Changes...Part One

     Who would of known that the world would changed so fast? Life has changed, and not necessarily in a good way.  Change can be good, but it also can effect our lives in some unintended ways as well.
     Everything now is fast.  I want it now!  This causes some problems as to human contact.  The human touch as far as dealing face to face with people doesn't exist today.  Tender loving care, problem solving and customer service has been thrown out in favor of  "This is the way it is going to be, so get used to it."
     As for me, I hate pressing "1" for English an again pressing "2" for customer service.  Even then, "Customer Service" is a sort of oxymoron. What happened to the time when if we had a problem and called on the phone, we didn't have to press anything, but were directly connected to the person we needed to talk to, and not a computer I might add.  What ever happened to going down to the company branch office and talking to a live person. That rarely happens because the branch offices have been closed in favor of the phone.  Press "3" if you are not getting the computer you need to talk to. If you do press the "3" you get disconnected.
     My wife loves technology. She banks online and does as much as she can by phone.  I respect her for this.  Believe it or not we are the same age but I am sorry, I want to talk to a real person and I want to do it face-to-face. I want to look at paper or a lease a computer screen.  I want to see a human face and hopefully see a smile.  What I don't want is to talk to a machine.
     Maybe I am old fashioned.  I am sorry, but not all change is good.

The "Old"

The "New"

Don't Let The Grass Grow Underneath Your Feet (supplemental)

     The deed is done.  The lawn is mowed and the flowerbeds weeded. My grandson was found safe at his campsite.  He actually was upset when we told him that he had to break camp and be picked up by his mother to go home. I really like him. 

     It was kind of fun working in the yard.  I took my shirt off to get a tan and now look like a Maine spiny lobster after just coming out of the boil.  That isn't exactly true.  I am sunburned a little, but this happens every year when I take my shirt off for the first time and go out into the sun. The truth is that I tan very well. 

     Speaking of me going shirtless, If you don't know me I would like to say that I look like a Greek God with my shirt off.  My arms are as toned as Hercules and my legs are as strong and muscular as tree trunks.  The six pack abs that I have stand out and gleam in the sun like well tanned alabaster.  What image can I give for well tanned abs.  What does alabaster have to do with it?  I don't know.  

      Those that do know me can tell you that I am full of it and am a big liar trying to impress those of you that don't know me.  The sight of me with my shirt off kind of makes them cringe.  My arms and legs are not muscular, and I don't have six pack abs, but abs that look more like a keg of  Old English after a Frat party. Oh well, they are mine and I love them.

     At any rate, the yard is done, and I am at rest in the knowledge of a job well done.  Thank you Denise for doing it.

P.S.:  She didn't do it alone. After all, we are newlyweds. We did it together and it does look good.

See what a great job Denise did.

  

Don't Let The Grass Grow Underneath Your Feet

     That is a well know saying.  It is not exactly accurate first off, because your feet mus be off the grown in any given spot so that the sun can hit it.  Grass doesn't grow when there is no sunshine. Everyone knows that.
     Our grass has been growing.  Here in California where we live, people plant Hybrid Bermuda.  This kind of grass can still grow after a nuclear attack.   You just can't kill it.  I know, I have tried. Even if you don't water it, it still grows and grows...and grows. You can't pull it out when you weed, because it is EVERYWHERE.  The roots spread, sort of like the head of the hydra.  I can make that hydra reference because I am Greek.
     We have to go out this morning and do yard work.  The lawns needs to be mowed and edged and the flowerbeds need to be weeded.  God bless Roundup, by the way.  Unfortunately we have let the grass grow not under our feet, an impossiblility, but in our yard.  We  have been busy and have not been able to get back there to work.
      I think my grandson came over a few days ago to spend the night, and he went outside in the back yard to play.  He may be on safari back there in the tall grass because we haven't heard from him since Tuesday.  Don't worry, I think he's OK back there.  There is plenty of food and water back there, bugs and such. I think I saw the smoke of a campfire. He is a pretty self sufficient kid at four years old.  We are going to mow and edge so we will find him, rest assured. I am not 100% sure he is going to want to come out though.
     Looks like it is time to go out and do the dastardly deeds: mow, edge and weed.  I'm off.  What's that honey?  The British Open is on T.V.  Well......

