December 30, 2010

Yesterday it poured rain all day so that I stayed indoors and would not go outdoors except to go the bank finally after we got a break in the weather. Naturally, stepped in a few puddles of water, splish, splash, and eyes had to adjust to nighttime with only a few lamps working. It was dark and eerie, and as the night wore on, the rain only became more intense. At about 3:30 in the morning I woke up to see the blinds moving as they had in the other apartment, and a bright light near the gate! I could see another light on what is my front closet...I am totally convinced that there are entities amongst us. I stayed awake for another 45 minutes before finally falling to sleep.

My kitten had to sleep on my stomach for part of the night. Then she finally moved to sleep in the curve of my back. Kittens do what is called kneading as she takes her paws and kneads across my body. I read about this so that it did not bother me. She is still a baby and this is how she makes her needs known to want to be mothered.

Believe it or not, everyone who has animals should read the interesting facts that those in the know give on the internet. I asked why cats purr and got a slew of places that love to give answers to those kind of questions so that is how I came to learn about the kneading.

That is the second night in a row she decided to sleep on my stomach. I think she hears the heart beat and it comforts her. Or she is trying to keep me warm after I had complained about the cold, crawled out of bed to turn on the heat, and back in snuggling under covers.

She is a pretty little thing and seems to understand English very well.

gene krupa buddy rich drum battle

Perry Como - Make Someone Happy

Fame Comes and Goes in a Minute

I will post Perry Como's version of this song if it is on Youtube. But talking to a girl who is 22 the other day I learned that she had never heard of Flip Wilson. I was stunned to realize that these youngsters today do not know anything about what we in my generation experienced in the way of celebrity.

Our lives are punctuated with the media saturation of stars and we all grow up knowing and watching certain kind of movie stars, t.v. stars, athletic stars, etc. God I wish I could have heard Gene Krupa play those drums myself but at least his records do last. I may put a video of him on too now that I think of it. I am a drum crazy woman...I love certain kinds of drum music...

Then I will close shop for two hours.

Previous videos

Most are musical, and two are of the same song by two different artists. O Holy Night by current British sensation Susan Boyle, in her album The Gift, and the other by Mario Lanza, a man who I adored when a child. If I had ever met a real Mario Lanza I would absolutely swoon I think.

The Asian is from a facebook "friend" who is quite interesting, and the MMMMMMacedonia came originally from Pothos.org who got it from maybe Rogue Classics. Can't say positively where it came from originally but I like many of the scenes on it, can't say much for the sounds, but the portraits and visual effects are quite good at times. I am frankly always on the Macedonia side in that it does truly matter, even today, as I am a history purist in all reality.

I tried to get back into the groove of taking up where I left off in my Alexander book. December has been pure hell for me to be honest. I am tired of hell which is what is called ERROR mostly.

Will explain in next post all these conflicts.

Post Christmas

Christmas Day was a slow day for me. I liked it that way. At my age, everything in life is a slowdown. I had no idea, none of us ever do, what old age does to us. Christmas season has been a problem for me...no money to speak of, and so the only gift I gave to myself was a trip to the Rockettes, time spent with Janice, Lee, and Margarita.

This is December 26, by the way, and I had to bring my lottery game up to date. Went to Pothos.org for a change and added stuff there to facebook and twitter.

I get all excited about Alexander at times too since I want to get back to the problem at hand, finishing my novel about his life. Believe it or not, writing a book takes you back to that time period and so I will have to reimmerse myself into again to begin the next step of this journey.


I like facebook and twitter. I can control who to follow and who to friend. Amazing at how some friends are really so very intersting. I like those kind.

Macedonia ("My Sharona" by the Knack)

Dragon Lounge - Mahasamadhi (Oriental Mix)

Mario Lanza - Christmas - O Holy Night

O Holy Night - Susan Boyle

Christmas Day

It is only a few minutes til Christmas is officially here. I am alone with my new kitten who is lying on the bed, and giving me all kinds of fun. She is a little darling, and we are now almost two weeks together. She is sweet as can be but into everything imaginable.

The is Christmas number 71 for me. Most Christmases are never memorable to me. They are all pretty much the same. Some years I will go to mass and some years I won't.

I never forget how Jesus is born, why the wisemen came to see him, and how the star which shone so brightly led them to his ignominious birthplace, a manger in the back of an inn because Joseph and Mary had not made advance reservations. Her time had come, and she delivered the child, who soon came to be known as the Saviour of souls.

I have been writing for years a study of gods and goddesses and it is no accident that I put Christmas songs and videos on facebook along with a portrait of Genghis Khan who believed himself to be a Heavenly Ruler also.

So history teaches us some things that man was able to document, write, and record, and tradition teaches us another.

So this discourse of mine will continue while I try to write it all out, and celebrate the Christmas Day this year with my new found kitten, Alexis, who is being treated about like Madame de Maintenon (a cache chat or hidden cat).

Life is repetitive at times in many strange ways.

Christmas in Paris 2010

Where are you Christmas? Faith Hill

Alvin and The Chipmunks: The Christmas Song

History of the Star Spangled Banner

My friend from Oklahoma sent me a video about the history of the Star Bangled Banner. I had bought a framed copy of the Star Bangled Banner when I lived in California years ago and saw it at Mt. Vernon when I visited there in 1976.

I even went to Baltimore to see Fort McHenry and to visit other sites there as well. I always remember a set of plaques showing Baltimore yesterday, today, and tomorrow in terms of growth.

I love this particular video which I placed here at this blogger as its meaning and story is powerful. Everyone should see it and listen to it carefully. It has many errors in it, one that it refers to the colonies which are now states, and apparently, the entire scenario of the bombs trying to hit the flag is implausible. However, that is the point of the story, that the flag would not come down due to the devotion and sacrifices of the people there who continued to hold it up. Whether true or not, I have no idea...

The story behind the "Star Spangled Banner" our National Anthem

PARANORMAL: GHOST OF LITTLE GIRL SEEN BY ENTIRE NEIGHBORHOOD ( NEWS )

The December Solstice 2010 Total Lunar Eclipse

Lunar Eclipse

There will be a lunar eclipse on Monday Night/Tuesday Morning depending upon where you live in the world. It is on the day of the Solstice. If it is clear I will try to get a photo of it. Have to use a tripod for nightsettings. I do not know what to expect since the shadow of the earth would be all one could capture for when it is totally eclipsed, there should be nothing but blackness. Just a reminder of Adler Planetariums story on Chicago Tribune mobile phone article under newspapers.

New York City Rockettes Christmas Show

The photo of the Holy Family was made with a zoom lens. We were in the top row directly across from the stage at the jobing arena which frankly is as far as you could get from the stage. It is a huge auditorium but my pentax has a zoom lens so I used it to take this shot. This was a meaningful show and attracted quite a crowd that night. I will post another now.

An experiment now

Introducing Alexis, my first kitten

When I was a child, my grandparents had kittens on the farm, and puppies, cows, chickens, sheep, horses, and I learned to love pets that are essentially wild. I had never owned a pet until in 1976 when I bought a yorkshire terrier dog through an ad in the newspaper from a homebreeder. I loved that little dog and he traveled with me everywhere.

So recently, my neighbor's big white Persian got pregnant for the second time, having mated with an unknown stray, and produced 4 baby kittens on October 7 right after we had a hail storm.

One baby did die but three survived and there was one golden colored kitten, looking almost like the publish post sign here, and she seemed to be attracted to me whenever I visited my friend's home. She had promised me a kitten from the second litter so I last weekend finally brought home this beautiful little doll and named her Alexis, for the cover of Alexander by Dodge. There was a definite match. Once in a while I even call her Alexander. She is named for him very aptly so.

The previous photo is the first photo made of her at my apartment when she found a cozy spot to take a nap. For a video of her with her first toy, use this link: Qik.com/4personalitee.

This is our one week anniversary. We are bonding. Old age is kinder to small pets I am realizing. I am very indulgent. Now I understand all the famous pet stories. One cannot help but marvel at the intelligence and vitality of a young kitten.

Tomb of Philip - Vergina of Veria, new year 2009

Wikileaks problem

Much news is being made about Wikileaks and so a video showing a former CIA agent discussing the fact that journalists should be emulating Julian Assange instead of scapegoating him is worth noting. I did appreciate his remarks so I posted it here after reading it at Twitter late this evening.

