less and less in this easily connected world. We all can Instant Message and e-mail notes to loved ones on the other side of the world in the blink of an eye, so we really have no excuse to not do this. It will make us and our children much better off. A society that communicates well with each other will be more likely to be successful. Both in the public arena as well as in the private.

The next time you find a coin on the ground, before you pitch it in your money jar, take a moment and see if maybe your coin hung out with my coin. If so, tell it "Hello" from my penny. If not, ask it about its journeys. You may be surprised at what you learn, especially about yourself.

MERRY CHRISTMAS

Just wanted to wish the few that follow this winding and meandering blog a very Merry Christmas. Even if you're not a Christian I am sure that you are enjoying the day off and visiting with family and friends. After all, not matter what you are, it IS still December 25, Christmas Day - a legal holiday and all.
I hope that we all get at least one thing that we realistically want, and that we are able to give others at least two things that they are deeply wishing for - especially if they are children. Let's be good to each other and try to pass all the love we receive forward to others. They may need it more than we ever would know. A Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night !

Man Oh Live it is COLD !! Well for Texas it is anyway. If that wind would just quit it might not be so bad. I figure I need to post before they ( whoever THEY are ) disconnect my blog and send me back to the world of the blogless, and then I would not have the power of the pen ( keyboard actually ) to influence others to emulate my every thought and action. Gotta love the unchecked power of persuasion afforded to us all now by this World Wide Web. Dubya dubya dubya dot com is where it's at baby! Wish I had a multinational corporation so I could use my bailout money to give myself a raise and then boost my image online to sell more widgets to midgets and make more money to justify giving myself an increase in salary to compensate me for being such a successful businessman. I guess I will just have to plod along trying to find enjoyment in the small details of life. You know, the unimportant things we all take for granted - a child's faith in you, a warm embrace of a loved one, a parent's approval of your efforts, that knowing nod and grin you get from your best friend at just the right time, and other assorted trivial meaningless attributes of humanity that have very little, if any, monetary value. They do, however, have LIFE VALUE. If I remember anything from Sister Mother May I's religion class, it is that we all should work on our life value and see where that leads us. Who knows, it might even help out on the bottom line at the end of the day. Why don't we all just give it a try and see. Okay I have reached the Livery and am ready to get off of this 20 hands high mare. I hoped to actually write The Penny Story that I wanted to post first on my blog, but again, much to my surprise, have gone woefully ary in my meanderings.......maybe now you all are starting to better grasp what neurotic neurons I have. I can never tell when their firings will be joined by equally represented misfirings. I will release you now from my linguistic languishings and attempt to refresh my DHEA levels with a hopefully adequate REM encounter. Until the muse's second cousin once removed bothers me again, I will leave you, just meandering down the dirt road of life.

True Existence

Finally !!! I truly exist on this great planet. I now have a blog, but, surprisingly enough, seem to have used all of my words for the day. Mark your calendar folks.....it's not often that I have nothing to say. I'll just have to make my next post EXTREMELY exciting. I am just glad that I finally can prove my existence to any knucklehead with a laptop sucking down an overpriced cup of coffee at Starbucks. Until then, enjoy the uncommon silence of my ways.