Life Experiences & Observations

April 14, 2014

Why is Tonight Different?

As you may or may not know, tonight is the first Seder for the start of Passover. This is the Jewish Holiday that celebrates the Jewish people being liberated from slavery. Sure I am Jewish and sure I celebrate it but there are a few other very interesting coincidences that I wanted to bring to your attention. While I won’t go into the reasoning since you can look it up on The Google, there is a recurrence of the number 4 in the Seder. Well today just happens to be 4/14/14. A lot of fours, huh? Also, tonight just happens to be a full lunar eclipse in which the Earth will passover the Moon and block the sun. Ok, so it is not really passing over since the earth is technically passing between the moon and the sun. Stop getting technical as you are ruining my blog post.

I always find it fascinating when these types of coincidences occur. Even though if you have enough Seders, enough dates, and enough eclipses, at some point they are bound to coincide. It’s just built into the structure of an infinite universe. Even though I have been blogging like a mad man I have yet to see many comments on my posts. For the few of you that have already commented on one of my posts, I thank you a ton. You make me feel like I am human and not just talking to myself. With that, I am calling on all shy lurkers to leave a comment and let me know what coincidences you have noticed that your find fascinating. This is your chance to wow me with your strange but true experiences. I look forward to seeing your comments. Enjoy the rest of your 04/14/14, have a great Passover (if you celebrate), and enjoy the Eclipse tonight.

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April 13, 2014

At Times the Violence Seems Unbearable

At times the violence in the world seems overbearing and extremely powerful. Even when movies like “I Am” come out and discuss how we are all interconnected and living with one another in peace and harmony is in everybody’s DNA. Even when a genius college student decides to teach a homeless man to write computer code and create his own App to help reduce carbon emissions and save the environment. Even when an 80 year old woman looses her husband and finds rebirth in her lost art of dancing.

Who is going to win the war? The societal war between harmony and conflict. Would the world be a better place if everybody took up the practice of meditation. I have recently started meditating again. While I have done it periodically in the past I am trying to take my practice more seriously this time around. Even my daughters have become interested in doing short bursts of sitting meditation. At 9 and 13, even they can feel the relaxing and peaceful nature it brings to them. Is the true reality revealed in that there is even an interconnection between good and evil? I mean how can we understand what peace is if we don’t have war. Maybe the opposites are compulsory the way the poles of the earth are. While I don’t have all the answers, I hope I have the courage to ask the questions that lead to the peaceful answers. Andy Weir wrote a short story called “The Egg” that sums up this dichotomy in a beautiful and succinct manner. While I know I have referenced it before, it still is embedded in my brain. Even if it may only be utopian fiction in Andy’s mind it gracefully melds the evil and good of the world that I struggle to comprehend.

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April 12, 2014

Top 5 Driving Pet Peeves

People probably don’t realize but driving is actually a privilege not a right. Rights you automatically get as a person where as privileges you have to earn. You have the privilege to drive because you passed your driving test and don’t get into too much trouble when driving. Those that do get into too much trouble have their licenses revoked.

Almost 5 years ago I was in a nasty rollover accident. A woman lost control of her car at high speed, came onto the other side of the median and hit the car I was a passenger in almost head on. It caused the car I was in to rollover and we ended upside down with some pretty hefty injuries. I am not going to get into all the gory details but let’s just say this accident led to more mental anguish than physical. Before the accident I was concerned about the way others drove and now I am hyper-concerned. While not all of these maybe dangerous, below are my top 5 driving pet peeves:

1. Tailgating – This is especially frustrating when the driver is tailgating somebody in the right lane. If you want to get over, move to the left lane which is also known as the fast lane. Also, do these drivers not realize that the closer they drive to the car in front of them the more risk they are putting themselves in. In the case of a quick stop they are going to need to be laser quick on their break to avoid a major accident. Leave some room folks and you just may save your life and the life of the individual driving in front of you.

2. Driving Through a Red Traffic Control Light – A red light is a red light. Just because it maybe only a traffic control light doesn’t give you the right to blow right through it if there are no cars in line. Any red light you run is against the law, period!

