A place for me to work stuff out and to post things that interest me.
Most of us can, if we choose,
make this world either a palace or a prison.
~Lord Avebury
I choose a palace.
~TKF
Do not let your fire go out,
spark by irreplaceable spark,
in the hopeless swamps of the approximate,
the not-quite, the not-yet, the not-at-all.
Do not let the hero in your soul perish,
in lonely frustration for the life you deserved,
but have never been able to reach.
Check your road and the nature of your battle.
The world you desired can be won.
It exists, it is real, it is possible, it is yours.
~Ayn Rand
The democratic society's mythology of equality with its
attendant erasure of difference is an impossibility
in an actual, lived sense.
Therefore, according to this view, this
imaginary erasure cannot achieve an
actual democracy, because a sense of
community can only come with the recognition of difference.
~Slavoj Zizek, as paraphrased by Catherine M. Soussloff
Links!
A brand new link! Check it out!
deviantART
I thought the place was very cool. Oh, and all you Alias fans, you can find a very nice wallpaper there--
or rather, here--and a gorgeous Evanescence one, too!
Watcher's Diary
Slayage; The Online International Journal of Buffy Studies
Convert just about anything
Comes in really handy when you want to convert fahrenheit to celcius and vice versa!
Links to 100s of free calculators online
Everything from your due date to how much a house payment would be to a regular calculator
Reference Guide to Chicago Manual of Style
Dictionary, Encyclopedia, Atlas & Almanac
Quotation Search Engine
Complete HTML True Color Chart
Epicurious Recipes
Inn Recipes; Recipes for all Occasions
JobStar-Resumes & Cover Letters Advice
Overstock.com: Up to 80% off most items
Ediblenature.com
Things My Girlfriend & I Have Argued About
(Trust me--you'll be laughing outloud!)
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Beyond the Invisible
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The tale of the world is like a tree.
...
Sturdily rooted in the past, the tale's branches spread out through the days that come. The many stories that make up its substance
unfold from bud to leaf to dry memory and back again, event connecting event like the threadwork of a spider's web, so that each creature of the world plays its part, understanding only aspects of the overall narrative, and perceiving, each with its particular talents, only glimpses
of the Great Mystery that underlies it all.
~Charles de Lint, Moonheart
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Thursday, October 06, 2005
1976
One morning I was listening to one of those morning radio programs and they were discussing Sylvester Stallone’s magazine, Sly. According to what I heard, it’s intended to be a male “lifestyle” magazine like Oprah’s and Martha Stewart’s female-focused ones. Apparently, in the introduction to the premiere edition, Stallone says he figures he has about 800-something weekends left in his life. Consequently, he made himself a list of things he wants to do and/or accomplish before he runs out of weekends.
It’s an interesting thought. Granted, no one really knows how much time he/she has left. You could get struck by lightning or hit by a bus or smashed by a falling meteor. Still, give that I’ll probably live to age 78, barring accidents, I calculated that I have approximately 1976 weekends left and there are things I want to do and to see.
- Quit smoking
- Learn to love myself and my body more and criticize myself less
- Be more consistent about going to the gym that I joined
- Plant a garden (or any flowers/vegetables without killing them)
- Fix my credit/finances
- Find a job I’m excited about—or at least find one I’m not embarrassed to tell others about
- Go whitewater rafting, rock climbing, and rappelling before I get too old to do them
- See the major landmarks of the US—Mount Rushmore, Yosemite, the Grand Canyon, and the giant redwoods
- Visit Wyoming, Montana, and Colorado
- Visit Canada
- Visit Seattle, San Francisco, and LA
- Go back to New York and see things that I missed the first time
- Build the sunroom/garden room I’ve always wanted
- Take Daniel to Germany to show him where he was born
- See the ruins in Mexico
- Learn to paint glass
- Learn to lay tile and other home-remodeling things
- Meander through Italy, visiting famous cities, viewing legendary art, and possibly even stay in a house in the Tuscany region for a bit
- Leisurely tour the Greek Islands
- Take a cruise on a clipper ship
- See Paris, preferably in the spring
When I originally came up with this list, I had two things on this list that aren’t there anymore. The most important one is “Be proud of all of my kids”. This has been removed because I can honestly say that I am.
Nikki, as usual, is doing extremely well. She’s a freshman at UF. She works to make her own car payment and her extra living expenses beyond her dorm (we have a student loan for that). Her classes and books are covered 100% by her scholarship. When we talk, she sounds happy and as responsible as you can expect from an 18-yr old college student who’s trying to do well.
Daniel, who has made me pull my hair out for the past 6 years because of his lackadaisical school performance, has seemingly pulled out of this downward spiral. Last year, he was in a wood-working class and absolutely loved it. Since then, he’s stated many times that he wants to be a carpenter when he gets out of school, doing construction in the spring and summer and building/fixing furniture in the winter. Mind you, his grades last year were absolutely terrible! He failed half his classes, started hanging out with a bunch of stoner losers, smoking marijuana with them, and began skipping school. This school year started with him being stuck in a bunch of bunny classes (my thought being that it was to pull his grades up so that the school won’t lose money from having really bad student statistics—they have a large percentage of students that fail and/or drop out and it costs them dearly) and didn’t put him in the carpentry program that he wanted. This is a 3-yr program and once a student graduates from it, they’re licensed to do multiple levels of carpentry and are in the Union. I insisted that he try to get this resolved at first, but after 2 or 3 weeks of him being blown off, I went to the school and spoke with his counselor. Between the two of us, we worked out a new schedule for him that includes classes he actually needs to graduate (what a concept!) and got him into the last spot in the carpentry program. Then Daniel was told, “It’s not enough that we got you the classes you want—you have to prove you want to stay in this program. You have to show up to class every day and get good grades or else they’ll expel you from Carpentry.” Well, he’s not missed a day since then and his first report card this year was all A’s and B’s (except for Biology, but that’s another long story). He doesn’t hang out with the losers he was hanging out with before and he’s working hard. Believe it or not, however, the thing that makes me proudest is the fact that he comes home and talks about what he did in carpentry every day. I’m delighted that he’s so excited about something, anything, to do with school and his future.
Then there’s Allen, who as you all know, I had to kick out of my house this past January. When I kicked him out, he didn’t have anywhere to go, so he went to the Hope Center—a combination homeless shelter and rehab program. He entered their rehab program, which is 6 months long and you have to live there, do chores, and go to daily meetings and weekly counseling. He’s completed the program and has been completely clean since April! He’s looking for a job with benefits and a living wage—no easy task these days—and has stated several times that he wants to begin attending a local community college in January. He’s even started going to church and was baptized in a couple of weeks ago. Granted, that’s not my thing, but I certainly recognize the importance of it. He’s a different person!
Needless to say, I’m very proud of all of them!
The second thing that was on my list that isn’t there anymore, sadly, is “Return to New Orleans and bring Jerry with me”. I can’t imagine what it’s going to be like there after Hurricane Katrina, but how could it possibly ever be the same? I have very strong feelings about the debacle that followed the hurricane but I don’t really want to get into it too deeply in this post. I will say that I think that Michael Brown, former head of FEMA, and Michael What’s-His-Name, the head of Homeland Security should be charged with negligent homicide for EVERY death that occurred while people waited endlessly for water, ice, and evacuation. If anyone really wants to know why I feel that way, I’ll post about it at a later date.
Back to the original intent of this post, which was to acknowledge that we only have so much time that we’re here on Earth. Bearing that in mind, how many weekends do you have left and what do you want to accomplish before you die?
4:48 PM
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bravenet.com
