I dunno, man. I don't even know what most of these are, including No.1. Some I ain't never heard of. I have an aunt who says she never thinks about religion except when trouble brews and she prays oh Lord save my sorry ass! Yeah. I guess.
Your Results: The top score on the list below represents the faith that Belief-O-Matic, in its less than infinite wisdom, thinks most closely matches your beliefs. However, even a score of 100% does not mean that your views are all shared by this faith, or vice versa. Belief-O-Matic then lists another 26 faiths in order of how much they have in common with your professed beliefs. The higher a faith appears on this list, the more closely it aligns with your thinking.
I ran across this comment, or lament, somewhere and it touched a nerve with me because there sure have been times when I wished I were 10 years old again, when I've thought that nothing since puberty has been worth growing up for. To be eternally in the Garden of Eden of childhood would be heaven.
Oh, I know for many people childhood was hell -- they'll tell the world, you can bet on that. But for me and many others it wasn't, and why should their unhappiness carry more weight than our happiness?
Anyway, while I was thinking about how pleasant it would be to live again those sunny childhood days, a light breeze rippling the leaves of the trees of times past, it occurred to me that when I actually was a child, maybe my parents were wishing they were back in their happy childhoods and would rather not be parents and dutiful adults, dealing with all the grown-up crap, the responsibilities, the necessity to just grin and bear it, whatever it was...you know how it is. Some days are good, a few even very good indeed, but the older I get, the more I am likely to think as I wake up in the morning what's going to go wrong today? What disaster is awaiting me? What am I going to have to deal with before I can slip back under the covers again?
So I think back to the best days of my childhood, forgetting all that was not so good, all the fears and anxiety and uncertainty of those days, most especially wondering what I would grow up to be. But the more I think about those days, the more I remember of the reality of being a child, not in control of anything, not understanding a lot, being compelled to do things I didn't want to do....
I often spent summers with relatives, usually my grandparents, my mom and dad not wanting me to grow up isolated and unused to America, we living overseas for most of my childhood. I looked forward to those summers on the ranch, with my own horse and dogs, the freedom to roam the wide open spaces, the beauty and interest of nature. I loved my grandmother and was always excited to see her. I thought the world of her and I thought that she thought the same of me.
But one day I guess I was being especially rambunctious, probably got on her nerves pestering her, though I didn't realize it, just being a happy kid, and she whacked me on the heinie with her house slipper, telling me to settle down and behave and stop making a nuisance of myself.
Now the smack to my hind end startled me. It didn't really hurt physically, it just got my attention, as you might say. But her telling me that she thought I was a nuisance shocked me to the core. I was stunned. Something deep inside me broke. I loved her unconditionally, as only a child can love, and I thought she loved me, too. But that wasn't so. She just considered me a nuisance. She probably didn't even want me around and didn't like me coming to stay with her. What a fool I was to have thought she loved me. But now I knew. I was just a nuisance.
After that, my relationship to her, and my grandfather, changed. I was subdued, rarely spoke. The days of me chattering away at meal times, hanging out in the kitchen asking questions and trying to help, were over. After breakfast I disappeared, saddling my horse and riding off, a couple of dogs running with me, and did not come back till well after dark, which in the summer meant 11 or 11:30 at night. When I got home, my grandparents were both still up, though they usually retired around 10. It didn't occur to me that they were worried about me, because all they ever said was it's about time you showed up, your supper's cold.
Other days, I would stick around but just do my chores, taking care to do them exactly right. If told what to do, I would just do it in silence.
I realize now that I was wildly over-reacting, pouting over nothing. But to me at that time, it was not nothing. It was everything. And my grandmother had given me a valuable lesson about life: it doesn't center around you, and even with those you love and who love you, you have to be considerate, think how your behavior affects them. Common sense for an adult, but a child has to learn it. Eventually, I came to realize that. But it took a while.
Another bad, to me anyway, experience of childhood was my grandfather teaching me how to shoot. As I've written before, he was a stern man and I was a little afraid of him. He wasn't mean, but he expected obedience. He was a career naval officer, an aviator, had been wounded several times in the Pacific War, been shot down at sea and not rescued for 37 days, flew combat missions during the Korean War and the Viet Nam war as well, and had survived many harrowing experiences. I didn't know all that at the time. I just knew he was a formidable presence you did not disobey in either word or action.
So anyway, he decided that I needed to learn how to handle firearms and use them effectively. I didn't like guns and didn't want to have anything to do with them. They were cold pieces of metal, they were loud, and people used them to kill animals with. I hated them.
