Tag Archives: story

Against All Odds and Ends

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On a day like today, when tomorrow is predictable but unknown, surveying the rural landscape, fully or partially detached from cyberspace, seems more likeable than running a business on virtual land.

There are plenty of people and businesses to thank for welcoming my friendship and patronage but they will wait.

Balancing the location of one’s thought set is a perception, rather than a reality, resting on one side or the other of the verb, “to be.”

One may say one lives north or south of Birmingham, which may mean near an urban area in the U.S. state of Alabama, or the West Midlands county/conurbation of England.

Let us say we live somewhere and can sync our thought sets here whenever we wish, not precisely knowing everything about the universe in which we live but we’re willing to learn.

In other words, today is family time, with physical interface between people the key function, warmth of the Sun on our faces as real and simple as it needs to get, leaving the tools to blog behind us and out of sight, memories shared in voices and touch rather than text and tagged photos — some history lives in our thoughts only and for that privilege (quiet, unrecorded [down]time spent with family), I am most thankful.

Foam Bow Tie

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Would you wager a bet — your life’s savings — to support a project that produced ten results, only one of which was successful, a 10% success rate?

The ROI for your wager is your name and your family’s names on a plaque.

The plaque is attached to a landing craft.

The adult travelers inside the craft all die.

The eggs and embryos survive, grow and carve out a niche in the new landscape, the mini-ecosystem of the landing craft, unable to decipher, let alone pronounce the names on the plaque.

But former inhabitants of Earth have found a way to live on another celestial sphere.

That, alone, was the accomplishment of this current millennial-long civilisation we propagate and perpetuate.

More than any other civilisation before ours.

More than any other species or ecosystem.

The sole goal of life, to reproduce itself in whatever form the environment will tolerate in the eat-and-be-eaten cycle of life.

What if we sent that one-out-of-ten-success craft in a few decades from now, achieving the goal by slowing down global consumption of raw materials for a short period — several years, a couple of decades — until we jumped back into our fast dash for the latest gizmos, gadgets, family gatherings and after-hours parties?

Sure, pretty much most of us will keep supporting the rise and fall of family fortunes, business empires and geopolitical zones (a/k/a governments), because only a few lucky souls will qualify for climbing aboard the ten launch vehicles and only one craft will carry our species’ passengers all the way to another planetary body, acting as couriers.

The survivors of the craft will exist as if they live in a parallel universe, unaware of our continued great accomplishments on Earth:

  • Our medical breakthroughs, such as the extension of a healthy person’s life into a third century of high-quality daily activities.
  • Our flying cars, floating cities and other dreams of days gone by fully realised.
  • Totally-connected thought patterns via new technology, letting those who want no privacy or have no secrets to hide to join the Hive and move our species forward/backward/sideways as one.

Our civilisation will go on for countless decades, business cycles and climate changes, prospering in the ebb and flow of new ideas that counter prevailing ideas.

Optimists and pessimists will support or deny the direction we take, without fail.

In the interim, our celestial cousins are recreating the paradise of Earth elsewhere.

You and I will never know with certainty whether our actions contribute most to the growth of life off this planet or life on this planet, regardless of the perceived benefit/detriment of our actions in the moment.

We are who we are, doing what we do to enhance our survival within the social net we’ve spread over Earth, extending tiny threads outward into space, just in case this net eventually collapses.

We can be plumbers, fashion designers, mechanics, midlevel managers, lab techs, airplane pilots, business angels or primary school students.

We create futures we see and futures we cannot imagine possible.

We may solve mathematical conundrums at age 15 or not be able to balance a checkbook, or both.

But we will find a way to move Earth-based lifeforms, including synthetic beings designed for harsh conditions on other worlds, into and out of our solar system.

The Voyager spacecraft series is one example.

The Beagle 2 is another.

So, too, Venera 9.

Is one of those or a new craft the single container that harbours beings which will adjust to their new environment and thrive?

Would a recent university graduate with a mathematics major be the one who makes a difference in which craft is the one that represents our achievements up to a point in time on Earth but for millions of years later on a different planet?

