“War is a poor chisel to carve out tomorrow.”

Has President Obama fallen to the Dark Side of the Force? Nay! He has crawled below the Dark Side all the way to the Tea-Bag bottom. He wants to freeze the pay of all Federal workers, less Congress, of course. He is taking a step backward toward a deeper recession than what we now have. Mr. President, create jobs. Jobs will pull the nation out of the economic slump and into declining deficits; it is a win-win scenario. Alas, I fear it is now too late; you have fallen completely into the clutches of political absurdity from which there is no return. Sir, you are bordering on making George W. Bush look like a genius statesman. You and your Democrat Congress had two years to do something positive, yet you allowed the hardest right-wing Republicans to dictate the fortunes of our nation. You promised us better than this and you owe us better than this. Well, you can always resort to what has worked in the past; get us and the world into a bully big war. We can hope that our creditor countries are whipped by the countries who owe us and that our National Phoenix will once more arise from mankind's oldest malady. That's what war is good for.

“Naturally the common people don't want war; neither in Russia, nor in England, nor in America, nor in Germany. That is understood. But after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.”
~Herman Goering, Adolph Hitler's second in command and head of the Nazi Luftwaffe.
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Friend Kevin says he is on the mend from a severe bout of pneumonia. Don't rush things, Kevin; the worst thing that can happen is a relapse. You have many caring friends sending healing vibes to you.
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I suppose that beginning sometime in July, you can append great-grandpa to the long list of things I've been called over the years. Ashley found out she is pregnant. She seems to be very happy but anxious; a few years ago they found pre-cancerous lesions on her uterus and she did not think she would be able to become pregnant.

The person whom is happiest is Carolyn; she has been on cloud nine since she heard. For myself, it is just another day in a long life. You do believe that, don't you?
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I downloaded a voice recorder app for my Droid only to find out I still cannot sing!
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Title quote by Martin Luther King, Jr.
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Have a Tom Terrific Tuesday!
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Make My Day

Saturday, Carolyn decided to clean carpet in the office and she temporarily evicted me, so I watched a football game on the telly. I am still having internet problems and I was relegated to using the Droid for the remainder of the day. Yesterday, she put out her office Christmas decorations and again I was forced to relocate, using the Droid for net access. Later on, we went to Fall Branch where she cleaned the building there and it was getting close to dark when we returned. A pretty lousy weekend for me, but except for the carpet cleaning and Fall Branch, Carolyn enjoyed getting out the few decorations we have left. The ones I like most are the hand-painted Bisque figures which Bro Hill created for us before he died. Steve would have been a very good artist for such if he had not had a stroke which left the right side of his body paralyzed. He did do some work afterward, but the quality was not there for him so he gave it up.
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Obama is wanting to find a way to stop the diplomatic leaks, which he should do, but the best thing is tell the diplomats to keep their mouths shut when they have nothing positive to say about foreign leaders. Besides, why doesn’t the countries on the Arabian Peninsula attack Iran and destroy their nuclear program and threat? These nations have more money per capita than does the US, but they squeeze our oil dependent balls and we come running with our hands full of nukes to take out their enemies. If you don’t have a military, rent one seems to be their reasoning. I suppose we deserve our Rambo reputation because we have the mentality of apes.
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Have a Wiki-Worshday, dear children.
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... Thou too in Resurrection shall have a little golden tail

I think I died in bed last night, but I was too contrary to stay among the unliving. It was a normal night for me; sleep awhile and lay awake for awhile. Toward dawn in one of the wide awake periods and as I was thinking deep thoughts of universal salvation via my Loose Laces ministry, I suddenly heard a soft and very short grinding “Pop” and the world went completely blank and dark and then it was back to normal. How long the absence of Cosmos lasted I do not know; it could have been a split second or minutes, but it seemed very rapid. When I came back from the darkness, the noise went away as quickly as it began; that is to say, “instantly”. No, the noise was not there while the blackness was overpowering me; there was nothing and darkness was upon the face of the deep—there was not even a sense of “I”.