But gramps told me some day I might have need of a firearm and I should be adept. So he taught me and I learned. And not only did I learn to shoot with precision and accuracy at stationary and moving targets, I learned that the best way to get through a task you don't want to do but have to is not to delay and resist, be stubborn and recalcitrant, but to dive into it with your whole will and just do it. Get it done. Accomplish it and put it behind you. That is the real skill my grandfather taught me, not how to use a gun. And how valuable that skill has proven to be.
Where am I going with all this? Oh, nowhere I guess, other than that the dream of a idyllic childhood is -- wait for it! -- a meretricious chimera. Haha.
Oh, and that remembering it reminds me to be careful when dealing with my own children. A casual word spoken out of annoyance can have profound affects not only in that day but throughout their whole lives. I have to think what I am saying to them from their point of view. Not so I don't hurt their feelings so much as in what lessons my words might teach them. I need to be aware of that. I want their childhood memories to be as good as I can make them while I am also teaching them how to be adults and make it through this most imperfect, and often quite unfriendly world.
While
noodling around in a bunch of old files I came across this exchange of
members of a photo club I modeled for when I was in high school after I
came back to the states. I've mentioned before that I posed for both
artists and photographers but I totally forgot that for some reason I
saved this exchange. Reading it, I can't remember what it was all
about but Stefanie sure was upset about something. Just laugh about it
now. I'd completely forgotten about all of those people until I found
this. Funny how memories are stored but not available to you until
something prompts the recall. But once those days were brought to mind a flood of other memories rushed in on me. I was having so much fun discovering America after so many years overseas. Yes, there were bad things that happened, as I've written, and I missed my old high school and my old friends, but it was wonderful emerging into adulthood in that time and place. My mind lingers.... Can I still fit into the outfits I wore
for those photo shoots -- or didn't wear! -- today? Almost. No,
really. My hips have spread a bit, thanks to childbirth but my waist has
not spread equally so my waist:hip ratio is a bit better. My boobs are
bigger. I work out regularly so I am more muscular, with stronger
thighs and more defined calves. My arms are more toned and have some
muscle mass, that sort of thing. A lot of women get pudgy as they get older, but I have become more toned. Someone once told me that I have ice
skater legs. My boobs aren't saggy, either. I think that's genetic. My mother still has a great set of headlights. TMI? The other day some teenage boys I walked by called me a MILF they'd like to snack on. I had to consider whether that was a compliment or not. I decided it was. And I thought about going back and passing by them again, stopping and bending over in front of them pretending to adjust something, giving them a nice view. But I didn't. What if my back went out on me when I bent over? Haha. One time when I was a teen, my dad was rummaging through junk in the
garage and I was hanging out with him yakking away while he pretended to listen, he came across a pile of oil paintings in the middle of which I had
tucked away a nude painting of me that the artist had gifted me. When
he saw it, he pulled it out, puzzled, then said, "Good Lord, is this you
squirt?" I said, "Uh...maybe...." He studied it for a minute, said, "Well, it doesn't do the subject justice." Then he put it back and
never said another word about it. I was sure he was going to tell my
mother and certain death would follow. But he didn't, as far as I know,
because nothing ever came of it. What's that? Hadn't I told my parents I was -- coughnudecough -- modeling? Are you kidding? Of course not. Dad might have said okay but my mother would have put her foot down most firmly. I knew that, and questions you know the answer to you don't have to ask. Right?
Yeah, I have been reminiscing a lot about my past lately,
rummaging through junk from my childhood and teenage years. Kind of an
escape from the now, I guess. It ain't been a good year so far.
Anyway, here's the scrap of instant messaging from the great before.
***********************************
Wanda by Jimmy.
Stefanie: As Mike said, there have been MANY such topics. I posted my
photos in the open forum, which clearly states 'Anything- so long as
it's legal'. I honestly think Alicia was pissed off because Jimmy was
taking ALOT of interest in Wandas thread as well as her pics. I am sorry
if she is a friend of Bills, but I think it was odd that she posted
what she did in my thread and not Wandas as well- since it seemed like
her post was directed to both of us. I think that was in poor taste. I
have seen discussions about all sorts of garbage- never has Alicia said a
word...till now....odd.....sorry but I think she was being gross.
That's why I said "whatever", women who only object to other women really bug me. So long as Jimmy isn't interested it's ok.....
Peter:
Look guys, I am not totally sure why Wanda decided to leave. I think in
time she might reconsider but regardless, she is a good friend of mine
& I don't want to see her go but it's her decision. I must respect
it.
In time, we'll see. It upsets me because she is my friend & I will miss her.
I keep my fingers crossed. There is a lot going on in her life as well. I
mean we all have times when things R busy & priorities change. I
hope this passes, that's all.
Frank:
I don't think Wanda's leaving had anything to do with her photos
because I remember she enjoyed posing for them, at least I thought so,
she was always smiling and laughing.
