This blog is all about how things look to a man, who's not a boomer, but not quite a millennial, let's just say he lies somewhere on the tail of the X.
12.16.2018
Yet Another Case of Tail Wagging the Doglly
Sunday Afternoons with my Pastor from Another Mother
Awhile ago I reconnected with an old schoolfriend from Elementary, Middle and High schools. He's now a pastor at a church across the Phoenix megalopolis. Our afternoons are chocked full of dialogue, in fact in future meetups he's going to use his connections as a primmer to help me weightlift at a neighborhood gymnasium. He knows a little bit and can access resources to help train me. I took weightlifting 2+ semesters. One for college credit and one one as independent study (where the instructor would help me individually). On pumped to have a buddy who will repurpose his skills to assist me. Once again giving credo to the phrase, "it's not what you know, it's who you know." I'm being to love the Good Old Boy System. It's mightily more intuitive. Simpler is usually better.
12.15.2018
New Facial Hair Quaffage
Clothes may Change, but Style Pervades
Haste Makes Waste
12.05.2018
Introspection, Baby
It marries my love of linguistic flair and my Libertarian leanings; id est, it's tantamount to saying "If God wills it..." and President D.J.Trump's, "We'll see what happens."
11.19.2018
Per Bob Frost, taking the lesser trod path
While still in high school, my last two summers, I took English 101 from my freshman high school teacher) through the local community college via email correspondence. And then I took ENG 102 at the college the next year.
Thing is, I could've taken the GED cold, and pass. However knowing that colleges apprise rigor, fortitude, the ability to endure as much as raw intellect, I returned to school.
And in Frost-like manner, 'that has made all the difference.'
11.03.2018
My intended itinerary for next Saturday
I shall go to the Target store and pick up m-n-ms per usual.
I shall go to Warby Parker (Scottsdale) to try out new foksrames and order new glasses. Now that I have my prescription, that is possible.
I shall go to Verizon (Glendale) to get a new phone. I was charging my old phone and accidentally knocked it on the floor. It now has big black vacancies (looks like the La Brea tar pits). Quite inoperable..
In the Words of Yogi, "'Twas Deja' Vu, All Over Again.," or It's All Been Done Beforeee
10.07.2018
Sometimes Intentionally Looking Ignorant is the Best Route
9.30.2018
Realization, Really
I've come newfound revealed truth that lo these years of inculcation that oom pretty smart, and that if I have even a slight rudimentary knowledge of a subject (either via my 8 years of post high school education or the school of hard knocks) that I ought not be passive but take a leadership role. After all, that was one of the central foci of my graduate school studies. Leadership of small groups and organizations. Time to trust myself.
9.27.2018
A Hope Renvisioned
I recently got in touch with an old school buddy, from some of elementary, the bus stop in middle, and freshman year of high school. He tapped my computer and research skills in the start of his new ministry, which hopefully dovetails with my extant mission. Ala the Blues Brothers: I'm on a mission from GOD. With any luck, I will at least get more involved with a younger spiritual cohort. Hopefully in my travels, I'll meet a nice young woman, with whom to start a family. As my newfound credo states: any step forward is a step in the right direction. Can't hurt for trying.
9.25.2018
The perils, the problems, and even I daresay the pluses of having a babyface
Didn't Pat Benatar liken love to a battlefield?
9.16.2018
Sometimes Breaks Can be a Cool Things
After being under the weather the last few days, yesterday afternoon I was gelling indubitably better. My fever had broken and by morning before church, I was over the hump. Id est, I was in that post illness euphoria...
9.08.2018
Phase I/Phase II
9.07.2018
Burn Baby, Burn
Industry would happily rectify the situation. But even sensible logging is a boogeyman.
Government,ble greenpeace, environuts, et al. have combined to light that fire(s).
9.06.2018
The realization of my part in His plan
Ubiquity over precision
If Nominated, I won't run; if elected,I won't serve... OK, OK, you twisted my arm, I'll serve
Hey, at least I can Google when I hit brick walls, which I imagine happening quite frequently at first. Such is the peril of endeavoring at any denovo stretch goal.