Did I really die? I cannot answer that as I have never knowingly been dead. Was it all just a dream? Definitely not! If I did die, was I resurrected? Maybe; I hear it happens. Do I feel divine? I always have. Did the incident scare me? Nope, but it did get my attention. Could it have been caused by a physiological problem? Quite possibly. Did I see a bright light which I was compelled to walk toward? No. Did I feel a hot pitchfork prodding my butt? Nay. Can I walk on water? Haven’t tried. Do I feel that I am now a zombie? I can’t imagine desiring brains for breakfast. The evidence suggests I don’t know what happened, but happen it did. I checked the obits this morning and will continue to do so for the next few days; I want to be sure before I bother to take a shower and shave.
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Title quote by Martin Luther.
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Have a lively weekend, dear Brothers and Sisters.
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Frenzy and food

Was yesterday the holiday or is it today? This Black Friday crap is out of hand; is it an American-only rite of passage or is it in more capitalist countries? Christians, rein in your holiday; you started this Christmas bit and it is up to you to control it; you have placed a curse upon the world. For anyone not familiar with our Sacred Black Friday Service, it denotes the biggest shopping day of the year; many retailers make as much as 50% of their yearly profit on the day after Thanksgiving holiday; big discounts all on a first come, first served basis. The past two Black Fridays were a disappointment sales-wise, so this year they began having Black Friday sales two weeks ago, especially online retailers. Even the big chain stores "leaked" info about their discounts; when Target let it be known that it would have 32' TVs for $299, everyone else began cutting prices to match or beat them and now you can find plain-jane 37" models for $300. We have a basic Vizio 37" which we bought for the bedroom four years ago and it was a bargain then at $899.
I like tossing Christians to the lions by blaming them for everything.
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Carolyn prepared quite a meal yesterday, but not as elaborate as usual; instead of tater salad, we had mashed taters and she didn't make baked beans. Her four best dishes are meat loaf, tater salad, dressing, and baked beans. She made broccoli casserole, green beans, macaroni and cheese, turkey breast, gravy, dressing, cranberry sauce, corn on the cob, deviled eggs, sweet tater casserole and store-bought rolls. She bought punkin and sweet tater pies and made a jello desert. She began cooking at 6:30am and we ate at 2:30pm. She did it all herself; no one but I offered to help. The amounts of food were generally less this year and some were missing, such as ham, candied sweet taters, and the aforementioned baked beans. Other than the fact that we had to buy all the food and Carolyn had to do all the cooking and cleaning up, it was a fairly good gathering. We had only four guests, so there is enough food left over to eat on today. Hope y'all had a good day.
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The photo was made this morning.
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We all need love and memories

It is Thanksgiving week 2010, and though there will be less food this year than in past holidays, there will be plenty. I am as thankful as ever and feel more fortunate; I am happy with my life. I wish Carolyn's and my parents could spend one more day at our table, and I wish that Jeremy and Keegan could be here to share this experience of family and love. I dream of seeing Mom (my grandmother) rocking in her old handmade rocking chair as she listens to Hank Williams sing on the radio. I wish my uncles Roy and Fred were with me; Roy sneaking a beer to keep Dot from fussing at him, and Fred deep in studious thought about walking the fields and woods. I wish my friends from "the day" were here, Fred and Alice, Ken and Brenda, Steve and Barb; just one more gathering to talk the talk even if we would have become too old to walk the walk. My new friends from around the world would be most welcome to share our humble feast; although we meet and greet in a virtual world, each one of you has become integrated into my life and you all are a joy I shall never forget.
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Shy

As I've mentioned before, I am very shy in the presence of strangers, especially women, but I do get it through genes. I've said how shy my grandmother was and would never eat with a stranger; most of the time she would eat in the kitchen while the rest of the family sat at the dining table. My mother had some of this same shyness but in a different form; she would never pump gasoline for herself and she never in her life put coins in a vending machine; she feared she would make a mistake and that someone would think she was foolish. Other than those two quirks, she was pretty well "normal". She liked to meet strangers and was as kind as anyone you will ever meet. However, one time she met a stranger that she wished she had never seen, at least under the circumstances. She and some more of the family were taking a day trip in her car to visit other family members. On the way home they decided to stop at a roadside restaurant and have a quick meal. When they finished eating, my mom went out and got into her car while the rest of her companions went to the restroom. She put the key in the ignition switch but it would not turn and after many attempts she began fussing aloud and then she began wondering where her riders were. She looked out the window and and the rest of the family was standing in front to another car, laughing and trying to get her attention. As she rolled the window down, she heard "Dot, you're in the wrong car!" and at the same time she glanced at the inside rear-view mirror and a little old woman was cowering in the corner of the back seat, half scared out of her wits; she thought she was being kidnapped. My mom quickly exited the car just as scared as was the old woman, and the rest of the crew were on the ground laughing. It finally dawned on my mom as to what she had done, and she eased back to the car where her would-be victim was beginning to catch on and was herself laughing. There was a heap of apologizing performed by my mom that afternoon. When she first came out of the restaurant, she went to a car that was the same color and body style as her Pontiac and hopped right in. She gave the rest of the crew a good piece of her mind all the way home.
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Have a wonderful Thanksgiving eve, eve, my friends.
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Denim

