A terrible irony

There is a terrible irony going on right now in the USA and the South American and Central American countries.  While many from Central and South America seem to want to migrate north for the better life, mostly from Central America, Americans are being enticed to travel and to live in South America, enjoying better lifestyle for themselves in places like Panama, Belize, Costa Rica, and Ecuador. There are many places in the world today inviting retirees to settle, become expats, and to live a great lifestyle at a pace that they can afford.  Ironic, isn't it?

What does this mean?  It means simply that retirees on fixed incomes cannot afford the high costs that the young working are able to enjoy due to higher wages than the retirees had earned when that same age.  Life is perplexing, isn't it?

International Living is a business enterprise that specializes in retirement living worldwide, and makes quite a profit at helping American retirees to settle outside of the USA into homes and lifestyles that are within their budgets.

I have been studying this for some time myself, and am contemplating the possibility of the new adventure in retirement years, and that is of moving to another country where I can afford the very things that are much too costly for me here at home in the USA.  Health care being the most unaffordable for me in the USA.

At my age, it is difficult to consider such a move, but I am entertaining the thoughts of it.  Housing is too expensive for me now and I must decide soon.   It is an iffy situation at this point...but cost of living is so low in many of these places that I could possibly at least manage to live a reasonably modest lifestyle for lower costs than I can do here in the states...Still trying to work my way into resolving this issue.

Meanderings about years end 2014

So many dreadful things happened this year that one forgets easily from day to day.  But foremost at this writing is the problem that the law has been having in many parts of the USA.  The police are being accused of excessive force but two grand juries found that the police were only doing their jobs in defending the community against crime.

Because two of these antisocial victims happen to be black, and both were killed by a police officer or group of police officers, the entire country has been subjected to long tedious protests by organized civil rights leaders.

It has gone so far that a Smith College President was forced to apologize for saying all lives matter when the black community took umbrage at all as being too inclusive when the emphasis is supposed to be upon ONLY black lives.

As a result of all this hysteria and unfortunate misunderstanding of the purpose of the law, two NY city policemen were killed in execution style by an irrational vengeful miscreant who later shot himself when surrounded by the police who had him trapped.  In Florida, another police officer was also shot and according to headlines, run over, apparently in response to all this anti cop hatred.

So at the present time, people are aghast at the lawlessness which is being practiced across the land.

In addition to this looney tunes protestations which are ruining life for shoppers in malls where people line the hallways with protesters, for stopping traffic in major cities, and for promising future continuation of this organized protestation about whose lives matter, black people, or policemen, there is a furor over a movie that was to be released on Christmas Day, lampooning North Korean President Kim Jung Un and the CIA.

Hackers have interrupted Sony Studio which has caused Barack Obama and the FBI to conclude that North Korea is behind the plot to disrupt life in movieland.  It is only a movie is the theme of most protests about a film that shows how the President of North Korea is killed by a CIA plot.

North Korea is protesting its innocence but is also threatening not only the Pentagon, the mainland USA, the cesspool of terrorism, but has offered to help the USA to find who it is that has really hacked into Sony Studios.  North Korea claims that it has been framed.

All this is happening now...the end of the year but most of this has dragged out since summer.

The worst weather conditions in history have been long forgotten by this time since all that matters now is what will stop this senseless shooting of police officers who are only doing their job.  Nobody ever likes the policeman who catches anyone in committing a crime.  Except the person who was the victim of the crime!

My personal opinion on this is that the protestors made more enemies than friends for interrupting holiday shopping, traffic, and for physically assaulting people who defended the police, our guardians of peace.

A little tongue in cheek in that last statement!  The hackers are calling themselves the guardians of peace.  ( A little note to myself since I forget so quickly.)

Selfies

This was taken late today.  People wonder why I change my profile picture so often. Actually I did not change to this yet.  I was playing around.  I had just  put this photo without the barrette on to show how much gray I have in the front.  But I can never wear my hair hanging loose for long. I always have to pin it back.  Decided to show how much or little it had changed from when I first had it done.   The point of this is to do a self check before I leave the house to appear halfway presentable.  Ha Ha Ha!

2014 coming to a close

If any year has been truly difficult and unbearable, it has been this past year for me.  I consider this to have been one of the worst years in my life.  It is strange at what we learn about one another when adversity hits us.

I do not want to dwell on the negative at this point in time, but suffice it to say that most of 2014 has been a very dreary and sad experience.  I cannot help  but wonder what 2015 will be like.  Mostly, I had prided myself on never having been hospitalized, and unfortunately for me, I met up with incompetent doctors who were responsible for my having to  go into a hospital to repair a cat bite wound.  I am still paying for that experience and I am not happy with anything about it but for one thing that occurred at that time.

I have always had many unusual experiences around me which tell me that spirits are hanging around me.  When I first moved into this apartment and had Alexander then with me, we had had an experience with an entity that made its presence known which scared Alexander.  He could see the vision better than I did but I did catch an outline of it so I know how tall this entity had been so that I had an idea of its size.  I never did give it an identity.

Many things had happened in the apartment at the previous apartment that were amazing and I took them as being evidence of God's presence in my life.  I am also convinced that God again revealed his presence to me during the time that water appeared mysteriously on the floor of my kitchen area. I am convinced that there is some presence there even now.  Not too long ago an incident happened on top of the counter that caused me to think that some spiritual entity is hanging around me.

I even had heard my name called loudly one morning so that I had thought when I saw my neighbor out doors that it could have been her.  She denied it so I then thought it must have been a spiritual audio then.  I then thought it is my mother.

Then this past spring renovations began on the apartment building which truly sent me into a downspin for the entire summer.  It is not yet finished even at this date since men are still working on the fire pit which has been built near the swimming pool.  It is a god awful thing to see.  I do not know why on earth all this concrete is being poured into such a small area but apparently somebody thought it would be a selling point.  In fact, it is the reverse of that.

The final three buildings are beginning to be stripped of their roofing tile and the fences around the patio.  That is a sure sign that come January the buildings will undergo the same process that our buildings which are in the front have endured for so many months.  I was pushed to despair at times by all this ongoing activity which clearly clogged our parking lot next to my room.  That parking lot is still filled with materials that should be removed asap so that cars can once again park there. It is a mess and I mind it terribly.



Plus the fact that my body is undergoing real changes that reveal how aged I am becoming.  My body is falling apart rapidly now, and I wonder how long I will continue to be self reliant and independent. I hate to think of ever not being able to take care of myself as I do now.

So I am on a health binge and am going to drink smoothies every day if possible to keep my body in good health nutrition wise.  I am cutting out sugar but I still eat some sweets. I cannot give them up totally.  I found a salted caramel candy that I just love.  Oh God, it is so good that I wish I could find more of it.  I got it at T.J. Max but there is no label on it to know what company makes it.  I wonder if I will ever find it again.

Remembering that God is with me does help me most of all. I am happy to believe in God's personal care and interest in me. I trust my health to God's will more than anything else.

So on that score, I will close this now.

Short brief note

December 05 is the day that my mother passed away eleven years ago.  I thought about her all day. Since I had had an audio experience the other day with hearing someone calling my name, I finally decided after asking Barbara if it had been her, that it must have been a spiritual experience.  All I could think is that my mother may have been calling me.  She has done that to me in the past where I can hear her calling out to me.

I laughed at Dan Wheeler today when someone said that some relative of hers had gone to the Lord.  He said, Well you know where he is then.  That made me laugh at that.

I just hope that she is where there is Love all around her.  That is a Heavenly repose.

Worst year so far!

2014 is going to go down as one of the worst years I have spent on this earth so far.  It has been the most exasperating and downright unpleasant year that I have had since living in Arizona, and I have had some doozies already.  But this one has taken the cake for annoying me the most.

I think it is because I am getting older and therefore less amenable to changes, problems, and irritations that come my way.  I really believe that each person who ages thinks that old age should be a reward for having endured so much crap when young, but instead it seems that we just have to endure worse crap as we age.  What a sad and unwelcome problem to realize.

A lesson in blogging today

I received an email from a pair who are in the business of making money through blogs, so with an invitation to listen to this pair explain how to blog to make bundles of money, I listened to the webinair this noon.   It was much like old time letters of how to make money through mail order. The two are not very different in fact.  Probably, the end result is the same as well.  You pay out but get little in return except a headache and a disgust with the way the American system allows all these attempts to take money from dumb clucks who fall for all these schemes.

However, i did write down all the information that they are  willing to give away free (amounts to very little) in return for the chance that you might be foolish enough to dole out $197 to learn how to blog by a purchase of their book that gives you all the secrets of how to pitch your "niche" interest.

Google even likes to make money on blogs by selling ads but already we have long known that little fact.  I even encouraged a photo blogger to try selling ads on his great blog site.