9.02.2018
I love it when a plan comes together
After an initial miscoordination, my pastor buddy, Justino, who's a longtime friend from elementary, middle and high school, finally met up, and week meet up again next week, such that I might help him start this ministry that he's looking to start. Good meet up today; hopefully good pretends for a future endeavor.
A Distinguishing Feature of the Species
8.25.2018
Reunions (a retrospective)
At the We're Moving Forward event later in the day on the same same campus as the gym where I exercised in the morning, different building, same campus, I saw a guy with whom I shared many a rehab facility--that was unexpectedly neat.
8.19.2018
Echos from the past
Recently when I've been looking in the mirror, someone else has been gazing back-- the ghost of my maternal grandfather.
There was family lore of us (the royal, familiar US) having some Irish in our sugar code. The D in DNA being deoxyribose, a permutation of the sugar compound, ribose. My mustache is ruddy, the color of my grandfather's hair in his youth. Red is a telltale hair color pigmentation trait of the Irish.
So, I suppose that makes me German (on my maternal grandmother's side) Dutch (on my paternal and maternal grandfathers' sides, as well as my paternal grandmother) with strong Irish influences. It's no wonder, I'm quite opinionated ands stubborn.
You can never know where you're going, unless and until you know where you've been. If not you, at least your sugar (code). And all this without 23 and me. I'm not cheap, I'm frugal. And I've staked out that position; so, I'll stubbornly defend it. More traits that are in line with my ancestry.
8.10.2018
Doing the twist, ala the Grateful Dead
8.09.2018
The debut of Master RMH, MBA
8.08.2018
Reunion
I shall expound on the tet-a-tet after the fact, but I shall not peer into the future.
8.06.2018
The Art of Moving Slowly (and the Science of Telegraphing Your Moves Ahead of Time)
7.30.2018
Evenflow, thoughts arrive like butterflies
I get inspirations late at night, but no matter how much i try to hold on to them, by morning, they are gone with the wind.
As such, I employ several compensatory strategies. Either I start to compose a'am email and leave an outline of bullet points to flesh out on the morning, or my personal favorite, I compose an SMS (text message) and schedule it to be sent at a more appropriate hour for correspondence.
Ain't modern technology grand? Much like business never stops, the digital age never sleeps. We are living in a truly global/mobile paradigm, where barriers are reduced to a gossamer thinness. The veil need not be ripped, for it's practically translucent.
7.24.2018
B-List Movie Reviews: Rampage
For a film based on a 1980's-era pub crawl video game, Rampage was worth precisely the $4.50 I paid to watch the film. The CGI graphics were quite ccomparable to the horde of Godzilla retreads produced near the turn of the century.
I suppose that's to be expected after all, didn't Canada's BareNaked Ladies echo that sentment with the refrain: 'It's all been done before.' I guess everything is just a rehash or permutation of either s wroteomething that some Classical Roman author, a Gospel writer, or Shakespeare wrote.
My verdict on Rampage is 4 bottles of beer the wall. Good but not great repose of the monster movie genre.
In the 1980's, my parents owned a sign painting comp, and in an adjacent stripmall there was a working neighborhood bar; that's where I played Rampage. It's not very fun sober, or so I can imagine. I suppose same could be said for the movie.
7.21.2018
Don't Know What'cha Got 'Til it's Gone
Doing the Hustle
7.13.2018
Role Reversal
7.07.2018
My Curricular Journey
There, mid-October, I entered the brand new Middle School, at first I felt a little out of place (city mouse surrounded by country mice or more aptly mountain mices. I grew to adore that place, but again following the job opportunities, my mom an I moved back into the house we'd left mere months earlier.
Freshman and Sophomore years I excelled on the accelerated track. Summer after Sophomore year I was passenger seared at the impact proint in a nasty T-bone carnt 5 years in collet collision. I suffered a brain injury. After my 10-day coma, I spent another year ans a half in various hospitals and outpatient rehabilitation. I then transitioned back into my former high school. After a year of integrating, I was ready to resume my journey, albeit at a slower pace (more English and Writing courses, less math) for a shorter duration. AP Biology, AP English, AP Government my last year (6 calendar years, 5 curricular years)
After high school, I spent 5 years in college. I went in undeclared, spent some time pursuing business and politics, but ultimately went back to my beeloved Biology. Graduating cum laude, I incorporated my business, politics and English into a Social Sciences minor.