A beautiful, springlike day yesterday and it looks to be more of the same today. We had various family members in and out with my aunt and her daughter coming in late. The previous day cousin Sharon dropped off a netbook pc which had a bad "hard drive" and she wanted to know if I could retrieve some photos from it that had not been backed up. I think I could have saved some of the pics by booting into Linux from a memory stick; there are Linux distros highly suitable fro such. The pc is still under warranty and HP will replace the hard drive, but they want $350 to recover the contents. Corporate theft is what I call it. However, she needed the machine back yesterday and I didn't have time to do my Linux magic.
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Carolyn made goulash for supper; yummy home made biscuits, too. Mashed taters would have been nice but she didn't have time to fix them.
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Jola and Tammy mentioned jeans in their comments from yesterday's blog. I like wearing jeans, but when tragedy struck in the early 1980s, I decided it was time to try a new approach to keeping my dignity clothed. The tragedy was that American jeans became very popular in foreign countries, particularly in Japan. This caused the old capitalistic law of supply and demand to kick in and the prices soared. New York fashion designers soon caught on to the craze as did design houses in Paris, Rome, and London and that made the prices skyrocket. My jeans of choice were boot-cut Wranglers because their sizing fit my long legged, Adonis-like body better than did Levis or Lees and I had been used to paying around $6 for them. With the new popularity and by the time Reaganomics kicked in its extra toll, the price had gone to $24 each and I was officially out of the jeans buying business. My god, there were some awful designer jeans on the market and on people's asses. A bit of fancy trim on back pockets raised the price to $40 or more. The most terrible thing was some of the wearers that jumped aboard the "fashion" craze which went hand-in-hand with the resurgence of new-age country music and cowboy-hatted pretty boys. Let's face it and you can call me chauvinist if you like, some women's bodies were just not made for wearing jeans, and no jeans were ever made that would look good on these ladies. However, there were some women whom looked ok anyway they dressed but became appealing goddesses when they donned a pair of tight-fitting jeans. Another thing, jeans need to be worn and washed enough times to take on a "character", yet the fashion world changed things so often that jeans were worn two or three times and then tossed for a later model; they always looked new and mostly terrible. There was the "starched look", the "always new" look, the "stone-washed look", the "baggy look" and any other kind of looky-look that Madison Avenue ad men could conceive to keep sales high. The last of my jeans (probably the ones sweet Alice bought me for my birthday in 1981) were well worn and at last ragged-out and reduced to shorts which lasted several more summers into the 1990s.
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Worsh Day!
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Wilbur

Nothing of import happening in my world. We drove around the countryside for a bit yesterday as I was hoping to find something to shoot at. Even Wilbur is mostly boring this time of year. I noticed the bufflehead ducks were back from wherever they spend the warm months, and I saw two small flocks of brave hen turkeys along the road to Watauga Dam. They will probably be safe from dining tables as long as they remain on the reservation. Wildlife is adapting to human intrusion, but I fear it will be their final downfall.
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I did not get one pic.
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Have a Sunday!
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Shopped

Photos for this fine blog may be seen on my other fine blog which is here.
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The above photos are from the same file which was originally much over-exposed; the sky is blown and there is a general lack of contrast. Over-exposure is mostly impossible to fix because there is little or no information there to work from; it is near dead 255. The post-edit photo has contrast modified by using the curves tool in Paintshop Pro, and an entire new sky was added with just a few mouse clicks using a free filter designed to do such. I was also able to correct perspective on both corners of the barn without losing too much photo along the sides. Even though it is not a great photo by any means, it is an example of how shots can be saved using a decent editor. With a little time and patience, garbage can be made into presentable photos by skillfully using software such as I use or with the more elaborate Photoshop or The Gimp. Had this been a .raw file, it would have looked even better but it was made with my Canon S3 IS which has no .raw output. Does the sky look real in the edited version? Would you have known it was not real if I hadn’t told you? Here is another with a completely fake sky.
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Yesterday we found out that Chris got laid off from her job a few days ago, and her live-in boyfriend lost his job on Wednesday. I suppose they will both be moving in with us pretty soon. They neither one are eligible for unemployment benefits; but we are hoping they can get grocery assistance from the state. It is never enough but is can surely help. The American economy is booming. Phooey!
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The lesion on my nose is cancerous.
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May your Friday be feracious, dear friends.
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Nosy

