Runaway Train

The first time I ran away from school, I was living in Lansing. A smarter nineteen year old would have run away on the spot and not hitchhiked to Pontiac to initiate the get away, but my plans weren't as thoughtful as they might have been. Plus I knew where the train station was located, so I had that going for me. The ticket lady said, "Where do you want to go?" Since I really had no destination in mind, I replied "You pick, I don't care". My desire to be dramatic elicited this response, "If you don't know, then I'm not going to sell you a ticket". A very practical lady. She must have dealt with teenagers before. Now, suddenly I was stopped in my tracks. In an effort to recover from my faux pas, I quickly came up with Kansas City and she responded with a ticket.
The train hadn't traveled very far when I suddenly saw this little white car flying by my window. The train then stopped. Nobody was hurt for the car had apparently been abandoned too close to the tracks. The journey then continued to Kansas City and I arrived in time to see Cleopatra with Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton.

First Fall of Snow

I returned from the Flatlands brimming with Thanksgiving. The fire at the Outpost had gone out so the first order of business was to rebuild. It was still twilight, but the cold wind was howling, the white snow was swirling, and the dreaded temperature was dropping. Quickly, I built a warm, blazing, fire that mirrored my interior feeling of well being.

Question of Balance

"A thing of beauty is a joy forever




Its loveliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness; but still will keep
A bower quiet for us, and a sleep
Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing."
John Keats

Upside/down-side

Our quiet little town has a really nice upside. I have never heard anyone honk their horn in over twenty years. No mistake is big enough to warrant rude attention. The traffic light can change from green to red, nobody moves, nobody complains.
The downside is that The Privacy Act is completely unknown in this area . The funeral home has a sign outside listing who is laid out inside. Seems really tacky and undignified to list a life with a sign post.



I bet you can guess what side I'm on.

Omission

Sometimes, in a day dream, I wish I was left handed. The French name for both the left and right hands carries a heavy connotation. Adroit, right handed: gauche left handed. That pretty much nails down the cultural bias. Every lefty I have known has stood out in my mind. I never met Jimi Hendrix, but he would fall into that category too.

Missing Skyline

Still working on the space-time-continuum, but I'm getting closer.

fifteen

A little experimentation left a whole in the time continuum. To remedy that pitfall, I am now shifting back to a shiny moment in '55.

Suetonius

Nigel Hamilton, British historian, has come out with a new book entitled, "American Caesars". This would strike most Americans as odd since we don't think of the United States as having an empire. Mr. Hamilton's premise is that outside of the U.S., many people have viewed us that way since the end of World War II. Before that war, the United States had roughly 17 military bases around the world, whereas now the number is over one thousand. The Romans didn't even compare to that scale.
The template for the book reaches back to a Roman historian, Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus, who wrote about the caesars of his time. One of Mr. Hamilton's ideas that made me laugh is that he compared both Richard Nixon and Lyndon Johnson to
Caligua. A new twist fit for thought! In his estimation, the four strongest caesars were FDR, Truman, Eisenhower, and JFK.
Mr. Hamilton believes that Bill Clinton was the smartest of all of these Presidents. I don't see the evidence for that idea, but it brings to mind what JFK had to say when the White House hosted a group of forty nine Nobel Prize recipients. "I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent and of human knowledge that has ever been gathered together at the White House -- with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone."

End Game

Chardin's book, The Phenomenon of Man is a game changer of the first magnitude. Sir Julian Huxley describes it in these terms. "In the Phenomenon Of Man he has effected a threefold synthesis of the material and physical world with the world of mind and spirit; of the past with the future; and of variety with unity, the many with the one." Wow! Almost sounds like the description of a script from Star Trek, except that its foundation is solid science, not metaphysics. In fact, although I love science, the first part of the book is all pure science, and is a little tough sledding. I believe Chardin wrote the book in this manner because he is first a scientist and wanted to fortify his ideas on the "World without", and the "World within" on solid ground. "To think we must eat." Sounds Zen.
When a physicist describes entropy, my sense is that the world is going to "Wind down" and stop moving eventually. As Warren Zevon would say, "Not that pretty at all." A skull resides behind the flowers type of thinking. Chardin believes that mankind is taking the lead in evolution and this world is "Winding up" to be more and more exciting as time moves along. This makes the end game fascinating rather than a hum drum entropy forecast by some in the community.

Resurfaced

I finally found the source. "We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience." Pierre Teihard de Chardin.

BSG

I spend extended periods of time away from television and news. I like to think of it as a mild form of sensory deprivation to sanitize my thinking. It works pretty well for me, except that of course, I also miss really important events. Sometimes, I don't learn about these events for a long time. Creating my own social, temporal, and spatial anomalies, if you will. Tiannanmen Square was such an event.
The following video is totally incredible! A toast to the heart of the human spirit. Nobody knows who this man is, but you can be sure he didn't write a book about his appearance on global news, and how it changed his life.

Pied Piper

For about a month now, I have been on the trail of log trucks. Many are rolling through town, and I have seen some on the open road. The problem has been that I never have my iPod so I can't take video of them. I don't know why they are so attractive to me, but the lure is strong. In fact, for years now, when I would see one early in the morning on my way to work there was always a temptation to miss work and follow the truck. The one pattern that I did notice during this time was that if I were playing classic country and western, the impulse was especially hard to resist.
Yesterday, I really came close to the target. Two were heading out of town and I caught up with them in I-75. I quickly passed them, and headed up to the next overpass, thinking that I could get some pictures from the overpass. I luck would have it, they both pulled off on the same exit and headed the other way. Couldn't believe my luck, what are the odds of that, eh? Anyhow,
I'll keep you posted.