Bill: I think Wanda is in France
but I don't recall where I got that information. I wasn't a Wanda
groupie though from what I have heard I really missed out. But remember
this was just a job for her that she took to earn money for what she
really wanted to do. It was always going to be a temporary gig.
This is a repost from August 6, 2009, from an old long-closed blog I had.
I really haven't changed in all these years. Even the writing style is the same. And I still like those books and feel the same way about reading and believe I have transmitted that feeling to my children. I had the habit of writing down favorite passages from the novels that most impressed me and I see that my mini-me has developed the same habit. I didn't teach her; she did it on her own. Oh, the book in the photo below is Wanda by the 19th century English authoress Ouida (Marie Louise de la Ramée), also one of my favorite books from my childhood. The novel popularized the name "Wanda" in the English-speaking world. The novel spawned a stage play and an opera by Antonín Dvořák. The protagonist is Countess Wanda von Szalras. When I was reading the book and talking about it with my grandmother, she told me that I was descended from the Countess. I believed it. For a while. Then it dawned on me that the countess was a fictional character. Grandma! Haha. Here's a quote from the novel that would get it banned today and Ouida canceled. It's about a lowlife bum who pretended to be a prince/boulevardier who charmed Wanda into falling in love with, marrying and bearing him children. When she found out what he really was, she was devastated.
“She was like a queen who beholds the virgin soil of her kingdom invaded and wasted by a traitor. Any
other thing she would have pardoned: infidelity, indifference, cruelty,
any sins of manhood's caprice or passion, but who should pardon this? The
sin was not alone against herself; it was against every law of decency
and truth that ever she had been taught to hold sacred; it was against
all those great dead, who lay with the cross on their breasts and their
swords by their side, from whom she had received and treasured the
traditions of honor and purity of race. It was those dead knights
whom he had smote upon the mouth and mocked, crying to them: 'Lo! your
place is mine; my sons will reign in your stead. I have tainted your
race forever; for ever my blood flows with yours!' The greatness of a
race is a thing far higher than mere pride. Its instincts are noble and
supreme. Its obligations are no less than its privileges; it is a great
light which streams backward through the darkness of the ages, and if
by that light you guide not your footsteps, then are you thrice
accursed, holding as you do that lamp of honor in your hands. So she had always thought, and now he had dashed the lamp in the dust."
Rules: In no more than 15 minutes list 15 books that will always stick with you that you had read by the time you were 15 years old.
And don't go for the pretentious or have an eye to impress. The truth!
Hmm.
Okay. This is harder than it seems, mainly because a lot of books I
really liked I have forgotten about until someone mentions them and then
I am all like, "Oh, yeah!" And, um, my picks are mostly stuff I read
as a kid; books I've read later haven't had as much impact on me.
Well,
the summer I was 11 I really read a lot, undirected and unsupervised. I
spent most of it with my aunt and she had a shed behind the house that
was absolutely filled with books. The shed was painted yellow, neat and
clean, with a window opposite the door through which sunlight flooded
the rows and rows of books in a bright light dancing with dust motes.
Many of the books had been published around the turn of the 20th
century, quite a few before, as well as stacks of paperbacks from
decades later.
Anyway, mostly I remember books from that summer, for
a lot of reasons. It was a unique time in my life, a kind of pause, an
end of one era of my life, but not yet the beginning of the next, and
all those books I read, read desperately, intently, trying to escape
into them to avoid the reality I sensed coming, infused it with an aura
of other-worldliness that remains in my memory still.
Okay, the books, those I remember the titles to, anyway, only in the order they pop into my mind.
*My Antonia by Willa Cather
*Green Mansions by W.H. Hudson
*Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
*Sketches from a Hunter's Album by Ivan Turgenev
*Why Gone Those Times? by James Willard Shultz
*Lost Island by James Norman Hall
*Childhood's End by Arthur C. Clark
*The Dog Who Wouldn't Be by Farley Mowat
*Manhattan Transfer by John Dos Passos
*Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard
*The October Country by Ray Bradbury
*A High Wind in Jamaica by Richard Hughes
*Wild Animals I Have Known by Ernest Thompson Seton
*A Movable Feast by Ernest Hemingway
*The Outermost House by Henry Beston
Oh,
and two that I totally loved that I read when I was like 7 or 8 or
something: "Dangerous Island," and, especially, "No Children, No Pets."
No idea who the authors were or really what the plot lines were. But
the ambiance, the feeling of them, remains with me to this day.
Then
there was The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. That little
book may very well have made me who I am. It is a precious and dear to
me as anything in the world. It is my private treasure.
I could go
all day listing books from my childhood that I totally loved or that
deeply impressed me--The Wind in the Willows, Bend Sinister, The Big
Sky, Coronado's Children.... Then there was poetry, history and
nonfiction of all sorts....
Sigh.