A note about coal. When I was a little boy growing up in grandma's house, there were two sources of heat for the small dwelling. One was the kitchen stove where all the cooking was done and where water was heated for some of the clothes washing and bathing. It was a wood-burning stove in which kindling was lighted, then the main pieces of wood were used for cooking. However the main household heat came from a small, coal burning fireplace in the living room. Kindling was lighted and hunks of coal would begin to burn and and provide heat for several hours. The fireplace was fairly small and wasn't made for wood burning, but later on, slab wood* was about all my grandma used. When my mother died, I found receipts which my grandfather and grandmother kept and among them were ones for delivered coal; the price per ton was between $4 and $8. In the above photo, is my aunt Ivy (Iva) and behind her and to the right is grandma's coal pile. The pic was made in 1947. The photo has some more interesting things (to me) which I will describe later on.
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I go back to the skin doctor this afternoon to have sentence passed on my guilty nose and find if it is to be treated as a felon or a simple misdemeanor. He will explain the results of the biopsy and tell me about my options. Hopefully, the place is not cancerous but he seems to think it may be such. If so, I will probably lose more nose than I would have otherwise. The mole-like lump is near my left cheek at the edge of the nostril. Aging sucks!
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Thursday already?! Have a good one!
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Are you the coal man?

Chilly outside today with a biting wind, but the light remains good for photography.

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Coal men.

In the winter of 1957, my dad being a man whom liked to stay busy as much as possible, took on a job of selling coal. He had a good factory job, but on his weekends off, he wanted something else to do and make a few extra dollars. Of course, he thought that I should not watch cartoons on Saturday morning but instead help him with his new venture. I was used to it; the previous two years we sold kindling and slab wood using his old Dodge pickup truck for hauling. In those days, a ton of coal cost $12 or less but that was big money for poor urban families, especially for black people in our area whom had a tough time finding work anyway and for oldsters on fixed incomes. Generally, burning coal in a pot-bellied stove was all the heat they had. He found a small lot with a tiny office and attached shed on a corner in a middle-class neighborhood which had been used for coal sales in the past. He rented it and I was off my ass and on the job along with my uncle Roy whom, like myself, was more or less drafted to help. Dad ordered a few tons of stoker coal and within a few minutes it was delivered and dumped on the lot. From somewhere, he had procured a huge bunch of triple-ply heavy-duty paper sacks and each one was the perfect size to hold 50 pounds of coal. It was my job to fill the bags and he would weigh them on a set of coal scales that he bought at the livestock market. I would love to say he was generous and would put an extra few lumps in each bag, but he was more inclined to remove one or two; he was much like the butcher whom placed his finger on the sacles each time he weighed meat. It was cold, dirty work, but had its rewards and I will write about one of them in a moment. When we got several bags filled and the truck box loaded, we would drive off to the poorer parts of town and cruise the streets and alleys where we were soon noticed. Someone always came rushing out a door hollering "Are you the coal man?" They would look at the bags and ask how much he wanted for a bag and Dad would say "fifty cents" and they would then purchase as many bags as they could afford, usually no more than two. By the time we finished with the first customer, other people were out waving us down. We would usually get two pickup loads out each Saturday and Dad was able to make a decent profit. Now for my reward. Across the street from the coal lot lived a girl who appeared to be a couple of years younger than I, making her about 11 or 12 years old, and to me, she was the prettiest thing this side of heaven. Sometimes she would be in her front yard alone, and other times there was another girl with her. She knew I was perpetually looking at her, but she never once acted as if she cared, but I was very much infatuated and was coming down with a case of forlorn puppy love. Eventually the weather got bad enough that I hardly saw her and I no longer looked forward to helping out on the lot. What I didn't know was that less than seven years later I would marry that pretty girl and we have been together ever since.
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Have a wondrous Wednesday, my friends.
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Strolling

The weather is springlike today, blustery with flicking sunlight teasing angry clouds. When a sunbeam manages to find its way toward leaf-cluttered lawns, the light quality becomes fantastic for making photos. I long to be at my bathing spot as the air will be barely warm enough for a dip this afternoon, but I imagine the water is perversely chilly. Today must be lived.
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If you have desire to use Photoshop for editing your work, Cyrus has announced online classes on Megashot; all you have to do is become a member of the site and join in the classes. I guarantee you will learn not only about software tools, but about photography in general. One thing everyone should know is how to use is 'layers" which most good quality editing programs provide the means to do. Learn to use layers to adjust many things on your photo and you will find that many shots you decided not to use because they were not good enough will all of a sudden take on new life and can become wall hangers.
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Cyrus wants more people involved in the critiquing of member's photos. As I said before, the Critique Forum has become the most popular place on the site. However, I do not feel like I am qualified to do serious critiquing. I can do simple stuff like recognize when a photo is under-or-over exposed and other elementary things, but as I am only a snap-shooter, most of the photos in which others find flaws are fine with me. I don't like to become consumed with details such as color saturation or how a photo was  converted to grayscale; if it works, it works. Of course some of the best photographers in the world were and are sticklers for detail, the great Ansel Adams being one of them. Portrait and glamour photographers make a living by the details. Other accomplished shooters such as Weegee are just as apt to forgo perfection of detail to capture a moment or tell a story. I am not great by any means, but the art side of photography carries very little interest for me. I do enjoy looking at the art stuff, and at times I like to see if I can emulate some of it, but it isn't the path I chose to walk.
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Have a Tuesday; live it, love it, and keep a piece of it in your heart ...
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Upon a star

