Rip City

Incredible!! For the first three quarters of the game I thought the Blazers had very little chance. Especially after losing the previous two games on last second shots, with one of those being last night and then tonight playing one of the leagues toughest teams on the road. It just felt beforehand, to this viewer, like a loss waiting to happen. But it's like I've always said .... You never know!! They stayed close (within ten points is close in the NBA) then came on like beasts in the last five minutes and beat Oklahoma City. You can point to every player in the game during the final minutes and pick out two or three key plays made, on offense, or defense, rebounding or just plain hustle and desire! Even Terry Stotts in the first half, using his timeouts in an obvious effort to keep the game from getting out of control.

I watch this and start thinking: "There's no reason that I can't go out and get in a game, bounce around and run up and down the court." Then the game ends and I'm jolted back to reality, remembering my age and that I have trouble with a brisk walk across the street these days.

Pondering Life

Looking back over my life tonight. Revisiting events and experiences along the way that had a role in altering it's course. Happenings that have hardened my attitude towards what it has become. People that came and went.

I wonder why that of all the people I've known and crossed paths with, that I'm the one that was chosen to end up with the life that I have. The good and the not so good. Some of it was my choice, some was a choice of others. I'm not going to say that there are no regrets. Hell I don't believe anyone who says that they've lived a life with no regrets. Some may not be willing to admit it but in your innermost thoughts there's always something that you wish you could have done a little better. Where you wish you had another chance.

For myself much of this self examination has coincided these past two years with realizing and slowly struggling to accept my mortality. It's funny how when you think that you've finally figured out some aspects of life, you don't have much time compared with the years that have already passed by, to enjoy the benefits of new found wisdom.

My life has not turned out to be what most people would think of as normal. There's no children or grand children. There's no one to share with and bounce ideas off of. There's no grand plan for the future. There's no one urging me onto greater accomplishments. If I feel like being lazy for a few days, that's what I do. It has its pros and cons. But what actually bothers me is I fear that if a chance for change suddenly materialized, I'm not sure now that I could change directions. That's just been a realization over the past few months and it frightens me. I look at transitional moments and wonder how it came to be?

Notes and Quotes

Saw one guy's New Years resolution, one that if adopted, that I think I can keep ..... To lose hair and gain weight.

There, I got it all out!! Had a bitter reactionary entry here yesterday and have since deleted it. It's much like the act of getting revenge .... It feels good for a second or two then you become filled with regrets. It's better and much more satisfying to rise above the pettiness and just turn and walk away. At least in this place you can delete such things, leaving no trace of what was once there before.

You know what it's like being the last person remaining, locking up at night in the place where I work. A large older facility, that when void of activity and people, is filled with mysterious creeks and cracks and moans and groans? Sometimes you wonder if you ought to go back and check on some of the sounds. But you'd probably just cross paths with the disgruntled ghost of some former employee.

The potential suddenly exists for my undoing and rapid downfall. Cinnabon has opened an outlet across the street from where I work.

I like fog as well as the next guy but not three consecutive days (or has it been four?) of the 24 hour, around the clock variety. It's getting to be too much of a good thing. 

Driving

I'm driving slower and slower these days. Mostly just doing it while not even thinking about it. I look in the mirror, take note of where other cars are positioned compared to a moment earlier and realize that I'm going slower than most. And I don't really care. Just don't care anymore about getting anywhere in a hurry. Maybe it's because I've been tending to leave earlier than what used to be my deeply instilled custom. I used to be terrible about waiting for the last possible moment before departing the house. But since I've reached my "senior years" (according to certain local grocery store first Tuesday of the month definitions) I've been giving myself a little more time to get around. It wasn't like it was a decision made towards a healthier, less stressful lifestyle or anything. It just happened.

I really hate sharing the road with any other cars, trucks, buses, bikes, skate boards, pedestrians, kids on those sticks on wheels, etc... They all make me more than a little nervous. All that weaving in and out of lanes, tailgating, horn honking, being first off the line at red lights and what not. Then there's my pet peeve #37 .... All these kids driving around with faulty mufflers. All that damn noise! Then when all these things are combined and meshed into one big traffic snarl, like at any given 5:00pm on any given Monday through Friday and occasional Saturday/Sunday, it's just overload for me.

