Sunday 18 October 2009

Is anybody out there?


Is anybody listening?

Does anybody believe?

Everyone who knows me knows I'm a bit off kilter.

Some of you (who believe yourselves falsely ON kilter, think I'm just silly. Worse yet, nuts.

Everybody who knows me knows that I have a few theories that are not exactly mainstream.

Everybody who knows me knows that not too many others were predicting (shouting, crying, warning) that the economy was going to go kablooey, and that was over 2 years ago.

I've also been saying other stuff.

Stuff like stuff nobody else is willing to say, at least publicly.

Someone asked me what I thought about this swine flu thingy thats all the news these days.

I said along time ago that this one worried me.

Didn't matter though, its just ted being ted.

When the H1N1 went "dormant" like all pandemics do, and when the W.H.O. ratcheted up their warnings to the highest level there is, I KNEW there was something indeed wicked this way coming.

The usual reasonable folks made statements like "more people die from common colds in the course of a year in America than died of H1N1 last year"

THAT sounds reasonable enough, I'm sure they all thought.

But they, like most good outcome wanting, reasonable thinkers, were wronger than wrong.


Something wicked this way comes.

Now it seems that even reasonable folks are waking up to this thing.

But I'm not so sure that the real threat is from the pandemic itself.



I believe, and this is based upon my own speculation, that this pandemic while quite dangerous, is going to be used as a catalyst to usher in "something else", like a treatment. A response to the pandemic, I fear, is going to be worse than the pandemic itself.


I have a seperate but not completely unrelated story that was related to me over a year ago.


A federal prison guard told me that a meeting was held in his prison, and in that meeting, officials from the CDC told the employees that vacinations were going to be given to all prison employees, and their immediate families.

This was not optional, they were told.

Also, Prison employees were probably noticing that refrigerated trailers (tractor trailers) were being parked on prison property, and they were a preperation for the anticipated "virus" that the federal government expected to hit "sometime next fall", and that the casualty rate was predicted around 1,000 to 1,500 persons, a day, locally .


Huh.


I was as intruiged as he was by that statement.


My question tonight, besides wondering if anybody is out there at all, is whether or not anyone else senses something wicked this way coming?

A lot of people who are not necessarily readers here, have told me exactly that.

A lot.

People who dont spend all damn day introspecting or analyzing every damn feeling that comes their way.

People who can be honestly and accurately classified as "regular folk" have told me that they KNOW, that something is about to happen.

But nobody knows what.

Well, almost nobody.


I read about the coming (past) economic downturn a year and a half ahead of people like Jim Cramer, who is considered a stock market expert, with his own tv show.

He didnt say a word about it.

I read about a coming threat that is combined with the past economic downturn.

60 minutes isn't doing any stories about this one, either.


You do whatever you want.

Dont listen to me.

Play farmville or vampire hunter or whateverthehell you want to, I dont care.



I've written stuff like this before, and the usual suspects will say its just ted being vaguely ted again, but...................

No, no buts.


I dont care.

Everything I can see, is seeable for everyone to see, but most reasonable folks want to see the nice in everything.

The hopeful stuff.

No reasonable folks want to consider the really "out there" stuff.

The unthinkable stuff.


Right?


Another aside.

Tonight, 60 minutes is doing a story on a technology that is providing very hopeful leads in cancer treatment.

It involves nanotechnology and radio waves.

Whats important there, is the nanotechnology and the radio waves.

It is being reported tonight on 60 minutes, as I type, as a cancer breakthrough, but 3 or 5 years ago when I first read about the technology, it was being reported as quite the opposite.

It was being reported as a way to INFECT people, not cure them.

Watching the 60 minutes story, 5 years after first reading about the other stuff, I can see why people are so hopeful.

The technology works.

What I can't understand, is why reasonable thinking individuals are so quick to dismiss the possibility that someone with this technology would use it for ill gains.

So trusting, reasonable thinking folks are.

I read about a technology that COULD be used to infect populations of nations, 5 years ago, and I was considered nuts for believing it.


The only difference in the stories is the delivery systems of both the nanotech particles, and the radio waves activating them.


Both are not only doable, but being done.



Want links?

wants particulars?

Want specifics?


I didnt think so.


Don't worry. Be happy.

Do whatever you're told to do.


Continue to laugh and point at the silly folls like myself who will go kicking and screaming saying "no, not in MY country..."


Something wicked this way comes.
By the way, do you know what that picture is?
I didn't think so.


Have a nice day.














Saturday 10 October 2009

Pierce Bakery Bagels


Best bagels ever.

Yeah yeah yeah, you know what a good bagel is, and you are going to say or suggest a name.

Spare me.

Unless you're going to mention Hymey Smollowitz's bakery in Brooklyn (wait and see how many goofs google that), dont waste the effort.

Best bagels, EVER.

Unfortunately for me and bagels lovers in the area, pierce bakery is now a paint store, and the bagel recipe is gone forevermore. Has been for like 10 years now.

Once you've had a Pierce bakery bagel, all the rest are also-rans.


There was an orchard/farm in my area, that was run by a man named Mr Lord.

Lord's orchards, produced the BEST apple cider I've ever tasted. In the fall, Lord's orchards would be the center of the universe for me, and was on the way to every job I had to get to.

Sometimes, that would take some creativity and effort, but it was worth every ounce spent to get there.

I talked to mr Lord once, and told him what I thought of his apple cider, and he proudly told me that he used 7 different kinds of apples, and pears, in his cider mix.

IT, made the difference.

I knew it had something different in it, but when he told me it had pears in it, I said "THATS IT!".