My Yard and House.  See how much work we have to do.

William Shatner, My Hero

     Today, I am going to finish what I started.  Don't get me off the subject because I need to do this.  This is critical and the world needs to know.  I think William Shatner is one of the smartest men on the planet.  Notice I didn't say best actor.  That would be a total lie on my part.  He is one of the smartest.
     Enter Star Trek.  For almost three seasons, William Shatner (a.k.a. Captain Kirk) roamed the heavens in the Starship Enterprise boldly going where no man had gone before.  We can talk about that a bit as well as to the meaning of that statement, but this is a family blog and we won't even mention that kiss with Nichelle Nichols. Actually, I don't blame Captain Kirk. Uhura was hot, especially to a 14 year old adolescent boy like myself at the time.  As a matter of fact, she still is pretty hot.  OK, I'm off the subject again so back to William Shatner.
       Shatner was typecast.  there was not much else he could do to find work.  After all, he was James T. Kirk, Captain of the Enterprise.  What did he do? Unlike Adam West of Batman fame, he refused the typecast role and became a police officer.  He scored the role of T.J. Hooker.  What can you say?  Not only that, but his co-star was Heather Locklear.  What a babe!  I want some of that Bill Shatner charm and Moxie.
     After T.J. Hooker was cancelled, It looked like Bill was washed up in television and show business.  Not so fast, Cowboy.  He came up with the idea that if he was washed up on T.V., why not take his act on the road.  People still loved him.  Take the act out on the road and come up with some unique way to package that act.  Why not make Bill Shatner a characterization. How to do this was the question.
     People like rock stars.  Why not come back with a band?  This could have posed a problem because Bill sort of realized that he could not sing, unlike Russel Crowe in Les Miserables. Captain Kirk, uh William Shatner, saw this as an opportunity.  Don't sing, recite.  Have a band behind you and recite using his Shakespearean training.  Since it was viewed he was a bad actor, act as a bad Shakespearean actor while reciting the poetry. "Has Been" was born and toured to packed houses and wildly screaming and appreciative audiences. Shatner was on top again touring the country and becoming a sought after guest on the talk show circuit. Smart man.
     He began doing guest roles on T.V. again and finally landed a permanent role on the series Boston Legal.  The character he played was much like himself.  Well done, Bill!
     I admire a man who can look at himself and laugh.  I do it everyday as I look in the mirror.  My problem is I don't have the money and fame that William Shatner has.

Willam Shatner was unavailable for a picture so enjoy this one of me.

You Can Run, But You Can't Hide

     I ran.  I tried to hide, but it found me again.  Not all of it, but a good portion of it.  So, my decision is clear.  I must run again among,
other things.  I can't hide though because it will find me again.
     No, I'm not talking about the law.  All is well in that category, except for a few bill collectors but I will take care of that soon. Oh, and the bank robbery charges were all a misunderstanding but I have taken care of that as well as the speeding ticket. What I am talking about is the weight I have gained.
     Two years ago, I lost 70 pounds.  Sorry those of you in other countries, I don't know how much that is in kilos, you are going to have to do the conversions yourself.  I actually am pretty good at metric conversion, just not in weight. What I am talking about her, I promise I will get back on the subject I promise, is that I gained 30 of those pounds back.  I feel terrible.
     When I am trying to loose weight I do it fairly quickly.  The big thing is making the decision to loose the weight and do what it takes to get rid of the extra poundage.  That is where I am at right now. In my mind, I need to make the decision to do the things that need to get done in order to shed those added pounds.  As Captain Picard would say on the bridge of The Enterprise in Star Trek, The New Generation, "Make it so, Number One."  (By the way, I am going to finish that piece about William Shatner) As far as starting the weightloss, as Nike puts it, "Just do it!"
     I have to run now.  No, I am not going to run run, I just have to go.  I don't like to run.   When I workout, I use the treadmill and walk or I use the recumbrant bike.  Its easier on the old knees.  I never did like to run. What I am going to do now is do my crunches and stretching routine.  I have to start somewhere and I promise that I will get back to the gym to do a full workout soon. Not just today.

