Those Days Of Sun And Sand

There was a time when you didn't want 

                     The summer to ever end 

                    Every day 

                                  Was a new adventure

                    Morning 

                               Meandering down the boardwalk

                    Afternoon

                                  Laying out on the beach

Evenings around a bonfire

                                        With new and old friends

Watching the moon 

                             Rising over the ocean

The tide pulling away 

                                From the shore

                          Warm breezes

                                                Shuffling the palm fronds

                          Seagulls scrounging 

                                                         For a discarded treat

                          Shoes tied together 

                                                        Thrown over your shoulder  Saltwater washing over your feet

Number One In The World & Living In Obscurity

   The world's most physically powerful human being is a Petroleum Engineer. 

   He was born and raised in Conifer, Colorado, and played football at the Colorado School of Mines - a small public university (less than 7,000 students) that is rated the top school on the planet earth for mineral and mining engineering.

   If you are not into (and incredibly good at) mathematics, engineering or science, chances are you have never heard of the Colorado School of Mines, and even if you have heard of the Colorado School of Mines you may be asking yourself, "Waitaminute, the School of Mines has a football team?", and also maybe, "The man that holds 28 world powerlifting records in the superheavyweight class (all drug-free) went to Mines and is now a petroleum engineer?"

   Yes, and yes. 

   His name is Blaine Sumner and he also holds the record for the NFL Pro Day bench press with 52 consecutive repetitions of 225 lbs. 

   Why oh why am I writing about him today? 

   Because I asked eleven people today if they had heard of either Brian Shaw (another Colorado born and raised super-strongman - won the World's Strongest Man competition in 2011, 2013, 2015 & 2016) or Blaine Sumner, and while five of the eleven had heard of Brian Shaw, not one had heard of Blaine Sumner.

   Which may not be shocking news to you, but I was in a gym. In Colorado. Less than 10 miles from the Colorado School of Mines.

   So, I was floored by the fact that not one of the eleven people in the gym knew who Blaine Sumner is.

   If he was the fastest man on land or in the pool, most people probably would know who he is. Go ahead, ask anyone if they know what Usain Bolt or Michael Phelps does for a living.

   The United States has never been much for strength athletes, that much I've always known. But to live in not only the home state of one of the strongest men not just in the world now, but in the history of the world period, and not have anyone know who he is...well...that's just weak.

P.S. Phil Heath, Mr Olympia for seven consecutive years (2011 - 2017), attended the University of Denver and played Division I basketball as a point guard for the Pioneers. He lived off 58th in Arvada and worked out at the Armbrust gym (not Armburst, Armbrust - it's owned by Dylan Armbrust) in Wheat Ridge, and while a few people in the gym knew of him, not one of them knew he lived less than 10 miles down the street.

 

   

The Forces That Work To Destabilize The Soul

David was scared of a great many things 

Some real, some imagined 

                  And some best left alone

Mongolian death worms, spontaneous combustion

Frogs raining from the sky and pulmonary consumption

He walked around carefully

                  Avoiding cracks in the sidewalk

Dodged his own shadow 

And danced around alley cats 

                                         And earwigs

His breakfast consisted of fruits served in threes

And two plates at lunch,

                            One for meats

                            And one cheeses

For exercise he daily jumped to conclusions

And stayed limber by warping his mind with delusions

The Very Special Pothole

 I'm thinking this pothole must be near the Mayor's house.

The Cat Came Back

   The cat was gone for exactly one week - from one Sunday night until the next. There was no indication of where he had been - none of the neighbors had seen him, and there was nothing about him that gave even the slightest hint that he had even left the premises.

   However, he had been searched for (this being coyote country after all) and while it wasn't exactly an earth-scouring search, it was still a fairly thorough search, and neither hide nor hair (again, this being coyote country after all) was found.

   Which gave me a little pause for concern.

   Larry had gone off for a couple of days in the past, but never an entire week. Heck, I was beginning to think I might have to get a new cat.

   And we all know how much of a pain in the keister getting a good new cat can be.