The value of friendship is not in what is said or done, but the way we

feel about each other. Words and deeds have a certain intrinsic value,

but emotions can be fleeting and at the same time, profound. Friendship

is an emotion sandwiched inside a feeling of trust and comfort.

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Am I missing something in my life ... just what the hell is a Lady Gaga? I refuse to even google such a name!

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Worsh day in East Tennessee is cloudy and cool.

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Photo from November, 2008; Boone Lake headwaters at Watauga Flats, Watauga River.

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When you wish upon a star ...

Make a wish, my friends.

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Family

Keegan got the money we wired, and along with a small check he got from the Air Force, he should be good until he gets his sign-up bonus next month. Thanks for sharing our concern with us, my dear friends; your support is a blessing.
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Cuzzn-Dread, aka Jeremy our grandson, will be performing his first paying gig at Atlanta's Red Light Cafe on Sunday, December 19. He has played some open mic sessions, but this will be his first professional performance. Carolyn, Chris, and Ashley want to drive there and see him perform, but a five hour drive is more than I think I can endure, especially if we have to leave coming back home after the show. Chris and Ashley have to work on Monday morning and Carolyn has to work Monday evening.
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Ashley is now the manager of one of the local Sally's Beauty Supply stores and has been offered jobs as a professional model which so far she hasn't taken. Tabby is now working for our local landline phone company.
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Speaking of wired phone companies, they seem to be making a bit of resurgence after years of losing traffic to cell companies. Wireless is getting too expensive for some people, and they are cutting back on their overpriced cell plans. I already have a Google Voice number and a Skype account, so I guess I am ok there.
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Have a Sunday!
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Pensive Saturday

We finally got Keegan's address and the money is on its way to him; he should get it tomorrow. Our minds are more at ease now. He is in Misawa, Japan and on alert to be shipped out at any time.
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My blogging will again be sporadic as I will be mostly using the Droid for internet access. Only one of my neighbors has unprotected access that I can "borrow", and whomever it is doesn't go off and leave their modem on. The Droid works fine and I can do just about all I want and need to do from it; it is just a bit difficult for my silly fingers to operate.
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Be well, dear people.
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Photo-foolish

Will Obama stop playing the wimp politician and become a real president? His first two years have been failures across the board, which leaves him half of a presidency to try and keep his name out of history’s mud holes, and he has to do it with an even more unfriendly congress. He has actually been a better Republican president than he has  been a Democrat.

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A few years back, there was a super-geeky cable TV channel about computers and modern electronics. I can’t remember its name and it did not last long. Most of the shows were hosted by two young people, usually a gung-ho young dude and a female partner and the females always seemed to have huge tits. One of these young ladies posted a few everyday photos made at her home to some site like Facebook or such, nothing particularly interesting. However, she edited the photos with Photoshop before uploading them to the net. A few days later, semi-nude photos of her showing the lovely, big titties were all over the internet. What she and a lot of people didn’t seem to know is a thing like meta-data can not only be a useful tool, it can also be turned against you. Meta-data is the EXIF info, plus all the other data it takes to convert a digital photo into pixels we can see. That is ok, however Photoshop kept all the data together for any one shooting session and when she uploaded the innocent pics, the data for the remainder of the pics she made that session went with them. Some enterprising teenager had figured out Photoshop’s process and was able to extract some photos of the young lady that she did not intend for everyone to see; she was lounging bare-breasted on her sofa and snapping various shots of herself.

The moral of this story is; when you upload a photo to the internet, make sure it has been stripped of all extraneous meta-data; unless you want me to see your titties.

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Mark and Tammy and Mike: Have a great weekend of catching up and just plain fun in Savannah! I guarantee some excellent weather for beach-bumming!

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I hope for a great weekend for the rest of us, too.