3. Turning in Front of An Oncoming Car at the Last Minute and Accelerating Slowly – I can understand at times judging things wrong or even being a little bit of a hurry and trying to turn quickly before an oncoming car gets too close. It’s not exactly safe to do this anyway, but if you are going to do it accelerate quickly after turning. If you are in that much of a hurry that you need to turn in front of an oncoming car than you should be in a hurry enough to accelerate quickly.

4. Merging Onto the Freeway Slowly – The freeway is a fast moving highway without any lights. In order to merge properly, you need to gain enough speed to match the traffic on the freeway. I have even seen cars that ultimately drive fast once on the freeway, merge slowly. If you are going to drive fast anyway, why not do it before you have to get on the freeway?

5. Bicycle Riders Who Don’t Obey Traffic Laws – While this technically doesn’t qualify as a driving pet peeve it’s my blog so it’s my rules. Have you ever seen those bike stickers that say “Share the Road?” While I agree wholeheartedly, it drives me crazy (pun intended) to see somebody on a bicycle just blow through a red light because it is clear. Or a bike rider who doesn’t use their hand to signal when they are turning. If you want us car drivers to share the road with you then you must obey the same rules.

There you have it. My top 5 driving pet peeves. Next time you are out driving your car, please remember to be safe and obey the rules. Driving may seem like something mundane you do everyday but an accident due to lack of safety can quickly ruin a good day and maybe even a good life.

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April 11, 2014

It’s Enough Politics Already

My mind is exhausted from all the political bantering that goes on here. From people mocking our President, to political posts on Facebook, to political ads on TV. Everywhere you turn, politics this, bantering that. Heck, I may even be a hypocrite by writing about there being to much politics. Is that in itself politics?

Anytime I get frustrated with the high multitude of political posts on Facebook I always defer to a quote by the notorious Rodney King who said, “can’t we all just get along?” Living in a melting pot means the carrots should respect the celery. Because at the end of the day, they are soup in the same pot that will ultimately get eaten. Maybe that’s what this whole global warming is about. Could global warming be the proverbial person that eats up all the soup in the pot? At the end of the day, a system is only as good as the individuals enforcing it. Whether that’s communism, socialism, democratism… hmm is that even a word? Who cares, it is to me. Which brings me to another quote by the wise old Ferris Bueller, “A person shouldn’t believe in an ism, they should believe in themselves.”

I try my best to take the high road when it comes to politics. In other words, I try to watch from a mountain top afar looking down at all the hikers who climb, crawl, and scratch to be the one single voice at the top of the hill. When you get right down to it, I really feel its just a big game. The politicians put on a big show for the camera and then meet afterwards for drinks and a cigar. Reclining and laughing at all the little people they control and the worthless policies they create. I want to be the Crocodile Dundee who doesn’t have a voice because nobody out in the bush is going to hear him anyway. And the land we are bickering about belongs to his God Mate and not us. Now that is a beautiful view. But then again, is that being a view in itself actually politics? So I have twisted my brain into enough knots for one night. Before the next time you have the urge to post some political banter on Facebook, think about who truly is listening. You may be surprised to find out that it is actually nobody.

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April 10, 2014

It’s About Time for a Poem, Poem

My guts have no glory
and the hourglass is stuck in a sand of time
A bird killed a man with who held two stones
while an eye stared at an eye and neither got revenge

I am fond of being around those I love
and choking down some money
All the tools in my shed are sharp
and the rolling ball has stalled

The moon glowed blue permanence
But I wasn’t tough enough to move a muscle
Monkey mime’s were copying each other
As a flock of feathers fell together

I ate the cake in the shape of a two
While the store only had a half dozen nickles
My mind is on two parallel tracks
and my dog and cat both don umbrellas

All I can think of is pennies
while our scratchy backs merge
Time to build out more of Rome in lightening fast speed
I am sure this poem will come around again,
if not, it most certainly will go around.

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April 9, 2014

The Most Valuable Card in My Wallet

Do you remember in the movie “Good Will Hunting” when Matt Damon’s character gets in a verbal scuffle with a pony tailed Harvard student. Will tells the student that he will eventually realize that he spent over $100,000 on an education that he could get with $1.28 worth of late charges at the public library. Really think about it for a minute. Assuming you have a good library, you should be able to get the knowledge of any student at any college. And yes, this includes Harvard. Sure one could argue that you can get the same knowledge through the internet but there is no card in my wallet that gives me access to the internet. I had to dash your cynical rebuttal somehow. And no my cell phone is not a card and it definitely doesn’t fit in my wallet.