I am not into photography blogs, information blogs, or any other kind of pay me now for all I have told you blogs unless I do finally win the lottery and think that a blog might help others to win it too if they pay me up front for all my years of work and effort to figure the dang thing out.

I said thank you for the lesson and goodbye after taking all the information that they were willing to share into my peabrain and digesting it.  Once I learned how much they want to make a killing on the internet, to get into those six figures, I said goodbye.  Too much money for me to ever pay when I can go get blogs for dummies free at the library.

The publishing game is one of the worst rackets that there is, but people do like to read, to dream, and to fantasize so it is a lucrative business.  Even non fiction books are big business for people who want information on all kinds of things regarding health, finance, romance, fitness, travel, hobbies, pets, and on and on forever.  So if one does want to blog about it, it can be done.  But when you ask for a dollar back for your information, you are a business person, not a friend.  That is the big differences between friends and business people: money!

So kiss me for a buck, I am in business; but kiss me free, I am either a sucker or a friend...and sometimes it is hard to know if there is a difference.

Think about it!

Interstellar the Movie

I had seen Matt Mcconaughey and Anne Hathaway trot across the stages of the Late Night Show and the Tonight Show to promote their latest flick, Interstellar.  Then Todo Bramble, a Facebook friend, posted a remark about it that encouraged me to see it.

So right away, because I have always been a space junkie, I had to get to the nearest theatre to see it, but found that it was not in 3-D for which I would have paid the higher price to see but instead opted to see the standard or regular presentation which cost me much less.  I will probably see it at IMax for the high definition but believe it or not, the special effects were just as impressive in regular but cheaper mode as I had hoped they would be.  Sound was just as effective also.

This movie is one that for me is excellent!  I do not know that it will garner a bunch of awards at Oscar time but it will win the hearts and minds of people who bother to see it for its sense of urgency, its skillful method of explaining space travel related to earth, and to its theme of love in and of family, and of love as the driving force which propels us to survive in a cruel and cold universe.  Hopefully, it will also serve as a vehicle to remind people to save Mother Earth from total destruction through cleaning up after ourselves.

On that note, I wish to interject that even though the missing plane has not yet been found which supposedly went down in the Indian Ocean, it did serve a useful purpose in showing us how much a garbage dump the ocean has become for we wasteful and negligent human beings.

The premise of this movie is that the time period in which our real characters find themselves is at the near end of the earth's ability to support and sustain human life or animal and vegetable life on the planet.  Using recent actual climate events, dust storms, tsunami's, etc. the film maker shows us the struggle between man and nature.  Man is losing a battle on earth so that scientists believe that another planet must be found in the universe that can sustain human life as we know it on earth.

There is a lot of optimism in this otherwise depressing scenario of mankind's eventual extinction.  Early in the film, Cooper, a former astronaut, happens upon a secret location of NASA where astronauts are being trained and prepared for an expedition into space to find that one hopeful planet that humans from earth can be transported to develop a new habitat.

Since I already wrote one so called review of this film, I am writing this for a totally different reason.

When I was in Chattanooga, TN years ago for a court reporting stint, I happened to pick up a survivor test supposedly used at the University of Tennessee.  In it ten people are trying to flee from one place to another to survive but only four can go.  We are supposed to decide upon which four people we would choose to survive from a list of ten professionals and non professionals.  This movie reminded me of that test.  Naturally, there should be females to continue the human race and hopefully more than one.   This movie emphasizes the need for farmers which is one of the selections in this test.  I recall that I chose a farmer since I readily understood their importance in the life of the planet.  Actor or actress was one of the choices which naturally most people would eliminate without further ado.  Yet I was reminded of Frank Sinatra who made the most glorious speech at a Hollywood award show where he supported the need for actors and actresses in the community.  But undoubtedly, medicine men whether doctors or nurses would be necessary to survival, as would be a man or woman of science.  We had to choose sexes as well as job importance.  It was an interesting test that I had forgotten and am forgetting but am reminded of since seeing this film.  Intelligence is something that must survive which has always been demonstrated in a book about children's survival called Lord of the Flies.  Sometimes the smarter kids are not the most well liked kids, and popular kids are often simply popular due to pleasing appearance or nice guy behavior, but the smart kid is often needed to lead the pack due to his innate ability at comprehension and quickness and decisiveness in drawing simple conclusions.

Naturally, that leads me to Alexander the Great who I have had the pleasure of gleaning some insights into his mental capacity and his emotional stability.

Because tradition, history, and customs are so important in society and life, Alexander's birthright enabled him to follow his father in the succession of kings in his small corner of the world.  But it was his intelligence, his personality, and his character that made him the leader he became since he was dutiful to his belief in his destiny and his gods who drove him to fulfill it.

So in this movie, we find Matthew McConaughey playing the role of Cooper, a brilliant former astronaut leading the pack of young Astronauts selected for a mission into space to find that elusive planet upon which humankind's total existence hangs.

As I said, the movie is optimistic despite the depressing odds, since there appears to be a chance that on the other side of our solar system lies a planet that would sustain human and earthly life as mankind has known it.  So naturally, with that optimism, we dare to explore the system to find it.

Hollywood, being the beast that it is, conjures a plot that flies by quickly for a three hour investment of your time, and succeeds in making us understand the hazards these men and women face as well as the joys of seeing imagined planets up close and personal.  The main planet in this case being Saturn at which we are visually impressed with its many rings.

The adventures of Cooper and his crew aboard a really cool ship is contrasted to the dire circumstances on earth of the dying planet and we are constantly reminded that as we hurtle through space that there may be no human life on earth to save if by chance they could actually return to earth.  There is no sense in making this trip if someone cannot return to earth to convey the good news that a planet is found if and when it is found.   Except of course a video message has been a solution that another team of crew members could follow if any are alive to get the message that a planet does exist.  What kind of dilemma is this?  Getting there and returning or getting there and simply hoping that earthlings are alive to receive the message that a planet has been found, so another expedition can follow...which is it?

This is where I come in.  For years, I have been studying esp, remote viewing, and other paranormal studies knowing very well that the astronauts too have been doing this as well since that mental thought transference may be the one way that humans can via long distance communicate with one another.  Even those who have crossed over into the great beyond can make contact with their loved ones through spiritual clairaudience.

So there is a scene in this film which exercises this study.

Also, note to myself that I received a message the day before when I went out to see Barbara, my neighbor, watching as Shane cleaned the paint off the sidewalks in front of our apartments.  I heard my mother calling my name to me, but I did ask Barbara if she had called me. She said she had not.  That meant it had to be my mother who I heard.  That gave me hope of her being nearby.

So I could relate to the movie.  I understood well what was happening.  I will  keep mum on part of it as it is too personal to me right now to disclose.  I use it too much.

I do know positively that there are people who can communicate with one another through thought alone.  I had written a book about it years ago which is still on hold.  In first draft stage if ever I would publish it.  Not likely at this time anyway.  Too personal again in that too much of it came true, which is clairvoyance.

In fact and truth, many times so called idle thoughts and dreams do become reality.  I have had it happen to me time and again so that I have learned to be careful of what I say and do and how I say it and do it.  But remembering always that to prove my case I must at times do things in extreme!

Oh, yes, and lest I forget about the Browns in this film.  Funny that Edmund does get his credit at the end of the movie!  That did not get past me but since it is one of those optimistic bits in the film I have avoided referring to it.

Can't give everything away, can we?

Also, Ellyn Burstyn playing the role of Murphy did also make me laugh, because i always associate her with Alice Doesn't Live Here, and that makes me think of Alice Cooper.  Odd movie in its use of names, and numbers which I cannot reveal either.  Not wanting to be a spoiler.

A movie review woke me up to something in the film which is also based upon a real life experience...which may explain why one employee chose to wait while I exited to say Good Night.  I got it!

Water or dust?  And that event involving water happened only last February...no coincidence of course, but it took the review for me to realize it...another reason to see film again in either dvd form or on the big huge screen at IMAX.

I must get to Australia somehow....

Apartment's progress

The remodeling of the apartment complex where I live has been the worst experience that I have had to endure since living in Arizona.  I have been a constant complainer all summer long about this but at last my building has been totally finished except for some last minute landscaping work that must be done.

I had watched the Property Boys on HGTV renovate homes and they always try to keep the owners out until it is finished.  Very smart idea.  Nobody should live in a house that is being remodeled.

I will make no comments on the results yet as there are still three buildings left to undergo this dreadful experience.  I have to see how that goes before I can safely state a final opinion.  I am not overly enthusiastic about the final outcome.  At the moment, they are putting a fire pit next to the pool, and are finishing lighting fixtures that match the patio walls.  There is just an awful lot of heavy cement blocks in one area that is near the office, clubhouse, swimming pool, and physical fitness room.  Since it remains unfinished I am withholding opinions until finalized.  That will take another six months for sure.