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In and out

America’s day of tribute to our Veterans … to remember them who hath born the battle.
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Happy Independence Day Jola, people of Poland, and to all my American friends of Polish ancestry whom I came to love while tramping the Glory Road!
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I will be out and in today; gotta go see the skin doc for some more back burning. If getting old wasn’t so much fun, I’d flat refuse to participate! Later, my friends …
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5:30pm–I am finally back from doctor visit; after sitting in waiting room for more than an hour, I was taken to exam room. He didn’t do anything to my back, but removed a spot from my cheek and did a biopsy on my big nose. I have to go back in a week to learn my fate.
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It is odd about the things a computer keyboard can collect between and beneath the keys. I dug enough food from around my space-bar  to make a full meal with desert. While doing that, I noticed some green stuff growing around the Function keys. It looks like spinach so I moistened it a bit and am hoping it I can get enough to liven up a salad. Be my luck that it is actually some kind of inedible mold.
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Have a dear Friday, my good friends.
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Blue and Gray

Low winter sun

The sun shines brightly in a pale-blue winter sky, but inside my mind a gray storm is untamed.
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Keegan finally got in touch with the family via Facebook for the for the first time since the day he arrived in Tokyo. Somehow his bank account has not caught up with him, he is flat broke, and his cell phone has been cut off. His message was short and we still do not know how to get money to him, but the most unsettling thing is he is scheduled to be reassigned to Afghanistan next June. His dad, sister, and Carolyn are all to pieces over that news; and I am not in a very good mood, either. However, I try to keep them a bit more positive by telling them it is a long time until June and the military could change his plans for the better, and if not, he will be safer in the desert than driving on the roads at home, and saying anything else upbeat I can think of; I just wish my words would work for me. Being the patriarch of the family is a burden I feel ill-equipped to carry.
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The family problem along with me being forced to look for work has me seeking more meditating time alone but my concentration is nil. I am not to the point of having anxiety attacks like I did when I found I was going to be a life-long cripple, but I am eating an occasional Xanax when I feel depression darkening my thoughts. I realize my job seeking is futile, but try I must as hope I have; peace of mind is at stake.
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Today's blog has for sure not been a ray of summer sunshine, but I had to unload somewhere and amongst friends seemed to be the comfort zone for me.
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The photo was made last evening in my living room as the sun cast its waning eye across some green bottles which adorn the ledge of a decorative, half-moon window.
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Wednesday peace, dear Friends.
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Slave to the system

Due to an unexpected economic setback, for the first time in 25 years I am in the job market. If you know of anyone whom has dire need of a 66 year-old ex-electrician who is mostly crippled, types with one finger of one hand, is opinionated, perverted, nearly deaf, overweight, only a few of my own teeth left, and can make a three-course meal out of all the pills I have to take, forward them this blog paragraph as it is my resume.

Yesterday I put my hearing horn on my ear and made several calls to potential employers. As soon as I mentioned my age, the few jobs suddenly became unavailable. Surely there is something out there I can do to make a few bucks per week.
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Over on Megashot, I hear that Cyrus and a couple of other Photoshop gurus are going to present an online course in using that particular software. If you are looking for a way to get the artistic best from your photos, this will be a "have to take" course. Twelve years ago, I bought a copy of Photoshop but gave up on using it as it was very difficult to learn. A course like this was what I needed at the time and there were some to be had online, but the price was way too high for me. I canned the Photoshop, went back to my tried and proven easy to use Paintshop Pro, and haven't regretted it one bit. Now that Jasc no longer makes Paintshop Pro and Corel does make it, it has become more of a toy instead of a viable alternative to Photoshop. At one time, Adobe was copying PsP features because the boys at Jasc were ahead of them in technology. If I have to learn a new editor, I think it will be the GIMP because they have versions for Window, Mac, and Linux and it is every bit as powerful as Photoshop and it is free whereas a full retail version of Photoshop costs $600+.
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Have a Tuesday!
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Ramblin' man

Welcome back, Tammy!
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After a lifetime of believing what cosmologists and other scientists say, and after reading thousands of hard science and science fiction stories, I have come to the conclusion that my believing that humans are just one of many species in the universe may be a delusion. It has become obvious that there are no more sentient beings out there among the nearer stars. The Miss Universe pageant has been ongoing since 1952 and so far, only humans from our own Pale Blue Dot have participated as contestants. If there were other sentient beings among the myriads of suns and planets across the heavens, they surely would have entered contestants by now. So far I have seen only earth girls and I am sure Donald Trump would allow beauties from other worlds to participate in his tournament. I could be jumping to a conclusion; there may be other civilizations on other planets revolving around other suns; they may be farther away than 58 light years; that is roughly the distance TV signals from the first broadcast have traveled across space. By cosmic standards, fifty-two light years is still in our close neighborhood. There is yet hope for a female Spock or Jabba the Hutt to grace us with her universal beauty.
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Obama says he didn't get his agenda message across to voters; he doesn't realize people in these tough times do not want messages and agendas; they want positive action.
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I read that an old priest in eastern Poland has erected the worlds tallest Jesus statue; he says it has been his lifetime dream to do so. To me, it sounds like it has become a monument to himself. If I read the bible correctly, Jesus nor God would likely approve of this structure but I won't go into why I think that way because I got into trouble with a friend last year for such opinions.
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I had a weird dream last night; I imagined I and another person were on top of a building watching a pretty sunset. I heard a commotion behind me and I turned to see Pope John Paul II straggling along alone with a sad face and grumbling to himself. About 10 paces in front of him walked his Boss and I gather the Big Guy had just disciplined the Pope for some reason that was obscure to me. The Pope was wearing his royal robes and peaked hat, while the Boss was bareheaded and wearing a white garment much like many people in Arabia don most of the time. It was all very freaky, mostly because I didn't have a camera with me to shoot the sunset.
This ain't one of my half-true stories; this was my dream!
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May your suds be plentiful on this worsh day!
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Fall back

