Memorial Day

I'll be away from the blogosphere for a few days.

During the coming holiday weekend I suggest the following;

While you're stuck in traffic, rather than cursing at the idiots in front of you, take the opportunity to give thanks to those who have perished in the cause of defending our freedom.

When the piece of barbecued chicken you take from the grill is burned on one side, rather than complaining about the cooking, take the time to give thanks that you are part of a family unit that remains more or less in tact.

When the air conditioner gives out, rather than yelling at the technician who tells you he can't get to you until morning, take the time to pray for those who are wearing combat fatigues in the middle of a hot, arid desert.

This weekend is supposed to be about THEM, not US. Give THEM a few minutes of your life.

Have a great Memorial Day!!!

Weather-View

Remember View-Masters? The contraption looked like a pair of binoculars but rather than looking afar, they were used for viewing recorded images. A round paper disk containing a series of small film slides fit into the plastic housing. Depressing a lever on the side of the viewer caused the disk to advance and with each click of the lever a different scene popped into view.

Today's weather during the commute home brought View-Masters to mind.

I left the parking lot with a gray sky hanging above.

Two miles down the road - click - the weather scene advanced to a steady drizzle.

Another two miles - click - my car was being pummeled by a downpour.

Three more miles - click - I was in bright sunshine with blue sky overhead.

Click - I had zero visibility as rain fell in solid sheets.

Click - back to puffy white clouds and hazy sun.

I was so entranced by the rapid weather changes that I was home before I knew it.

Sea Sound

My weekend schedule was finally in sync with the weather and I was able to put in an entire day ocean side and reacquaint myself with the rhythm of the sea.

Even with eyes closed, I can track the movement of the ocean.

Water drawing back across the sand creates a sound like a sigh - the ocean drawing a breath in preparation for another surge.

The hiss of boiling sea foam tells of building forces - a swell pushing toward shore.

The hiss becomes a roar as the swell curls into a rushing wave.

The roar gives way to a thunderclap - hundreds of gallons of water crashing down onto a blend of sand and fractured shells.

A blow of sound - like air rushing from the lungs of a weightlifter who has jut moved a seemingly impossible burden - tells of water rushing to moisten drying sand.

Then a return of the sigh. Water retreating, the ocean drawing a breath, preparing to repeat the effort.

A Spring Evening

My apologies in advance for any typo's. I've spent the evening is solemn communion with Dr. Cuervo.

There's something about spending the night on the porch with outdoor stereo speakers supplying "classic" music that puts everything right with the world.

I was thinking this evening that outdoor entertaining is kind of like skinny dipping. You have shed all of the "clothing" or workweek reservations and are enjoying direct interaction with the world according to nature as well as rock and roll.

Oh jeez, I just know I'm going to look at this post in a day or two and wonder what the h... I was thinking.

Anyway, here's to Jose Cuervo, rock and roll, and an mid-spring's night (apologies to Shakespeare).

Day Control

Time is relative. It's an expression we use over and over. The expression has truth behind it.

There are days that seem to drag on and on and then there are days that disappear in a flash.

I'm sure the pace of time is connected to our mood. Certainly one person's runaway day does not correspond to another person's perception of time.

Now I'm no scientist but I'm thinking there's a mountain of money to be made in there someplace. If someone were to identify the hormone, gene, chemical, or whatever that controls mood then that someone could sell time in a bottle. (They could also rake in the cash as a marriage counselor.)

Totally enjoying a day so much that it's flying by but you'd rather it didn't? Ingest just enough day lengthening time elixir to make it seem the day is lingering a little longer.

Conversely, if you're having a bad day, ingest a whole sloshing gallon of day shortener and make the waking nightmare disappear in a flash.

Maybe I should have paid a little more attention in biology and chemistry classes.

I Scream, You Scream, We All...

It's one of those nights where my mind simply refuses to shift into creative gear. Spending a day reviewing government related documents can do that to you.

So I cast my thoughts in all directions hoping something would bring inspiration. I even channel surfed for a while and stumbled across a television station broadcasting a performance by a local band whose drummer looked exactly like Lt. Warf form Star Trek the Next Generation.

A Klingon drummer may be an oddity but I just couldn't see a blog post coming out of it.

Then I heard the musical tinkling of the ice cream truck outside my window and realized I had something. A Klingon ice cream vendor.

Imagine racing after the ice cream truck as a kid - despair that you had missed your chance turning to euphoria when you saw the truck pulling to the curb.

There would be confusion when you studied the pictures of frozen treats on the side of the truck and saw not ice cream cones and popsicles but something resembling squid on a stick.

Confusion would turn to out and out fright when the door of the truck opened and a six foot five inch cross between human and lizard appeared with a coin changer hanging from a shoulder sash.

See - told you my mind was stuck. We'll all hope for better things to come

Mooning over Mars

NASA wants to join forces with the European Space Agency in a project to bring rocks from Mars back to Earth.

The estimated price tag is 10 billion dollars.

I have the feeling that's peanuts compared to what the security and damage control tabs will total up to.

Remember when rocks were brought back from the Moon? The astronauts were quarantined for weeks and the rocks even longer. There was barely controlled panic that the plague to end all plagues would be visited upon Earth if quarantine protocol was violated.

Can you imagine the security and quarantine requirements for Martin rocks?

We view the Moon as a harmless celestial body.

But Mars is a whole other matter. Mars comes to us with a history of devious green men and alarming creatures in ultra-advanced spacecraft. Remember the latest movie adaptation of War of the Worlds?

Maybe we should move Mars rocks to the Moon first. Built in quarantine. Built in damage control. If any life forms start growing we can blast them with the weapons of mass destruction collected from Iraq.