My own personal feeling is that the government is who is making me feel, look, and behave more sensibly and responsibly than they do. I have always known never to be fool enough to place faith in the world of computers. To me, that is a nobrainer, but then I have been concerned for sometime that the only people we elect to high officer are also a bunch of nobrainers...Sometimes I wonder at this game that Americans play with right and left, party above all, and the people and their needs totally forgotten. Congress thinks of one thing only, and that is itself!

But to realize that they now want to blame somebody else for their own foolishness is totally typical of pass the buck and do it to them before they do it you politics.

The citizens do have to share the responsibility. One thing must be done and asap, and that is to limit terms of office so that we do not continue to have these career politicans who feather their own nests while making fools of the people who bother to vote to put them into office anyway.

When they do wrong, they should be exposed. I know that biblically there is a passage that says there will come a time when there are no secrets. I think that congress should stop trying to kid itself into thinking it is above the law itself.

Let freedom of the press prevail even in cases of embarrassing decisions...So what? Hasn't the Clinton faction already proved that people have very short memories. Who but a rare few will ever even bother to open a newspaper to read this wikileaks anyway?

Follow the advice of the CIA agent. Go get the story, and don't try to cover it up!

Ray McGovern Defends Julian Assange! "You Should Be Following His Exampl...

Zardoz trailer

This morning one of the facebook members posted a photo from the movie Zardoz starring Sean Connery. I have not seen the movie but did want to put the trailer here so that I don't forget to look for it. It was released in 1974.

The other trailer which is of Richard Chamberlain performing a ballet scenario in the role of Apollo I added to go with the previous post about MacDonald's book on the subject of the Man in the Iron Mask.

In the last chapter of MacDonald's book he does explain why and how Voltaire and Dumas combined to have the story the Man in the Iron Mask evolve. Years ago, one of my favorite stories was called Bimbo, a story about a dog with a cookie in its mouth found after the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in Italy.

It is sad to think that life was so bleak for the French that they would actually listen to rumors and come out in person to watch a man being taken prisoner and transported secretly. One wonders if they did actually do that or if that is part of the Tall Tale. Most people would not bother but it proves something about rumor control or gasconnades!

Thinking of Office Wetherby now...just so we always remember to spell his name right.

Baroque Ballet in "Man in the Iron Mask" (1977)

Baroque Ballet in "Man in the Iron Mask" (1977)

Baroque Ballet in "Man in the Iron Mask" (1977)

Trailer for Zardoz (1974)

The Man in the Iron Mask by Roger MacDonald

I finally finished reading the book The Man in the Iron Mask by Roger MacDonald. Two days ago I woke up from a dream about Louis XIV. Most people in the USA do not really know who Louis XIV is. In fact, I am under the impression now that even the people of France do not really know who he is.

I will try to sum up the book that MacDonald wrote quickly as it is not a good book for those who consider themselves friends of the King to read. It is intended to make his many enemies very happy. It is frankly offensive, disgusting, unreliable, and a new word I learned from it, a gasconnade, meaning a tall tale. The men from Gascony loved to tell tales and spin them larger and larger which is what Roger MacDonald is doing with this book.

On that note, I will drop the topic of the book to that of the Sun King, Louis XIV.

My dream was very strange and very undesirable in many ways, as I am still trying to make it out to my own self satisfaction.

Years ago, I had the temerity to ask myself to learn who I had been in a past life, and underwent self hypnosis to get an answer. At that time, I knew nothing about the man known as the Sun King, and so simply accepted my inner knowledge as being that is who I am. Since then, I have made a long study to learn whether any of my inner information does have confirmation, and even went to Paris, and the Chateau to see for myself all that I had learned through what is soul memory.

Thanks to MacDonald I do see that many people hated me a lot, and I know now why.

I just read a facebook article about John Lennon who claims to have been visited by buglike aliens so I know how crazy strange stories can seem to people, even when the person uttering them thinks them to be true.

After reading MacDonald's book, I am happy that the life of Louis is past and that I am in the present time simply putting all this information together, coming to grips with it. So for me, the bloodlines don't mean a thing as it is soul that is important to me, and I am willing to accept that this lifetime has blessed me by discovering these past lifetimes. (God's will be done.)

It is naturally influencing how I write my novel on Alexander the Great, for I believe very much in Alexander and in the gods of his day and age, as that is the basic premise of the book, that Alexander does what he does with the help of his own personal gods and goddesses.

Likewise, Louis XIV trusted in the faith of his age, and while he does appear to have broken many rules of the tenets of the faith, he still remained a devout practitioner...what his own internal beliefs are is irrelevant in this day and age, but it is safe to say that his decisions were also influenced by his belief in God's will that he be the ruler and the Christian king.

When I write his book, I will also use religion as a basis for understanding his life as well since it all comes to me as when I was being so honest with myself at Kent State University in a philosophy class proving that religious beliefs shape our lives.

In my opinion, Louis XIV is a very personable man with a very important position in life. Once I learned of him,I realized why it was that a fellow teacher at GHS had made a statement to me that I found peculiar at the time. Now I wonder about it as it was not my choice then to do it the way it was perceived, but I did realize that people had a misconception about me. I was both advisor to the school newspaper (because few wanted the job) and also to the cheerleaders and songleaders (again for the same reason, nobody wanted it) but it seemed to appear that I was a glutton for punishment.

Being a teacher is a thankless position in itself, but being an advisor, especially to the school newspaper, is even more thankless. All it gets is criticism, just or unjust.

So it had to be with the position of King. Damned if you do and damned if you don't.

MacDonald's main emphasis is upon the scandals, the women, and the problem of a single prisoner who is made to wear a mask to hide his identity. It is one of those lame stories that is blown all out of proportion so that in the end it does make ridicule of the state and of the king to place so much importance upon a single prisoner.

I found the entire premise false from start to finish as I am a defender of the King and his family but I did enjoy learning all the tidbits of gossip that make everyone look ridiculous, difficult, and certainly probably overdue for reform and change. However, when one studies the era seriously enough, one realizes that the times produced a France that gives all the ministers and the King a kind of credibility that makes them admirable rather than otherwise.

In all fairness to myself, as I am still always able to recall in a second many of the events that I enjoyed while reliving a life as Louis XIV, I really believe that as King, Louis XIV did an extraordinary job using the people in his court to their best advantage. In the end, most of the work of that period speaks for itself, and the King is justified for his obstinant attitude towards not only his building programs, but also his wars, and his chapel. Once he made his decision, he stood by it.

So for me, Roger MacDonald who claims to be a historian insulted himself with his book.

Enough said for now.

Planet Mercury with Alien Buildings

I posted this due to a video photograph and debate on facebook. At Michigan State University, in a sociology class, we had to write a paper about a planet, and I recall that the planet I wrote about (and possibly the entire class did it as well) was the planet Mercury. We had to create some kind of society there, imaginatively, as I recall vaguely this many years later, and the thing that stood out is that Mercury is a planet that has only a narrow strip of land which is habitable, because one side of it faces the sun so that it is too hot for habitation, and the other side faces the opposite side so that it gets no sun at all and therefore is too cold for life of any kind. The only possible place is the strip inbetween the two extremes, and so that is the area where we concentrated upon to create our imaginary society.

This discussion about buildings on the planet took me to youtube to see the actual video so I posted it here. It is interesting to see these anomalies that look as though they could be buildings. Especially one which clearly shows shadows that look like doors. One of the chimney effects makes me think of Pinnacle Peak and I have seen enough mountains that look like pyramids and the like that I can imagine natural formations looking as if they could be manmade but in actuality are natural and made due to Mother Nature, not man at all.

I am pondering this now, this many years later...Strange and interesting video so I hope that some who are interested in this topic will check out the images to see what they think.

Me, I think that they are most likely formed from the environment, possibly made through some means of intelligence but most likely to be considered natural. Very fascinating to me now at this late date, reminding me of MSU and Dr. Gottlieb! Who incidentally never really earned his title the regular way. So he told us!

MERCURY - HUGE ALIEN BUILDINGS - HD.mp4

Saguaro High School Takes back the Title

My neighbor's son Elijah McDade plays on the football team at Saguaro High School, and this afternoon, had the good luck to play in the game that has won the state title for their division. He had gone to Chaparral High School during his first two years but his mother wanted him to participate in the football team as his older brother before him had done, so she transferred him to go to school at Saguaro which is right next door to where we live. He is a part of the winning team, and is pictured in the slideshow that AzCentral has in its story. I believe that this is an important turning point in his life so wanted to make it a part of the blogspot.