   But Larry returned from his sojourn, just as he had in the past. 

   Last night while it was raining, he just wandered into the garage, shook himself violently to shed as much water as possible (a trick I think he picked up from the dog), and just plopped down on the pet bed that is right below the garage television.

Gave me a "What? Is something stuck between my teeth?" look as I stared at him.

More Advice To My Younger Self (Or Someone Similiar)

One of the many unwanted side-effects of enduring high-stress conditions (such as a work environment that is uber-hostile, dealing with people who are operating at cross-purposes to your goals, sacrificing substantial amounts of personal free time to facilitate the completion of an arbitrary task that serves no real productive end, etc.) is that it is often damaging to a person's mental, emotional, and physical well-being.

So, don't do that. 

In this day and age there are an incredible number of options available to the average person in regard to gainful employment that are low or no stress and provide adequate compensation for your labor/effort.

Do some research, figure out which job really suits you best, then do that. And do it to the best of your ability.

As long as it does not take advantage of or harm another human being.

And adds to the quality of your life.

And has a good benefits package.

And a short commute.

As a youth it's possible to get caught up in the adrenaline rush of working to make impossible deadlines or trying to meet pie-in-the-sky quotas but let me smack you in the face with a harsh truth - chronic stress is a slow-acting poison and ingesting it willingly is suicide.

The First Picture Taken By A Human On A Solar Body Other Than The Earth

 It is worth noting that 53 years ago yesterday the very first picture of an earthman (Buzz Aldrin) walking on the surface of the earth's moon was taken by another earthman (Neil Armstrong). 

 The picture was taken with a heavily modified Hasselblad 500EL data camera (medium format) outfitted with a Zeiss Biogon f/5.6 60mm lens

  Kodak created very thin 70mm film for NASA that allowed the astro-photographers to take 160 color photos or 200 black and white photos per roll - not available at a store near you.

  Modifications made to the camera were for two primary reasons - to keep the cameras from freezing or over-heating (two ever-present extremes of the vacuum of space/moon's surface), and, since the astronauts were wearing very large gloves, larger controls on the camera to allow for easier manipulation of the buttons and dials. 

  There was only one camera available, and Neil Armstrong had it mounted chest-level to his space suit. 

   Huh. Fifty-three years ago, on a big rock almost 239,000 miles from the earth a camera mounted chest- high allowed a person to keep their hands free for other tasks.

   53 years ago. 239,000 miles from the earth's surface. Body-mounted cameras recorded the action.

   You'd think some smart person would have thought that technology would have had an immediate use right here on good 'ol terra firma.

    BTW, all the cameras used to take pictures on and from the moon during the various Apollo missions were left on the moon (to save weight on the trip back) except for one, a 16mm Mauer motion picture camera that had been used from the inside of the lunar module to document Neil Armstrong's descent down the ladder and onto the surface of the moon. 

   That camera was secretly brought back by Commander Armstrong, and he kept it hidden for 43 years - it was discovered in his effects after his death and is now on display at the Smithsonian. 

Going No Place In Particular At Two Hundred Miles An Hour

   Sitting around bored was the worst thing that a thirteen-year-old could possibly have to endure. That and being called a kid by anyone only three or four years older than they were.

   Finding something to do and finding a way to at least appear older consumed a lot of energy, but never seemed to consume a lot of time. Thirteen was the longest year, that is until fourteen rolled around, which was so long as to be almost unbearable.

   Thirteen and time dragged on as if it was towing the continent of Australia to a cool spot in the shade.

Thrift Store Wedding Dress With The Fifteen Foot Train

 

It was to be the happiest day of her life and she was determined to remember every minute of it forever. A year in the planning with no detail overlooked.

Especially on the dress. She wanted the appearance of a graceful Angel that had just floated down from the heavens. She was told that a ten-foot train, the length referred to as "Royal", was much too extravagant and required an exceptional amount of attention from the Bridesmaids - might not she consider the Chapel length, or at most the Cathedral?