I then followed my business interests to the local wing of the State university. My favorite courses were business law and Finance.
Turning Japanese, I think I'm Turning Japanese, I really think so
Near the end of next month (August 2018), I will be attending a brain injury associated group event. There I intend to butter up and style my moustache with beard butter (an amalgam of moustache oil and moustache wax). It's looking pretty good now, definite potential, but with another month and a half growth, it should look really good then.
Here's the part of the post where, ala Fresh Prince, everything gets flip-turned upside down. According to the Vapors' lyrics: No sex, no drugs, no wine, no women, No fun, no sin, no you, no wonder it's dark. That's been my life, heretofore (sequestered in school, hospital, home) , but I believe with my newfound facial hair and rediscovered chutzpah, ala John Lee Hooker & Carlos Santana,'Things Gonna Change' so I should just 'Chill Out.'
7.01.2018
X-Perspective: On Cultural Appropriation
6.27.2018
Of Memes and of Genes
Taken to the extreme, memes can become integrated into the permanence and replicability of the human genome through the standard paradigm of isolated interbreeding populations. Take as exemplari gratis, the physical differences between species of animals, begin as location memes that are then ensconced in DNA, the Camel vs the goat: water conservation vs Alpine rock scaling. Or rabbits and elephants, totally different reproductive strategies (r vs. K)..
6.24.2018
Two Wrongs Really Can Make a Right
6.23.2018
Bob Frost's Writing on Division May be Germane to Our Current Age
It could also be beneficial (term is inapt, but gets the general point across) for Mexico as well. To become a modern society, one not so socially stratified and riddled with cartels, the underclass would have to revolt. As it stands currently, whenever the underclass gets restless, they are just directed across the Rio Bravo (Rio Grande) to El Norte (America).
As Thomas Paine wrote at the birth of our nation,']T]hese are the days that try mens' souls,' I'd also posit that the current era is trying in its own right
6.22.2018
:Per the Meat Puppets, I'm taking it to the next Plateau
Right from the outset, I knew I'd be stepping it up. Two sets of 50 at 200-lbs on the leg press.Two sets of 25 at 30-lbs on the crunchboard
That regiment is sufficient to use up my allotted workout time thrice weekly.
Per the Tempe college band Meat Puppets:
Nothing on top but a bucket and a mop and an illustrated book about birds,
There's a lot up there,
But don't be scared,
Who needs action when you've got words.
I've been accused of being both indecisive and lugubriously locacous. I plead guilty on both counts. The former, ala Jason Mraz, I'm trying to remedy; the latter, I wholeheartedly embrace.
I think I'll increase reps, while maintaining weight.
Also quite similar to when I took Weightlifting as my P.E.credit and then independent study in college, I initially lost weight (presumably from loss of adipose), but then I've been, ever so slightly, gaining weight (quite assuredly from slight muscle hypertrophy).
I maintained that schemata at my Saturday workout.
6.18.2018
In War, We Must All Choose a Side
A Leopard Changes His Stripes
6.14.2018
Dark Day Dawning
2. Returned to and graduated from the high school I attended before the injury. Sure it took me 5 academic years to complete (4 usual and 1 reintegration) and I did slow my courseload, but where there's a will there's a way, and I have been called willful on more than one one occasion. Who am I trying to kid, I wear the appellation of 'stubborn Dutchman' with pride. To wit, most people being called a stubborn Dutchman would be an insult, but I think of it as tantamount to being called unwavering and independent.
3. Graduated debt free and with honors from the college of my choice. Sure it took 5 years, but I did change majors once and then resume my original plan. But those weren't wasted years; I incorporated much of those curricular wanderings into my minor. And what's more, I followed the general, while in college, path of that course of study (social sciences: mostly economics) on to a master's level study (business administration: mostly big think leadership and investing). I never really aspired to be an academic (honestly, I kind of looked down on them). I always esteemed businessmen. My favorite scene in all of cinema is from Ferris Bueller's Day Off, when they visited the Chicago Board Options Exchange.