Saguaro outlasts Canyon del Oro for 4A-I title

Saguaro outlasts Canyon del Oro for 4A-I title

Nanowrimo Tips and Tricks

Final Day of NaNoWriMo

Today is the last day of the writer's attempt to pen a novel, and so I finally checked out the goodies that I have won as result of validating my novel. I did not enter this project with any of that in mind. I just wanted to prove that I could produce 50,000 words with an intent to become a part of a novel that I have wanted to write for some time. I had not done any preparation at all. In fact, I was not sure until the last minute which story I would develop, my novel on Alexander the Great or a story about suicides from the Golden Gate Bridge. I decided the latter to be too depressing so I opted for Alexander and am so happy I did. I learned more about Alexander through this effort than any other I have done so far. Many books are on my shelves, and some are fully read while others remain only partially read.

A good author wants to be read from page one to page last!

I truly appreciate the national novel writer's month program as I did make myself get into it and finish it. I even turned on to my interest in my novel of Alexander. I had to do a lot of what some will call padding and what I call notetaking, which is plainly tediously writing out materials that will be used in ways to frame or buttress the main theme of the book. My book is really interesting and informative as well as educational and entertaining. It has a long ways to go, and first I intend to finish what I have started in the first draft method and keep it up until I reach that last page.

I follow history closely but I also am using common sense,imagination, and fabrication, which is making it up as I go. That is what fiction is all about, but this book is adhering closely to the real history, with imagination and common sense developing the life of the story...some parts are experiences that I have had come to me as a result of my effort to learn of times past in "my" way and in which I believe totally. It is fun at this time!

Unbelievable Match

I had my novel validated today for word count, and my number is totally unreal! It is 53,538 words, and the reason it is so unreal is that it matches an important number of mine that made it something I can never forget. Absolutely unreal! However, my open office word count was a bit more than that, standing at 53, 946 words. So go figure!

I am so relieved, but my novel is first draft status only, not a finished product yet. It is salable, is interesting, and is in need of a lot of work, rewrites, re-editing, etc. One puts out the first draft for the purpose of building a frame, a foundation, and for having the novel essentially flexed out. I compare it to building a house and/or giving birth to a baby. I actually loved working on this except for the tedious places where I had to set up my construction or in metaphor terms build my walls. I have a plan in mind, but in order to do it, I had to do a lot of work in writing out all the groundwork. That was very long, tedious, and tiresome, but in the end,very important in developing the book and making my main points!

Plus, I had to reread several books, poems, and plays. There is a poem I want to use at some point but I did not get it onto this part of the book yet. It will come as I love it, and would use it in the frontispiece.

This novel is following upon my days at Kent State University when I discussed the power of religious beliefs upon our personalities, and it fascinates me this many years later, to see how time passes but in truth, many ideas remain the same despite daily ongoing growth and changes. It has really hit me at how much I have learned in the years since I moved from Colorado back to Arizona. All this is relevant as so many strange things have happened while I have lived in this part of the USA.

So being honest with myself, I do believe that this novel has helped me in many more ways than I would have suspected. I love the creative part of it, and I love my major theme which is obvious without too much discussion. It reenforces many beliefs that I had had as a teenager and adolescent, and I can see how far I have come since writing those thoughts for a philosophy class. Who would have ever believed that I would end up harkening back to the age of Alexander, and those gods and goddesses so important then! Go Greek!

PARIS - CHRISTMAS LIGHTS - 2010 - LUMIERES DE NOEL CHAMPS ELYSEES

Corinth Greece

Finalizing my book on Alexander

The way that Nanowrimo works is that you have to cut and paste and send your story to them to do a word count. At present, I have 53,600 words or so and will on saturday send it in to the officials to see what their formulator says that I have in terms of word counts. The number of words is not quite so important as the novel itself which in my case needs a lot of work and revisions. I have a lot of repetitions in it due to my trying to decide to use a narrative style or a first person journal style. As it is I am incorporating both. My book is basically trying to prove that the gods and goddesses who are prevalent in Homer's Iliad are also a part of Alexander's own life and travels. I will interject them in my books about Alexander as helping him just as Homer had done with Achilles. I am also proving that the stories, plays, and poetry of the period influenced Alexander so much as a child that he is under its influence all the rest of his life, especially his love and admiration for Achilles.

I did go back through a lot of it last night to try to clean it up and to make a few changes in the way of typos and spelling as well as a few faulty sentence structure problems.

I get tired of it a lot that way, but I found that this is one of the better stories about Alexander, least boring,and certainly closest to historical data and bios as I followed the history pretty nearly exactly. I take liberties of course where the historians cannot but I often find them to be utterly devoid of putting 2 and 2 together at times to realize what actually happened.I could figure it out. Why couldn't they? At least, my interpretation makes it a more interesting story but I still need to beef it up a lot.

I won't cite examples yet where I think biographers goofed but I did use my story to insert what I believe really happened.

My book is a bit more cohesive than most are. It will all make a lot of sense when and if someone wants to really come to know Alexander as I have come to know him.

Believe it or not, I find myself going back in time a lot as I get vivid pictures now and then. It is exciting for me that way too. Some would say active imagination...ha...don't they know better yet than to think that. So I checked it out. I could see Corinth so easily, and so I looked it up. Fascinating to me at how true my picture has proved to be. I love the place! Guess that means I will put a video of Corinth to follow this...if I find a good one, it will be posted.

Re: "NIBIRU ALERT" - REALTIME OUT MY FRONTDOOR - From Carneyart's Channel

"NIBIRU ALERT" - REALTIME OUT MY FRONTDOOR - From Carneyart's Channel

Katrina

I have been writing about Alexander, thus, the Greek gods and goddesses play an important role in his life which I am developing in my storyline. Oddly, I have learned all kinds of strange facts regarding these gods and goddesses of yore, which has helped me to understand today even.

My aunt and uncle became members of a spiritualist camp years ago, and so when I was in Florida in 1974, a lot of information about some of these camps which are based in Florida was made public through the Miami Herald. I have had psychic abilities since I was young, and I have also come to believe in spirits making themselves known to me at various times in my life.

Thanks to writing this project for NaNoWriMo, I learned something in the Iliad that fascinated me. I have something in common with Achilles besides heels it turns out.

When I was in Ft. Lauderdale, years ago, I was visited by the children of a neighbor who liked to play in my apartment when their parent and her boyfriend were not home. They needed adult companionship and a home away from home, so a little girl whose name was Eva would come to visit me. One day, she was playing and I was getting a shoe of mine back that she had taken from me when she began to cry. I told her then that it was crocodile tears and to stop crying. At that moment, I felt a tug on my hair from the back, and knew that some spirit had reached out and tugged at my hair so that I stopped teasing Eva then. While writing my book about Alexander, I happened upon a passage in the Iliad which tells of Athena pulling on Achille's red hair when he is getting angry at Agamemnon. I thought how strange! It made me sit up and take notice.

I still ponder that now.

But anyway, I began to wonder about spirits and gods and goddesses who let only certain mortals hear or see them. So it is with Katrina.

I had been told about one week before Katrina, through a spiritual voice which I heard clearly, that New Orleans would be hurting badly. That was when some hurricane threatened gulfside Florida and so I said it aloud, and that way I know that those who listen in to me heard me, but it was not for that hurricane but the one that followed which is Katrina. They had fair warning, one or two weeks early, is the way I felt about it. I have had a keen interest in hurricanes since years before that while in Michigan and another had threatened Florida.

At any rate, seeing this video of an abandoned six flags amusement park reminded me of my being able to hear not only the inner voice from within but also the voices of spirits around me. To my surprise, I was astounded to learn of Athena's admonition to Achilles which made me remember when I was in Ft. Lauderdale with Little Eva.

I may elaborate on this later but for now, that is all I will say. I have certainly learned of Alexander, Louis XIV, and others only through spiritual inner voices as well, and this has caught my fancy. My nephew posted this thanks to his interest in art. He was also responsible for my getting involved in the NaNoWriMo thing which has finally brought my book on Alexander to its genesis! Interesting at how life works sometimes,isn't it ?

Abandoned Six Flags New Orleans Tour

Nearly finished with Novel

I have reached 49,240 words when my last entry was about Hippolytes, a play by Euripides. This play would have an impact on anyone, especially an impressionable young Alexander. I placed the dirge music which is the end of the story about a young man falsely accused by his mother of wrongdoing. A very touching story and I also placed a scene by a young actor playing Heracles in the play Alcestis, a story making one think of Jesus Christ. A wee bit different, but nevertheless makes one wonder.

Hallelujah! I am nearing the end for the NaNoWriMo group. I am shouting it out!