I know I have blogged previously about my love of the library. But I have been putting more thought into it and the more I think about it the more I realize how valuable the library really is. The library gives you free access to, in theory, an infinite amount of knowledge available through Books, eBooks, CDs, and DVDs. Before we even knew what the internet was, there was a physical internet in everyone’s back yard. Back in the day, the library was the internet. Maybe you live somewhere in which your library is a ghost town. In my neighborhood the library is consistently busy. In fact, if you go there soon after any regular school day its like Grand Central Station. We do have the luxury here in that the library closest to my house is only a few years old. There is, however, a library 20 minutes from my house next to a mall that has been there for at least 20 years. It is the smallest library I have ever been to. Just recently they decided to track the number of visitors they get. In a years time, a dinky little library more than 20 years old had over 100,000 visitors.

And just when you thought the library concept was slowly drifting away into non-existence, you have underestimated its value. It may very well be the most valuable building in your city. If not, the library card you own is definitely the most valuable card in your wallet. What?!? You say you don’t own a library card?? What are you waiting for? Not getting a library card is like not picking up a $100 bill lying in the street. Grab it, get it, use it, and be rewarded.

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April 8, 2014

Success Takes Discipline and Perseverance

When I started this challenge to blog once a day, every day for the month of April it seemed challenging but achievable. Once again, I am learning that success on a goal or task takes discipline. It’s like when I started reading the 852 page Merriam-Webster dictionary over two years ago. Just 2 pages a day in 426 days and the task is completed. The whole dictionary read in under 15 months. But here I am in year three still only just over half way done for that particular goal. It is becoming the same with this blogging task. It gets late in the evening and no thought for a blog comes to my head. Or I have a bunch of other tasks and think, “how can I get to blogging today.” This is no April Fool’s Joke and you can be damn sure I am not giving up. Sure I could just type a couple quick sentences one day and call it a blog. But that just feels like cheating to me. I want to succeed at the challenge fair and square. Whether you are rooting for me to succeed, or rooting for me to fail, at least I may have taught you something. Or maybe not.

I can’t help but find parallels between this concept and the concept of marriage. When you first get married you are all in love, everything is great, and its going to be easy to just live happily ever after. You know that the divorce rate is 50% but you can do this. You are different than the others. People let their emotions cloud their brains. Marriage, like success, takes discipline and perseverance. Its hard damn work just like most things you want to be successful at. Good luck trying to tell a young couple who is madly in love that marriage is hard damn work. Try it, I dare you. I would be shocked if you didn’t get a smirk or even worse yet, laughed at. We tend to not listen well enough to the experienced, elderly, and the wise. They have take your road and weathered all the pot holes.

Well that’s all for tonight. Another blog down as painful as it may be. I hope you will see my post tomorrow, assuming I have the discipline and perseverance to succeed at the April Blog-A-Thon.

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April 7, 2014

Lower Your Expectations

Call me crazy but I don’t believe in etiquette. To me, it really just feels like an excuse to blame others for not conforming to society’s pressure to do what’s expected. Who created these expectations? Even I tend to bow down to the pressures of conformity but at least I am trying to break through these restraints.

I am calling for a everyone to lower the expectations of others and increase the expectations of themselves. We spend way too much time focusing on what others are doing rather than focusing on what we are doing. We lose sight of the big picture and focus on the worthless grains of sand. Call me cruel, but adherence to etiquette should be a nice to have rather than a must have. Through the veil of my eyes there are few “musts” in life. Musts include breathing if you want to stay alive. Dying at some point after you are born. Everything else is just the filling you choose in a must bread sandwich. The world would be a better place if we all focused on being the best “I” we can be and stop worrying about the best “you” everyone else should be.