4. Graduated debt free, and on time, with an M.B.A. from the really local branch of the State University. I live in Glendale, a west valley suburb of Phoenix. ASU West is literally only a few blocks north of my house. In fact, when I was in high school, my neighborhood buddy and I Rollerbladed up to the campus one summer day, it was quite the summer sojourn. Also,for a Vertebrate Zoology course project, my college brother and I did a study on desert rat burrow configuration, utilizing the population of desert rodentia on the spacious northwest Phoenix campus locale.
6.13.2018
Once more unto the breach dear friends, again
This evening I went to that support group thing I alluded to in a previous post. It was pretty good. I saw people I'd meet previously. Makes connections (id est, friendships, acquaintances, et cetera) stronger. I'm pumped that I'll be better able to maintain the processes reinitiated (?) today. I had been going before, but my aunt was having trouble dusk-driving. I'm now riding with the caregiver who takes me to the local adaptive gym on Saturdays. Prospectively, I'll have him take me more places. Good pattern initiated tonight. Humans are pattern recognition, paradigm initiation, machines. So, what I'm saying is at least thrice more unto the breach, probably more, dear friends.
6.10.2018
Prospective social group
Arrangements have been made to ensue my attendance at a local brain injury social group facilitated by my counselor. It should be hood. Change will be good. As is my wont, ' Any steep forward is a move in the right direction, even if only in baby steps, ala What About Bob. After all, my first name is Robert,
A Rose by Any Other Name
5.31.2018
X-Perspective: On Roseanne, effects, comparisonsn
I've never really been a fan of Roseanne, but what's good for the gander, should also be good for the goose...
5.30.2018
UK shenanigans
X-Perspective:Conformity May be Desirable,but as for Me it's Quite Tenuous
Mostly that's because I have been conditioned lo these past 24 years of schooling to think both critically and independently, because school is about more than just facts and figures, but about the development and deployment of a mixed bag of processes.
5.28.2018
X-Perspective: Second Day
It does seem interesting,though.
5.16.2018
X-Perspective: First Day (a Retrospective Analysis or Analyses)
My university, collegiate, even high school curricular background should avail me well.
X-Perspective: First Day
I will give more elaborate posts in the future; after all, this is my first day. My first day is nie be
But hey, I'm university trained, should be easy peasy.
5.12.2018
X-Perspective: Henry V, Act III, scene 1 (kn a sense)
All this means is a delay; I shall remain undeterred in my quest to get back to good.. Just have to wait for my hand to strengthen, the damaging drugs to dissipate from the injections.
While waiting for my opportunity to try to scale the wall, I took a detour to a Target store proximal to the disability center. It was fruitful, mostly because I did my internet due diligence on the products at a more local Target; their offerings are pretty ubiquitous. I procured Noxzema, for I've noticed some nascent breakouts resultant of dry skin, and also oily skin. Noxzema should mitigate both maladies. I also bought some beard butter to try to train my mustache; part of it is diffuse, the other kind of flowing like a fu-man-chu should. I wish to bring them more into alignment. Once more unto the breach, and away from the razor.
All that is my attempt to bring hirsute back; my fight against modernity and its prejudice against the hairy; but I suppose that has been a trend, ever since our ancestors swung from branch to branch.
5.11.2018
X-Perspective:A Step Hopefully Forward
This will give me 3 days a week where I'll be lifting weights, a definite step in the right direction.
Three days training with resistance, cutting the carbs, just plain getting out and doing more should advance the ball of my life down the field. Stretching the metaphor to its breaking point, hopefully I'll be the 'belle of the ball;' but I'm a guy; so, perhaps I should set my aspiration to be the 'beau of the ball?' I'll just settle for being me.
And I think I should start having a driver once a week on Wednesdays, which means that I'll be able to start attending this support group that meets once a month, but I'm pretty cognizant that I should be able to find some utility for egress the other weeks
To quote my favorite bard from my youth:
"Oh well, Whatever, Nevermind. "
5.08.2018
X-Perspective: On MBA Heemstra, or: how I learned to stop worrying and love my mustache
James Watson, Francis Crick, Rosalind Franklin, et al. discovered the DNA process for replication, offering a methodology for Darwin's theory of evolution.