Musings (Continued)

• A long haul trucker asked me what day it was ..... "Tuesday" he wondered? I had to stop and think about it for a moment myself. I hope that he knew that it was also Christmas Eve. 
• People shouldn't inquire afterwards, how someone else's Christmas was, unless they are prepared for total honesty. Most of the people who ask live in a world where they just assume that it's a joyous time for everyone and can't comprehend the prospect that it might be less than perfect time for many people. I know of two or three people who will certainly ask and also most certainly be shocked if I reply anything but "wonderful."
• Not passing judgement or anything and just making an observation but there sure seems to be a lot of 30-something ladies working in meet-the-public type jobs, like waitresses and convenience store cashiers, who though not knowing me, call me "honey" or "sweetie." Makes me wonder if I have the words, "lotto winner" tattooed on my forehead? 
• I wonder sometimes at how people are assigned their life roles? Like how one person has great looks, perfect health and falls into money almost effortlessly and another ends up being the first person off the landing vehicles at Normandy? 
• Amazed earlier at the afternoon sun weaving it's way in and out of the fog that was rolling in. I pulled off the road three or four different times just to watch .... and take photos. 

• Making the list of top five favorite sounds ..... the instant when the needle is lowered down slowly and makes contact with a vinyl record. 

Jury Duty

Jury duty in the morning. I don't know why but I just don't look forward to it. There's too much pressure. I'd actually rather go to work. I've always been consumed with too many doubts to be a good juror. Everyone else is ready to convict while running through my mind is the thought, what if he really didn't do it? It's always been my experience in the past that it's one persons word against another's. Who do you believe? I always want some sort of undeniable video evidence before I'm convinced. The majority of others seem to require much less convincing. That's been my experience anyway. At times I wish it was more like most television episodes of Perry Mason, where you're following along with the proceedings, confused and unsure. Then suddenly, the least suspected person sitting in the back of the courtroom, jumps up and admits guilt. Everyone gasps ..... And then we all go home. Except for the guilty party that is.

Maybe I should inform the judge of all this in the morning. Maybe they'll excuse me from my civic duty for over-thinking things. Isn't the courtroom the place where they often quote the line, "Beyond a reasonable doubt"? Maybe I need the word, reasonable, defined more clearly? Maybe there's been a last minute plea bargain and settlement? Maybe I'll just go listen to that recording one more time .... to make sure I'm supposed to report.
___________________________________________________________________________

It never happened like this on Perry Mason. We all show up, go through the security scanner, report in with the jury coordinator who looks at my summons and says: "Number three huh, you're screwed." Glad he has my kind of humor. Fill out the questionnaire, receive some helpful tips and advice from the jury coordinator, (like please don't use stairwell C during down time or you'll be locked in there for infinity), watch the orientation film and by then, undergoing an attitude adjustment and feeling good about participating in my civic duty, commence to wait around while reading about Keith Richards guitar technique. The jury coordinator tells us that 18 jurors and alternates are going to be needed and that since there's 24 of us present, "six of you just got lucky." Eventually the judge comes in, who I recognize from seeing his photo in the paper about a thousand times during his days as District Attorney and informs us that everything's been settled and we are free for the day. You could actually feel the pressure in the room being lifted.

He explains that we all still have great value as often it takes the parties involved in the scheduled case, realizing that their day in court has arrived and that a potential jury is present in the same building before they get serious and settle the issues in question. That without we the jury, it all would have continued to drag out. I realize from my personal experience with a date in divorce court and that neither of us really wanted to go through a trial  or hearing and thus a last minute revised settlement and quick acceptance took place ..... I realize that the judge is indeed correct about the need for us jurors to show up and force things into motion.

Purging Things

Cleaning out the garage this afternoon. Removed the hard drive from my very first computer. Felt a little like a brain surgeon in doing so. Had to go online and look at a picture of a hard drive to make sure that's what was removed. I imagine that there might be one or two other people who have been living in caves since the 1960's who might not have known. Now I know! (I think.) Add the hard drive to the plastic storage crate in the closet full of computer accessories. Various cords, wires and plugs, mouse(s), microphones, adapters, old modems, web cam, more cords, etc .... None of which I know what to do with but am afraid to discard. Just in case it's needed someday.