The happiest I may ever have
been--may ever be--was when I was nine or 10 years old, curled up
outside on the grass under a tree on a summer day reading--reading
raptly, intently, obliviously, joyously.
I really feel sorry for
people who didn't become readers when they were young. Reading is far
better than watching TV or movies. The experience you have when reading
is total, because your mind is immersed in the story and you create the
images from your own imagination, so they are much more real and stay
with you as something you almost experienced yourself. The only thing
that comes close to it is radio plays, because you do the same thing
with them, visualizing what is happening with your mind.
It makes me tired to have to read writing that uses the same handful of words everyone else uses to express thoughts, usually negative ones. Recently, I've noticed everyone is using the word "slop" to describe whatever they dislike. I guess it replaces "shit," although that is still very much in use. It's slop this and slop that all over the internet.
Shit does still reign supreme though -- get your shit together, what is this shit, I packed my shit, I ate some shit, I worked on some shit, he said some shit.
Fuck is a runner-up to shit -- fuck that fucking fuck, he's fucked, I fucking know it.
Then there is "cuck." That's seems the modern day derogatory term of choice.
If you use all four words you could probably get through most conversations. What the fuck is that? Oh, it's just some shit. That slop is everywhere. Well, fuck me, that cuck slop is some shit.
Who needs the 850-word vocabulary of BASIC English when probably 100 words will do. Maybe even less.
I pine for the days when I wrote an article in a national magazine in which I said that something was a meretricious chimera and that someone had a dolorous mien. And my editor did not raise an eyebrow nor did any reader complain. Hah!
Yeah, yeah. I know that a good writer doesn't use sesquipedalian words because her goal is to be understood, not to show off her erudition. Never use a three-syllable word when a two-syllable word will do, and never use a two-syllable word when a one-syllable word will do. And use the Anglo-Saxon word whenever possible.
Actually, I strive to write so that anyone with a sixth grade education will have no trouble understanding me and can cruise through my writing just as if he were having a conversation with a friend over lunch. Imagine if you were sitting by a window wolfing down a double bacon cheese burger and your pal pointed to a guy walking by and said he had a dolorous mien. You'd swallow and say, "Huh? I never heard of that kind of dog." Well, I don't want some cuck reading my fucking slop to go "Huh?" Shit on that.
Wednesday, March 11, 2026
A Certain Swirl
by Mary Ruefle
The classroom was dark, all the desks were empty, and the sentence on the board was frightened to find itself alone. The sentence wanted someone to read it, the sentence thought it was a fine sentence, a noble, thorough sentence, perhaps a sentence of some importance, made of chalk dust, yes, but a sen- tence that contained within itself a certain swirl not unlike the nebulous heart of the unknown universe, but if no one read it, how could it be sure? Perhaps it was a dull sentence and that was why everyone had left the room and turned out the lights. Night came, and the moon with it. The sentence sat on the board and shone. It was beautiful to look at, but no one read it.
Shame
by C. K. Williams
A girl who, in 1971, when I was living by myself, painfully lonely, bereft, depressed, offhandedly mentioned to me in a conversation with some friends that although at first she'd found me— I can't remember the term, some dated colloquialism signifying odd, unacceptable, out-of-things— she'd decided that I was after all all right…twelve years later she comes back to me from nowhere and I realize that it wasn't my then irrepressible, unselective, incessant sexual want she meant, which, when we'd been introduced, I'd naturally aimed at her and which she'd easily deflected, but that she'd thought I really was, in myself, the way I looked and spoke and acted, what she was saying, creepy, weird, whatever, and I am taken with a terrible humiliation.
Amphibious
by Erin Murphy
My daughter wants to take a framed oil painting to school,
a nude with loose breasts and a belly ripe as the full moon. Why? Because
we're studying frogs, she says, and it's a frog. I cock my head
to consider the angle of the draped arm but can't get past the female form.
My daughter, though, is swimming in amphibians, bringing home
scribbled pictures of tadpoles sprouting splayed feet. At night, she sleeps
in the bedroom I painted pink, her shelves lined with confectionary
teapots and cups. By day, she wants to be her brother when she grows up.
Lately, she's morphed into a creature who'd rather squirm free
than be held. O, how we see what we want to see. My daughter, looking at
a nude, sees a frog for show-n-tell. I look at her and see myself.