There’s only one way to find out — live in the moment with an eye on the future, using the collective wisdom of your [sub]culture as a guide, trusting your instincts to know which elders are the ones with you, your subculture, and the future of your species in their best interests.

Don’t forget to have fun.  Wear a giant foam bow tie to a corporate board meeting, your wedding or your child’s secondary school graduation ceremony.

Ever wonder…

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…why we spend billions/trillions of dollars on drone killing [alleged] members of al Qaeda in Pakistan, Yemen and Afghanistan, who are responsible, at most, for a few thousand dead one time in the U.S. (and a few billion dollars in [re]construction costs) but we seem to make no effort, on any advertised regular basis, to drone kill those in Mexico and other countries south of the U.S. border who are responsible for the loss of thousands of U.S. lives yearly and billions upon billions of dollars in lost wages, sick leave, hospital healthcare costs, and untimely early deaths due to the [illicit] drug trade?

…why Ray Bradbury waited until the day after the Venus transit to die?

…why species migration/extinction is “bad” rather than par for the course in Earth’s history? [assuming, for the sake of this argument, we are no more important a species on this planet than any other]

…why we aren’t working faster to build an Ark to set up alternative colonies on the Moon and Mars?

…why block-shaped rooms are popular forms of internal living habitats for many of us, when our bodies are not block-shaped?

…why a government that tries to stabilise the population for the sake of the leaders and the leaders’ supporters by controlling what people can and can’t say in public discourse is considered censorship but no government is great/strong enough to stop the Sun from shining?

…why we have to make sense at all when all civilisations are bound to fail, no matter how civilised we tried [not] to be to each other as one generation followed another into history?

…why three dots indicate [a lack of] continuity?

…why we spend so much time and money on blogs and other avenues of entertainment like these in the moments of idle distraction between the times we need to eat, sleep, and protect ourselves from inclement weather, instead of doing something else?

…why “why” is “why” and not some other word, sound, or set of states of energy to question why?

…why the Wandering Wondering meditates?

Are you a Venusian or Venetian by trade? Surely not Vitruvian!

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Yesterday, as a temporary volunteer to help the Von Braun Astronomical Society promote the joy of observing the cosmos (in this case, seeing the silhouette of the transit of Venus across the surface of our local star), I observed us.

By the hundreds.

Young, single men and women.  Families.  Divorcees.  Single moms.  Weekend dads.  Widow(er)s.

Dressed in business clothes and casual summer attire.

Using solar filtered, paper framed glasses to look at the tiny orange ball heating the air and ground around us, squinting to see the even tinier black dot traversing the surface.

Thank goodness we had telescopes a-plenty and a video broadcast to the nearby big screen TV to share larger images of the planetary alignment.  A tabletop sun magnifier that showed sunspots on a piece of paper.

Jeff, Debbie and other VBAS volunteers were wonderful.  The teacher who dropped off 50 paper solar glasses we thank, too.  The folks at the Davidson Center on the grounds of the US Space & Rocket Center performed their usual duties flawlessly.

Hopefully, a few young people were inspired to pursue a career in science, technology, engineering and/or math, applying future skills one day in areas as diverse as sewer/chemical remediation and planetary exploration.

I hope it inspires someone to create a kid-safe high-powered telescope because telling children, “No!  Don’t touch the telescope!,” “Don’t lean on the table!,” and “Don’t point those binoculars at the Sun!” probably turned some children off from the fun of looking at stars, galaxies and planets at night rather than grabbing their easily-acceptable, childproof video gaming equipment.

A nod to local news broadcast crews for their remote setups to help promote the Venus transit event.  Without your interest and time on the air, many not have known what was going on — education is a culturewide participatory subject.

Have you received a call from 600-233-1234?

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Telephones — landline, mobile — are useful means of getting/receiving information.

