Friday, December 30, 2011

growing pains

Growing up from a child to an adult, what does that mean exactly. I never knew in any cohesive terms, just small views here and there and then back into whatever oblivion I had chosen or been offered to lessen the pain of moving from one moment to the next. I had little cognitive idea what my place in our society was supposed to be. I had very little ability to connect the points of my life to the next.

There are some who say we are all in the same boat and that is true, we are all in this together, but also say we must each honor the differences in each of our life's experiences or we will learn little, just continuing to think that everyone's experiences are the same, assuming conditions that are not necessarily true for others. We can not assume that if you have the will to do something, you can because there are people out there who can't get that done, do to physical or mental or other limitations. There are those out there that have overcome their limitations, but they are the exceptions not the rule.

There are plenty of us out here who have had many opportunities to cease to exist, many times that we have or should have, yet here we are and why? That's a big question. There are small adjustments that I continue to make and I am learning still which is a good thing. If I don't learn as I go, I won't be able to lead along this path.  Leading is something I discovered about myself. I have determined that I am a leader not a follower. Each of us as individuals is capable of many things. We share many traits and our up bringing determines much of who we are to become. I had glimpses of who I was going to be. Others couldn't envision a future for me other than as a trouble maker or someone who was going to end up at the bottom of the pile. I have been at the bottom and I have been high on the ladder. Now I am just trying to record all of my experiences so that I too can leave a small imprint for just a moment in time.



We will all turn to dust and then our sun in some many thousands of years with grow to a large red giant and engulf all the planets in our solar system and even our foot prints will be swallowed up into oblivion! Of course, we will be long gone in our lives and our children's children's children, unknown whether they will even survive our inconsistencies to leap off this planet. The size of all existences is to large to imagine for most of us. Thinking of all the energy sources beyond our planet, our solar system, our galaxy, our universe. Such heady words, probably beyond our comprehension. I tremble trying to think of how insignificant I am in this ever expanding train of thinking! Wow, I've certainly experienced my share of growing pains and now it is time to bring my mind back to earth and think of being in the moment. This drip, drip drip existence that I am experiencing. That we are all plodding through.

Sunday, December 25, 2011

Another end, Another beginning!

So many drips have passed before my eyes. They have filled many pools. Some of them are in the cool hard porecelin of the bath tub, some of them in cool clear mountain streams. It is hard to recollect all the drips of time as one tries to once they have formed pools.

Looking at a pool gives thought of reflection if it is still, if we can be still. Sitting to the side, the front or whatever location. On a rock or on the element of the dirt or leaning on a tree. Finding that stillness is my choice, our choice. Piling our stillness into the last few days of a year is over whelming. Over the top. Making that choice of doing it all in one moment is over whelming. We don't have to choose this pool over all the drips.

Music is flooding over me as I sit here, cooling from sitting in my resin based pool of hot to warm water, now air, turning much of my energy inward. Reflecting on much, getting ready for more. There is always more until there is no more, at least in this reality of dripping moments.

Monday, August 15, 2011

I still haven't found the solution to my blog going to face book notes

I am still baffled by my blog showing up on my Face Book notes. I wanted it to link at some point and now I am thinking I may not. Of course, 6 of 1, 1/2 dz of the other. Why should I care?

On another note my pal Dan had a big cortisone shot in his hip today with the big needle. I have my own little medical episode to report on too.

I have been feeling this discomfort in my chest for about 3 weeks. Actually, I don't know exactly how long its been, but for some time. So the other day I got call from work about my health insurance that is a 10 month policy, but I worked 80 hours in July, so they wanted to know if I wanted to pay my part of the premium, about $35 for Aug. and I did. So back to my little chest pain. I looked on the web at the kp.org site to see if I could make an appointment etc. but determined I would just ride my bike the couple of miles or 3 down there and go to urgent care. When a 61 year old guy goes to a hospital and tells them he has been having chest discomfort for about 3 weeks, they busy fast. I have to keep reminding myself I am 61 and putting into a figure 61 helps me to realize I am talking about myself. One word, Gastritis!

That diagnosis came after I got all the tests. And they were quiet surprised when I told them I rode my bike to the hospital. I kept my sense of humor when they tried to find my veins for various needles using the nurse in training. I told when you put it in and if you miss, don't spend to much time hunting around in there or likely to get a black eye from my right hand! I told her I was not serious about the black eye, but serious about hunting. The full fledged nurse had to help out. She had x-ray eyes and found it without withdrawing it. They poked me 3 times with needles and the CT scan, whoa! Had my ECG taken and that was pretty good, but the doctor wanted to make sure and the CT scan was sci-fi all the way. Considering that I watched Blade Runner last night and some other sci-fi last night, well what do you expect?

They gave me about 300 years of radiation, that is 300 years of going out in the sun every day for that period of time is how the doctor described it. That means I've had about 500 years now of radiation along with my regular daily doses. This CT scan was different than the one I had 4 years ago. They put iodine into my veins 4 contrast so they could get a better idea about my heart the arteries. The iodine for all you folks that have not had it is like drinking really hot chocolate. They described it as feeling like wetting you pant, warm urine or something. I just think that description was from some folks who have a limited imagination. So, you drink this really hot chocolate, but it's not to hot. It warmed up my throat, I could feel it in my chest, warm from the inside out. My hands broke into a sweat, warm, like sitting in a hot tub, every part of my body lit up like the 4th of July for about 10 seconds and they did it 2 times. They shot me without it one time for a normal scan. I asked the tech and she said that women have described it kind of like the hot flashes they get at the change of life. So, that was it. Spent about 3.5 hours in the hospital getting poked, prodded and scanned all the while on O2 which really didn't do anything other than keep me a little bit away, not like when I had carbon monoxide poisoning and they gave be big does of 02.