I was the victim of a street crime once. I was a victim because,
having lived most of my life overseas as a service brat among
professional naval aviation types, I was naive about many things. It
was not till I was back in the States as a civilian that I noticed that
it was not wise to be incautious around certain races. My first serious
experience was when I was in a civilian high school and was checking out
various universities. In one instance, I was walking toward the USC
campus south of downtown LA after getting off a bus a few stops past
where I should have. A car pulled up and stopped ahead of me and a black
man got out of the passenger side and walked directly up to me. I
smiled tentatively, assuming he was going to ask directions or something
and I would have to say that I was not familiar with the area. But he
punched me in the face and then landed a terrific blow to the side of my
head, knocking me unconscious. When I came to, I was lying on the
sidewalk, my purse gone. I got to my feet and, without a cell phone to
call for help, and with no money or ID -- all in my purse -- I walked to
a convenience store and asked the clerk to call the police. I must have
looked a mess, bleeding, clothing dirty and my sleeve torn somehow. The
Korean clerk just shouted at me, "You go now! You go now!" I stood
bewildered for a moment then went out and, feeling dizzy, sat down in
the parking lot. Customers came and went, ignoring me, until finally an
older white man asked if I was all right. I told him what had happened
and asked him to call my home and have someone come and pick me up. He
also called the police and requested an ambulance, but they didn't show
up before my brother did. The upshot of that was that I crossed USC
off my list of colleges to consider and my dad bought me a Lady Smith
.38 cal. revolver and I resolved to have it ready for use anytime a
black person I did not personally know came anywhere near me. Suffice it
to say that I learned why there is such a thing as white flight. A man
might choose to risk getting into a street fight with violent criminals,
but I chose simply to avoid situations where that might be necessary.
Have gotten several calls from folks I served with in Afghanistan. Hardly more than kids then, now they have kids themselves, kids they are worried about having to advise whether or not to join up not too far down the road if -- no, when -- this Iran thing drags on and on. Hope it doesn't, but if history is any guide.... We talk, remember where we were when the Twin Towers fell, what we thought about it. How it's affected our lives in ways we never would have imagined. Talk about Tora Bora and how twenty years later we were still in Afghanistan having accomplished nothing at all.
Will these wars never end?
By the way, the AV-8B+ in the photo to the left was destroyed on the night of September 14-15, 2012, by a Taliban commando suicide squad, along with five others and, I think, a C-130.
Well, what can you do but dance away the days and forget the world? Might as well.
I suppose I should write something worth reading. I will one of these days. But not right now.
Deja moo -- when you've seen this bullshit before.
I'm ignoring the outside world as well as some personal things and instead dancing the day away. Frivolous? Of course. That's the point, at least as much as there is a point. I guess not having a point is the point. Anyway, I dance. Care to dance with me?
"Dancers are the athletes of God." ~ Albert Einstein
“We should consider every day lost in which we have not danced at least once.” ~ Friedrich Nietzsche
Old songs used to tell little stories, mini melodramas that could be sexy without uttering a single suggestive word. They let your own mind arouse your erotic imagination.
And at the same time the songs could be comical, poking fun at how a man goes all loosey-goosey over a woman who is just toying with him for her own amusement. They didn't take themselves, nor us, seriously. It was all just for a good time. Plus every song had a righteous beat and you could dance to it.
Wednesday, February 25, 2026
I put together this video 18 years ago when my grandfather -- my New England grandfather, as I called him -- passed away. I've written about him before a few times. He was an Army Air Force pilot in World War II, flying P-40s in the Southwest Pacific in 1942 and P-51s out of England in 1944.
I just stumbled across this video by chance. I'd forgotten all about it, but it had 50,000 views on one of my old blogs, so I guess it's worth reposting.
My New England gramps was my favorite and his passing affected me more that I suppose it should have. Thinking about him now it's hard to realize that he has been gone for so long. I can still hear his voice, his laugh.
Oh, well.
“Our memory is a more perfect world than the universe: it gives back life to those who no longer exist.” ― Guy de Maupassant
None of the photos are colorized. I don't think that was possible two decades ago.
I've been thinking over my life and how it has been, what and how I used to think, the dreams I had, so I thought I would repost this from a few years ago. It reminds me a lot of the me that once was.
When I was working on my doctorate, I used to play the song posted below over and over again. Sometimes tears came into my eyes. Why? I couldn't tell you. It helped me keep going when I wanted to give up. Don't ever tell me that pop songs can't inspire and help you to achieve more than you ever thought you could.
Who were my scientific heroes back then? One man I was especially influenced by was David Chalmers. Chalmers' exploration of panpsychism, that consciousness is a fundamental fact of nature, as part of his discussion of the hard problem of consciousness, has influenced my whole world view to this day. In high school, I poured over his book, The Conscious Mind. I was reading a lot of Robinson Jeffers' poetry at the time and I found it remarkable how similar their thinking was, although Jeffers said life rather than consciousness. I connected Chalmers and Jeffers thought with panentheism (pan-en-theos “all-in-God”) -- not to be confused with pantheism. It was expressed by Paul saying, “There is only Christ. He is everything and he is in everything” (Colossians 3:11). I was also reading a lot of Loren Eiseley at the time. In particular, The Immense Journey profoundly impressed me and I also connected his thought about life, mind and consciousness with Chalmers' and Jeffers'. I melded them into my own developing attempts to grasp the meaning of existence into one concept that I understand fully but am not really able to explain.