Old Rolling Stones and Sporting News magazines also fell victim to the cleansing. Saved all these years because I thought that I might just want to go back and re-read them someday .... but that day never seems to arrive. It's time to cut the ties to youth. Those two brands have literally downsized quite a bit in the last 35 or so years.

There's a few second and third thoughts as the long walk to the recycle bin is undertaken but in the end, it feels good to create space where before there was clutter. It's like, "Free your mind!!" After a week and a half of vacation from work I've been cleaning both inside and out today. It's like Spring cleaning in December. I had stated to any co-workers possessing mind reading powers that I was going to undertake some cleaning while lounging and relaxing around the home and now on the eve of my return, I can not be accused of telling falsehoods. It should also not be forgotten that I've saved whoever gets to come in after I pass away and clean up, from an hour or two of additional manual labor

Quality Television Viewing These Days

Have you ever seen this television game show called "Baggage"? It's like an updated version of 1970's show, The Dating Game .... with a twist. Three total strangers compete for a date with another total stranger while admitting to several choice tidbits of bizarre deep dark secret behaviors from their past while attempting to justify it all as being normal behavior ...... It's like, Which of these freaks once serenaded their ex-fiancee each day for a week while standing naked and drinking from a chalice of pig blood in a crowded pizza parlor? .....  Why would anyone appear on this show and in front of the world and throw this crap out there for all their family, neighbors, friends and business associates to discover? Then the person choosing is supposed to weed out the two freaks with the most baggage in an attempt to find their one true dream date.

I watched it once for about fifteen minutes after it first went on air just to see if some creative television minds actually came up with a quality new idea in this sea of copycat sameness that's out there. I should have known better. That was about a year or more ago and now I've noticed, while channel surfing the TV guide listings that it's still on the air. WHY?? I can't fathom that it received any sort of positive numbers when the ratings came in. I can't imagine any totally sober and socially mature sponsor wanting their good name associated with this drivel. Of course it's hosted and presided over by the same defrocked ex-big city mayor, .... Mr. Springer of unquestionable credibility who made a name for himself while pitting all sorts of inbred misfits and their hillbilly grievances against each other on the long running audience participation "talk show" bearing his name. I always doubted that any of that show was real. There just couldn't be ten/fifteen-plus years, five-days-a-week worth of  morons and kin running around the back hills of this country .... could there? Certainly most of that show after week one had to be scripted, right? It appears that he brought his most creative writers along for the ride on this new venture.

There's probably only been two or three unique game show ideas in the history of the genre and everything since has been some sort of spinoff or ripoff of what came before. 

Photo Op!!

Because music matters!! Even when represented in the middle of a vacant lot. Even when found among the weeds and thorns and surrounded by modest homes! Music has immense power and healing qualities. One should always be listening and searching for the music that speaks to them.

RANDOM MUSINGS ....

After the deep freeze of the past week, 45-50 degrees today felt like summer ..... at least for one day.

Why do I keep insisting on getting caught up in 5pm traffic at this time of the year? You would that think I enjoy the constant game of, STOP ... GO .... SLOW DOWN .... LOOK OUT FOR THAT GUY CHANGING LANES!! 

I'm finding many lost gems among these vinyl records that haven't received a listen since the end of the turntable holdout era and the initial purchase of a compact disc player.   

Prophets of Doom

How do you expect any semi-intelligent, thinking person to assign you any credibility? You have your main issue, whatever it might be. Maybe you have several. You search for the signs in your mind of impending gloom and doom .... The election of a new pope, a certain policy going into effect, etc.. You proclaim that this is it, that the shit is about to hit the fan. That we're all about to be imprisoned or put to death. When it doesn't pan out the way you seem to hope for with mass rioting and revolution in the streets and whatnot, you wait for the next perceived sign to come along and start all over again. Oh and you always seem to forget to mention all the times that you were wrong previously, where you mis-interpreted the moon and stars and other varied definite signs and certain indicators supporting your lunacy. Because this new sign, this new event is it!!

Until you are proven wrong again that is. If a baseball or basketball player was zero for fifty, they'd be sitting on the bench, if not banished to the lowest levels of their profession and lucky if anyone ever listened to a thing they had to say. But you've managed to string together a core group of paranoid and loyal followers and groupies who believe each and every spewing of bile that flows from your yapping face. And that's all well and good that you have those followers and I'm perfectly fine with that ..... but then you proceed to condemn any other person that doubts your credibility and label them a heretic or of the devil.