Received a call from 600-233-1234, performed a quick Internet search and found the following interesting tidbits.  Useful?  You make the call:

27 Jan 2012
This telephone number is associated with http://www.creditcardsupport.net

Whois results indicate creditcardsupport.net was registered in Pakistan by the administrator of this email address: faraz@pakcct.com

Whois results for http://pakcct.com returned this information:
Administrative Contact:
Ali, Murad murad@dialer4rent.com
EDT Systems INC
3604 Flagstone Dr
Carrollton, Texas 75007
United States
(972) 394-1165 Fax — (972) 394-9128

The pakcct.com website also indicates that it was designed and operated by Umair Ali and links to his personal website: http://umairali.com

Whois results for http://umairali.com/ returned this information:
Administrative Contact:
Plasticwala, Murad murad@dialer4rent.com
EDT Systems INC
3604 Flagstone Dr
Carrollton, Texas 75007
United States
(972) 394-1165 Fax — (972) 394-9128

*Note: Same address

Umair Ali has listed his personal phone number on his website: (469) 892-8637. This phone number is a google voice account which links to his carrier phone number (New Cingular Wireless Pcs) which is (214) 738-6247.

*Note: The caller from 403-255-8807 had previously identified himself as ‘Umair’

We called (214) 738-6247 and the individual that answered the phone was the same caller that tried to steal our credit card information and while panicking accidentally divulged information regarding another scam involving some type of tickets.

*All this information is available publicly*

The New, Reformed Catholic Church for Modern Women

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I guess we knew it was coming sooner or later.

Today, the organisation, Our Lady for the Reformation of Male-Led Religion, announced its official split from the Roman Catholic Church.

Nunneries around the world are holding secret ballots to vote on whether to stay with the Roman Catholic Church or join Our Lady for the Reformation of Male-Led Religion.

Meanwhile, a spokesperson for Our Lady for the Reformation of Male-Led Religion has hinted that a later announcement of a name change, possibly to the Rowomyn Catholic Church, may be possible, off the record, of course.

The Vatican has flatly denied the right of Our Lady for the Reformation of Male-Led Religion to leave the Church, citing multiple traditions, as well as possible passages in the Good Book, itself, as valid reasons why women must continue to submit to the biggest, original Male-Led Religion of them all, for now and for eternity.

The leader of Priests for Equal Pay would neither confirm nor deny whether Priests for Equal Pay were in support of nuns asking for equal religious leader positions in the Church.

Rumours spread that the rise of Our Lady for the Reformation of Male-Led Religion has increased mumblings within Islam of women seeking equal job status in the religious leadership positions of mosques and, given time, being restored to the ancient roles of gender-neutral imams again.

The European Central Bank announced that these recent events have no bearing on the decision to lean on the Vatican’s vast stores of wealth to pull Europe from the brink of disaster and return Catholicism to its primary role as a healing force in modern economic policies.

When asked for ‘is opinion, Fidel Castro held up a cigar and say, “This is for you, Señor Richard Dawson.”

Bury the Curmudgeon, not the Man

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In business, as well as real life, we make decisions based on evidential test results.

In real life, we made decisions based on opinions, dreams, imaginations and occasionally facts.

So it is with grieving the loss of my father in the rest of my natural life.

He lives on here — in recorded memories and anecdotes, photos and videos, audio files and books — the cybersphere.

I mentally cried in my thoughts up until yesterday, making it…oh, about two and a half weeks of heart-wrenching solace and mourning.

Now, I live with him as a reminder, a silent, unspeaking totem on an imaginary column standing invisibly behind me.

The good and the bad, the kind-hearted elder and the stern disciplinarian wrapped in fading memories.

In other words, I personify the genetic and nurturing elements of a man toward his son, his eldest child.

My father’s influence upon others started at his birth, with most, if not all, who nurtured him now gone, too.  His best friend of 73 years still lives, his neighbourhood playmate, classroom buddy and adult confidant.  His wife of 55+ years — my mother — is quite much alive, although in mental pain as she reconciles the loss of a dear friend and husband, the father of her children.

I am no longer a child.  Bigger problems than the loss of a parent push in on my thoughts but they are not more important.

How do we tell readers that the situation in Syria is merely a place for the national production of weaponry to turn a tidy profit, loss of lives a necessary component of the process?

