There is a passion that pulses deep within the bosom of your soul. It dwells within the very nature of your being. It is guttural, primal. It is unforgiving, unadulterated emotion, conflicting, yet pure in its very essence. Its nature is a life-long heritage that drives your passion. It can not be seen but it can be felt. It drives one on in the heat of conflict, one man against one man. One strives to move forward step by step, striving to gain ground within the turbulence of the whirlwind of mashing bodies.
The past is the past but that past yields to the present. It has an abiding pull as we look forward to the future. Memories linger of past success and we revel in joyous victory as the chime rings across the field of honor, yet we sulk in solitude and look inward as we regret the failures that cling to our hearts and imbue our spirits with abject remorse.
Yet with each new season the revelry renews the passions that live within our souls and holds firm the fire that dwells deep within; stokes the embers and fuels the emotion that burns in the belly of the beast within us all and ignites the pulsating rhythms of a single chorus bent on one determined cause......
......'cause Michigan still sucks......
GO BUCKS!
Ramblings of a 60 Year Old Man - My thoughts on just about anything, in no particular order; Robert Thomas - author.
Sunday, November 25, 2012
Thursday, November 22, 2012
Enjoy some Thanksgiving reading
Are you suffering from a turkey hangover today? Have you seen more football than you can take? Here is a link to a list of books by authors I am familiar with. It has something for everyone from romance to thrillers, sci-fi, horror and fantasy.
There is some very good writing here folks. Definitely worth a look-see. All are available as Kindle ebooks and many of the titles can be had through Barnes and Noble, iTunes and Kobo. If you have an ereader, these are worth the look.
Hope you find something you enjoy and happy reading.
http://www.onlytruemagic.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/black-friday-books-best-of-2012.html
There is some very good writing here folks. Definitely worth a look-see. All are available as Kindle ebooks and many of the titles can be had through Barnes and Noble, iTunes and Kobo. If you have an ereader, these are worth the look.
Hope you find something you enjoy and happy reading.
http://www.onlytruemagic.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/black-friday-books-best-of-2012.html
Sunday, November 18, 2012
A changing Christmas
As the season progresses and we enter the coming Christmas season I tend to reflect back onto my life and those times past. This season more than any finds me wandering into those times. Perhaps that is a reflection of happy times and a different age, at least in my life, an age of innocence.
When it was announced a few weeks ago that the singer Andy Williams had died, it somehow severed a link for me to a time long ago. Now, I'm not really an Andy Williams fan. He was a good singer and I grew up in a time of rising hopes as the world war was over and people were looking to the future. Christmas was transitioning to a time of prosperity for many and with the advent (no pun intended) for wide-spread television, the season was having an impact like nothing before. It was monumental, and he was a big part of that with his television show and Christmas specials.
This Christmas coming isn't really mine any longer. I will still have the memories and the good times but it seems more to me that it is now the purview of my children and grand-children. It is their memories and how they perceive this holiday that becomes the focal point. My Christmas memories still harken back to the days of my four siblings diving beneath a pile of spent Christmas wrapping paper for a picture by 32EM with my Sainted Parents looking on.
May the coming season be joyous to all.
When it was announced a few weeks ago that the singer Andy Williams had died, it somehow severed a link for me to a time long ago. Now, I'm not really an Andy Williams fan. He was a good singer and I grew up in a time of rising hopes as the world war was over and people were looking to the future. Christmas was transitioning to a time of prosperity for many and with the advent (no pun intended) for wide-spread television, the season was having an impact like nothing before. It was monumental, and he was a big part of that with his television show and Christmas specials.
This Christmas coming isn't really mine any longer. I will still have the memories and the good times but it seems more to me that it is now the purview of my children and grand-children. It is their memories and how they perceive this holiday that becomes the focal point. My Christmas memories still harken back to the days of my four siblings diving beneath a pile of spent Christmas wrapping paper for a picture by 32EM with my Sainted Parents looking on.
May the coming season be joyous to all.
Monday, November 12, 2012
Two bits, four bits...
