A New Conspiracy Theory

I have noticed a sinister connection between the size of one's bankroll, and the ability to avoid confronting unwelcome visitors. If you have a large home, even with a large mortgage, you have four, maybe more, exit/enter points. If you are living in a tiny apartment, you only have, as the Allman Brothers and many others have bitterly pointed out, "One Way Out." For example, I live in rent-assisted, senior living place and I only have one door. Every time I leave, I have to face a cheery someone-or-other who wants me to "chat" and then "have a nice day". When I owned a tiny mobile home, I had two doors; a front and a back door, although, one was visible from the other. When I lived in a large, single family home I had four doors; front, side sliding glass to patio and garage door; a door on every side of the building. I recently visited a home that was huge (by my standards), the owners were rich (by my standards) and they had five exits!! Front door, two patio doors, a back door and the double garage doors (I only count those as one door, although, there was also a side door to the yard that opened off the garage. There were exits on five different sides of the building! So, the richer you are, the easier it is to make a clean getaway. Coincidence? I think not.

National Befuddlement Day Winner

Bought a lamp at the Salvation Army for $2.99. Took it home, put in a bulb from an older lamp and switched it on: nothing. "Must be a burned out bulb," I think. Picked it up to unscrew the bulb and it flashed bright and then went out. "Nuts! Now I DID burn out the bulb." I threw out that bulb and put in a new one. Nothing. I flipped the switch a few times. Nothing. I picked up to take out that bulb, and it came on, but very dim for a 100 watt bulb. I sat it down. I wiggled the cord. Still dim. Hmmmmm. "Well, that sucks," I thought, picked it up and it flashed brightly and went out again. Great. Now I blew another bulb. I unplugged it and tightened all the connections, put in a new bulb and plugged it in: nothing. Swearing, I unplugged it, wrapped up the cord and sat it by the door to return it. Later, staring at it from across the room, I thought, "Nuts. Now I either have to return it or buy new guts for it. It must have a bad wire someplace. Unless..............." you guessed it. It has an on/off switch, but it's a "touch control" lamp. I spent a little while rinsing barbeque sauce off the two lightbulbs I retrieved, and started to enjoy my new lamp. Life is hard; harder for some than for others.

My View on Religion

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zOWx5G76pkU

Picasa Web Albums - PattyJo

Just in case you may be vaguely interested, you can see photos of stuff that I took at:
Picasa Web Albums - PattyJo: "http://picasaweb.google.com/sparkystarthefirst"

A Generational Thing

I have no one to talk to, so I talk to myself. Blogging is just an extension of talking to myself. I don't write down thoughts with the idea that Joe Schmoe from Kokomo will ever be interested in anything I might say about anything. Fred's Bank won't care about my thoughts on the banking system, and President Obama won't care if I like him or not. The Democratic National Party only really wants my money, not my thoughts, not that they don't receive a lot more of them from time to time than money in spite of that fact. No, blogging is just that; talking to myself.

That's why I think My Space and Facebook, et. al. ("My Face") and Tweeting is so strange. Blogging is a way to place ideas, opinions and thoughts about a random subject in grouped, logical paragraphs and examine them. But just posting Tweets, and single sentences about what you are doing now ("I'm buying new shoes" etc.) Seems so, so......well, so desperate! "Hey! I'm buying new shoes right now....is anybody out there? Does anybody care?"

Don't get me wrong, I've tried them all, and only Facebook seems remotely useful, because I can track what a few friends and occasionally what my children have been doing, even if they don't specifically email their activities to me. In this day and age, when we can't even be bothered to hit the "reply" button, this can be useful. But I have yet to "Poke" anyone. I'm too busy talking to myself.

It must be a generational thing.

Fishing for Absurdities

I don't have friends like that around anymore. A friend who is the perfect fishing partner. While having coffee before leaving, we argued about where to go. During the drive we argued over the parking spot; over upstream or down; over dry or wet. After arriving , we took our chosen paths and each was alone and unapproachable until back at the car or camp. These wonderful qualities may not be recognizable to anyone except another fly fisherman, but they were exquisite. But this was not where this friend shone the brightest.

At camp, this friend was the perfect companion and accomplice. A giant intellect, excellent raconteur, disdain-er of Mensa members, science and philosophy major, with myself being an enthusiastic, but self-taught minor, all subjects could be mulled over. The great authors and poets were exhumed, examined, explained, edited, applauded, ignored and often dismissed. Particularly prickly political problems were smoothly solved: blow them off the face of the earth. History would be rewritten. Yet this was still not the quality I am seeking to replace in my world.

In all ventures, a sense of the absurd and macabre was the greatest gift this friend had. And, the glory was, that not only was there the ability and willingness to note these situations and comment on them, but often in the most surprising and delightful ways, my friend would assist in creating them.

My two fondest memories: dressing all in brown, tying forked sticks on one's head, and, while holding the arms up like raised paws, crossing roads at night in front of automobiles, staring, for a split second into the glare of the oncoming headlights then bounding into the roadside brush, when the phrase "standing like a deer in the headlights" had just caught our fancy; and, chasing thieving porcupines through tall grass on a moonlit night, wearing only ultra-white briefs and untied hiking boots, while screaming, yelling threats and waving the hands.

I fear I shall never see the like again.

Email: Sigh

So it has come down to this. At first, I complained that no one ever wrote letters to me any more, they just called once a year on the telephone and thought that was enough. I was right.

Then, when the computer came around with e-mail, and I said, "I'll never get a phone call from my relatives again." I was right.

So I got a computer and e-mail, and for a while I could keep in touch with most of my relatives and friends, at least the computer users.

Now, they are all computer literate, but they can't even be bothered to hit the "reply" button and answer me.

Sigh.

My Space

I need more of it.
Aside from that, I have joined the legion of morons on Myspace.com. I have no idea if that's a good idea or a bad idea, but my grandson is there (in a private column) so I'll join for a while. I had already recieved a bunch of C**p before I could set the privacy settings from some pretty weird and desperate zombies who apparently have nothing to do but cyberstalk, so private it is. In self defense.