Wow, this blog post is getting way too deep for comfort. Maybe its just my seasonal April depression coming on. Luckily my fingers have fight and my brain has pills. I say yum to the synaptic sweethearts. The more I write the more I feel like Happy Harry Hard On in the movie “Pump Up the Volume.” Continuing to type when nobody is listening and continuing to think I am alone while a listener base is brewing. I gotta say, I am beginning to love the stench of my coffee breath fan base. Keep quietly paying attention and fight the urge to swallow an etiquette breath mint.

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April 6, 2014

The Re-Alignment of My Book Consumption Chain

I have a love hate relationship with the large box store book sellers. I guess I should say seller since there is really only one left. Barnes & Noble is the sole survivor. There was a time in my life some years ago, that I was hoping that the big box book seller would disappear. I was hoping for a David and Goliath type tale where the puny independent bookstore defeats the monster book Godzilla. But with Borders long gone, my daughter and me perusing the books at Barnes & Noble, I couldn’t help but feel sorry for the last big book store.

I have been meaning to purchase a lengthy book I couldn’t finish after borrowing it from the library. I would have renewed it a 4th time but it was on hold for many of other readers. So with a B&N gift card in hand, I was excited to purchase it without having to dip into my shallow wallet. I already knew that it costs $15.95 on Amazon.com but I was happy to pay a little more knowing I had the gift card. To my dismay, the price was actually $12 more at 27.95. I wish I could say that I loathe Amazon.com the way I loathe Wall-mart, but I love their service and the beauty of Amazon Prime. It delivers me a cheap book or any other items in two days with no shipping cost to bear. In my sadness, I couldn’t help but feel some joy for the small book retailer. It sounds absurd but they are actually doing better than the last big box bookstore. Much of it because of their ability to pay you for your old books and give you gently used books in exchange.

In my quest for life simplification I have mostly moved away from buying new books. The library has become my mecca of knowledge. The one thing I didn’t like about the lack of book possession has now been replaced with the Goodreads’ app tracking mechanism. Yes, I am still somewhat vane about being able to see the list of my literary accomplishments. No longer on my shelves and instead in my little iPhone app. Another thing I like about the library is the pending due date pressure. It is helping me overcome my habit of starting a book and not finishing it until months later. Sure I can renew it but the holds on the better reads pressures me into reading them quickly before the hold reaper comes calling. So my book consumption chain has now been re-aligned. My distaste for big box booksellers has been replaced with a sadness due to their pending sickness and ultimate death. Their vibrant eBooks daughter and their cheery library son are the therapy for my ills of grief. I don’t like eBooks at this point in my life, but I am sure there will be a day where I will be sad about the end of the physical library since it will ultimately only exist in the digital universe.

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April 5, 2014

My 3 Guilty TV Pleasures

Outside of sports and movies, I am not really that much of a TV watcher. In fact, if it wasn’t for sports, I would have probably cancelled cable years ago. There are actually 4 shows I watch pretty consistently but I never feel guilty for watching the cerebral ballooning show they call Jeopardy. As a result, Jeopardy has been left off the list. Don’t judge, and here we go…

1. Shark Tank – I hope to one day become an entrepreneur myself so this feels more like a educational program than a reality TV show. That being said, I really like listening to the sharks evaluate and try and quantify the ideas that are presented to them. I have had way too many, “damn, why didn’t I think of that” moments which in itself brings fun and excitement to the watching experience. Not to mention, I can never get enough of Mr. Wonderful saying… “Stop the Madness!”

2. The Profit – Are you beginning to see a trend here? While relatively new, this Marcus guy really knows how to run a business. Either that or he is an extremely good actor. It could be the later but I love the show anyway. It amazes me that many of the small business he interacts with continually fight this master CEO. They are either really stupid or the show encourages them to do so. One is real and the other makes for great TV. So from a show perspective its a win/win.

3. The Millionaire Matchmaker – What can I say about this. I am a scummy voyeur that loves watching stuck up millionaires try and find love. Even better is when Patti insults them and uses her leather whip tongue to try and cleanse them of their bad dating habits. Who doesn’t enjoy a good love story. You can puke now! Either way, I am embarrassed to say I watch this show but who gives a crap. Sometimes you have to put entertainment value ahead of your own ego.

So that’s it! Time for me to check my DVR and see which episodes of the three shows above I need to get caught up on. After all, the show must go on.

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