Interstellar, The Movie

I had seen all the stars of the movie Interstellar do their hustling of their latest flick on the late night shows but none of them gave us even a small clue to the power of this film.  Its power is so subtle as to make you realize it only after sitting through the 3 hour extravaganza.  This movie is a real roller coaster ride, starting in a car chase and ending with a reunion in a private room and a glimpse of a colony taking root on some distant star.  Now that is all this movie is about, a roller coaster ride from earth to outer space with the intent of either saving the old world or creating a new world.

It stars many former Oscar winners, Matt McConaughey, Anne Hathaway, Jessica Chastain, Michael Caine, Ellen Burstyn, Casey Affleck, MacKenzie Foy, Jon Lithgow, and Topher Grace, and Matt Damon.  Matt, Anne, and Ellen are all former Oscar winners.  What a cast!

The theme of the film is the power of love which is what truly makes this a heartwarming film, for otherwise it is just another over the top science fiction film.  But because we learn from the beginning of the movie that mother earth is about to expire, and that mankind needs to find a viable, habitable spot to relocate the human race,  we are prepared to launch into outer space to locate a potentially habitable planet to continue the human race.

Simple plot: Old retired pilot discovers a secret NASA group who are preparing to venture into space to colonize a planet with human beings from planet earth.  Because our hero Cooper played by McConaughey  discovers the secret they in turn capture him and his daughter to interrogate him on how he was able to find their location.  The group leader is a dignitary known to Cooper who then recruits the former astronaut to join the mission to find a habitable planet somewhere outside our solar system.  There exists a black wormhole that a space vehicle can navigate to then travel beyond to hopefully find a planet that will be supportive of the human race.

The family of Cooper is key in this plot because his son has been rejected from engineering school to become a farmer, the occupation which his father has been doing since his retirement from NASA, and the younger daughter has been a problem for the school so she is suspended.  The daughter is especially gifted and talented but because she she thinks for herself she is often stubborn and difficult.

This is a science fiction film which does utilize information that has long been known to most followers of space exploration.  The time with which it takes to travel to another planet or solar system is measured against earth life.  An hour in space travel is equivalent to 7 years in earth  life in this flick.  One thing I noticed in this film is the use of the old fashioned green blackboard with chalk. No computer projections or high tech devices in demonstrating the mathematics required to understand all this technical science/math talk.  We get the idea that the brilliant scientists are technologically so advanced and special that a mere ordinary guy could never do the work of this elite force.  Cooper's son is the average joe who has been relegated to being a farmer since the college admissions would not accept him due to low scores, but it has also been noted that the earth needs farmers more than engineers.

In essence, the movie moves back and forth between the travel into space with the members of NASA aboard the craft who are plummeting into outer space.  The visuals are beautiful in this film, and it might be worth the higher price of IMAX to see this in high definition.  I selected the regular for my first showing which saved me $$$$$.  However, all the while our astronauts are traveling in space back on terra firma all hell is breaking loose. Dust storms are constantly beleaguering the farms and lack of rain is destroying the earth.

The race to save the human race is on and most of this film plays in outer space with the astronauts who are able to get through the  black worm hole to find themselves in a different solar system.  A previous crew had already gone to explore the region so that it is possible that they may find them or their remains somewhere in outer space.

Cooper's family story is the basis for the emotional impact of the story because the relationship between the daughter and the father is strained because she had not wanted him to go.  She believed that he had left her and his family to die while he went out on the space mission, but after many years have passed, she reunited through video tapes that are relayed from the space center below to the astronauts aboard the ship.  We watch the earthlings age and grow old, marry, have children, while the space travelers remain the same in appearance as when they left the planet.  All due to gravity and the revolution of the earth around the sun.

We realize the loneliness of the astronauts, especially when a survivor from the previous crew is found alone in a hibernation state on a lonely planet.  His yearning for human companionship is terrifying.  Imagine being the long survivor on any planet, even earth.  People long for one another.

He is the maverick in the group who keeps the film even more on edge than wondering if people will survive on planet earth and whether any of the astronauts will survive their journey.  Matt Damon plays the role of Dr. Mann, the Lazarus of the film.

There is a massive struggle between the crew with whom we have traveled through space and this upstart from the earlier mission who has put himself to sleep to be reawakened when found.  He is programmed for his mission so he thinks that he should be the commander of the ship.  Conflict between him and Cooper drive the film a bit over the edge as the conflict between the two men is threatening and wasteful to the progress of the need to find a habitation for earth dwellers.  Already, we have fought off the terrors of a watery planet to travel to an ice planet where we find the madman Dr. Mann, but now we must lose one of our original members to take on a deranged man whose sole purpose is to destroy the mission.  What a mess!

In the meantime, Cooper and his daughter are reunited via video messages.  Skype in space.  But at least, it does ease the loneliness of our hero who has successfully brought this fantastic ship and crew with robot to finally have to hunt for a third planet.  Another love story is told by Anne Hathaway, the lone female astronaut, who suggests a planet where a loved one may be dead or alive.  She wants to find that planet so that the film travels on with our hero Cooper finally in a strange scenario of time travel.  He is near death so that he is trying to communicate to his daughter the way to save the earthlings since she has the mental capacity to receive his messages and to comprehend the code that he will be sending her.

In the meantime, he sends Hathaway to her planet while he tries to wend his way to earth to find his daughter so she can be the saviour of the world.

It all works.  And that is all I will explain away to get you to see this marvelous film.  Oh, one thing if you read this I will admit that when Murph throws her watch it took me back to my hometown in Ohio where I used to do this but much more ferociously than Murph does.  I must have told this on myself but as soon as I saw that I thought uh oh...I paid very close attention to the watch which is indeed the most important piece in the film for the salvation of the earth.  Isn't that flattering?  I am caught!

Month of November begins writing marathon

A few years back I actually entered the NANOWRIMO writing exercise which means putting in writing so many words per day to achieve at the end of the month 50,000 words for a story created by yourself. I used it to begin the draft for a novel about Alexander the Great and as I had wanted to make the Iliad the back drop for the story, I actually paraphrased much of the material that I wanted to use in that book.  Since that time, I have changed the idea totally, and revised my entire perspective towards writing the novel.  One was a linear, chronological approach, and another was a look back from a given point in time to a task at hand.

Why on earth would I ever write about Alexander the Great when I am not a history student, or even interested in military figures of the past?  I often wonder why I would do this except for one simple fact and that is that his life became known to me in a way that made me know more about him than the historians who read, copy, and paraphrase all the statements that others have written about him.

Why do I know so much about him?  Because a spiritual guide revealed and exposed him to me after I asked a set question during a soul searching hypnotic trance.

Were I to just read all the tired old texts about him, I would forget him in a minute. He is that easy to dismiss as just another historical figure whose life has been over exploited and magnified to make one question all the tales that are told about him.  History is littered with names of men who have led armies, defeated enemies, and who live in the chapters of imaginative novels, movies, tv shows, etc. but who are really reduced to being just another stone statue, or minted coin.  None of those things mean much to anyone today.  Even coins of our leaders mean little to us but a face to recognize the value of the piece.  We forget who or what they actually did but care only that so many dollars and cents will pay my bills.  They become jokes after awhile.

I decided to write my version of Alexander in my recollection of the experiences that I had had when I went back in time.  I actually came to like him far better than I had thought I would. I had hated reading some of the deeds that he had done but I learned to accept that a different time than this one required far different responses than we are taught today.  Very few of us admire any leader today who wants to make a name for himself through conquering other nations.   We see one now who has declared himself the caliphate of the Islamic State and we are all so opposed to his lifestyle, his way, and his leadership that hopefully, one day he will be eliminated and killed to stop this terrorist group from destroying Iraq and Syria.  He is a modern day terrorist who makes one think of Hitler's march.

Alexander waged war against his enemies and won, traveled far and wide, and imposed his rule upon the conquered nations but one thing that people tend to forget, he allowed the nations he conquered to continue to practice their own beliefs and lifestyles without change except for acknowledging his rule and kingmanship.  He did introduce the Greek culture into the lives of the conquered nations but he did not abolish their religious beliefs, but allowed them to practice them as they saw fit.

I have read so many different author's interpretations and imposed thinking upon his life that it is sometimes amusing and sometimes annoying.  One really has to read the sources to get the real feel of what the ancients thought about it.  Modern day thinking is a bit biased and prejudiced either for or against him, and such biases are truly wrong in evaluating history from a distance.

So when I went into recollections I found myself in his skin and thinking capacity and that is what endeared him to me.  His thinking, his intellect, his emotional feelings, and his appearance even had a real impact on me.  I wanted to share it, but then after time I began to think better of it.  There is no way that I want some of what I have learned and know about him to become known to the lovers and haters who truly will not understand it anyway.