Alcestis - Tom Slot

"Dirge Song" from Hippolytus and Phaedra

Finally at the Finish Line

We are approaching the end of this 30 day effort to write a 50,000 novel and turn it in to get credit for the time spent and words lighting up the blank spaces of paper. Wrestling with the devil is what some people call it. I have over 46,000 words written, and it has been a heck of a time writing all this material on just the childhood developmental period of Alexander. I will consider it a framework about which I will somehow or other turn it into a finished product ready to be published sometime after I get this much done.

It did me some good to tackle this project as I learned so much more from this effort than I had thought I would. In truth, most of the histories are just legendary materials probably better suited for some epic poem than to be taken literally as the way in which things actually happened.

You know this experience has taught me a lot about Alexander and Homer as I have had to read and recount the Iliad more than once, as it is a major part of this story. I intend to use a paragraph from each chapter as the heading of Alexander's journals, but the problem in writing all that is that it became very tedious and boring. The journals themselves are difficult enough but to try to condense a chapter into a single paragraph and then to include a paragraph for stylistic purposes made this a very interesting but time consuming and at times tedious effort.

I was very surprised when I began to reread the Iliad at how much I had not noticed at the first reading, and that turns out to be the same with some of the history books as well. How I wish I would have noted the author, title, and date of each and every book I had read when I first began the study of Alexander, but alas,alack, I did not, and while I bought many so that I am using those for reference, I remember reading pieces that have stuck in my mind, but can't remember who, what, and why now.

I will soon be finished. When I reach the end, I will send it to NaNoWriMo and see what happens next. It is certainly a worthwhile effort but very time consuming. Everything else is on hold for awhile.

When finished, I will briefly describe the book. It is quite interesting really but is being written in chunks and bits and pieces. I wrote the narrative first, and am now filling it all in with a variety of means. That is why it is all a first draft. A lot of rewrites and editing to be done. But it has been fun!

Ancient Greek Music - Fragment by Homer!

Wordcounts and Cut and Paste

I admit that I am the worst student in the world of the computer, especially these laptops. I had taken a word processing class years ago where I learned how to use codes for a specialized business type of computer program. It was quite interesting and taught me a lot, not only about the computer system itself, but also about the people who operated the school where I took the class.

So thanks to going to an Evalwrimo session on Saturday, I found a very nice young woman who helped me to understand the word processing unit that I added to my computer so that I can write this novel in a word processor and thus be able to deliver it to the people at the site where we tabulate the number of words that we actually wrote. I finally learned how to cut and paste, something that I did not understand until now. Cannot say that I totally understand it, but like with the first class that I took, I know what to do now at least on that job.

I also learned how to find my word count as I was doing it at approximately 17 words per line and counting lines. Totally wrong thing to do.

I have been reading all kinds of books relative to my subject, The Iliad, and a few plays by Euripides. Very interesting to understand the character of my book that way.

The Iliad is very amusing to me, and while I wonder at Alexander for taking to Achilles so much, it is said that his family tree descends from him, and that Lysimachos had compared him to Achilles, so it would be an ego thing that way, and some other authors maintain that he believed he was the reincarnation of Achilles.

Through reading the book,I finally realized a lot of things about the legend of Alexander that finally make some sense to me.

I will try to incorporate them in my book. There is no doubt that the dream that Olympias had about a thunderbolt entering her womb implies that Zeus has impregnated her with his son, Alexander.

I had intended to end my book with either the battle of Chaeroneia or Philip's death. I am doing Philip's death, and now have to beef up my skeleton frame. That will take some doing as I am thinking about it all today. I had to take my first three entries which I wrote on email and put them on the word processor so that they are included in my word count.

This is all new. I just learned about Lulu selfpublishing from Mme. Guillotine and a place called Create Space which is with Amazon.

Once I get the book finished, it will make those who have read the Iliad realize that it is definitely a Homeric effort. I intend to use his novel as the model upon which I will try to Homerize Alexander a bit, my way!

That is all for now.

2010 Breeders' Cup Classic

Zenyatta and the Breeder's Cup

I have waited a few days before finally making any kind of statement. I did tweet that I believed that it is probably best for the world of horseracing that Zenyatta won second place in the way that she did, just a wee bit short!

I feel this way because too much expectation was made on this horse, and way too much publicity was given to her, making her the target for those who wished ill upon her to have their way.

I did respond to one facebook discussion of her that involved her being a horse instead of a superstar. As a horse, she is a phenomena for this time period. There is still no horse that approaches Man of War, who actually had to carry the extravagant 130 pound weight to slow him down a bit. It certainly would have put pressure on his heart with that much extra weight. He lost one race also which is the real reason I believe that 90 years later it is only right that Zenyatta maintain the same kind of record...He raced 21 races, lost one; she raced 20 races, lost one.

I do believe had she been put up nearer the front immediately that she would have won! All that dirt in her face did not help her situation. The jockey should have at least made it more comfortable for her by keeping her steady in the center of the back instead of at the back of the pack. But whether jockey or trainer did that to her, one or both will have to live that one repeatedly to consider whether they did right or wrong. I believe they did wrong. She was an easy winner if given the right ride.

So it goes. That is horseracing luck. We, who play the game, understand that very well.

I bet lightly that day! I have no one to blame but myself for my decisions. I was just hoping and praying that she would win. It didn't happen. I realized that it might not happen, but I had hoped otherwise.

I wish she could continue to race. She is certainly well and healthy enough, but breeding it seems is what the game becomes after some years. Guess the owners know what they are doing. After all, it is only MONEY!

The Iliad by Homer/Music by Posit

I am nearly finished with my reading of The Iliad by Homer. I had read it a long time ago and have seen many versions of this same sad story, but this particular book is absolutely so fascinating I can hardly put it down. It is bloody awful to say the least. Heads go rolling right and left, and I am forever astounded when I think that this is Alexander's favorite book.

The fact that the gods and goddesses are in combat with one another amuses me a bit, but I honestly can see how I must incorporate their interference with Alexander's successes as I am confident that he believed that they were backing him all the way to the very final act.

I needed some music tonight and I discovered the song Ete d'Amour, which is one of the most beautiful songs that I have heard recently. There are two other versions, equally beautiful, but this one is the one I like the most so I shared it at both fb and my blogspot. It is so relaxing, and there is a relaxing piano version by Xianning also. That is very nice also.

It is a necessary break from spearing men right and left, cutting off their heads, their hands,and removing their corselets and armor from their bodies. Whee! That kid Alexander really cut his teeth on the worst of life: war! He did believe he was Achilles reborn so it is said. Whether he did or not in reality is purely conjecture. He certainly tried to emulate his character as much as is possible it would appear. I am sure that when he stared reality in the face, he realized that a piece of fiction by Homer was only a fragmented mirror of real life!

I am having my fun. I am remembering that I have an inside track in this life of Alexander and I intend to use it in this novel. I want to see where it goes from here on out...I am thinking to when I was in the Louvre and some god or goddess stopped me to make certain that I saw the portrait of Alexander there. They are still all around us. I am laughing that one of them deliberately tripped Philip when he was so drunkenly murderous! I will use that in my novel my way!

May the Saints preserve us all, and honor to all the gods and goddesses in reality and fiction.

Jean Pierre Posit - Été D'Amour (1977)

More on my novel

I spent a lot of hours today continuing in my effort to write a novel in 30 days time. Actually, I adjust my thinking about this novel as I write it. It is very interesting to me now that I have started it. A friend of mine is also doing the same project and published her first chapter on facebook. I cannot do that. I can only save it and recheck it so that I will wait til I get help on knowing how to upload it for the NaNoWriMo group to have.

I had wondered if I could write it on a blog site, but I would not do that. That way I could send it to facebook too. So far, I have written the story of Alexander's childhood. I have much to add to it but since I finished the part that I had originally believed would be my novel, I find that I have time and room to get into the beginning of Alexander's long journey into Asia himself. So I will see how it goes...That is all for now.

Breeder's Cup

I was really sorry to see Zenyatta come in a close second at the time that it happened. I had thought that she acted a bit strangely when the cameras were sticking so closely to her. I think it annoyed her. I did ask at the time "what's the matter? Don't you think you can win."

I did not insure my small bet on her. I did not even bet her to win but bet a pick four with her and Goldikova as singles. I did not catch the second part of that bet since a real longshot came in to upset the apple cart. The next horse was also a longshot. So it probably paid well.

