Happy New Year!

The Weather outside is....

The weather outside is delightful
But the mall is so frightful
And since there's only one day to go
Let us shop, Let us shop, Let us shop

Well, I've seen no sales on the way
Must be saving them for Boxing Day
My feet ache and I may drop
Let us shop, Let us shop, Let us shop

When we finally come in for the night
It's all about getting it wrapped
But as long as the paper is tight
And someone passed me a nightcap
Let us shop, Let us shop, Let us shop

I know, my poetry sucks -- Merry Christmas to all and to all a goodnight

Holiday spirit

The Gift of Time

Wouldn't a gift of time be the ultimate gift for the holiday season? What if you could give somone an extra hour a day for a week? I know that it's not possible to give time, but think about it...what would the power in that be? I can always use more time. I would like an extra hour of evening sunlight in the winter. I would like an extra hour of sleep at night. What a priceless gift. People ask me, "what do you want for the holidays?" My first thought is always time. More time! Isn't it amazing how life changes. When I was in my twenties that first thought was money.

Sometimes we get little gifts of time when we fly west across a time zone and are given an hour or two. This gift is quickly taken back when returning home, because time is cruel. Sometimes I feel like I'm stealing time when I'm finished a project early and find myself with an open chunk or hour in the middle of the day. What if I could bank that time? Think of how rich one would be with time saved in the bank. Richer than Bill Gates and the Walmart clan for sure.

As you read this blog today, think about our most precious commodity on this earth -- TIME. Do you always use it wisely? Is watching TV with your lover a wise use of your time? What about downtime? Everyone needs more downtime. I could certainly use more uptime.

Sweet childish days, that were as long, As twenty days are now.
-- Wordsworth

Wonders of modern technology

The cable guy was here. I picked up a new dual tuner DVR/Cable box from comcast on Monday. I was very excited. I installed it and nothing but problems. The guy is here today and has gone thru 3 new boxes before finding one that he thinks will work. Isn't that promising....
Just so you know, if you are having voice/mouth syncing problems between your HDTV & the cable company, it could be the quality of physical cable you are using. Nowadays, with HDTV you MUST use component video or DVI cables. It was like watching a japanese Godzilla movie dubbed in English.

My printer hates me. Its one of those combo jobs, multi-function they call it. Too bad it doens't function at all. My old Brother Multi-function was a black and white laser that worked perfectly fine. I just needed a new drum and it was $225; but for $200 I could get this other Brother MFC that was COLOR. It was inkjet and I thought, well, who cares...it's color. How fun will that be. I can print Well, apparently no fun at all. The printer only lasted a year and 100's of dollars in inkjet cartridges. I don't print that much....

There's a conspiracy you know. It's all about the consumables baby. People don't think about consumables. Whether it's an ink cartridge, saw blade, drill bit, or copper cabling, it's all about the $$$$ The $$ is in consumables.

Another tragic human legacy

The October 2005 issue of National Geographic has a stunning pictoral review of the Outer Hawai'ian islands, or more appropriately atolls and reefs. The compelling portion of this story was the trash that has accumulated on these far flung, uninhabited isles and how the hundreds of thousands of seabirds eat it, ingest, feed it to their young and die from it. Mostly plastic but this bird in the picture had a lighter, a couple bottle caps and mounds of plastic. It died from starvation as you can imagine. Plastic having no nutritional value.
I've subscribed to the National Geographic magazine for decades (OMG! did I say that) and like to think I do my tiny part in educating myself and supporting their causes. However, with that said, it's hard to read sometimes. After all, coming face to face with the staggering number of unimaginable atrocities we've committed on planet earth and her inhabitants is hard to bear.

Further reading material on the wonderful spread of plastic pollution throughout our oceans:
Europe:
South Africa:
Pacific Ocean:

And the worst of it all, an excerpt below:

One bright summer morning when the captain of the private research vessel Alguita sighted an island where no land should be. The size of Central Europe, this floating island was made of plastic bags.
Six-million of them, according to the logbook of the vessel that lost them. Destined for Taco Bells across the USA, the junk food bags had collected into a single massive blob more a thousand miles off California’s dreaming shore.
As correctable as any unconscious habit, plastic pollution pervades the high seas. The plastic island Moore logged in February 2004 was found inside the three-million square-mile area of the North Pacific Ocean directly under a giant “H” on TV weather maps. Now dubbed the “Eastern Garbage Patch”, this vast high-pressure zone mirrors and interacts with a oceanic circulation called the North Pacific gyre, whose endless rotation traps and congeals our refuse under the scrutiny of starving seabirds who see the tiny plastic pellets as food.

My first ball mark on the green..

That's my ball mark. It's huge, eh. In the background, middle of the picture is the flag. I was so excited, hopping up and down from the tee. That ball even took a piece of grass with it! I'm sorry to say that I missed the putt for birdie but made the par.

Rancho Park

2000 Graves

Not sure if any of you noticed or heard, but on Santa Monica beach to raise awareness of the 2000th US Soldier dying in the Iraq war or conflict or invasion... these graves were set up on the beach. It was a sobering site to be sure. Some crosses had names on them and how/when that soldier died. I wanted to take a picture and continue in my small way to pass that awareness along.
The "fresh" looking graves near the front of the picture are just that - new deaths over the 2000 that died while the memorial was up.