At first, I was very proud of it. I was excited. I was enamored of it.  It is a great thing to relive a past lifetime, and especially of someone so unknown as Alexander.  Sure, there are many books about his feats but basically, he is an unknown quantity.

So I am still contemplating the do's and don'ts of telling all.  I just read a bit about Diane von Furstenberg's memoirs.   People only want to know the salacious.  So she has a lot to say which was truly surprising.

Alexander has a lot of romance in his life too, but he is basically a sincerely ideal driven man.  He is above reproach in many areas and I know that for a fact, but he has enemies who would like to make him appear otherwise.  Sadly, they would be disappointed to learn that he is so mentally sound that he makes decisions rationally rather than emotionally.  On rare occasions, he becomes angry, cold, and merciless.  Usually, he is mentally contemplating each and every aspect of his military tasks, and the administration of his settlements.  Fortunately for him, he had the vision and the materials to make his vision work and come true.  Whether I will share this knowledge that I have of him is still up in the air.  I am working on it all the time.   What is the best book to write for the right audience?   What should I include? What should I exclude?  It must be readable, salable, and unforgettable1

Intro to horse racing

Horse Racing has been a passion of mine ever since I learned of its power when I lived in California. An old classmate of my dad's lived in Southern California so that on one vacation that my parents made when visiting me, my dad reconnected with this former friend of his youth.  That man whose name is Bob had survived the depression by playing quarter horses.  Thus, when my dad and he got together again in California, Bob took my parents and me to the Los Alamitos horse races.  It happened to be raining that day so that there was a track bias.  Bob bert $50 per horse but I had no idea what my dad did or how he did.  But that first time at Los Alamitos turned out to be a day when the inside horse won consistently.  Whether my dad or mom won any money I have no idea, but I know that I learned a lot from simply watching.  I did not know how to bet then so probably abstained from it.

Later, I was invited by a fellow teacher at the school where I taught to go to Santa Anita to see the races there, and that was my first introduction to Santa Anita Park. One of the fellow male teachers was well known for his interest in horse racing as he was an avid gambler of the horses.  I finally went by myself one day to the shopping center in Arcadia which is located right next to the racetrack and by chance walked through the stalls where I could hear the announcer shouting out the names of the horses as they raced down the tracks. Walking through there was foreign to me but I recall very well remembering some names and numbers so that later I learned that those had been winners that day. I thought what a peculiar oddity for that to happen.

Finally, I went to the racetrack again after my first initial invite from the fellow teacher who showed me around the track but did nothing to enlighten me on programs, racing forms, or horses in general. I was just still a sight seer.

Some of my neighbors were addicts to the game and I learned how they spent hours studying racing forms. I was too busy working to pay much attention but eventually something caught my attention so that I decided to take a closer look at this game where I was feeling as though I were being used somehow or other.

In those days, I was as skinny as a jockey and had been compared to jockeys when teaching.  In fact, also one of the students at our high school had been an apprentice jockey at Santa Anita.  But when I taught in Arizona, my high school principal had said that I had used my grades like a racing stick.  I never forgot that.

So because I eventually bought a car from Ford company called a Cougar, I took interest in a horse trained by Charlie Whittingham and ridden by famous jockey Willie Shoemaker because its name was Cougar II.  I ended up at the racetrack at Santa Anita to see this horse and became instantly addicted to the world of horses.

Those were the days, my friend, as the song says!

Breeders Cup had not been invented then.

Z Princess

This is the hardest story to discuss.  Recently, Zenyatta, a superb and wonderful race horse had delivered her third foal, a baby girl, after having already delivered two boys.  This little filly captured our hearts, and she is a beautiful lookalike of her very famous mother.  Sadly, she suffered some fatal injury in a paddock accident so that she was humanely euthanized last night.  It breaks my heart to think about her mother grieving for her now as well as all the owners, caretakers, and fans.  It is unbelievable at how many horses have passed over Rainbow Bridge to enter into their Heavenly Home.

I am sending thoughts of love to her mother and her father who are missing her tonight.  We were all blessed to know her for a very short time.  God bless and keep you, Z Princess.

Watching World Series and Breeders Cup

When I began to watch the World Series, the game was tied 2-2, but SF scored so that in this the 7th inning the score is 3-2.  It is a very tight game.  

This weekend is the richest horse racing game that is played in the USA.  There are two days of frantic horse racing which attracts horses from around the world to enter the Cup for a chance to win glory, fame, and fortune.

Unfortunately, this year a small group of favorites have been taken out of the running due to injuries or balkiness.  One horse was so frightened by jet engines that the trainer decided against shipping the horse to race in the famous cup.  

One wonders at what is going on except that when gamblers brag on their winnings it is always to brag about an astounding longshot that paid off big so that I would imagine that favorites are now afraid to risk losing.  Causes are bone bruises, lameness, or some other non life threatening injury but enough to give the odds makers thrills.  Fortunately, the two major races do not seem to have been affected by this late in the game defections.

I am highly suspicious is all that it is, and one can only wonder at which overlooked horse is capable of pulling off the astonishing surprise of a 35-1 longshot winning.

I suspect that the gambler who bet on either SF or KC are also shaking a bit in their boots right now.  It is never over until it is over, and it is a very close game.  The fans are loud on both sides of this ongoing battle.

When the game is over, I will comment on the finish of it.  Someone will get their ring tonight.

Some good news

It is hard for me to find good news to discuss when all hell is breaking loose, but a few good news items are of interest and importance.

I have watched Chaz Dean sell his Wen products for some time, believing that they are too expensive for me. I always read reviews and many of the reviews did not impress me enough to buy into his cleansing/conditioner program.  QVC is the source of this sale since they have a good return program if not satisfied. QVC is a very trustworthy company. I have been with them since they began their business years ago.

But my hair had been giving me trouble for some time as I found it dull and lifeless, so that when he presented his six thirteen treatment program, I decided to try it.  Never have I been so happy with a product as I am this one for my hair. I am his staunchest supporter on this.  Yes, it is expensive but my hair is behaving so well, looks so good to me, and staying in style that I am a total believer and supporter of Six Thirteen.

I love it!

I do leave it on for twenty minutes each time I use it before I give it a final rinse.  I also do use my own shampoo that I bought long before this which does contain argan oil so I am using a combination of both Six Thirteen and Argan Shampoo.  My hair has such great control that I am truly happy and satisfied.  Never has it behaved like this.

So that is my good news at this time.

Developments in Habitat

What a shock this morning.  After watching Price is Right, I turned to CNN to see what is happening in world today, but I have learned that Dish Satellite and Turner TV are having negotiation problems so that CNN has been replaced by MSNBC this morning.  How long this will continue is more than I can say.  Dish users can go to a special Dish location to voice their support for CNN to returned to the channel.  Several other Turner programs are also affected by this problem ABC reported. I decided to check it out on the search engines.

I am sure that CNN addicts and followers will be happy when this problem is resolved but I am not playing with all the stations on the t.v. to voice my support at this time.  I am sure that Dish will solve it without my input.

The problem at the apartment is that the roofing group has not returned since last Saturday when they did place panels on my roof section leaving only one panel to complete it...it is the unfinished roof as of today and the other three are waiting to be completed.  When they will return I have no idea, but it has been a problem to have the landscapers come in today with plants to be set around the apartment. When that job will be completed is something else to consider.  At this time,  the laborers are taking a break.    This remodeling experience has been one headache after another, with all the uncertainty, tools, and interruptions.  I am in open rebellion at this point, but I will be sure to relax when the next buildings have their turn at this horrible experience.  I am wondering where in the world they will put all the equipment and materials at the other end of the building. I drove back there on Monday to find it so narrow and difficult to get through with two trucks already causing problems. I made it through but I can see that there is no room there to put heavy equipment. I am thinking that they will use the east parking lot next to building 7 for most of their storage, but time will tell. Hopefully, it will be removed from the West parking lot.

But for now, all that is left for me to worry about is the roofing, the landscaping, and then all is done. I pray!

New Iphone6 plus

Let me explain that my new iPhone 6 plan will cost me less than my previous plan as I understand it. I am very fortunate to be connected to Sprint for which I exchanged my former phone and received the new phone under a preorder.  All this worked to my benefit since Apple was good enough to come out with their new phone in the way that I wanted  it, big enough for me to see comfortably, and so I ordered it through my already established Sprint account.  I am happy that it will cost me less in the long run than my previous plan costs.

I attended a second intro to the phone at 3:00 yesterday afternoon, wanting to take it after learning all about it. I learn more from you tube tips and tricks, and I found some magazines available to read all about it at Barnes and Noble.  However, one can learn a lot of that on the internet so that I will not yet buy another magazine to learn all the various things that one can do with it.  I will try to attend workshops if convenient for me.