I had an interesting discussion with some of the younger folks at work the other day. It was about my recent visit to the Chinese restaurant a few doors down from work. I eat there semi-often as it is quick and the food is decent. However, when I walk into the place I have always felt that the staff could simply care less that I was there; no smile no thank you, virtually, no anything. When I was stating that someone joked, perhaps it's just a front for drugs. (Yes it was a joke). I countered; even drug dealers need customers.
When you think about it, the discussion ran on, everything simply boils down to economics. Everything we do in life boils down to a financial mean. We work because we must. The establishments we choose often come down to price. When we change jobs, it's about economics. We live often based on our economic situation. We relocate, because of economics. Even our most personal events are severely influenced by the same. When do couples decide to have a family? When do we get married? Why do we get married? Marriage is ripe with financial gains and pitfalls. It is often said more marriages fail over finances than anything else. We can live with infidelity but not without financial mismanagement.
We invest tremendous amounts of time in our educational system both personally and payment. Why do we do it? To gain an economic advantage. The amount of money pumped into this system from Head Start to good old State U is staggering. We do it for a better job, a leg up, for financial gain. Even the college we choose comes down to an economic choice, value verses cost.
Take a look at life even away from our friendly confines. Primitive cultures all over the world rely on trade and agriculture as a system for economics. The stronger the trade or the better diversity of the agricultural system the stronger the tribe, or the family. Caste systems marry due to economics. There is no love involved in many situations. It may ferment and grow over time but the starting point is economics.
There is nothing wrong with economics as the underlying foundation of the structure of our lives. It has been that way since time immemorial, even before the caveman had a word for economics. More wood means a bigger fire. That's economics.
When you think about it, the discussion ran on, everything simply boils down to economics. Everything we do in life boils down to a financial mean. We work because we must. The establishments we choose often come down to price. When we change jobs, it's about economics. We live often based on our economic situation. We relocate, because of economics. Even our most personal events are severely influenced by the same. When do couples decide to have a family? When do we get married? Why do we get married? Marriage is ripe with financial gains and pitfalls. It is often said more marriages fail over finances than anything else. We can live with infidelity but not without financial mismanagement.
We invest tremendous amounts of time in our educational system both personally and payment. Why do we do it? To gain an economic advantage. The amount of money pumped into this system from Head Start to good old State U is staggering. We do it for a better job, a leg up, for financial gain. Even the college we choose comes down to an economic choice, value verses cost.
Take a look at life even away from our friendly confines. Primitive cultures all over the world rely on trade and agriculture as a system for economics. The stronger the trade or the better diversity of the agricultural system the stronger the tribe, or the family. Caste systems marry due to economics. There is no love involved in many situations. It may ferment and grow over time but the starting point is economics.
There is nothing wrong with economics as the underlying foundation of the structure of our lives. It has been that way since time immemorial, even before the caveman had a word for economics. More wood means a bigger fire. That's economics.
Tuesday, November 6, 2012
Election Day
Today, citizens all across the country will make their quadrennial trek to their local precinct and cast their vote for, among others, one of the candidates for president.
After today, your mailbox will be less full, your home phone will be quieter, and instead of hundreds of political commercials, you will once again be subjected to whatever product is to be offered for your pocketbook's consideration.
I am not sure why those who run political campaigns believe sending the same pamphlet, flyer, or postcard to five different people at X address is a good use of time and money. Commercials all show their candidate's picture in color, while the vile opponent is always shown in a supposedly less-flattering black & white photo.
This year I have heard and seen a number of commercials for local candidates, which normally start appearing only in the last 10 days of the campaign, that have mentioned neither the candidate's party affiliation nor, in the case of those running for state representative, which district the candidate is hoping to represent.
Another annual occurrence is the appearance on the ballot of candidates for the State Board of Education. Often these people are unopposed, but even when candidates are pitted against each other the only time you see their name is when you are asked to vote for them. No one knows anything about who they are, what they stand for, or what their background is. If you cannot bother to publicize your campaign for office, I certainly cannot be bothered to vote for you. The only candidate for SBOE of whom I have heard is running in a district far from where I live, and I have only heard he is running because he is a former football player for The Ohio State University and acts as an analyst on the radio for OSU pre-and-post-game shows, and that he is forbidden to do that job until after the election.