“If 'dead' matter has reared up this curious landscape of fiddling crickets, song sparrows, and wondering men, it must be plain even to the most devoted materialist that the matter of which he speaks contains amazing, if not dreadful, powers, and may not impossibly be, as Thomas Hardy has suggested, 'but one mask of many worn by the Great Face behind.'” ― Loren Eiseley
“I am sure now that life is not what it is purported to be and that nature, in the canny words of the Scotch theologue, 'is not as natural as it looks.'” ― Loren Eiseley
“We are one of many appearances of the thing called Life; we are not its perfect image, for it has no perfect image except Life, and life is multitudinous and emergent in the stream of time.” ― Loren Eiseley,
"The story of Eden is a greater allegory than man has ever guessed. For it was truly man who, walking memoryless through bars of sunlight and shade in the morning of the world, sat down and passed a wondering hand over a heavy forehead. Time and darkness, knowledge of good and evil, have walked with him ever since...a new world of terror and loneliness appears to have been created in the soul of man. For the first time in four billion years a living creature had contemplated himself and heard with a sudden unaccountable loneliness, the whisper of the wind in the night reeds. Perhaps he knew, there in the grass by the chill waters, that he had before him an immense journey. Perhaps that same foreboding still troubles the hearts of those who walk out of a crowded room and stare with relief in to the abyss of space so long as there is a star to be seen twinkling across those miles of emptiness." ~ Loren Eiseley
A while back I flew the King Air down to SAZU, Pulches airfield, in La Pampa Province, Argentina. It wasn't all that close to where I wanted to go but landing there I had access to a navigation aid -- the Choele Choel VOR-DME (OEL). Besides, I didn't have a lot of choices.
I came in on runway 24, which was, um, unimproved, shall we say, allegedly grass, 915 meters long, the longest of the two choices I had. There was a four knot crosswind coming in from due east, the weather was clear, dry and warm but not too hot, so piece of cake. But, to be honest, a grass runway that short had my attention.
I came in steep with 40 degrees of flaps, power a bit high, cutting power to idle, propeller levers full forward, right before the threshhold, got the stall warning just as the tires touched the runway, hit the brakes and reversed prop thrust all the way back, flaps up, then props forward at 60 knots, (to avoid FOD damage) trying to prevent overloading the nose wheel, locking the brakes or bursting a tire, and came to a screeching halt with a good 100 meters to spare. I blew on my fingernails and buffed them on my sleeve. But if I ever have to fly down there when that runway is wet, you can just forget it. Back to RSA.
The take-off? Oh, yeah, the take-off. Clears throat. Well, I made it. 'Nuff said. It had been raining a bit. (A bit, she says.... Get her!) Oh, I knew at the gross weight we were at, good CG and comfortable density altitude, that I could get off. It wasn't a cross my fingers deal. I don't do those. I'm too chicken. But still....
Simple preflight, just CIGAR, gyros erected, avionics set. Left engine started first to reduce the possibility of FOD damage. Began taxing by increasing propeller blade angle rather than with a burst of power, also to avoid possible FOD damage from increasing rpm; this way actually reduces rpm. Kept moving, setting approach flaps at the end of the runway and off we went.
Aaanyways, the reason I mention this is that we have some investments in cattle ranching in Argentina and I was freighting some of our guys to an estancia, as they call cattle ranches down there. We've been reducing our herds stateside for various reasons, but expanding them in Argentina. (In both cases, thank you very much, President Trump.)
We used to sell a lot of our American beef to China but not so much recently, the Chinese having begun sourcing their beef buying to other countries...like Argentina.
Funny things happen down there.
While I was at the estancia, I met their Chinese buyer, and, wouldn't you know it, he was the same guy who came to our ranch in el norte when the Chinese were buying American beef. I'd had him up to the house for dinner, taken him for horseback rides and even flown him on sight-seeing jaunts in the Husky. And, of course, took him shooting. All Orientals want to shoot guns. He wanted to shoot a .44 magnum like Dirty Harry used. We didn't have one of those but he was happy with a Colt .45 revolver. The joke was that the safest place to be when he fired was standing directly in front of him.
When I first met him at our Montana ranch, he wouldn't look directly at me but kind of off to the side or down at his shoes. Then, when he thought I wasn't paying attention, he would stare at me, letting his eyes slide over me. But after I talked to him enough and he got used to dealing with me he stopped doing that. Chinese women can certainly be quite pretty, but as a rule tend to be somewhat flat both uptown and downtown. That, I am not. So I guess I unsettled him until he got acclimatized to the landscape.