I did see blame as the best horse next to her, and had him in my small superfecta. I did not win that day though. Bad day for me.

Today,I realized that the best thing is that she came in as she did, because she did prove herself. There is no doubt that the jockey did miscalculate. The horse could have and should have won, but probably for the sake of racing, it may be better that she did not set a mindboggling 20 for 20 perfect win races.

It hurt though I will admit.

I will be back to blogging as soon as I get my work on my novel finished. Right now, I am spending most of my time trying to write this novel about Alexander.

I have some ideas to try, and this is at least getting me started. I have a lot of weaknesses, and I am realizing them. But I am actually learning a lot as well as enjoying myself a bit.

All for now.

UPDATE on NANWRIMO

This was day 4 in my effort to take on this challenge that NANOWRIMO gives to crazy authors. The goal is to write a 50,000 word novel during the month of November from the first to the 30th to win. Anyone who joins and completes the challenge is considered a winner for simply putting out 50,000 words a month, amounting to 1666 a day.

I do approximate word counts and have probably exceeded my goal for day 4 but I did finally get day 4 in earlier this evening. It is quite challenging and I admit I am not fully satisfied but I have made some gains and am coming along. I know that once finished it will be rewrites and edits, as I am heeding advice from others on how to do this.

I have noticed that intent and actually doing it are two different things.

It will be interesting, to say the least.

NANOWRIMO Project

At the very last minute I decided to try the NANOWRIMO writing project which is to write a novel with 50,000 words through the month of November.I had read about it last year but had forgotten it until Live Journal mentioned it again, and my nephew then posted its logo on his facebook post and asked what it is. I then decided without thinking it through to try to do it.

So here I am on day two, writing about it at LiveJournal and here too. I am writing my novel for this crazy monthlong effort enjoyed by writers all over the world.

And I am actually having fun. I found a good word processor,not ever having used anything but emails,and discussion groups at yahoo to write all my pithy thoughts.

I debated between a story and novel about suicides in SF off the goldengate bridge. I had seen a movie which made a strong statement and impact and I considered that, but then I have been discussing, living,and breathing Alexander for so long I decided to do a novel that children could read without too much undue trauma and am in stage one of his life, studying his childhood.

So I am kneedeep in Alexander history and fiction now that I am using historical fiction as the genre.

I have written the required number of words so far as I wanted to develop the battle of Charonea. I will see what happens. He has finally reached his 12th year and has tamed Bucephalus. I have much more to do, and am doing what they advocate, writing,writing,writing.

Ghost hangs around Disneyland

Ghosts at Disneyland

This got published too soon. Nothing like a ghost page. All blank.

So I am in the editing phase, trying to explain why I am going to post a video that was taken at Disneyland's security department. Late at night or early in the morning, one would wonder what Disneyland is really like, wouldn't one? Would anyone dare to go through the park knowing that security is watching.

Well, apparently, someone did, and it looks like that someone is a ghost. Decide for yourself when I post this video. It was published September 15, 2009 so it has been around for awhile. But it is tantalizing, making one wonder how it got on camera like this...It is easy to see, but one should look at the top of the first scene to see him emerge from the NE corner, and then proceed to walk around the park in all four of these videos. To my vision,there is a vertical line which makes him easy to follow. I am trying to figure out whether to believe this one or not.

Rare Amateur 911 Videos

Bored Panda

I just found the website entitled BoredPanda.com which has lists of interesting studies. I was led to this website due to a tweet at Twitter about 25 vintage ads which would be banned today. Believe me, these ads should be banned all right. Very amusing at times, but dreadfully full of bad advice and negative thinking in many cases. Imagine an ad teaching you to start shaving your baby as an infant...Believe it or not, there was such an ad, as well as starting them on sugary diets early so that they can be popular in school when teens, so says 7UP and Cola drinks, supported by the soda pop foundation. Incredible! But worse than anything are the ads about doctors who smoke camels and a Santa Claus smoking a Lucky Strike. The antifemale ads are the worst of all, and anyone can see that times are changing and why they are changing...What ever were men or women thinking then?

Wow! I will check out one other thing before I close the computer tonight, but I already checked out ads on condoms, and that was most revealing to me, and also the 3D murals on walls...absolutely incredible!

BoredPanda is not boring at all...

Wind Bench part 2

Pictures of Wind Bench

Turning Cold Now

We are nearing the end of October, and the temps are now cold. I stayed home today, just relaxing, reading everything I can about the prospects of horses at the Breeder's Cup Races. The idea that a horse like Goldikova can win the same horse race three years in a row is as mindboggling as Zenyatta's winning a perfect record with number 20 at the Cup. (Granted, she has never carried the weight that Man O War did but she is just as unique in her record setting winning ways.) I am likening her to a cartoon in an old French book I used to use to learn French, and it was so cute it makes me think of her. It has a greyhound walking alongside a dachsund dog, and one can see that the dachsund's have a rough time competing with the greyhounds due to the length of their legs. I think that Zenyatta is the greyhound with the other horses making me think of the dachsund.

In other words, stride for stride, Zenyatta's long legs carry her further over the ground than the other horses shorter strides can carry them. So it goes. It is like basketball with 7' foot tall men competing against men who are only 6'tall.

At any rate, we all want to see a good show, whether it is Goldikova or Zenyatta, what difference does it make but that it happen and it is historical and while it won't pay much, it will enable some to win a trifecta or triple 3 or 4 who had never won it before.

I also found some new blogs today and am really impressed with the way blogs are laid out and all the gimmicks and gadgetry that can accompany them. Some are a part of this group so I am wondering how one adds music, and all the other glitzy tricks to make a blogpage really extra special.

I will eventually learn but it is slow going. I can only spend so much time a day at this stuff! Am posting a photo I took at IKEA last week. It is of a park bench but is pretty and I want it to be seen and shared with those who do spend a little time at my spot.

China Uses "Rare Earth" Minerals as a Weapon in US Trade

China Uses "Rare Earth" Minerals as a Weapon in US Trade

China Attacks U.S. High Tech, "Green Industries" via Supplies and Pricing

China Attacks U.S. High Tech, "Green Industries" via Supplies and Pricing

Learning to be Grateful

Happiness is one of those states of mind that few people seem to understand. Learning how to be grateful or to show gratitude is a very difficult problem for many people. Have you ever noticed how so many people are simply unable to be happy no matter what the occasion? Is it a state of mind, or is it a disease, an illness?

In truth, we all have to learn to accept ourself for who we are and not compare ourselves with others as much as we do. What has prompted me writing this is the problem that the USA is having with the rest of the world. We, in the USA, take for granted our own lifestyle, and believe that we are due it simply because we have it. The sad truth is that we do not know how other people live at all, and when we do learn of it, we quickly forget as we settle back into our own habits.

I just read a report by the Stratford Group on the Mexican drug cartels, gangs, and murders that are taking place along the border. The famous Falcon Lake murder was covered up and it is believed that a member of the Zeta gang did the murder without permission. So his gang is all upset about this as this has brought the power of the US government down upon the Mexicans to clean up their act as soon as possible. The lead investigator of this case had been murdered, decapitated,and his head sent to the authorities.

Americans are tired of drug cartels and weak Mexicans who cannot provide for themselves in Mexico and who smuggle weaker Mexicans and other central Americans who wish to have a better lifestyle for themselves than they have in Mexico across the border.

Because of the value of the peso to the dollar, the dollar is far richer than the peso, the Mexicans long to get American dollars to spend in Mexico.

Americans do not understand the kind of poverty in which the Mexicans live that drugs are the only means to a rich income that causes them to not just lie, cheat, and steal but to kill brutally law enforcement agents who are acting to help protect Americans from even themselves.

This is a very sad story for both sides of the border. I wonder at how it is that a Mexican can find happiness, gratitude, and joy in a nation which cannot help him to provide for himself. I also wonder at why so many Americans are likewise so unhappy and ungrateful for their largesse and bounty when obviously being so better off than these unhappy neighbors, the Mexicans.

So what is happiness to an American? to a Mexican?

It all depends upon whom you ask, I finally believe. Is happiness related to wealth? ease? comfort? Is misery and unhappiness related only to poverty? Deprivation?

Is it a state of mind? A disease? An illness?

Dancing with the stars

Zenyatta #1 Horse of the Year

Everyone is talking about Zenyatta, the wonder horse of the season. She is just absolutely astounding. I have placed a couple of photo blogs here on Uncle Mo and Man O War I believe from a woman whose name is Barbara Livingston, a photographer and writer for the Daily Racing Form.