Thanks to Beloved Father and Sainted Mother, we have had a good education in the elections process, and, at least for me, this interest still holds.
After today, your mailbox will be less full, your home phone will be quieter, and instead of hundreds of political commercials, you will once again be subjected to whatever product is to be offered for your pocketbook's consideration.
I am not sure why those who run political campaigns believe sending the same pamphlet, flyer, or postcard to five different people at X address is a good use of time and money. Commercials all show their candidate's picture in color, while the vile opponent is always shown in a supposedly less-flattering black & white photo.
This year I have heard and seen a number of commercials for local candidates, which normally start appearing only in the last 10 days of the campaign, that have mentioned neither the candidate's party affiliation nor, in the case of those running for state representative, which district the candidate is hoping to represent.
Another annual occurrence is the appearance on the ballot of candidates for the State Board of Education. Often these people are unopposed, but even when candidates are pitted against each other the only time you see their name is when you are asked to vote for them. No one knows anything about who they are, what they stand for, or what their background is. If you cannot bother to publicize your campaign for office, I certainly cannot be bothered to vote for you. The only candidate for SBOE of whom I have heard is running in a district far from where I live, and I have only heard he is running because he is a former football player for The Ohio State University and acts as an analyst on the radio for OSU pre-and-post-game shows, and that he is forbidden to do that job until after the election.
Thanks to Beloved Father and Sainted Mother, we have had a good education in the elections process, and, at least for me, this interest still holds.
Friday, November 2, 2012
Age of man
There is a new word (at least now in favor) that is becoming commonplace in the geologic record. The term is Anthropocene.
The geological record of the world is embedded in stone and the layers covering the Earth. It is scientific discovery at it's finest on our terrestrial mother. The scientists look for layers among the hills and exposed rock strata that circle our planet. They pick through the strati and look for clues to the climate changes that have shaped our world. Our time frames are divided up by epochs, ages, periods and eras. The names are familiar to nearly anyone who loves to follow science and even those who don't. Many of these time periods have become common place to many as they are even referred to in the movies. We are currently and officially in the Holocene period which began around the time of the last ice age 12,000 years ago.
The clues they look for are many millions of years old, until now. We as a people seem to live to rediscover the past; our own past. However, as a species, we have made significant changes to our world, perhaps the most changes of any creature who has ever lived. What struck me when I began to explore this was how we have now come to a time when we are able to see the changes we have wrought to this blue marble. We are now depositing a record of our existence and our effects to a planet we once thought was unchangeable.
Anthropocene is the term now used to describe the age which the world has now entered (unofficially); the age of man. Previously all ages before were determined by great extinctions or other changes caused by asteroid collisions or carbon dioxide blooms or ice ages that changed the face of the planet. Are we the greatest change for the next ten millenium? Will we even survive our own age?
If we have the wisdom.
The geological record of the world is embedded in stone and the layers covering the Earth. It is scientific discovery at it's finest on our terrestrial mother. The scientists look for layers among the hills and exposed rock strata that circle our planet. They pick through the strati and look for clues to the climate changes that have shaped our world. Our time frames are divided up by epochs, ages, periods and eras. The names are familiar to nearly anyone who loves to follow science and even those who don't. Many of these time periods have become common place to many as they are even referred to in the movies. We are currently and officially in the Holocene period which began around the time of the last ice age 12,000 years ago.
The clues they look for are many millions of years old, until now. We as a people seem to live to rediscover the past; our own past. However, as a species, we have made significant changes to our world, perhaps the most changes of any creature who has ever lived. What struck me when I began to explore this was how we have now come to a time when we are able to see the changes we have wrought to this blue marble. We are now depositing a record of our existence and our effects to a planet we once thought was unchangeable.
Anthropocene is the term now used to describe the age which the world has now entered (unofficially); the age of man. Previously all ages before were determined by great extinctions or other changes caused by asteroid collisions or carbon dioxide blooms or ice ages that changed the face of the planet. Are we the greatest change for the next ten millenium? Will we even survive our own age?
If we have the wisdom.
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