I attended the first immediately after I received it so as not to make any noticeable mistakes. I had no sound on my ringer after I installed the iOS 8 operating system and so I made a genius appointment. I had read that others had also suffered that same problem when I asked in a search for apple support so that I assumed it was the operating system that caused it.  Turned out not to be that at all, but that a button on the phone had muted the sound system.

The second workshop I attended was full of people also as had been the first. Seems everyone is wanting to attend a workshop which is a good thing for anyone to do.  Quite a lot of difference between the way Bernard and Mario present the phone and I remember them both from my one to one. I admit I liked the first presentation better than the second, and I intend to attend one at either the Biltmore or the Chandler store if available to see what they have to say.  Mario did go through each app thoroughly and was well informed, but so far no survey from Apple on his session.

Usually, Apple sends a survey to inquire on your assessment or evaluation of the presentation.

The girl at the genius bar was able to help me immediately to know the cause of the sound problem. I had somehow or other hit a key button that mutes the sound and so I learned all about that.

I love the iPhone 6.  I think that it behooves everyone to have both systems whether they like it or not.  Subtle differences in each one but both are worth knowing and having if affordable.  I am leasing the phone from Sprint with option to buy at end of two years or to trade to new phone to continue ongoing plan.  All systems appear to be switching to this plan it appears as I learned yesterday.  If I keep up with two phones as I have now I will choose only a free phone, and I see that there are several.  My contract with Verizon is up in January, and I can wait til then to see what they have up their sleeves.  It seems they offer something every month so I will wait it out but I did visit the local store to see what is available now.

I just read that Google is coming out with a bigger phone than iPhone 6 plus which is 5.5".  The Nexus will be a full 6".  That is good for seniors and those who love google.


Sure, one can magnify the type but on a small screen, it takes twice as long to read...with a larger screen, I use the zoom feature to have larger type.  It is a part of the aging process.

So I am happy for the larger size.  I think that the iPhone 6 plus is a great phone for me to have, but I would like to see how the Nexxus will function when it finally is released in November.  I have no intentions of buying it at this time since I cannot imagine it being free to purchase.  The iPhone 5c is free at Verizon at this date but I am waiting until January before I decide to stay or terminate the Verizon account.

War Stories

The other night on the Tonight Show, Jimmy Fallon had one of the actors who perform in the movie Fury on his show.  This was the actor who played the part of a boy who did not want to kill others.  Brad Pitt is the leader who did a very poor acting job in my opinion in trying to get the boy to take orders or to be killed himself.  The lines alone hit home with me, as they reminded me of two scenes in my life where I have heard those same lines....Thus, I am a bit annoyed with the writer, director, and others who are parroting back for me to know some lines and actions used in my own personal domain.  However, I also told those same people the reason and purpose for such actions and statements which was to prove that Hollywood is using us for their own purposes.  This scene proved it, and I could tell that both the young actor and Jimmy knew damn good and well to what I am referring.  I know it for a fact.

That is all I wish to share at this time.  I did feel the welling from within come back up through me, which in fact, I had already written in a scene between Philip of Macedon and one of his young soldiers who was disciplined for reasons other than those shown in this movie.    So it is an interesting thing to watch but face it. I will not see this movie until it is free at the local library.

Thinking aloud

I have not taken the time to write much anywhere and this blog has suffered from lack of attention also.  This summer has been the most negative summer I have experienced due to the remodeling program ongoing here.

Several things about this remodeling have annoyed me. One, few of us were notified that it was taking place when we signed our leases, and none of us knew of the changes that would come with it.  Most everyone here is unhappy and grumbling about all that has taken place here.  It has been unfair and more than just an inconvenience, and the worst is that I am certain rent hikes will occur before too long. My lease is good until the end of May but I have to give a 60 day move out notice, so that I am now looking into other places to live once my lease expires.

I have not been writing my novel in months for many reasons.  Once I had learned of the identity of two characters in the past who had been revealed to me as people I know well in this lifetime I had a complete change in attitude about dwelling on lifetimes of the past.  Reincarnation is a belief system, and as I believe in myself more than any other person on the face of the earth, I trust my own inner revelations to myself. I finally agree with my mother about the fact that it is best to keep one's inner secrets to one's self instead of sharing with others.  I have learned much about other people's reactions to this belief system the hard way.  I know the truth and while I am intrigued by the past, learning of who others in my lifetime today had been yesteryear had the greatest impact on me.  So my novel is on hold while I rework it.

Another topic that concerns me involves a story I just read on Facebook about a woman in Florida who learned that her boyfriend had set up a secret camera to photograph all her personal life unbeknownst to her.  As I have harped for years about the t.v. industry, movie industry, and publications industry bugging me to death I have always wondered if it were possible to have a camera and microphone wired to watch me at all times.  Because some scenes which were clearly not available to cameras and microphones I had to consider other possibilities, some of which are more extraordinary than electronic eavesdropping. I still wonder about it all.

Next topic about which I am extremely sensitive is the ongoing minority groups over reactions and attempts to claim something for themselves that does not rightfully belong to them.  The color black is an example. It is not a race identification color so for Negroes to call themselves black is a false notion. In coloring, they are not black at all; thus, even Negro which is Spanish is an error as well.  And I am opposed to the gay group for adopting the rainbow as their symbol.  The rainbow colors belong to everyone and were originally the name of the girls who were a part of the Masonic fraternity group.  I dislike the gays for trying to use the rainbow as their symbol, as I think even First Lady Nancy Reagan had it as her secret code name also.  So gays, rainbow is not yours to claim.

The idea that black is racist made the ASU student body look ridiculous when they wanted to use blackface for a blackout idea.   Blacklisted means something totally different!  NBC is a bit ridiculous to name a t.v. show Blacklist when it makes no sense at all regarding the storyline or the stories that are dramatized on it.

Black is universally used for mourning.  I avoid using or wearing black for mourning though.  I consider death an escape from the present life in the flesh, and therefore, I do not mourn the passage of soul from flesh to next spiritual life.

Queen Victoria is famous for only wearing black clothing after the death of her beloved.

I associate the rainbow with summer showers and have seen the rainbows shown from space which turn out to be full circle.

Then today, on another Facebook post, I learned that a very artistic tree which was a balloon was vandalized in Paris for looking like a sex toy. In reality, it looked like a bottle stopper more than a tree, but to think that people were so outraged by the tree that they took it down is absolutely incredible as to how people can inflict their own guilty mind onto others who see it only as a tree.

It made me wonder what they must think of the obelisk.  If that isn't a sure sign of a phallic symbol, everyone has missed the point.  Why are people crazy I want to know?  So much so that they will destroy a piece of artwork?

Like I said, I am thinking aloud in this blog...will write another for a different subject when I  get the time.

Goals and Achievements

Sometimes life is difficult.  One has hopes and dreams, sets goals and plans, only to have them interrupted or discarded, knowing that most are pretty unattainable.  But yet it does not prevent one from continuing to dream, to hope, and maybe eventually to even realize a goal or a plan.

The Breeders Cup is two weeks away. I had hopes of attending the sporting event until I learned the total cost of going and returning, so that I finally decided to stay home. I went to Turf Paradise to reserve a seat and place for the Saturday event.  I did choose the place where I wanted to sit, which is in the reserved t.v. table section near the betting windows.  Since the Breeders Cup is simulcast, all i want to do is to see the t.v. screens and to win huge sums of money.

But the woman said that I would not be able to see the live horses.  If I were going to watch live horse racing I would be in the general section on the ground floor so that I could walk easily in and out to the track to watch the horses from that vantage instead of high up looking down through windows.  I did not bother to explain to her that I was going for the Breeders Cup since it seemed unnecessary if she were to think about it.

At any rate, if I reach my goal of winning the right races with the right amounts of money, I will be able to pursue another goal which is to travel yet to some faraway place.  But to be able to do that, I will have to succeed in reaching and obtaining this goal of a special win.

In the meantime, even at this old age, I still have lots of plans, hopes, and dreams that I hope to achieve despite my declining years.  I am well aware that I do not have much time left to do all that I would like but if I can do a few things right I may at least know that I tried.

Now to try to put my house in order.  That is all for tonight.  I am just thinking aloud on computer paper.

Two new books on Alexander the Great

I went to the half price book store yesterday to see what they might have on the topic  I have been studying for so long. I had never bought Robin Lane Fox's book on ATG because I have so many other books, but there was a hardback published in 1974 that I finally purchased.  I like the illustrations even though they are in black and white, and this is his book on the topic for which he was selected to help make the Oliver Stone movie.  I bought another by a young woman from India which is written for children apparently.  She is another who has followed Alexander's trail in visiting many of the places where he and his famous army traveled.  Her name is Jamila Gavin.  I bought the book since it was cheap but also for a story about a white stag which I found very interesting to read.