We were both kind of surprised to see each other in La Pampa, but pleasantly so. I was a bit set back because I couldn't remember his name, Sum Dum Ting or whatever it was, and I think he couldn't remember mine, either. So we were all like, "Hey, it's, ah -- you!" But we had a cordial reunion and also had a laugh about how ridiculous all this switching of import sourcing was. The same big outfits, companies, corporations, run everything, regardless of nationality. The only people who are hurt are the 25-dollar to 35-dollar an hour guys with families to support. You know, the backbone of the country. But what can you do?
So if you wondered why, after China retaliated for Trump tariffs by switching its beef buying from the USA to Argentina, Trump gave the "Argentine" beef industry 200 billion dollars, now you know.
********
Some details of the trip down; the flight back kind of the same. Let's just say my Avcard was groaning.
Jet-A fuel costs at the pump, not including taxes and surcharges (Hi, Argentina!) = $16,292.
Landing fees and FBO charges, customs processing, overflight permits, let's call it...hmm...rounding off...$8,000. Nine fuel stops. Most expensive fuel was at SLA ($7.50), cheapest at PAC ($2.88). Same go juice.
Trucking along at 256 knots:
Total Air Miles: 6,233 nautical miles. Total Air Time: 25.5 hours. Total Fuel Burned: 3,162 gallons (21,185 lbs of Jet-A). Fuel Burn per Leg: 350 gallons per 3-hour leg (including taxi, climb, and 45-min IFR reserves).
Other expenses you can guess -- three squares and flops along the way.
You think that's expensive? Call the total, let's say, $35,000. With no particular advanced planning, seven peeps, let's go! Travel in essentially first-class conditions with no worries about weirdos on board (well, except for you, Dave, heh).
Compare that with booking seven people on commercial flights, being only able to get to Buenos Aires. You couldn't just call up on the spur of the moment and even get reservations for that many people without paying, what $50,000...$75,000? Maybe even more. And then the hassle of changing planes, hanging around at the airports and all the usual crap associated with commercial flying these days. And how would you get from Buenos Aires to Puelches? You'd have to charter a plane. What would that cost? Not cheap, for sure.
So for way less than half of what we would have spent on commercial, maybe only a fourth, we got mission accomplished. In comfort. That's no joke. The guys I flew down had to get to work right away and it was important they be both physically and mentally rested. Would you have been if you'd made that trip on commercial?
Due to popular request -- no, seriously -- I'm thinking about reviving this blog and posting again. But I gotta think up something to write about first.
Well, honestly, I was pretty beat down by a lot of things back there a while ago, but I'm slowly climbing out of that hole, and maybe messing around with this old blog will help me get out of it all the way and move on with my life.
"Who has seen the wind? Neither you nor I: But when the trees bow down their heads, The wind is passing by." --Christina Georgina Rossetti
One last post. It was 20 years ago today that I made my first blog post, so I thought I'd commemorate it with one final blog post.
What was that first post about? Don Marquis and his alley cat Mehitabel, who thought she had been Cleopatra in a past life. Her adventures were chronicled by her friend the cockroach poet Archie. He typed her life story in lowercase because he couldn't hold down the shift key and reach a letter key at the same time. He didn't bother with punctuation, either, typing one letter at a time, jumping from key to key on a typewriter in an empty, after-hours newspaper office. Mehitabel's catch phrase was "toujours gai" and I adopted it as my own and tried to live by it in those days, oh, so long ago.
Mehitabel, by the way, is Hebrew for "God makes happy" and Mehitabel, the battered and abused alley cat, was always happy.
The Song of Mehitabel
By Don Marquis
i have had my ups and downs
yesterday sceptres and crowns
fried oysters and velvet gowns
and today i herd with bums
but wotthehell wotthehell
i wake the world from sleep
as i caper and sing and leap
when i sing my wild free tune
under the blear eyed moon
i am pelted with cast off shoon
but wotthehell wotthehell
do you think that i would change
my present freedom to range
for a castle or moated grange
cage me and i d go frantic
my life is so romantic
capricious and corybantic
i know that i am bound
for a journey down the sound
in the midst of a refuse mound
but wotthehell wotthehell
oh i should worry and fret
death and i will coquette
there s a dance in the old dame yet
toujours gai toujours gai
i once was an innocent kit
with a ribbon my neck to fit
and bells tied onto it
o wotthehell wotthehell
but a maltese cat came by
with a come hither look in his eye
and a song that soared to the sky
and wotthehell wotthehell
and i followed adown the street
the pad of his rhythmical feet
o permit me again to repeat
wotthehell wotthehell
my youth i shall never forget
but there s nothing i really regret
there s a dance in the old dame yet
toujours gai toujours gai
the things that i had not ought to
i do because i ve got to
and i end with my favorite motto
toujours gai toujours gai
The first quote in the first entry on the first day of writing posts in my first blog:
"We do not do what we want, and yet we are responsible for who we are." --Jean Paul Sartre
What he said from the bottom of his heart remains in my heart and is just for me.