There’s always some hotbed of violence we can use to our species’ economic advantage.  More people die from person-to-person combat between people who know each other — gunshots, knife stabbings, choking, burning, poisoning — than all terrorist attacks combined.

After all, “terrorist” is a label we reserve for “them,” not amongst ourselves.

The brother who stabs me is not a terrorist — he’s just a close relative with an anger management issue and a drinking problem — unless he gets the attention of the media ahead of time and becomes notorious, shooting off his mouth about socially-unacceptable concepts and ideals.

But we know all that already.  New crops of journalists, editors and publishers seem not to — they just as easily fall prey to the idea of perpetuating extremist thinking for a profit that also divides the political opinions of the majority of Americans, for instance.

Anyway, I digress.

After a discussion with the Committee, I’ve decided to share with you more of the products coming out of our laboratory and into a grocer’s market near you:

  • DNA tracking devices disguised as cereal flakes and coffee beans/grounds
  • Chemical hypnotic material mixed into charcoal briquets that are released at high temperature, used at backyard BBQ events to turn whole crowds into well-organised mobs when the need arises
  • Bacteria in ice cream and other products in the frozen goods department that activate at body temperature, lodging in people’s bodies at strategic locations; can be turned into cancerous growths with a certain level of mobile phone radio signal strength exposure.

Well, that’s all for now.  The use of comic literary devices is all about timing.  We’ll save the rest of the items for a more perfect moment.

Happy eating!

Do not combine “6,” “four”, “nineteen,”eighty,” and “9” together in one sentence

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With only 13,850 days to go until the next major milestone is reached (there, of course, are bonuses should we complete any of the many minor assignments for the milestone ahead of time), let us look at the theories of the day and ponder their implications…

In previous decades, we could ruin the reputation of guns-for-hire or “secret agents” by outing them — exposing their homosexual trysts/relationships through a mass media leak.

Times have changed.

It takes more than outing a spy to turn the spy into a criminal.

These days, we have to claim the operative is a cannibal.

Hey, go with the flow.  If zombie films and zombie apocalypse shows on the tellie are popular, then take advantage of the zeitgeist and make spies zombies amongst us.

That’s why we turned a “Canadian” agent into a flesh-carving and eating zombie.

It would have been a lot easier to send photos of him with his Chinese boyfriend, a double agent himself, to a television talking head but *YAWN* the producers would have said, “So what?,” and parked the pics in the morgue.

Instead, hire a body-double, stage an Internet viral video or two, send a few body parts to government offices and next thing you know you’ve turned a useless rogue agent into a grotesque mockery of a good cover story of a porn star trying to infiltrate the snuff film industry.

Thing is, we in the government are a little short of cash right now.  Anyone want to buy the film rights to this soon-to-be blockbuster quadrilogy that makes the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo look like a baby’s bedtime story?

James Bond may like fisticuffs but our new fictional psychopathic agent will do whatever it takes, including consuming his victims, to serve Queen and Country.

“O Canada, we stand on guard, we stand on guard for thee…”

Meanwhile, in a test of the possible terrorist spread of tropical disease (Chagas, etc.), we released genetically-modified bedbugs into luggage traveling through busy airports — Denver, Munich, Beijing, and Moscow (we tried London but their security is locked down tight ahead of the Queen’s rainy reign anniversary and the 2012 Olympics).

We tracked the bugs, which are invisible, pure black boxes, under UV and infrared light, only visible through the radiation detectors installed in popular mobile phones, to see how reasonable to believe such a terrorist threat could be.

Strangely enough, we’ve caused a quiet epidemic of dandruff.

Ahh…the unintended effects of a fielded theoretical experiment.

We don’t dare tell you what happened to the irradiated fibers we placed in bus and train seats last year…

Oh, I’m back in the saddle again…

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Amazing, what a few days mean in the life of one species.

Part of the annual cycle of life here locally, for instance — the little “sugar” ants have found their way into our kitchen sink like clockwork.

And who says astrology doesn’t work — why, the Earth’s position around the Sun is directly connected to these ants before me.

And the Moon-influenced tides…well, I’m sure if I traced the ecosystem connections I could find the tidal pools in the Gulf of Mexico have an indirect influence on the movement of species in and around this domicile.