In my youth, my dad always wore a big, thick mustache. I always told myself that I'd always be clean shaven. Well, that went on fine until after my injury when I went bacbrrk to high school and later in college where I'd grow finals beards.
I always thought that the simple mustache was kind of hokey, but beards cause my face to break out. However, being an American Dutchman, my mustache grows very quickly, my college brother noted that my mustache would show its shadow by like 3 o'clock afternoon.
The Monday after Thanksgiving 2017, i started to grow the latest iteration of my mustache. In a Seinfeld sense: it's thick,it's bushy, it's spectacular. Ala Justin Timberlake, I'm bringing hirsute back. Hopefully, I'll start a trend. Nonetheless, I've come to the realization that I can't fight my genetics; so, I just stopped worrying and learned to love my mustache. Ala Travis Tritt,' I think I'll grow me a fu manchu.
5.07.2018
X-Perspective: Nevermind the Bollix
Any step forward is a step ahead.
5.05.2018
X-Perspective:It's Good to Revisit Old Patterns from Time to Timetl
After a semi-fruitful venture to Fry's, I suggested that we go to Burger King. After navigating the intersection concrete safety barriers, blocking direct traversal from one parking lot to the next. There I had a milkshake and some french fries.
After adequate consumption, I suggested that we peruse the local Goodwill establishment, if for no other reason than merely to take inventory of their offerings. I did find there two pairs of shorts that are just ever so slightly too large, but hey, that's what belts are for.
In more than one sense, and I will elaborate on this further in future missives, mission successfully accomplished, or to borrow the words of Ice Cube, a Gen-X-icon:'Today was a Good Day.'
5.04.2018
X-Perspective: Looks like honesty is not always the best policy. Whatever, you gotta do what you gotta do.
After college we attended a local church and were baptized together, in the same ceremony. I refer to him as my baptizimal brother. Recently he 'came out' as a Christian Conservative to his, apparently secular, cohort in this web design program that he's pursuing. It was not well received, so I suppose that's the swan song for the grand liberal inclusiveness. And all along, I gave at least lip service to the notion that 'diversity is our strength.' But I suppose that only refers to superficial diversity.
He implored me to pray for him, and because he is one of my good brethren, pray for him I shall. It'd be great if some of my readers did as well.
5.03.2018
X-Perspective: Rationale for My Slightly Unorthodox Diet, a Tale of Two Cities
As is I'm sure the case with most of my X'er cohort, my metabolism has somewhat ebbed. I've noticed this past day that I musts adopt a somewhat Adkins-esque dietary restrictions.
From my biology background, I've discovered that carbs burn quick, a use it or store it proposition. Once upon a time our animal ancestors, needed the stored energy to hibernate, etc. And over the generations the genetic artifact remains
Lipids (fats, oils) have a triglyceride (3 sugar molecules) backbone and 3 fatty acid chains.
Fatty acid molecules actually contain much more energy per molar unit than do carbohydrates, but lipids burn slower, molecules cleaved and burned as needed.
Flowing from my above tenets, I eat mostly meats and cheeses, with the occasional carbohydrate to keep the food flowing down the alimentary canal. My carbohydrate dujour is high fructose corn syrup found in my nightly can of Coca-cola.
Full Disclosure: I'm a little biased, for I own s few shares of Coke (KO) stock.
I have some idea that my protocol works for I'm not the youngest guy in the house, but I am the thinnest.
X-Perspective: Always bet on America, on Freedom, on Yourself
A bet on America is a bet against the authoritarian global mob mentality.
A bet on an acolyte of freedom is tantamount to betting on someone who bets on himself, he buys in .to the premise of a better tomorrow.
If you aren't willing to bet on yourself, you will inspire less confidence in others to bet on you.
Bet on the future, for since Man first ventured from his African grasslands, he's always been hopeful of a brighter tomorrow, for if he didn't, what inducement does that give to venture out of the house or the hut or the cave?
5.01.2018
X-Perspective: After much introspection and prayer, I finally figured out my spiritual gifts/core competencies
Core competency 1: Malaise
Sciences always interested me; so, I pursued science, mainly Biology in high school and college, but finding that rather limited, I wen to business school for a Leadership MBA, following my passion for investing, but along the way.