People wonder at me and my interest in Alexander.  The first time I saw him in soul experience through autohypnosis I learned that he was a lady's man.   He had four women who are his loves that I recalled through my soul searching.  I also saw Julius Caesar through my soul experience but Caesar is a person who I have left untouched since I had taught the play at Cortez when I first began my teaching career.  I have many projects related to Caesar as a result of that time, and I did not want to go back in time to learn any more about him than I did in that one experience where I saw his scarlet cloak, his home, his wife, and himself riding a chariot.  I remember it as well as when I first saw Alexander.  Since both Louis XIV and Alexander took so much of my personal time I have not tried to study Caesar or Genghis Khan in the same fashion.  I have learned much about this puzzle of time travel through soul searching and as it consumes so much of my time, I will wait for the right time to pursue it if I decide to do so.

I have yet to determine exactly what all this soul searching does reveal about myself in the ability to do it.  I do not necessarily claim anything but the fact that I have tapped into these men's lives.  I consider it a judgement call of some kind. It has revolutionized my thinking about religious beliefs. I am convinced that most belief systems are simply hereditary and all who continue to teach are guilty only of passing on information that had been told to them.  Each one of us has the right to examine and to learn truth for ourselves.  I am not trying to convince anyone of anything but that I have had the opportunity to examine a few men's lives of the past, and while some others have been exposed to me, I have selected so far to let them remain dormant.

I will close for awhile. I am about to take a shower and I see men outside on my patio.

Roofers have arrived!

This remodeling project has been the worst experience I have ever undergone mostly because I was around to see each and every part of it happen.  It has been one long hellish summer which I will never forget.  But finally today, action has begun on putting the roofing material on my apartment section.  So at long last, we can feel that the end is near, and soon this building will be totally finished with all this remodeling for the exterior portion.  Landscaping will follow but that will be mild in comparison to all that has gone on before.  At least, I am hoping that it will be.

Patio furniture and accessories that had been placed in storage were returned to the owners yesterday. Since I had stored my chairs in my own storage area, I had taken them out long before all the neighbors had theirs out. I saw that a few others had done the same as I so that I am not the only one keeping my property safely in my possession.  I stored only those things that I would not need at any particular time so finally all those have reappeared. I had only three boxes filled with pillows for the chairs and pots for the plants.  One big beautiful pot I had forgotten entirely until I saw it again.  All these pots are from my neighbor Richard who gave them to me when he was forced to foreclose on his home.

I inherited them for letting him store his belongings in our family garage while he was having difficulties. I think about him often even yet, having taken in so many of his things.

Our worst fear in this remodeling episode is that the rent will escalate at a price that none of us want so that I am looking and planning already to move to some other place, hopefully, my final move. I am considering Las Vegas area again as I have wanted to move there for some time.  Taxes are the real reason.  Arizona's state taxes are far too high imho.

I will be so happy when this small roofing area is covered so that they can move next door to my neighbor's.  Since it is a small area it should take just a little time to cover completely. I hope that they do the job as completely as possible so that they do not have to return to finish later.  They did do that yesterday on building one which puzzled me.  I had been told that they would be doing my building but instead they were finishing up on Building one....

At least the end is near....thank Heaven!

Brand new phone

It has been a long time since I wrote anything here.  This has been the most hectic and worst summer that I have had in a long time. I can never remember any being as bad as this one has been for me.

But rather than discuss it all now, I want to spend this time dwelling on the positive if I can find a way to do that.

I bought my first cellphone some years ago, and the first cell phone that I bought was an HTC from Sprint which I really liked a lot.  The salesmen who sold it to me was a Leonardo di Caprio lookalike who had come in from Kansas to sell this phone.  Later, a movie at Harkins was starring Leonardo and there was a Sprint tie in to the movie which I did see and do understand the connection between the use of the phone and the movie.  That was a long time ago.

When my contract was up, I traded it in for a Samsung after waiting for the iPhone 5 but since it was so small in size in comparison to what I had had, I went with the Samsung Galaxy 3.  I like some things about Samsung, and some things about HTC. It turns out all these phones are not only competitive but there is a lot of company pride at stake as well as profits.

So now that my two year contract with Sprint came to an end and it was time to trade up I opted for the iPhone 6 plus since Apple decided to compete with Samsung who was clearly performing much better with their phones than Apple had done, keeping only its faithful users. I did not like its small size and said so after I bought my computer.  I like the larger size so I went for the plus which is really the size I need being a senior citizen with bad vision right now.

Since I just bought it, I am learning it and adjusting to the differences. I think everyone should own both phones to appreciate both, especially employees of Apple. Samsung has some features which are clearly better than apple, but apple has features that are clearly better than Samsung. If you could only get the best of both it would be great. But I like the Apple phone I am using at present. I still have a second phone but intend to terminate that phone service and have only one.  Unfortunately, too many times I realize why one should have two phones.  But in my case, one is more than enough.

It has taken me a long time to adjust to the Apple computer as I do not use a computer as much now as I did in the past.  I have no idea what windows 8 is or what windows 10 will be.  I like Apple well enough to use only it but I have had two android phones now, Samsung and HTC.  Both are good operating devices with totally different features. My main objection to both is the ease with which they can be hacked into and that was my main complaint about microsoft.  It is too easy to get viruses  and malware even with protection. I had had protection but they still continued to plague me. I am even concerned a bit about apple and will have it tuned up and checked to see if anyone has gotten into it.

But supposedly, Apple is less likely to get viruses than Windows.

I have to go to Sprint this week to see about turning in my Samsung phone and getting the data from it onto my new phone. I spent the evening cleaning out my photos and wondered how the heck did some get there.  I had not put them there and not all could be the photos that come with the phone.

Many strange games going on in the world of computers but at last I have a phone that is compatible with my computer.  I can even use pages on my phone it turns out...I will try that to see how that works.

But so far, I have limited my apps to the few that I actually use.
Good night. I must go to bed now.

Free movies on Epix this weekend.

I caught several free movies this weekend thanks to Epix trying to gain new viewers so that we had a free preview. I will finally see Leonardo diCaprio's Wolf of Wall Street tonight if I remember to put it on. I have made a mental note to see it, even though the previews annoy me.

I finally learned the reason for the obsession with Zombies when I saw World War Z which is one of the more stupid but possibly valid movies of recent times.  It makes me think of the Ebola outbreak in Africa now.  It has the same health organization stamp and fear mongering tactic.  I am rather convinced that real life is often preceded by reel life.

I may even subscribe to Epix for 6 months...it is a maybe at this point. I do not watch t.v. that much to  pay for movies too.   But it is not a bad price at $5.00 per month for six months...problem is always when those six months are up as they fly by pretty fast.

I did see Jack Reacher too and while I liked it in some ways, I hated it in others.  We have so much real violence I don't appreciate vicarious thrills that are just ugly and violent.  Of course, in a movie, there is always a hero who does great things to bring and end to injustice.  

Anchorman 2 was on but it was so dumb that I ended up watching QVC instead.  Finally, horse racing has come on so I am working on both the lottery games and the horses.  Not betting until the PA race with California Chrome this coming Saturday.

Jack Reacher reminded me of the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo a lot for some reason. Guess it was the Russian prisoner...would it not be nice if authors and movies would not imitate each other so much....?  It seems that carbon copies is the lifestyle of publishing companies and movie land.

Update on iPhone 6

I deleted the previous post about the iPhone 6.  I sometimes just use this blog to air my feelings on a given day and much of it is just to air it out.  Having reread some of it I decided that I would rewrite it.

I did go to Sprint and am leasing an iPhone 6 for two years.  One has the option of renewing the lease at the end of the two years or buying it for a cost of $210 for my phone. I bought the iPhone 6 plus because I like the larger sized phone.

It should be here soon so when it comes in I will be sure to add to this or write another update!

Creative Writing

I am reading Vicky Shecter's book called Cleopatra's Moon which is about the children of Cleopatra and Mark Antony who were sent to Rome following the death of their parents.  In reading this story, the deaths of both Mark Antony and Cleopatra remind me of Romeo and Juliet.  Vicky does include at the end of the novel some information about the historical version of the lot of these children so that one can tell the difference between fact and fiction.

In that respect, I am impressed with Vicky's imagination and ability to spin a story about these children that makes the reader want to know more about each of them. Unfortunately, little is actually known about them historically so that one can only congratulate Vicky for her vivid imagination in creating possible scenarios.  I enjoy reading the tale from this angle as she creates some pretty fascinating and plausible conflicts.

I am intrigued by her descriptions of the Egyptian lifestyle versus the Roman lifestyle in which we gain some insights into the type of propaganda that the Romans used to create enmity and hostility against Cleopatra.  The daughter's memories of her mother are poignant to consider how royalty always seemed to suffer in years gone by.  To be born into a royal family promised not only luxury and power but also fear and death to so many.