Someone wryly suggested that people write poetry about Zenyatta rather than always exclaiming about her so much.

Dancing Zenyatta

To the wonder of all,
Zenyatta dances with the stars,
extending one foot to the right,
the other to the left,
Leads them on,
Swaying to and fro,
Head held high,
shoulders erect,
Gliding to the gate
All prepared to go,
ears pricked,
nostrils cleared,
eyes focused,
tail steady,
quiet and still,
standing alert,
waiting for the gate
to open,
she steadies her rider
and forward she bursts
to display her
dancing grace and style,
as she leads all
to the winner's circle
where she takes her final bow.

She wears the blanket of flowers,
has her picture made,
and those famous hooves
take her to the barn again.

She is the leader
she has won her perfect ten
for she is the Dancing Star,
So says judge Len!

Man o' War - the final portrait

Man o' War - the final portrait

Man o' War - the final portrait

Man o' War - the final portrait

Uncle Mo, gentleman juvenile

Uncle Mo, gentleman juvenile

Uncle Mo, gentleman juvenile

Uncle Mo, gentleman juvenile

The Great Genghis Khan

For miles, all one could see is barren land, stretching into long distances. Soft breezes caused tufts of grass to move, chunks of weeds swayed gently. A cloud of dust swirled in the distance, loud whoops broke the silence of the plains as out of the distance a massive horde of riders thundered across the grassy plateau. Clomps of dirt flew into the air as hundreds of horses carrying wiry, lean, dark tanned men pounded their hooves into the ground. Intent upon their journey, the men leaned forward, pressing their legs against the sides of the horses, urging them to drive faster, faster. The sounds of hooves beating against the ground, the cries of the men whooping bellowed throughout the land...only a small rabbit scurried away in time to keep from being trodden into the dirt.

Getting Ready for the Breeders Cup

I posted several Man O War videos on this blogspot because I happen to love this horse, and felt I should make a place for him here. I have been reading blogs all day long preparing for the upcoming Breeders Cup races which will be held November 5 and 6 at Churchill Downs in Kentucky.

Zenyatta is the super horse for this generation. I remember when Secretariat raced and I followed that horse as he attempted to win the Triple Crown, the jewel of racing for 3 year olds.

The Breeder's Cup is a race for all the top winning horses to come together to find out which one on that given day has what it takes to make its owner super rich.

Man O War was famous in 1919 and 1920, some twenty years before I was born. My dad was 4 years old and my mother was born in 1920 so she was just an infant when he was so famous. I had read his story some time ago and came to realize that he is one of the most special horses in history for racing, and I absolutely came to adore him. He has a statue at the Las Vegas Hilton in Las Vegas in the rear of the building at the sports entrance. That was how I came to really learn of him as I had often entered that door to try racing there. So when I finally learned of his history, I had to thank the Hilton for honoring him there.

Goldikova is a filly hoping to win a Breeders Cup race for the third year in a row, and she is considered the most likely to do it. Fillies will race on Friday and the boys race on Saturday.

I am hoping to play a pick six on both days if I can figure out the program in advance.

All racing is risk and chance, but supposedly there are some pretty safe bets that a given horse has not yet found another horse who is quite as capable as that one to win a given race, so we are hoping that holds true for the Big Classic race which will see Zenyatta trying to win it back to back as she won it last year.

Big Red, which is what Man O War had been called, had won 20 out of 21 races. Zenyatta is undefeated in 19 out of 19 and her twentieth is supposed to be her final race before retiring also.

Man O War was clearly and remains clearly probably the best horse to ever run in racing history, considering the kind of racing that he had to perform, as he carried weights which were excessive: 130 lbs. That is absolutely horrendous to my thinking.

Each and every horse has its own story to tell, but none caught the public's fancy quite so much as Man O War and those who learn his story soon realize his true worth at the time to not only the sport and the public, but to the future of horse racing as well.

Mankind's most peculiar trait it seems is to always want the spectacular, the bizarre, the unusual.

So it is only as certain as taxes and death that someone somewhere will try to match or top a record! This is the year for Zenyatta to prove herself. She is our generation's current superhorse!

Magnificent Man o' War

Man o' War - 1920 Kenilworth Park Gold Cup [Partial]

Man O' War [All videos, no photos]

UFO's and Angels

Drat! This video was posted at abovetopsecret so I went to youtube to post it here. The two videos appear to be the same but this one has closeups that are much more sharply defined than the one I saw at ATS.

I am wondering if these are gaseous materials and that something material could not simply fly through them as airplanes do clouds. They resemble angelic shapes at times to me. Also notable is the triangular formation which the three major lights show but there appears to be a fourth or more probably one reappeared after having left going to the right in the video. While this takes only 9 minutes the original took 12 minutes to film.

For anything to stay around that long while being filmed is most unusual from my point of view. But who is to say? One can see that the camera is actually situated way back, and the objects are some distance away so that the zoom aspect is very impressive to me.

Well, I am wondering how many more of these will show up again and again and when any one of us will see it and maybe even film it too.

UFOs Over Moscow - Oct 19, 2010 - Zoomed!

Secretariat - Music by Nick Glennie-Smith

The Movie Secretariat

I remember when Secretariat ran his races in 1973. I had just returned to Michigan from a long stint in Southern California, and some parts of it I have forgotten, conveniently or whatever. But Secretariat clearly captured the imagination then, and I can never forget those days of being so interested in a racehorse.

I just saw the movie which is probably more about the family who owned the horse than the horse itself, which in itself is a surprise. I read a story at Twitter about Ron Turcotte and the jockey who portrayed him in the film which intrigued me, so I decided to jot a few notes about it here.
I just put on this blog the two videos that the Greek composer has about Alexander the Great, one which is the orchestra which features the composer at the end of the film, and the other, a video explaining Alexander away to people who do not know anything about him with the same composer's music in the background. That is the one to which I referred that the video was not so great as I found it to be a bit short in substance but I appreciate the effort to publicize Alexander for all its worth.

I had no idea that there was so much idolatry about Alexander until I began to study him. Lord, he has more fans than Secretariat had had. And Secretariat no doubt is a superspecial horse, probably never likely to have another 3 year old horse capable of achieving the same kind of feat that Secretariat had done...the Belmont proved that to all who followed him.

The movie is intended to show the strength and power of a woman who has a mind of her own and a determination to live up to her father's belief in her and himself. It is a good film for that reason, no matter whether concocted or for real. One can never know. If anything, I would imagine that Penny was a lot stronger in person than the portrayal that Diane Lane gave of her. But Diane did a good job but was a bit too light handed in an industry where women when up against men must show real strong shoulders and backbone...Penny has earned my admiration, thanks to the film.

I do not know that the soundtrack of Secretariat is memorable or not...the story does seem to overpower the music, but I will be sure to check it out now that I have posted these videos of a real Greek composing a score for Alexander. It is rather stirring, isn't it?

Αλέξανδρος ο Μέγας - Alexander the Great

Stamatis Spanoudakis LIVE-For Alexander The Greate

Persepolis, Iran

A Dream Come True

If I can make this one happen, I will finally achieve another dream. Today I just received a brochure from the AIA about a forthcoming trip to the Persian Empire, Iran, where I could visit many sites there that I have wanted to see for a very long time.

I am so excited about it that I have to check it out to learn all about it but it is a trip through sites in Iran that I have wanted to see for some long time. This would be a wonderful opportunity for me to make this dream come true. I will post more about this after I learn of the feasbility of my making this trip this coming Spring.

For the time being, it gives me another incentive to win big at the Breeder's Cup so I am taking the next two to three weeks to study the horses that will be running so that I can make the best betting strategy for winning some major big money. The trip to Iran will cost $8,000 plus airfare so I have to be thinking Bigtime at the Races.

May will be here before you know it, and as this is my first post about this potentially dream come true for me, I will be able to say more after the Breeder's Cup Races have come and gone.

Crossing my fingers. Just had to post it. Plus adding a musicale piece about Alexander that Maria Dellaporte posted at the Alexander the Great blogspot.

It will follow this if I find it at youtube. The music is by a Greek composer. The video is not quite as good as I would like but it is for the sharing of the music. I will try to add a video of Persepolis also if I can find a suitable one..Marking my days by posts and videos.

Home

After a day's outing there is no place like home, and while that sounds like a tired old refrain, it is certainly probably more true than anything one can imagine. Twice in the past week, I have felt so glad just simply to get in the door and be back home again where I can just relax, be myself, and take it easy. I don't know how I will be able to travel any longer since just short hops wear me out and make me so happy to be back in my own place once more. It is the surest sign of growing old of anything, that is for sure. Just wanting to do nothing but be at home means you have finally arrived at old age.