This is how I feel right now after gaining my weight back. 

I'll Be Back

     OK, so I haven't posted in almost two weeks.  Have you missed me?  Don't answer that question.  At any rate, I have been on vacation and away from my blog for too long. I promise a great post tomorrow.

Movin In...Movin On--Part Zwei (For My German Readers)

     This is going to be a very short discourse on my thoughts.  Here goes.  I have finished cleaning and organizing my office. Just finished, but I am tired, so I am not going to write much as I said.  I will share before and after pictures as I am really proud of how it turned out.

Before

After--OK, so I didn't have a picture of a clean office. Oh well, it was worth a try.

Movin' In...Movin' On

     I suppose that you were expecting the second part of my ode to William Shatner.  don't worry, I will get to that but I think I am going to put that off until tomorrow.  Why, because I am still moving into my office and it is a mess right now.  I cannot create when my work space is in such turmoil.
     I thought that I had it all taken care of.  That is until those dreaded extra boxes showed up.  I don't know, do boxes get pregnant and have children?  That is what it appears to be happening.  I put one box's contents away, and two boxes appear.  Why is that.  Is this some evil plot brought on by the box monster?  I don't know.
    I feel sorry for my paper shredder.  Why is it that I keep what I keep?  You should see some of the stuff I have squirreled away. There is one good thing about this though.  I think I can get a free car wash, because I have kept all those "One dollar off" car wash coupons I would get when I would get the car washed.  They are a pretty pink.

Each one of these is worth one dollar.  That's not my car, by the way.
 

Nope, I counted them.  I'm about ten washes short of a free wash.

     O.K. now, back on task.  Doing this is a daunting task.  There are so many boxes and so much stuff.  Fifty-nine years is a long time to collect stuff.  It is also kind of fun to go down memory lane as well, viewing some of the treasure that I have had stashed that I haven't seen for years.  As you probably guessed, I keep a lot of stuff.  I even see the Olympic Airlines ticket that they tagged my bag with on my flight to Israel and Greece in 1973.  Wow, does that bring back memories. 

     There is a lot of other old stuff there too.  I collect maps and have a good supply of old National Geographic maps.  My, how the world has changed.  

     I had better get back to work now.  I have got a lot to do in order for everything to get put away.  After that, I have to get started on a new book project.  Tomorrow I promise I will write about William Shatner.

Just thought I would share with you a picture of what my office looks like right now.  Hopefully I will have another picture after I finish putting everything away to show you the difference.

     

All Hail, William Shatner!

     What does a supposedly "washed up" bad Canadian Shakeseperean (dikshunary please) actor do after he has been playing the role of the captain of a mythical spaceship in a marginally successful T.V. series do after the show has been cancelled?  Most of the time it is fade off into the proverbial acting sunset only to play dinner theater in Concawonka, Mississippi.  That is not to offend the good citizens of Concawonka, Mississippi but that about sums up the process.
     Take a good look at Adam West. Who, you ask? Adam West, otherwise known as Batman in the sixties.  He goes on the "What are they doing now?" list. He played Batman and after that disappeared off the performing radar, although I do see him do an occasional guest shot on T.V. show or hear his distinctive voice as a voice-over on a commercial.  Don't see him much though.
     Holy continuation, Batman.  I am going to close now, just whetting your appetites as to what I am going to say.  I know you love it when I do this.  Honestly, I don't do it on purpose. My ADD is kicking in and there is a Tom and Jerry special about to begin on Toon T.V. I can't miss that.  I write with the T.V. on because that kind of tunes out the distractions. I love Tom and Jerry.

That's not a rat, but I didn't have a picture of a rat so I used this one.  It is my dog Basher, who I lost in the divorce. We had cats too, but I'm not that much of a cat person and didn't get any pictures of our five cats before I had to move out.