A sunny but cold day in Northeast Tennessee; our little snow event had passed by early afternoon yesterday although the higher mountains are white and glistening at their summits.
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The time “fell back” and hour last night; now we will have some extra morning light which I will seldom see but supper won’t come until past dark. It is 126 days until we once more spring forward an hour and it is 44 days until winter solstice 2010. I wish our calendars were based on astronomical factors instead of arbitrary and confusing ideas of men. If it were up to me, the new year would begin the day after winter solstice, spring, summer, and autumn would be as they are now, and winter solstice would mark the end of the year. My calendar would have lunar months—13 0f them—of 28 days each with one month each year having an extra day (leap month) and one month every fourth year having another extra day (leap year). June is my favorite month and it is my idea, therefore June would get the extra days.  The extra month will come between June and July and would be named Kenny for obvious reasons. I like my photographs to be balanced and I like my years to have the same equality. No more “thirty days hath September, April, June, and November; all the rest have thirty-one, save February with twenty-eight clear and twenty-nine each leap year”.
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Have a great Sunday, dear friends.
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Idling

Megashot is having two paying contests in November, one for black and white, and one for landscapes. I have entered only two shots in the landscape category, but have placed several in the b/w; I did not expect any of them to do well and it was a correct assumption. People are comfortable with familiar everyday scenes and judge other folk's photos with that jaundiced eye. It has come to the point where I am beginning to follow the other contest voters; if I don't know you and like you, you will get nothing, or at best, fives and sixes from me. I'll give highest points to my best friends regardless of what I think about their photos. I see many others doing the same thing and it is the only place outside of administration that the contests are vulnerable. I have some ideas for the contests to make them better, but I think they will not be given much attention if I decide to bring them up for discussion. Until a lot more members are participating so that categories can be made more restrictive, there is little hope for any kind of fairness in judging.
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Cold, steel-gray winter has filled my window for two days as the old man settles in for his seasonal hilarity. My motto this year: Don't worry; be happy!
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Winter blues cause me to think of my uncle Roy; he had a cure for everything ... he smiled.

Roy had an unusual approach when he met a woman for the first time, especially if he found her attractive, and I heard him use it on many occasions. He would say to her "Who is the best looking man you know and why am I". The words always brought a moment of hesitation before the woman suddenly absorbed the remark and beamed a smile at him. Roy had a way of making people feel good and causing them to feel good about themselves.

He was quite a pool shooter in his day, having shot with and against some the worlds best. His biggest pleasure came in the 1960s when Minnesota Fats was in town doing an exhibition, and he chose my uncle as his partner for some matches. This was in the days of pool halls in bars, and not the shiny, clean, and well lit emporiums of today. It was one foot on the floor or out the door. As good as he was at billiards, Roy excelled at and loved to play English snooker and was at one time known as the best player in Johnson City. I will write more about him later.
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Have a weekend, my friends, and where ever you wander and whatever you do, smile for me and you won't be blue.
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Why I didn't vote

I don't see the election results of 2010 as a bad thing, nor do I see them as a good thing; they are only a continuation of what has been happening for the past 30 years. The status quo is maintained; C'est la vie.
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A couple of points were made to me Tuesday in blog comments which I respectfully took to heart; many of our forefathers, our brothers and sisters, and our sons and daughters died fighting for the right for us to vote. American women endured much and fought hard for suffrage which made it possible for all succeeding generations of women to be fairly treated at the polls. No one in the world respects this more than I, but the right to vote isn't all there is to it. These sacrifices were also made so that when the time comes that the "one man, one vote" system fails to work for us, we can petition our government to change the system. If we find our pleas falling on deaf ears, we can use whatever peaceful and lawful means we see fit to ensure we are heard. This can be anything from a person carrying a picket sign in public on up to hundreds of thousands gathering for peaceful protests, or, it can mean refusing to vote at all in hope that enough people will feel the same as you and join in a boycott of the system. Believe me, if enough people turn a thumbs-down to the wrongs and scream loud enough, things can be changed for the better. Women, remember the grocery store picketing and boycotts of the late 1960s which was instrumental in bringing skyrocketing food prices back to where a family could be fed without a loan being taken? The squeaky wheel does get the grease!