Core competency 2: Leadership
,From an early age, I was always more interested in excelling at the domains of maths and sciences; however, my English teachers always gave me high marks. so, I enrolled
Core competency 3: Writing
After my injury, I became intensely interested in the stock markets; so, at the undergraduate level, I tried my hand at business, but I again disliked the drudgery; so, I went back to my sciences pursuits However, I did very well in my Economics courses; thus, during my MBA pursuits, I did quite well in my finance courses (dealing with investing). After graduation, once I cobbled together enough seed money together, I opened up a brokerage account. I took climbing a s
Core competency 4: Investing
When I was 15 years young, my life plans were tossed topsy-turvey, and my fears of being swallowed up by a large State school were palpable; so, I enrolled in the local Christian University. I figured I could always get a graduate degree from a state school. And that's just what I did.
Core competency 5: perserverence/stubbornness
4.28.2018
X-Perspective: Directed Human Evolution is Inevidble
Another leg in the stool of evolution. natural selection, is less restrictive with the Internet and global travel/migration. However, the most abundant 'fit' genes will still win the popularity contest.
Having wrested the reins of selection from nature, man will start selecting for more universally desirable traits. Boom, evolution; however in a more directed form.
Ir's a basic tenet of the evolutionary process that it's a gene race, id est, the ones that get there first, get propagated more frequently and the slower genes atrophy, and die.
This parallels organisms and genetic populations as a whole.
4.26.2018
X-Perspectives: Eventually it Happens to Everyone
The real kicker is that from the scuttlebutt, it sounds as though he was in his mid-thirties. I'm in my mid-thirties!
RIP Mike
4.25.2018
X-Persprctive: Every Ending Elicits A New Beginning
Floating down the timeline of life, ala innertubing down the Salt river, as my mom. my neighbors, and myself were wont to do during my childhood summers, something occurred to me: we utilize everything, past successes, past failures, all capital, all reserve cash, all energy, all relationships in preparation for future endeavors. Past truly is prologue. And that really is quite hopeful to me. I now realize that all efforts are accretive more than discrete scenes from some choose your own adventure paperback book with all the plot points thrown in a bag, like so many scrabble tiles. Id est, much like the second law of thermodynamics, experiences can be neither created nor destroyed, the flow of the stream can only be diverted, tacked subtly to one embankment or the other. Life's experiences really are quite bomodal, in a Yoda-esque sense, either do or do not, there is no try. Every trial is incorporated into the final product. And that is quite reassuring, that everything I do, even the brainstorming will be additive to my "mission, quest, thing." Just to quote one of Tolkien's hobbits.
4.23.2018
X-Perspective: Coincidences just don't happen...or do they?
Mike Cernovich talks of energy shift, Scott Adams of Dilbert fame prognosticates the coming Golden Age, where we realize that all our issues are psychological, id est, our limitless potential for problem solving. Enter Donald Trump, who won the both the Primary and General elections by utilizing unorthodox procedures. During that interval, apropos of nothing, I wrote a coupe of missives: Ch-cha-changes and Familiar Feelings. Both point to a brighter future in the zeitgeist. And there's always the power of positive thinking thing. If you believe it, you can achieve it. Good portends in the future, methinks.
4.21.2018
X-Persprctive: Why We Err
After intense meditation and prayer, I have come to the conclusion that we make mistakes, to allow us the ability to act creativity.
When everything goes according to plan, which is less likely than everything goes amok. There are infinite ways things cab go awry, but less than an infinite way to get hings right.
Thus, every mistake offers people different ways of doing things; sure, they may be technically wrong, but in a pinch, sometimes wrong is better than nothing. Of course, less wrong is always better.
Protocols are good to follow, but sometimes ad hoc processes are the order of the day.
X-Perspective: Don't put off 'til tomorrow what you can do today
My church is changing the internet system that they will be using to collect tithes.
I had intended to stay after church tomorrow, and have some of the people at the church help me migrate my tithing to the new platform.
But then I got to thinking, 'I'm a Gen-X'er for Christ's sake (pun intended), I should be computer/internet savvy enough to do this on my own; so, I shouldn't need assistance from the antediluvian crowd (again, pun intended).