She wasn't settling for any of those "common" lengths, and demanded the train exceed the Royal length - which quite literally made the eyes in the head of the dressmaker roll back like two overhead garage doors with overtightened torsion springs.

Her request was honored however, and she walked down the aisle with three attendants trailing her to keep the sprawling train from snagging on the sides of the pews.

Two years later, after the acrimonious divorce was finalized (with what she screamed was a far less than satisfactory settlement), the dress and the train were in two large boxes in the storage unit she had covertly rented eight months into the marriage, when she first decided the wedding was a mistake and started to plan her exit.

It was a short trip from the self-storage facility to the thrift store.

The Random Event Generator Date Falls Flat

He told her he was a sensitive psychic just like Croiset

She asked why he would compare himself to a man proven fraudulent

He replied his gifts were as real as Schmidt's

She firmly stated the old German should have stuck with physics

He insisted he was a visionary and could predict things to come

She laughed and wondered what looney bin he'd escaped from

He said he was descended from a long line of Russian seers

She pondered the possibility he had fallen and knocked loose a few gears

He ordered another round and appealed to her to be less skeptical

She declined the second drink and the offer to be more gullible

Just Another Outrageous Publicity Stunt By Mother Nature

 

Bright Star In The Middle Of The Afternoon

 

For The Good People Lost

In the past two years, I've attended five funerals and/or memorial services.

Is this the price of growing old? Funerals & memorials? Emotionally draining remembrances?

All of these funerals were for people who I would state unequivocally were good people, some of the best people I have ever been privileged to know.

And all of them died much too young, none of them being older than 57.

None of these people died from CoVid-19. 

I miss each and every one of them.

This past Sunday I attended the funeral service for a man I'd known for about 24 years. I was among close to 200 people in the small chapel. 

Two hundred people who had been touched by his gregarious nature, his kindness, his dead-pan humor, his sense of adventure, his commitment to his family, and so much more.

The world needs more people like him, not fewer.

In The Passenger Seat

Listening to the Mexican radio station on the way to the store

Because it's Jorge's truck and Jorge gets to pick the station

Heard a song with the word 'contigo' rhymed with 'amigo'

And I wondered where the singer and his friend were going

The world looks different from the passenger side

The world feels different when you don't have to drive

The world sounds different when you're just along for the ride 

The world is different when you don't care when you arrive

Jorge tells a story of a gorgeous girl he once knew

Back when he was working at a market near the ocean

Said it was the best time of his life and that includes his wife

Though I'm certain he'd never say that aloud if she was around

The world looks different from the passenger side

The world feels different when you don't have to drive

The world sounds different when you're just along for the ride 

The world is different when you don't care when you arrive

 

It's Not A Monster Truck, It's A Modified Truck

 

"Hey Man, cool Monster Truck."

"Uhm, it's not a Monster Truck. It's a modified truck.

"What? It sure as hell looks like a Monster Truck."

"Shows you what you know about Monster Trucks."

"How is that beast not a Monster Truck?"

"Well, for starters, the tires are normal, street legal off-road tires. Monster Trucks have like, 66 inch tires. Plus, it's actually a truck, not some tubular frame with four-link suspension and a rear mounted engine wrapped in a thin fiberglass shell that sorta looks like a truck." 

"Oh. Well, it looks like a Monster Truck, you know, old school Monster Truck."

"Thank you, I intended for the modifications to make it look like one of the original Monster Trucks."

"So it is a Monster Truck...?"

"No, it's not. It's an ordinary truck modified to look like a Monster Truck."

"Right. Can you take it off any sweet jumps?"

The House On Top Of The Hill

 

   Above is a picture of the Bates home, also known as the Psycho house, which was originally built as just a facade featuring the front and left sides as shown, as those were the only two sides needed for the original filming. 

   It was built on the Universal studios lot in California in 1960, then the home was somewhat completed (given a right and back side but no real interior) for the then-new Universal studios tour in 1964. 

   The four-sided shell of a house was dismantled in 1980 to make way for some other use of the hill it occupied on the studio lot. A close replica of the house (possibly using the dismantled shell?) with a few changes, (including a livelier paint job) was used as the beach house in the 1981 Chevy Chase vehicle Modern Problems.