Age is something we fight, and I do not know why we do. None of us wants to stay young forever, and to be honest, I do not think that there is a time when you really admit to finally reaching that stage of life which means that you are an elder, but I have finally reached it. Finally, my brain and mind is giving into my body's warnings, and I am at last truly old, ancient, elderly, and am admitting it. Whee...it is a sad thing to wake up to realize that the body wins in the end. We cannot beat it. Nature is such that the body rules.

I have to admit I will not ever fulfill all my fantasies and dreams, but enough good things have happened to me to make me feel very well rewarded indeed. I have finally come to grips with the truly important things in life, and I am happy for that.

Everyday there is a good event and a bad event...no doubt about it...I drop things all the time as my hands for some reason just can't hold onto things any longer like they used to do. All signs of the aging process. I wonder what each day will bring, and I suppose I will have to comment now and then..but this time, it is the little nest that we make for ourselves that we call home that is so important to me. Now I have to start ridding myself of belongings and call the past history and let it all fade away...No more momentos of yesteryear...Have to start thinning things out now.

Previous post/youtube video

The webcam has caught a flash of light which reminds me of the object that I saw while walking through the parking lot. The distance from the object is what will determine the size of it. As we have fireworks from Gainey Ranch Hyatt Hotel, it would be considered to Paradise Valley area than the Ranch in terms of size. It was probably half the size of the firework displays when fully lit up in the sky.

This webcam video makes me think of it again as it shone so brightly as do these lights. I wonder at why they are so brightly lit at night!

NYC UFO's via webcam 2010/10/13 10:00 PM

UFO's on October 13, 2010

Twitter was all abuzz with posts about ufo's flying over NYC on October 13, 2010. This had been promised as an event by some man name of Fulham who is apparently in contact with the entities aboard these ufo craft.

AboveTopSecret.com and ExtraordinaryIntelligence.com both have threads regarding these experiences. There are some exceptionally good photos made of these aircraft at abovetopsecret.com today. One in Ohio is a photo that if magnified to 400 level one can see clearly the outline of this object in the sky.

I saw a large white light shaped like a ball that suddenly appeared in the western sky while walking through the parking lot at my apartment. I looked up to see this white light that was huge in size appear to descend straight due West, and appear to break up in particles as it went down...whether those particles were a tail or trail of lights behind it I do not know but I could see the huge ball fall westward, and be followed by a trail of lights behind it...atmospheric breaking up of lights I would imagine, but I do not know. I wondered about it and until it was mentioned at abovetopsecret in a post I had forgotten it. I did not know what to make of it and won't conjecture but it was not an airplane. I have seen many of those so that when I say another one flying south to go to the airport I remembered the huge ball like object that went due West.

There are a lot of debunkers at abovetopsecret. There were many sightings in NYC that are seen on webcams and a few photos that are on flikr. One can see that the people watching this display that was in the sky were on the ball after all, as the webcam shows clearly movements similar to those seen by some kids in Texas who also shot video of objects that were blue in color and changed back to white. In Anaheim, California, a blue light object was seen clearly and one can only wonder at why on earth anyone would spend money on hoaxes of any kind when in a near recession or depression.

So I think the debunkers are not using common sense at all, and are being too stupid for words. Nobody is going to go to the effort to do a light show over NYC unless it would be someone like Donald Trump, or some other rich guy who has money to burn.

I don't claim that the object I saw is an extraterrestrial. It was a light, huge in size, and very bright...I wonder what it was. I was not quick enough with a camera to catch it but I remember it, and I don't make up stuff for anyone's pleasure in scoffing or marveling.

I believe that we are being visited and that it is still wise to keep your eyes on the skies with cameras ready. But believe it or not,they can be so fast as to disappear before you can get the camera turned on...

But be watchful.

Paris, France remembered

It will be nearly a year soon that I visited Paris for the first time. I had a dream this morning that was very strange. For some reason I was in Paris and we were planning to go to the Eiffel Tower. This dream is just that a dream as it was with my mother. It went from strange to stranger still, as eventually we ended up in some building looking through windows down onto some inner garden way. In the process I had my computer stolen, some other things taken, and as I was very concerned about all my data, how I would get it all replaced, wanted all these things returned to me, I woke up, thinking this is a dream, your computer is here, nothing is lost, and came back to reality.

The reality is that if I never get another chance at least I made the most of this one time I had the chance and went to see the place that I had been studying for some ten years or so and finally put to rest all my questions about whether my memories were valid or not. I had known before I went that they would have to be,but there is nothing like seeing it in a vision, and seeing it in person for real after 300 years have passed.

One thing I can never overemphasize is that when one has had the experiences that I have had, one believes totally and completely in the same way that one believes that one can sit at a computer, write this down, and someone somewhere in the world can read it with ease if one has a computer and the link to this site.

In truth, seeing pictues on television sets is as unlikely to believe as seeing visions of the past in memory sessions when one is in a state of sleep. Both work. How? Frankly, I could not explain either. They just do.

At first, when I saw the Eiffel Tower I did see it the way people who first saw it, as ugly and monstrous. It does grow on one. But at first, it is not beautiful at all. It is almost grotesquely ugly. It is a true ugly duckling if ever there is one. It is oddly shaped. It is made out of girders that are unattractive, but gradually, as one sees it day after day it begins to somehow or other become almost attractive until finally when seen after dark all lit up, it becomes even a beautiful sight to behold.

I ended up liking it a lot. It is huge. It is gangly. It is awkward. It is anything but pretty. But its constancy does make you find it appealing. And there are moments when it is beautiful.

Significance of Marie Adelaide

The importance of the young Italian princess whose father was so politically astute at the time she was selected to announce that he was now French is worth a comment.

Of all the people of the court who Saint-Simon seems to like it would be Marie Adelaide. She was called a little monkey. She was warm, funny, childish, and playful. She brought great joy and happiness to everyone who came to make her acquaintance.

When she realized that she would someday be the Queen of France, she went a little mad at the prospect, and danced in merriment and glee. She would probably have made a great and popular queen had she ever been able to fulfill that role. She appears to have been so well-liked by all who come to know her.

She did party all the time, as she went to Paris, to the opera, to dances, having pushed herself into a life of frivolity and pleasure. Her husband was trained and taught to be a serious minded, responsible, and rather austere religiously minded young man. He did not fare well in the military and was a disappointment in that respect, but his wife prayed for his safety all the while. When being prepared for his role as future king upon the death of his father, he took his studies seriously and proved to be fully responsible in assuming the role of dauphin.

He loved his wife wholly and faithfully, truly more than would be expected in that court, and everyone noted it. They were a beloved pair.

It is sad to know that when she knew she was to die, she asked him who he would marry after her death, and he told her, nobody, as he was going to follow soon after her. He did keep his promise as he caught the measles that had killed her and in turn, a few weeks later, died also.

A son survived because a guardian took him away from the snares of the physician who everyone suspected was the real cause of the death of so many at one time...Wisely, she turned out to be right and the child survived to become Louis XV, who just as his grandfather had died before him, died of smallpox also.

Louis XIV had developed an immunity to it when a child. It is interesting to me to note that both Louis XIV and George Washington both had contracted smallpox when young but survived and maintained an immunity due to it. Both had pock marks on their faces, and both remained unsusceptible to its strain years later when it made its way through the populations of each again.

I had a small pox shot as a child that did not leave a depressed mark but has a freckle to show where it had been given.

Smallpox has always been a frightful disease, and when I was young, everyone received vaccinations against it.

The sorrow of the French monarchy is that it is now a memory of the past. The joy of it to me is that I have discovered it, and have benefited from this time period in many ways. Marie Adelaide has a special place in my heart since she is one of my memories that I have enjoyed, and I understand well why the king loves her so. She reminds me a lot of one of my cousins in Ohio. That cousin is alive and well today and knows nothing of these memories and studies that I have made. I just recognized something that makes me think of each in the same light.

Another cousin makes me think of Louis XIV's son, the Dauphin, a lot. I seldom ever mention this either as that cousin is also alive and well. There are definite similarities but it is best to keep these to myself.

I have always seen my own mother as being a combination of three people in the King's family: his mother, Anne of Austria, Madame deMontespan, and Madame de Maintenon, and Liselotte also So actually, four people. She is the one person with whom I did share this information while she was alive. I have always seen the similarity between my dad in some of the statements that Liselotte made about Monsieur, her husband. I have a friend who believes that he had been Monsieur. I don't argue with anyone about beliefs and who is who. I just see that people do often have characteristics that are similar to others.