Democracy is not self-healing, but when enough people apply aid and resuscitation, it can be brought to a renewed and better life. Our nation is not yet on the morticians table, but weighty aches and scars of abuse, misuse, and neglect will in time bury us if we do not together act to heal our wounds; our country is as mortal as each individual citizen.

All I can say about voting within the present system is that every time you cast your ballot for these uncaring talking heads whom you hope will change things for the good but in your heart know it is highly unlikely to happen that way, you are rubber-stamping your approval of a failed process. It is exactly what is wrong with this nation today. It is exactly why I refuse to take an active part in this farce of present day American political voting. We can work together for positive change, or we can sink together with our chad-fouled ballots being our legacy to the world.
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I am growing a mustache.
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Have a Thursday, my friends.
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Sermon

Text with photo may be enjoyed here.
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Good morning, world. Today is the day conscientious American voters decide the direction of the nation for the next two years. I find myself without a conscience when it comes to politics and will sit on my hands again this election as I did the last one. The last bunch of electees have been a most disappointing lot to most voters, but not to me. Previous to the last day of voter judgment, I, in my humbly infinite wisdom, stated in this very Loose Laces blog that nothing would really change for the good, and it hasn't. Americans foolishly follow the big-money promises when they vote, all the while in their tiny but basically good hearts they think of themselves as independent spirits voting the way they see fit and saving their God given way of life. They are led like greedy children to the gingerbread house of "change" in the deep woods where the witch plans to have them for supper. However, just as the old woman's pot comes to a boil, the children are miraculously saved by the sounds of another election barging through the media forest and the entire saga is repeated until they one day they grow up and decide that gluttony for material wealth must be balanced by by spiritual riches. Very soon, they find the prospect of political adulthood to be very scary, so they hang around in their mid-teens awaiting mama government to take care of them by protecting their jobs, and papa government kicking ass overseas when some authority figure deems it necessary. Little do they realize that true and good leaders are not going to come to them, and if one did they would crucify him by fearing the change he might bring and which they desperately they need; Jesus found this to be so. Not enough of the tax paying voters ever stop to think that they must create their leadership; elections are not about voting for this person or that person who wants to "serve"; elections are about placing representatives of our choosing whom will do our biding and attempt to lead us in a direction which will improve the lives of all Americans, keep us at the forefront of sane worldwide leadership by building good will among our sister nations, and ensuring the that we are secure in our beds at night. We must not be forced to fear "Big Brother" but we must relearn the basics of our sacred Constitution and protect it from our own greed and ignorance.

The above photo was made four days after the last national election when we were promised “real change”; even pessimistic I had hope. How has your life changed in these two years; are you financially more sound now than then; do you have renewed faith in Washington DC politics; do you see our country progressing toward fairness and equality; do you truly see a nation “of the people, by the people, for the people”?
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Have reflective Tuesday, dear friends.
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November the oneth

Megashot is exploding with new members; I do not easily excite, but I am a bit tingly all over. I find the most satisfying part is helping the new-comers find their way around. When a member first joins the site, I leave a message for them saying "Welcome to Megashot! :-)" and many of them send me a message within a day or so asking for help with one thing or another. Last evening I assisted a man from out west in making and uploading his profile banner. I think he is probably a professional photographer and does a lot of landscapes. Anyway, while I was helping him, I told him about us needing help on the critique forum and he agreed to help out there as much as he has time for. I am a shameless shill.
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For the second time, Carolyn and her crew got up very early on Saturday morning, loaded the van with supplies and the 110lb floor machine and drove to Piney Flats to do some floors for one of her long-time customers. It is one of those places that since 9/11 will not issue door keys to outsiders. Just as the previous time, the doors were locked even considering Carolyn phoned their office the afternoon prior to make sure they would leave the door unlocked. This is expensive for her; she has to pay the employees for two hours show-up time and she had other overhead expenses like gas for the van, pads for the machine, and having more than $100 worth of stripper and wax that she cannot use unless someone else needs some floors refinished. She absorbed the cost the first time because they are a longtime and quickly-paying account. However, this time she must bill them even if it only for enough to cover her costs and leaving her without profit. I don't look to recover a cent.
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May your whangam be lovable on this first worsh day of November.
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