And lo and behold, I didn't need help. The system allowed me to use my debit card, instead of a check. After all they both draw from the same pool of money. And this IS the 21st century. And I AM a 21st century digital boy. The debit route just seems less cumbersome, and we all remember that mantra of the Lazy Middle-class Intellectual (of which I am a card carrying member): KISS (keep it simple stupid). Simple is better.
Never put off 'til tomorrow, what you can do today. Or better yet, right now, in the ever-flowing stream of consciousness. Life on a string, baby.
4.19.2018
X-Perspective: Changes in the format
4.15.2018
X-Perspective:On Syria Chemical Conundrum ...
As a gen-X'er, I was born under the chill of the Cold War; however, my birth was near the end, but still the mindset remains.
War, as a general precept, is hell; no one 'wins' wars, they only endure them. Whomever is the last man standing is declared the winner. But what have they really won?
Now, with what I know: Syrian gas attack perpetrated by unknown attackers; very well could have been Assad, but what I'm hearing is that it was probably the rebels.
The airstrike, by Trump, on Syria could be beneficial for a number of reasons.
Unfortunately, the world needs a strong America..
Without a clear show of strength, ancillary actors run amok.
Russia needed to be kept in check..Syria as a subordinate proxy state of Russia was a ready made vector to that end.
Ultimately, jury's still out. In this 24-hour news, speed of thought internet information access, we must be ever cognizant of knee-jerk opinions.
4.06.2018
Familiar feelings a-brewing
Most endeavors are primers for future endeavors (at least in youth/young adulthood). Much as in a career. You have your childhood summer jobs, your first job, the centrality of a career,late stage career, and maybe a reboot if retirement is too boring.
Well, positing in my youth that it would behoove me to concentrate on doing well in school, I bypassed the summer jobs-route. After my injury in the summers that followed my junior and senior high school years, I would take one course per session at the local community college, trying to regain time lost during hospitalization/rehabilitation stints.
It also staved off ennui and the inevitable summer slump, where knowledge is lost from laziness.
I didn't do well with idle time.
Back to something more in-keeping with the title of this post, whenever I had idle time was a harbinger of a change. Id est, that old familiar feeling of inflection has returned. I feel the itch.
Hopefully it foreshadows good portends and not some dire downfall. But that happen less with boredom, and more with cockiness when I let arrogance creep into my character.
3.28.2018
Life, the Universe, and Everything
Credit for the title: Douglass Adams's Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
3.14.2018
Cha, ch, ch, changes. The more things change, the more they echo the past
3.11.2018
Victim of the season
I will write more as health and inspiration ductate.
3.05.2018
Reunited and it felt better than I thought it would
One thing struck me boy had they gotten old After all, 20 years apart the slow, gradual aging process is inevitable. But all at once, the whole 100+, it is a shock.
I was pleasantly surprised at the ease that I fit in and was recognized. One cool thing is that a former teacher whom helped judge some of my debate tournaments, I remember having dark hair came up to me and shook hands. Good guy. It was much like the transformation of Gandalf the Gray into Gandalf the White, stark. It hit me, we are all quite old.
There was music, pasta and friends. However, the music genera was pop, and ever since I started middle school, I haven't been into pop music, id est, I knew scant few of the melodies (being generous) coming from the main staging area.
But my buddy and I did have fun. Worth the price of admission. Good time, looking forward to the 30 year, but not rushing it. Looking forward to making accomplishments in the mean time.
2.26.2018
New Eqipment
1.27.2018
Respite
1.17.2018
It's gettin, it's gettin, it's gettin kinda hectic
I really didn't graduate with that class, I matriculated with them for ten years.
March 3. That's really soon. I'm kind of pumped about it. It'll be nice seeing high school friends again. Nineties nostalgia should be the order of the evening; that'll be awesome; good food (I did my due diligence, researched the menu, it's Italian buffet-style fare), old friends (it's been 20 years).
1.13.2018
Snafu
1.12.2018
Technical difficulties (updated)
Since it is still glitchy, I now access most functions from other devices (smartphone, Wi-Fi enabled TV)
1.01.2018
Etymology
Lang: languishing.
Syne: union, uniting. E.g. synthesis, synchronize.
Putting it all together. True yearning for being with true friends. These are my thoughts on the origin of the new year's phrase.