But you know something ..... You need to be correct once or twice before any reasonably sane person might actually stop and consider your point of view. A decade or two of O-fers don't really cut it.

Adventures In Sporting Goods

Walking through a local sporting goods store and feeling like an alien. Like I no longer belong. What are all these items? There was a time where I felt comfortable and entirely in my element with browsing and considering possibilities with Wilson Jets (basketballs) and the latest scientific advancements and breakthroughs in golf balls and aluminum softball bats. Now I don't have a clue as to what questions to ask.

Looking these days at cold weather clothing, punching bags and slam balls. I think that I could use a slam ball though I have very realistic fears of throwing out my back and dislocating my shoulders. I take it that you just raise it as high as possible, slam it to the ground and repeat!! With no fears of the ball rolling away. Seems sweat inducing and simple enough. Been looking for something I can do in the privacy of the garage to compliment the stationary exercise bike. The dilemma .... A twenty, thirty or fifty pounder? I'm still macho enough, despite advanced age, to think at first glance, a fifty pounder but the inner voice that sounds like better judgement is screaming thirty!! Then looking online, I see that they also come in a twenty pound version.

I wonder if they have a jump rope with a digital counter?

The Outer Limits

The dream world!! I'm getting to the point where I would almost welcome a return to the recurring dreams of my youth where there was a series of five or six dreams that at least there was a little understanding of their origin. Instead I now have this world of the present where individual separate dreams are generated and seem to come from left field, or somewhere far beyond, each with no relation to any of the others and often featuring characters, who are total strangers of my minds creation.

Take for example tonight's dream ..... A female stranger arrives outside my front door and invites herself inside as if she knows me from somewhere. I'm stumped as to who she might be. While not monstrous in appearance she is also not what I'd conjure up if allowed to create the characters on my own according to my personal ideas and preferences of physical attractiveness.

Then suddenly, I awake, with no conclusion to the story or even the faintest of ideas why this stranger has arrived and disrupted my life.

So is there a meaning to it all?

Desert Island Discs

You know .... In case you are ever stranded on a deserted island with little hope of rescue. Just some discs I would hope to have along, assuming that I also had my turntable or iPod. Any one of these potentially being my favorite album on any given day .....

• Peter Gabriel- So
• U2 - The Joshua Tree .... For years, I listened only to the side with the hits. It's just been recently that I've been discovering the other half of the album.
• Son Volt - Okemah and The Melody Of Riot
• Keith Jarrett - Koln Concert .... For late evening listening. In the dark. Solo and improvisational Jazz piano. 
• Jackson Browne - For Everyman
• Cat Stevens - Tea For the Tillerman .... Songwriting masterpiece!! More than any other record this sounds like it could belong to any decade since its arrival. I don't think of it as a 70's album.
• Neil Young - After the Goldrush .... The discovery of entire albums instead of Top-40, AM-Radio of the late 1960's.
• John Hiatt - Slow Turning
• Bruce Springsteen - Darkness On the Edge Of Town
• Bob Dylan - Slow Train Coming

...... and a few more .....

• James Taylor - Mud Slide Slim and the Blue Horizon ..... There was a month of two period in the summer of 1974 where I listened almost exclusively to this while living with my Aunt and Uncle in Depoe Bay, working a summer job. Maybe because it was the only record that I also had an 8-track tape of. I could probably recite all the lyrics today.
• Pierce Pettis - Chase the Buffalo
• Peter Himmelman - From Strength to Strength
• Pete Yorn - Musicforthemorningafter
• Jolene - In the Gloaming
• John Coltrane - Giant Steps

The sun finally emerged from behind the all-day fog, a Western Oregon late afternoon. Thought at initial glance that it was the moon until realizing the time, location in sky and the current actual moon phase were all wrong. The visual display made the wait for the sun, worthwhile. 

One of those days where it's 32 degrees and "feels like" -32. Why can't it ever be 32 but feels like 65?

I'm fascinated by the sky. Each day and night presents a different look. No two are the same. I'm still searching for the ultimate photo op and not sure if it will ever reveal itself. Yet I keep watching. I walk outside at any time of the day or night and it's the first thing that I take note of.