Lord's orchards is now Lords Landing, or some such nonsensically named-McMansion development. I'm sure the current residents are all proud of the land's and mr Lord's history. Once they get the proper "harvest" decorations out, and all. Once the kids are retrieved from soccer practice, and all.
Yeah yeah I sound cynical, like some Earth First! goofball all bitter that the land isnt a farm anymore.
I'm not bitter because of that. I (unlike most environmental nut-jobs) understand economics and all that. I'm selfishly bitter that I can't get Mr Lord's cider anymore.
I APPRECIATE, and miss, Mr Lord's efforts.
I suppose if Mr Lord's son could have made a coupla million off of the cider, he would have kept the farm.

Mr Lord has left us to make cider and bagels in Heaven with Mr Pierce Bakery, but I didn't forget his efforts. Either man's efforts.

I know its not like either man changed my life, but what they did is missed now that they're not doing it anymore.

I CAN'T be the only one who misses them and their products.

Once you've had them, everything else is "ok".


I happened to chance across Mr Lords son one day, and I told him of his dad's cider and how much I enjoyed it.

He said the property is sold now, and he lives in NJ and had no interest in running the farm nor the orchard. "Pity", I told him. "Best cider EVER", I told him. Evidently, me saying that without a coupla million dollar check, didnt have much of an effect on Mr Lord Jr.

I guess any "smart" individual would have opted to sell the land and take the big fat old payoff, over shlepping over an orchard and land and cider presses and all, just to appease the pallate of some goofball dirt merchant.


I wonder if anyone other than the people who received some of Mr Lord's son's money, will miss HIM when his time comes to leave the earth?


I miss his dad's products, and his dad's efforts.

Like I miss Pierce Bakery bagels.

My wife is tired of me comparing every bagel on the planet to them, but I can't help it.

Once you have the best, what are you supposed to do, settle for half-assed efforted products?

Worse yet, full efforted, suckey products!?

Can't do it.

Can't go back.


I need THOSE bagels.

I need 7 kinds of apples AND pears, cider.



Once you've had the best, nothing else will completely do.
Funny how we touch other people. How what we do, affects others.
Don't settle. Do your best, in everything. Its going to matter to someone, maybe a lot of someones.
Add the pears.
Make the effort.
The world has too many shmoes in it already, just in it for the paycheck, for the same thing too many others are in it for.
For good enough.
Once you've had the best, you can't settle for good enough.






Sunday 4 October 2009

seasons change

Another year has come and gone.

How do YOU measure years?

The school year?
Summer?
Holidays?

I've been playing (and enjoying the hell) out of playing mr mom for the past few days.
I know, I know, thats easy for a few days. Well, I enjoyed it maybe because it was easy.
It helps that my outside-the-house-workload has been cut in half recently, so I AM able to give more than usual. Time will tell whether or not it lasts. My ability to give more, I mean.
Some of you readers (read: WOMEN) automatically believe that I should already give more. You may be right, but by the same token, I don't believe you give not even a small percentage of what I put into my life and day on a regular basis, so I guess we're even there.
And you'll forever be wrong.



So, back to topic.
I'm playing mr mom, carting kids here and there and running for dinner today.
On the way, one of the kids asks me if we can stop at the local ice cream stand, because it is, after all, "the last day of the season".
I say, "not before dinner" and continue on our way to market.

On our way back, again the question arises, "can we go to Maureen's for ice cream?! It IS the last day..............."
I said, "It is going to be a long time before we can go again, isnt't it?"
and kids not being totally brain dead and able to see a light at the end of the tunnel, yelled "YES!!!"

So we whipped in the parking lot of Maureen's, 15 minutes after we passed it on our way to the market.................................
and there's a big sign in the window saying "closed for the season".
Man.
Talk about heartbreak on a biblical scale.
quivering lips, sniffling noses, blurry vision.....

and that was just me.


The kids in the car were in total meltdown mode.
Of course it was all my fault. We should have gone there BEFORE we went to get something for dinner.....................

Yeah, well, I may be sentimental, but I aint stupid.

"Dont push it kids", I said, "its a frickin ice cream stand, not a love lost forevermore or anything........."

They didnt get that one, they just knew that the ice cream stand they shouted about everytime we passed was closed, and that was that.
End of an era, for them.

End of light at the end of the tunnel, for them.

So naturally I got to thinking.
Naturally.
"Is there any light at the end of MY tunnel?" I thought............

Yeah. There is, but its dim, and it seems hard as hell to get to.
Probably as dim as the light as the ice cream stand opening sometime after next easter, when its not even halloween yet, as explained to my youngest.
She just shouted "we can go there the next time when we come here!!"

Sounds logical.
We can go there the next time when we come here......



A lot is going to happen before then, I fear.


And by the by, the two older kids got out of the car and went to ask if they could still get an ice cream, even though the sign said "closed".
The nice (heartless, Cruella DeVanilla) Ice cream stand owner said "No".
So teary eyed and quivering lipped, they returned to the car.
He said they closed a minute ago, and that was that.
An ice cream nazi.

I've often (and I mean OFTEN) wondered, what exactly, did I miss, by a minute or so, in my life?............

Well, add one more to the list.

The chance to make the kids happy with a lousy 3 or 4 bucks worth of ice cream.

I know that its not much on the scale of life's disappointments, but it wouldn't have done any good to tell them that tonight.
They missed their chance, and the best they could hope for is some far off, distant point in the horizon that they really can't comprehend getting to.




THAT, I can relate to.

Be careful when you ask God to show you what you missed, he might just show you.

He does, and He did.





He showed me, after I begged, often with tears streaming down, to show me where I missed, what I missed.
He showed me exactly what, and where.

Be very careful what you ask God to show you.

He will, you know.