I am an avid reader of many books.  For a time, I was always partial to mystery books for the simple fact of trying to solve the mystery along with the detective.  This came from reading far too many Agatha Christie novels where the reader is always matching wits with the writer so that I always tried to figure out the culprit long before the writer finally revealed it. It is a game that way that many mystery writers like to use.    Both Arthur Conan Doyle and Agatha Christie likes to place clues to both mislead and to develop the final conclusion.  That is an art in itself.

Historical fiction is fascinating if one is interested in the characters of real life history at all.  Most of the time, the authors who write historical fiction twist and turn the story lines to be more fiction than actual fact so that the history itself is irrelevant to the story.  A few like to follow history as closely as possible to make it appear the way that that author seems to think the characters would have behaved or thought.  Again, one must be careful to note that despite the character being a real personality, the story itself is only the author's vivid imagination which probably is very different from the real facts.

In the case of Cleopatra's Moon, one can only imagine how the children felt when they were taken to Rome so abruptly to live with Octavius.  There is no written record to verify on which ship they were transported from Alexandria to Rome.  I give Vicky a lot of credit for thinking about these young children to write an entire novel about their experiences so that we can appreciate the sorrowful plight that they suffered.  Were they handled with kid gloves or were they abused and mistreated?  We know that Caesar had been assassinated through fear of his gaining too much power and that the Roman soldiers taunted Jesus Christ for his being a King of the Jews, so it is very likely that the Roman sailors probably showed great disdain and contempt for the young royal children of Egypt as well.  One can only wonder.

The important lesson I am learning from Vicky is the use of good versus evil in this story.  She creates a credible story  of opposing forces with enough conflicts to maintain a fast pace in the telling of the story. I am realizing at how difficult it is for me to create conflicts employing evil sins versus good virtues.  I had had difficulty with that when writing a mystery murder story...I could not think like a murderer enough to develop a murderer.  In my other attempts at creating a plot, I have too often omitted evil characters when I realize that i must employ a few.   Some are there historically but I have yet to fully develop those characters.  I think about my own storyline when reading hers.  She has actually done me a favor through her research and her creativity because I can see where I need to  flesh out my own characters more fully than I have.

It intrigues and fascinates me that Vicky is as interested in Rome and Greece as I have been.  Cleopatra is probably one of the most awesome women in world history simply because she is linked with both Julius Caesar and Mark Antony.  A very young girl who has snared two of the most powerful Roman soldiers in Rome's history is without doubt a woman of unique talents and power.  She has caught the imagination of many a historian and author, and so it is fascinating to see her through her daughter's eyes.

(to be continued).

Past Few Weeks

Quite frankly, I hope never to go through anything like I have had to experience in the past few weeks ever again.  It has been one of the very worst experiences that I have had to endure and I have hated it more than anyone can know.  Today, I believe that the workers who are plastering the final and last building in this set are finally near the end. Never will I be so happy to see people go than I will be to see this lot of miserable cusses go.

If anybody ever knew what lay ahead for them in this journey of life, probably most of us would say no way to it and find something else to make their days pass. Unfortunately, none of us know for certain what any of the days ahead will deliver to us.  I am ever mindful of all the adages that men coin just to sustain them during their toil on earth, but those are merely means to pour ointment on a miserable condition.  I could take all those adages and throw them out the window in a minute to say just quit kidding yourself so much, buddy.

Because i have had an inordinate and most unusual amount of early morning pain in this experience, I am seriously sorry for all those poor souls who are having to undergo bombs and war weapons falling all around them. Russia and the Ukraine is a sorry situation where so many innocents are being hurt and trapped by evil forces around them over whom they have no control at all, as well as the Middle East where Muslims are warring with one another and trying to involve all of the rest of the world in their own muddled affairs.  ISIS is drawing the USA into another military action to rid ourselves of these barbaric terrorists.  Israel and Palestine have been fighting each other for months on end, killing endless numbers of innocent men, women, and children for no reason at all except the motivation of hatred and envy, and a need for self defense.  What a world in which to live right now...Not good at all to bring children into those areas of the world, but humanity being what it is, people continue to rape and pillage, and unfortunate young are made to be brought into a world of hate and hostility.

I heard Barack Obama last night on his t.v. speech in which he repeats senseless patter about how it is that the USA will drive out the forces of ISIS and how much he hates to admit that he is being brought into another military action in the Middle East. Since most of his speech emphasized the Muslim faith I do understand now why so many believe that he is secretly and honestly more Muslim than Christian.  Obama says one thing but does another and finally, this time he said enough to convince me that he is more than just a little bit tied to the Muslim world. He could very well be a Muslim himself after all.

I am not totally convinced that Barack Obama is a natural born citizen of the USA.  I know that many efforts have been made to prove his birth status.  He is a bit of a problem in that respect.  If proved that he is not a natural born citizen, his entire two terms is that of an imposter.

But his last sentence and attitude betrayed him to me last night on t.v.  I have never seen such hostility and anger come out  of a man after saying God Bless America.  I am stunned even yet as I recall it.

Why would he be so hostile is what I want to know?  He has a very deep hatred burning in him for something.  And I am wondering what it is and why.

Record Rainfall Today

I thought that the harvest moon was supposed to be tomorrow night but I did go out to see the full moon after it was mentioned on the news tonight.  I will try to see it come up tomorrow if I can remember to do it.

We had a record rainfall due to some hurricane spinning off into the Pacific, and it  was so intense that it broke all records for the region.  NBC was calling it the storm of the century.  It has created havoc but I stayed home and would not even try to navigate the roads that were supposed to be flooded.  Since it happens every time we have a storm here I wonder why it is that people dare to try to drive in flooded streets.  My conclusion is that they like trouble enough to seek it for themselves.

I am so tired of the remodeling going on here at this apartment that I was happy it rained so that the workers would not be able to do anything today. I actually appreciated their having to delay the work on the apartment for a day or so.  I am sure that they will be here tomorrow to do their work despite the muddy conditions.

I will cut this short and maybe continue with it tomorrow.  I am reading Cleopatra's Moon by Vicky Shecter and am now about to go to Rome in her story of the children of Marcus Antonius and Cleopatra...it has really wakened me up to a lot of things.  I will discuss those things in a different post since I must go to bed now.

Thursday Morning, August 28, 2014

This summer has nearly gone which means that Christmas is right around the corner.  Time goes way too fast and this year has been one of the worst summers I have experienced to date.  I had wanted to get away from here for at least a short time but alas I was not able to do it.  If I can make it to Del Mar for the third which is closing day, I may try.  But the distance and the cost is a bit too high for me at this point in time.  Sadly, age will not make me any younger and I am concerned that as time passes I will just get worse and worse instead of better.  No chance of ever getting better.

So on that note, I understand why it is that the elderly become conflicted about life and death.  Death is coming as it can never be avoided. Learning how the body goes belly up on you makes it easier to accept sooner rather than later, but for doe reason many souls must last decades longer than their friends, family, and neighbors.  Nothing worse than having to be in an old folks home where nothing but neglect is the standard.

The reason I am discussing this is that infirmities at old age become somewhat neglected as well.  Why repair damaged body parts if one is going to just simply soon discard them permanently?  It seems that the only people who value old age are the people who make money from it, the medics, the old age homes, and the funeral directors.  Nobody else can find much consolation in it.

I am suffering from a dental problem right now. I wonder why I should bother to have a tooth repaired at this old age.  I am wondering about it.  All that I will say for now.

Tuesday, August 26, Scottsdale, Arizona

1. The men who plaster did not come today thanks to the weather forecast most likely.

2. Two men who are painting did come to do something to the roof.  They are gone now.

3. The promised rain has not come to this area at all but I had noticed that one forecaster had said that it would affect only half of the county anyway.

4. We have a substitute mail lady this week.

5. I used my Wolfgang Puck blender to grind my steak into burgers.  It worked perfectly and what wonderful burgers those are.

6. I found a special store in Tempe near Southern for the best produce anywhere bar none. It is for businesses mostly since it is all bulk and oversized but the produce and deli meat is small enough for individuals.  Best tasting strawberries.  Fun thing is that one must wear a provided coat to walk into freezer to obtain goods.

7. I made the best pinto beans this weekend. I used Phyllis Stokely's method of preventing gas and farts by pre boiling beans three times for ten minutes.  Then I used another recipe for basis of dish: beef stock, pork belly, onions, and celery and cooked  in pressure cooker for 30 minutes.  I saved half by freezing.

8. I bought my own silicon ice cube trays from Crate and Barrel so I have ice at all times that is from my Brita filter.

9. I have loads of work to do but have been on Facebook all morning long.  I posted a beautiful video of Planet Earth.

10.  I prefer to keep my silence at times over some issues but the Ferguson, Mo. problem and the illegal immigrants from Central America are still a source of annoyance to me.  The only good response so far has been from Bill Cosby who said it right.