Oddly, that friend's name has always been a puzzle to me...but I cannot explain why on a blog which may get into the wrong hands.I will just say that his last name is a match to a famous editor in my hometown.

Conclusion of Marie Adelaide by Joseph Barry

I am simply going to sum up the final pages of Barry's article by saying that the Duc du Burgogne and Duchess Marie Adelaide did give birth to Louis XV who did succeed Louis XIV to the throne. Marie Adelaide came down with an illness, a case of the measles, and did not survive the disease. She was bled from the foot, had been forewarned of her own death by an astrologer, and so accepted it. Her husband soon followed her, after having succeeded his father to be prepared for the crown. His father had died earlier when looking in on a subject who had suffered the smallpox so that he caught it. Louis XIV suffered many personal losses from his family, and many believed that the doctors were responsible. So much so that a family member took the young Louis XV into her custody so that he would be able to survive the medicinal aids that the physician Fagon had supplied to those who had succumbed to death. Joseph Barry's description of Marie Adelaide's importance to the King and the mood of the chateau du Versailles is based upon Saint-Simon's comments in his journal.

These are Saint-Simon's words:

With her death, all joy vanished, all pleasures, entertainments, and delights were overcast and darkness covered the face of the Court. She was its light and life. She was everywhere at once, she was its center, her presence permeated its inner life, and if, after her death, if the Court continued to subsist, it merely lingered on. No princess was ever so sincerely mourned, none was ever more worth regretting. Indeed, mourning for her has never ceased, a secret, involuntary sadness has remained, a terrible emptiness that never can be filled."

Nor was it ever filled for the King. With her death, twilight became night, the war ended in compromise and exhaustion, and he prepared for his own death in the year that followed.

Note about author: Joseph Barry went to France with Patton's Third Army, and, with one brief interlude, he has lived and written there ever since. Mr Barry's latest book is The People of Paris, which was published last fall by Doubleday & Company, Inc.

Anniversaries of Battles

I just took a hop over to England to read a bit of Pothos tonight and learned that October 1 is supposed to be an anniversary date for the Battle of Gaugemela.

The battle of Gaugemela is the third battle between King Darius and Alexander where Alexander slept in late so that Parmenio had to wake him up.

This is the battle where King Darius used chariots with scythes in the wheels to cut down the horses and soldiers who would come in contact with them. It is a gruesome sight as written by some ancient authors.

A previous battle was the Battle of Granicus, the first battle where Alexander had engaged King Darius in battle. This one I had recalled in memory as well as Issus. I do not recall anything about Gaugemela but Alexander's helmet which I saw closeup and personal. It was specially made for him and I did see that image in a memory session. I know that it was covered with reliefs pertaining to previous times, and that it shone like a mirror since it was so highly polished. That would blind anyone attempting to look at Alexander. It was used defensively.

Being the general that uses caution in all his methods, Alexander had already scouted this area well. He knew about the chariots with the scythes and had prepared his army to deal with it.

A previous battle with King Darius had been at Granicus. It was at that battle that Alexander had had his helmet sheared, and where Kleitos saved his life by cutting off the arm of the soldier who was bearing down to kill Alexander. At this point in a story by Homer, one of the Greek gods assisted Alexander and Kleitos by placing Kleitos (his bodyguard) at his rear. Alexander did attribute his success story to the gods and goddeses to whom he made sacrifices. It is probably due to the shearing of the helmet at Granicus that a specially made helmet is prepared for this battle at Gaugemela. It was topped with pretty white plumes that waved in the air.


But the importance of Granicus to me is the horse's hooves. Alexander and his troops had to cross a portion of a river, and I recall vividly that the horses's hooves are crucial in winning battles. A horse dare not step on stones in the riverbed that would cripple him.

I do not know how many blacksmiths that Alexander carried in his army, but it is a fair bet that there were many who were responsible for the wellbeing and care of the horses.

At any rate, the time of the actual battle of Gaugemela is in dispute. Calendars are not very reliable in terms of the number of times there have been calendar changes.

Since preparedness for battle is the important thing, it is interesting to conjecture at how many drills were experienced before the actual battle itself. Teamwork of this kind can only be successful with co-ordination that had to be practiced.

Imagine the excitement of the night before the battle. While Alexander prepares himself, with sacrifices and devotions, has his armament laid out, ready for him to put on the next day, the military had to have had enormous sense of anticipation and wonder at what the next day would be like. Amazing to think that Alexander is so relaxed and confident that he overslept and made Parmenio nervous for him.

Just another day's work...

Grocery shopping

For a little change from all the history lessons offered in this blog, I went shopping today. I went to Fry's to see if I could find the most delicious apples that I have ever eaten: Honey Crisp...oh, my, oh, my,ohmy!!!!I love these apples but they are expensive at $1.50 a pound. I learned of them from my neighbor Janice whose husband likes them. I tried one and could not believe how good this apple is. It is a huge baby. But so honestly sweet that when I tried baking it in the microwave tonight to see how that would turn out, I did not use any sugar or cinnamon so that I could get an honest taste of it naturally. Oh man oh man oh man...it was as good baked as raw! I love raw apples best.

But this held its flesh, did not turn mushy, and its juices did seep out, and I cooked it all without adding anything to it at all. It was super good. I am in love with this apple.

Then at Basha's I was able to find some manager's specials in meats at already reduced prices but now lowered even further, and did I ever make out on that one...I bought a sirloin steak with $4.00 off, a filet mignon $4.00 off, and two packages of chicken wings, $2.00 off each one...that was so good that I will have enough to last me through next month. I am so happy!

The apples are for me what persimmons were for my mother. She loves persimmons and I acquired a taste for them too. Just love them...If you can find Honey Crisp apples at your local supermarket, get them, at least one! They are the very best apple there is to eat fresh and raw! Don't miss out! I am giving you fair warning.

Marie Adelaide, continued

Saint-Simon's portrait of Marie Adelaide is that of a fairytale princess:" she flitted hither and thither like a nymph, and like a summer breeze, she seemed to have the gift of being many places at once and brought life and gaiety wherever she passed." Barry says that to anyone familiar with the difficult Duc de Saint-Simon,who even disdained the King on occasion, the praise, the unusual affection, is unexpected, but open-eyed.
"In appearance she was plain, (he writes of her later years) with cheeks that sagged, a forehead too prominent for beauty, an insignificant nose, and thick sensual lips, and eyebrows marked, and she had the prettiest, most eloquent eyes in all the world. Her few remaining teeth were badly decayed, about which she was the first to laugh at and remark on."

Barry says that it makes a fascinating contrast to the King's protrait of the princess at ten. Saint Simon continues, penetrating the "plainness" and explaining its appeal to contemporary taste.

"She had, however, a fair complexion, a beautiful skin, a small but admirable bust, and a long neck with the suspicion of a goiter, which was not unbecoming. The carriage of her head was noble; she was very stately and gracious in her manner and in the expression of her eyes, and she had the sweetest smile imaginable.....Her charm was beyond description....When you were with her, you were tempted to believe that she was wholly and solely on your side."

Saint-Simon, one suspects, suspended his own ordinarily acid disbelief in telling us the princess was as pleased to spend a quiet afternoon reading and sewing, or conversing with her "serious ladies" (her terms for the older women at the palace), as playing cards or dancing. But at Versailles appearances were the important reality, and maintianing them the supreme achievement. Eventually that may have been what the fading Sun King valued most in his Italian princess.

In truth, the princess was more comforter to the old King, now in his sixties, than companion to her young husband. The king seemed to need her more; he would sit unusually somber and silent, even at his public suppers, when her pleasure parties, which he himself encouraged, took her from his side. As a result, she was careful about mentioning them in his presence, and made a point of seeing him before and after. If she returned too late, she arranged to be with him when he awoke.

"The King desires Mme la Duchesse de Bourgogne to do exactly as she pleases from morn to night," the Marquis de Coulanges wrote to Mme de Sevigne's daughter, "and he feels rewarded if she is happy. So life is a constant succession of expeditions to Marly and Meudon, comings and goings to Paris for operas, balls, and masquerades, and the gentleman are practically at dagger's point trying to attract the princess's favor."

That was on February 2, 1700. The century of Louis XIV was still to take a long time dying.

This piece is Joseph Barry's article written in Horizon magazine, Spring, 67.