Not sure about Venus aligning with Earth’s view of its transit across the face of the Sun, though.

But hey?  I’m just a bigger ant on this planet.  What do I know?

Pop music flows through my thoughts today, from this century and centuries past.

Dreams have flowed through my subconscious thoughts, dreams that center on my dead father and his last two months in a variety of healthcare facilities.  Just another shot.  How about one more day with him?  Have we considered this experimental treatment?  Or that one?  Were there any unkind words I said through the years that weighed down his thoughts in his last days?  Did he feel I neglected him recently?

Part of the healing process, no doubt.

A new crossroads in the road in front of me — I can choose “Happiness,” “Depression,” “Anger,” “Denial,” “Remorse,” “Regret,” or the one I plan to take, “Unknown.”

A bit overgrown.  Underused.  Neglected.  Quiet.  Secluded.

In other words, the usual path of mine.

Wandering in and out of the actions of my species.  You, me, us, as usual.

Synching back to my self’s syncopated rhythms, out of step and in tune with our social changes, our connections with the universe at large.

Thinking my thoughts, no matter how strange, weird or normal they may be, sharing a few of them here.

Conforming to (staying within the parameters set by) local laws to preserve my relative freedom from conformity.

Letting subcultures be — live and let live.

Competing in the marketplace of ideas when I feel like going up against adverts of marketing machines blaring deafening sounds and spouting subliminal messages.

So many stories to be told, like the young lady whose [great]grandparents’ home in Hamilton has been transformed for a new generation of nonfamilial owners.  Sound familiar?

Or watching the tiny facial twitches on the President when he gave a[n election season] speech for the unveiling of a previous President’s portrait.  How easy is it for you to be a mind reader then and predict the future?

We learn a lot when we learn alot about Camelot on the backstage lot.

Do kids still learn to type “These are the times that try men’s souls“?

Is there proper thumb-typing body posture or mobile phone use etiquette taught in schools these days?

When technology moves faster than generational education cycles, what is a generational education cycle for, that period of time we stop children from performing manual labour and coerce them into classroom settings between ages 4 and 24, just to watch many of them drop out of the cycle to return to ageless, aging manual labour practices?

In the days when everyone is more equal to everyone else than ever before, is it still safe to refer to the peasant class even where literacy rates are a nonissue and people still want to get their hands on simple, low-paying, physically laborious work, no matter how many memes float through their language-filled thoughts?

How [un]important are the economies of geopolitical zones we call countries like Italy, Greece, Portugal, Spain, and Ireland to the global economy at large?  What if we let them deteriorate into complete chaos?  Can we not wait to see the phoenix that rises from the ashes or are we too afraid to risk our investment portfolios to find out?

Why am I sitting here instead of enjoying the pleasant weather outside?

A-ha!  Finally, a question I can answer.  Time to close down this laptop and invite mosquitoes to savour the flavour of the blood-filled organ called my skin.

And remember: a fine, country dinner shared with David and Evelyn in their house overlooking a forested creek; pulling out bushes with David, Melinda, Melinda’s father and John; sorting through family memorabilia with Dan and Fay; Robbie, Aaron, and Christopher at the Rave; Martha at Carson’s Grille; Rogersville Produce Market; Debra, Pat and Veronica at Hales Spring Inn; Pals #13; Oh Henry’s; my blog-connected friends, and more…

Taking a break from blogging this week

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I want to contemplate the universe silently, listen to the sounds of our planet, and investigate the possibilities of “broken heart” syndrome (the feeling of uselessness that job loss and lessening family responsibilities may have played in my father’s untimely death).

I’ll be back next week sometime.

Congrats to SpaceX on completing the ISS resupply mission successfully.  Won’t be long before they can transport people into orbital vehicles, eh, Mr. Bigelow?

Blog correction: thanks to a reader for pointing out that it wasn’t an Armitron, it was a Casio watch I once owned that squeaked several musical phrases as alarms.

Will keep viewing the dozens of blogs I follow to see how Earth influences our species’ actions in cyberspace.