"The fairest things have fleetest end, Their scent survives their close: But the rose's scent is bitterness To her that loved the rose." --Francis Thompson
"Now therefore keep thy sorrow to thyself, and bear with good courage that which hath befallen thee." --The Apocrypha 10:15
I'm thinking about wrapping up my blogging era and shutting down this, my last iteration of my first blog. I began blogging in February of 2006 so next month will mark 20 years of jotting down my random thoughts and interests. And my profile view count just hit 77,000, a figure that astonishes me: how could so many people have any interest in me?
I never meant to achieve anything by blogging, certainly not make money or become, as they say these days, an "influencer." It was just me writing this and that because I enjoy writing the same way I enjoy cooking or crocheting or playing the piano.
I see I've got over 100 unpublished -- and unfinished -- blog posts sitting in my draft file. I guess there they will stay. Some I put a lot of work into but felt I needed to do more, other subjects became too depressing and I gave up on them, and a lot of them I got interrupted while writing and when I was able to get back to them I had lost my train of thought.
Well, I want to thank you guys who have stuck with me all these years. I know some of you have been here since the very beginning. We've grown up and grown old together. How could all this time have passed? Just like snapping your fingers it was all gone. Some of you have died. Remember the Three Musketeers? Robby? Ishtaria? Amar? Dear, dear Amar.
Yes, I know I quit once before and then came back after a while, and maybe that will happen again. But I think not this time. Life has beaten me down. I've always fought back against fate, but I've finally surrendered, and with surrender comes ... shutting the mind down.
From now on I will just focus on the days as they come and my children. There is no one else and nothing else.
So, I guess this is it. Maybe I'll see you around. Have a good one!
“We are not living in eternity. We have only this moment, sparkling like a star in our hand―and melting like a snowflake.” ― Sir Francis Bacon
And when life's sweet fable ends,
Soul and body part like friends;
No quarrels, murmurs, no delay;
A kiss, a sigh, and so away.
--Richard Crashaw
Good-bye M, Good-bye. It hurts so much. I miss you so. I should have helped you. I should have. I should have.
"Now
that I have toiled and strayed so far over the world, am I to sleep,
and let the earth cover my head forever? Let my eyes see the sun until
they are dazzled with looking. Although I am no better than a dead man, still let me see the light of the sun." ~ Gilgamesh
"All living creatures born of the flesh shall sit at last in the boat of the West, and when it sinks, they are gone." ~ Gilgamesh
Wet in the windy counties of the dawn The lone crow skirls his draggled passage home: And God (whose sparrows fall aslant his gaze, Like grace or confetti) blinks and he is gone. ~ Thomas McGrath
I measure every grief I meet With analytic eyes; I wonder if it weighs like mine, Or has an easier size.
I wonder if it hurts to live, And if they have to try, And whether--could they choose between-- It would not be to die. --Emily Dickinson
I am the chosen no hand saves --Louise Bogan
Of course I prayed--
and did God care?
He cared as much as if in the air
a bird had cried 'Give me,'
and stamped her foot! --Emily Dickinson
This is a repost from, oh, a long time ago. It originally had a bunch of words accompanying the vid, but I didn't bother picking them up. Once enough time passes it all becomes just so much blah blah.
If things are not going well for you this Christmas, just remember that's what "they" want -- you and me depressed and demoralized. Phooey on that! They can't get us down! We're tougher than they think. Aren't we? Come on!
PS: I just realized that in a couple of weeks it will be 20 years since I began animating with Blender. There was a time when I could not have imagined being able to remember things that happened 20 years ago. Twenty years! The crust of the earth hadn't fully cooled yet then! Time flies when you're having fun and making money! And even when you're not. Oh, and, yes, I use myself as the motion capture model.
Merry Christmas! The reason for the season: The King of kings is born!
The bond between a father and daughter never breaks, but it can hurt each very much to maintain. If you don't understand this story, you probably aren't the father of a daughter or a daughter.
First broadcast over CBS Radio Mystery Theater on August 23, 1976:
This may be my favorite radio play by Elspeth Eric. One of two, I guess. The other is Mirror, Mirror, previously posted. This play also features two of my favorite radio actors, Norman Rose and Jada Rowland. They fit the roles here perfectly. Aside from two supporting actors, they carry the play entirely with their voices. Deep in the night, when I can't sleep, I listen intently to this play, catching every intonation, every emotion and I feel almost as if I have lived this story myself.