   There have been sequels and remakes of Psycho that have made use of a partially or fully rebuilt Bates home - 1982's Psycho II used a partially rebuilt Bates home that attained a complete look via matte paintings, but 1985's Psycho III featured a fully rebuilt Bates home (it's the one seen in the first picture of this post).

   But the Bates home is not the actual subject here - the actual subject here is the house that purportedly influenced the design of the Bates home - said to be an Edward Hopper oil painting entitled House by the Railroad. 

   However, I cast doubt on that assertion. For starters the design used as the Bates house was fairly common - a popular Second Empire home design in the Italianate style with a Mansard roof - thousands of homes like this were built in the years immediately preceding the Civil War and for a few decades afterward.

  In my travels I've seen umpteen variations of the design, and many of those were far closer to the Bates house as seen in the movie than the one depicted by the great Edward Hopper.

   For example, the Bloom house in Trinidad, Colorado, built in 1882 and now part of the Trinidad Historical Society. 

   Not only does the Bloom house sit on a small hill that nearly duplicates every shot of the Bates house we see in the original Psycho, but the sloping sides of the Mansard roof as well as the ornamental cast-iron crestline that trims said roof is pretty much spot on (the Mansard roof seen in the Hopper painting features an odd onion bulge and recession to it, and no cast-iron ornamental trim). 

   The Bloom house has been used in other films, most notably as the rich man's house in Terrence Malick's 1973 masterwork, Badlands.

   The mood of the Edward Hopper painting may have had an influence on the direction of the film, but it is extremely difficult to imagine that painting was as direct an influence on the Bates home as is assumed by many film historians.

   But I could be wrong about that

   

 

Independence Day 2022

 

Mudflap Humor

 

Don't Want To Be An American Coward

Read his words the other day, his reaction to the ruling

Words of a selfish, self-centered cowardly idiot

Same ol' weak words of the recreant 

"F*ck America, I'm renouncing my citizenship. I'm f*cking coming here."

He had to make sure the spotlight was on him, that the cameras captured his anger and disgust

Because of course the only thing that mattered after the ruling was that his bile be spewed, and everyone bear witness

Unlike the courageous millions who knew that the ruling meant it was time to redouble their efforts, to stand their ground and dig in for a hard fight for their rights

He had to let the world know he was going to forsake that fight and the country of his birth to find greener pastures that wouldn't demand any effort on his part to secure freedoms

As long as the adulation of his fans and the cameras remained on him 

"There's just too much stupid in the world to go back to that miserable excuse for a country. Oh, I'm not kidding, you're going to get a lot of me in the coming days."

That's right Billy, let the anger flow, let it all out for your adoring public, let them know you have not the slightest idea how lucky you were to have been born and raised in this miserable excuse for a country

Know why there is so much stupid in the world Billy? Because of people like you who do nothing but cry when the world is not to their liking

Cry and run

This miserable excuse for a country was created by people who experienced injustice and refused to accept it and, instead of just whining about it, did something about it - at the risk of losing everything, including their lives

We won't miss you, as we prefer warriors who don't run when the battle appears to be lost, who never give up, who never seek self-aggrandizement for their efforts, who are committed to the fight for the long-haul, who know what it takes to not just demand inalienable rights, but make that demand happen

"F*ck the Supreme Court of America!"

There you go Billy, use your constitutionally protected right to self-expression to throw your fit - such inspirational gallantry...

You could have used that stage to let those affected by the ruling know that you were going to stand with them at the front lines of the battle to restore the rights that had been taken from them, but that would have required sticking your neck out, a little bit of unselfish valour

But you couldn't do that, no, that would not feed your ravenous ego at all

That would have been just too much like what the old white male forefathers of this country had to do to secure the life, liberty and pursuit of happiness that you've enjoyed your entire fortune-blessed existence for your taste, eh?

The thought of having to put a little effort into freedom just turns your stomach, doesn't it?

Gutless coward