Just had to take a walk

There are times when one really feels that the sky is falling after all.  Not a joke.  The sky is falling.

We had monsoon weather the past few days and the humidity is high but temps are down. I just walked around the building to  get exercise and to clear my mind as well.  So many things are bothering me right now.  Not only world affairs which makes one feel totally impotent and helpless when one does not have the authority or the means by which to end all the things that plainly upset us,  but also all the daily problems that creep up on us when  we did not want them there at all. I think at this stage of life we all hope that everything will be serene and lovely, peaceful and quiet, and free from problems of any kind.  To have any problem weighing in on one after retirement is grossly unfair.

Fortunately, the one good thing that has come from all this summer's activities is the development of close ties with the neighbors since we all are bonding in a way that we probably would not have imagined.  We live so tightly together that we cannot help but commiserate with one another about all the noise, confusion, inordinate amount of workers all together at one spot, and some of us fall into the category of seniors or aged ones.  That makes us laugh together at the young neighbors who naturally see us as old timers. But because we do not get any notes about what is going to happen next we are more than frustrated.  I think that the least that the office could do is to keep us up to date on what to expect next in the way of the remodeling process.  We have a new t.v. in the laundry room for which there are no instructions.  We were not even told about the upcoming remodeling at the time we signed our lease, and that alone makes me more than a little bit disgusted.  We have new management who is not on the ball about anything, and we have new assistants every time we turn around.  The place is a madhouse in many respects.

Buildings 8 and 9 are finished so that we can get an idea of how we will look soon.  It is rather difficult to like this color scheme  that we are about to have.  Two tone colored sand and deep brown with green roof, green railings, orange stairs,orange doors, and orange shades.  We have a new name: The Viridian, which is supposed to mean green I am told.  We will soon have a new look with new landscaping as well.  Already the first two buildings have all the landscaping set.  I hope that we get some of that here on this side too.

That full moon which was so round two nights ago and the one that we in this area did not get to see at all, emerged tonight as only a half moon.  How the  heck it changed so fast from a full moon to a three quarter moon I suppose but so shriveled now it looks like a half moon.  But it was very golden in color.    I guess September 9 will be the next full moon to be considered super.  Hopefully, there will be no cloud cover.

I am placing photos I took of the mess that was at my doorstep last night and this morning. I put the cardboard boxes down so that i could walk out to the courtyard.  It was such a mess since it had rained as well.  I did not want to get concrete or plaster onto my carpet.  Fortunately, Kelly did come by to take a look, and I made my complaints.  She came before I put the cardboard down. All I had when she was here was one plastic sheeting and one bedroom sheet.  Later in the morning, one of the maintenance crew did come to clean up the mess, pick it up and took the cardboard boxes away as well.  Finally, by late afternoon, it began to look like normal so we could all feel a bit more comfortable.  I threw a bitch about it but it got things done.  I was furious.  I thought it was insulting.

The worst imaginable has happened.

Tonight I watched Rush, a movie made by Ron Howard, about a pair of racing stars in the 70's.  It is a great movie telling the story of Niki Lauda and James Hunt, two competitors in the 70's, one a Brit, and the other an Austrian, who were both vying for competition as the world's champion race drivers.  

My knowledge of race car drivers is limited but there are many jokes about them. I did know a woman who was enamored with drivers of funny cars in California.  She was smitten with a driver and to some extent because of her, I learned a little about the racing world.  It has frankly never appealed to me, because i think that driving in circles round and round is worse than watching some old 78 play on your record player.  No fun for me.  But for some reason or other, it attracts a crowd. I have actually gone to one race to see cars in action, in Ontario probably, but still it did not turn me on at all.

So I watched the movie and really did like it. It is a good story, enthralling as can be, because it does focus on the special skills and talents of those who are crazy enough to participate in it.  Niki Lauda initially has an altercation with a playboy driver from England, James Hunt.  Niki spins out and that is how and when the story begins.

So tonight by accident or design, a sprint car Nascar driver, Kevin Ward, jr. , had the very same thing happen to him.  A champion driver name of Tony Stewart apparently hit his car so he spun out, and then unfortunately, had the misfortune to get out of his car to go onto the track to point this finger at Stewart who then whether by accident or intent struck him with his car.  Stewart's car did swerve then after he hit him, and people then rushed to Kevin Ward, jrs. side to help him.  He was pronounced dead on arrival at the hospital I just read.

Imagine seeing this movie, and getting through the horrors of it as it is a movie with a dreadful message about the safety of drivers and the danger in the game,  we now are treated to a real life story of hit and kill accident.  It has bothered me ever since I learned of it so that I had to finally say something about it.  A driver's worse nightmare coming true.

You see Kevin getting out of his car to be alive and well and angry.  Then you see how quickly it can all change.  Just like that, he is struck down and all life gone from him.  It is horrifying.

I feel sorry for all the participants, especially Tony Stewart. I do not know what kind of therapy it will take to get him back to normal life again...probably may never happen.

The movie addressed the problem when Niki was seriously injured in an accident that James Hunt caused to happen as well.  But at least in the film, the two men are able to settle the situation in a way that kept them friends.

How does one deal with death?  I wonder how Stewart will handle this, and fans and friends as well.
 I just cannot fully appreciate this strange and eerie coincidence of finally seeing Rush and then to learn of this terrible spinout that resulted in death on the same night.  Unbelievable!

Jerry Ford popped up today.

I was in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida when the Nixon/Ford change came about.  I really do not want to spend too much time on this piece of history which affects me too much. I used to say we changed presidents as quickly as I changed car license plates...It was true at that time.

But briefly, a quick review of the times past in which I paid little attention to the ongoing drama in the White House which made stars out of some nobodies very quickly.

We had always been told at Gladstone when I was an English/Journalism teacher there that we might be teaching a president of the United States. Little did we know that maybe we really were.

I was then  a member of the League of Women Voters who were introduced to me by a fellow faculty member, and through them, I learned some very interesting facts that were relayed to me.  I held membership in some group organized for better government.  But I was not politically involved in party politics, and frankly, did not give a hoot about politics at all.  I was too busy working, doing my job, to pay much attention to the problems of government.  We had gone through the Viet Nam War which took up a lot of interest but I just avoided politics as much as anyone could.  So I never followed the Watergate debacle except to only be slightly aware that it was a thorn in someone's side.

So I do not intend to relive those days at this time since they were pretty emotionally difficult for me then as well. I had my own problems to solve.  In 1970  I had flown back to Michigan to see my dad who had been diagnosed with cancer, and at that particular time, my brother's wife had just given birth to her firstborn son.  I have always had a love/hate relationship with my dad so that the thought that he might die did prompt me to return to see him while he was still alive.  He survived well enough after that, and it was then that I met my nephew for the first time as a newborn. He was an adorable baby and my brother and his wife were so happy and proud of him.

I returned then to California under great emotional stress, and then learned that one of my journalism students had gone beyond and over the top so that I had to stop the presses, kill a story, and get the newspaper back on the right track.

So I was stressed out, and I had just turned 31 years old then.  Too young to be overworked, under loved, and underpaid.  But so it goes.  That is the state of affairs in that time period.

Nixon was clearly enjoying his term in office despite all the cries to get us out of Viet Nam.  I paid him little attention.  My concerns were the classes that I taught, the groups I sponsored, and the new apartment I had moved into.

That is a topic for a separate entry too because this had begun with the thought that Nixon bowed out and Ford rushed in.  I was in Florida then, having left California behind, again a story for another entry.

But on the day that Ford became the new guy in the White House I was having my Cougar serviced in a garage.  I came home from the service station to find the sheriff from New Jersey grilling food on the outdoor barbecue grill. I went over to talk to him to ask if I could use it with him which he willingly let me do.  He was a very nice man from Asbury Park, NJ, whose wife was a deaf mute, and who was warm and friendly to me.  I remember that  so much as the day that Ford  became the successor to Richard Nixon.

Support your local sheriff!  I can't help but wonder at men who marry women who have physical handicaps.  But he was a sweetheart to me.  That was the year that Cannonade won the Kentucky Derby, the 100th running.    Strange, isn't it, the things we remember from 1974.  My second nephew was born only a few days later on the 21st.  A long time ago!  Weird how this story became one of remembering my nephew's births.

Now they both have their own families...

Both Richard Nixon and Jerry Ford are gone and nearly forgotten.

And while on the subject of presidents, I will add this onto this post for no particular reason except that I want to put it here. I learned that it was Douglas MacArthur who is the cause for the Purple Heart in modern times.  I learned a bit about its history the other day which I had not known.  I remember how Truman and MacArthur had a big battle.  Now I have to reconsider everything that I think or have thought about  both of them.

Life goes on.  Gee, if ever we knew the truth about any of these political characters we might be slower to draw judgement calls and conclusions about them.  It takes time to learn that we know only a little bit when so much more is to be known.