Reading the paper work they gave to me after I left the hospital, I see that I am supposed to be taking Omeprazole and probably could have purchased it at Kaiser but didn't read the paper work until I got home. It is now 10 past 8 pm and I think I need to drive to the store. I don't like riding my bike on main streets or at dusk that much. I need to get some of this and some of that. I think I should get something for dinner. Life, what a long strange trip its been....

Sunday, August 14, 2011

test, test this is a test!

I'm writing this because what I have been writing is showing up on my face book notes. i have nothing linking to face book at blogger or face book. If this publishes to my notes on face book I will still have to find out why and ask someone some pointed questions.

Good Grief Charlie Brown politicians are dancing all around the issues.....


Politicians are trying to please the greatest number of people possible and therefore can not bring themselves to answer questions directly fearing they will drive numbers of people away from their plans on being re-elected. Effectively, Politicians=Liars!

I am like many of my fellow Americans are so tired of the superstar status we seem to place on our politicians, that they are omnipotent in their office, but our government is supposed to be about coming together, letting go of the differences and finding solutions to our common goals. Quite frankly, I am tired of the blaming, the corporations not paying a proportional share representative of the share I pay in taxes. I am tired of hearing of CEO's that are making 300 times the wage of the majority of their employees which when talked about in real figures is like $50,000 per day! This is outrageous! I would be very comfortable making $50,000 a year and there are people making this per day? The greed has surpassed anything reasonable and the business model that these folks keep trying to shove down our throats is completely unrealistic! The question is, "What are we willing to do to make changes?" Apparently, nothing and so it continues.

It is obvious to me that although, many corporations say they can regulate themselves it is obvious they are still under the impression that we believe them. That relatively recent adage that if we tell people something even if it isn't true enough times, eventually they will believe it. Apparently, there is still a large group of Americans that is still offering that line of thinking up and that is the main stream press! The main stream press is a contradiction, a conflict of interest and it is questionable if they can represent the news without bias since they are controlled by corporations!

Again, I just heard a "journalist" say that Obama's administration has racked up the greatest debt this country has ever seen. This debt we are in has been being created for several decades starting with tax rollbacks for the rich and corporations. Remember the term trickle down economics? Well that is part of the problem and different politicians have a certain level of denial about what the issues are for the American People.

There is a large contingent of my fellow Americans who have turned a corner and are working on local. Live locally because the country has got to be to big and corporations have come to be to big, so what do we do? Withhold our consuming of large corporate products that are effectively unregulated by people who don't have the same values as some of us and who tell us they do. Good Grief Charlie Brown!

Saturday, August 13, 2011

Something I meant to post in the previous post.

Carlos Santana said in an interview that all he wanted to do since he was a little boy was play the guitar and that is what he focused on, that there were no distractions for him.

I lived in the another world with nothing but distractions. However through the frustrations of my distracted mind, through the distraction of people who would not listen to my concerns growing up was spawned a level of writing helping to relieve some of my frustrations. This is a part of my story of why I have had multitudes of jobs, careers, girlfriends, fights, discontent, drug addiction and still managed to survive in as world that treated me like I didn’t belong, that cast me out so far that I assumed the role of outcast, the crazy boy, the bad boy, because it was so much easier to fill a ready made category than try and get them to think outside of the box where all my thinking took place in the 1950’s, ‘60’s and 1970’s. Although this is part of an introduction to my own book, you may come across some familiar sentences or ideas because.I have almost always had a tendency to repeat some things since I struggle to recall what even I have said or written.

Imagine sitting in the kitchen and my mom is cooking lunch. I’m 4 years old and she is cooking soup on the gas stove; it smells so good! The weather outside is a cloudy, blustery and cold day, she is wearing an apron with a check pattern; there is a fly going in circles around the light fixture attached to the ceiling and a draft is coming in under the kitchen door that goes down the back stairs to the garden, the wind is making a sound that reminds me of Halloween. My older sister, Margaret is at school and won’t be home until 2pm. Instead of walking home from school, she will be taking the bus because of the weather. Hot soup weather!

It’s ready and she brings the bowl to the table, beef alphabet with little pieces of beef, carrots, green beans, peas, noodles in the shape of numbers and letters of the alphabet. The soup is hot and steaming! All those ingredients floating around in there, ummm. Well the soup bowl is my brain. Information comes in and floats around in there and when I want to retrieve it, I have some trouble doing so because I grab at bits that have no standard place to live, they just swirl around in the bowl, following an order I don’t have a clue about.

I am working on my book but all of my distractions are.....

I have been working on my book since I decided to write one 2004. I am a little superstitious about talking about it or excepts from it, but I have to share something about it, because I contend with a high level of distractions every day and I think they come out more because of old behavior patterns that were instilled in me in the past. I have a self destruction gene or programing that rears it's head especially when I try and organize my thoughts or accomplish something important. Many of my old feelings surface, low self esteem, which translates into very negative thoughts from the past.


I have been trying to live my life now for about 11 years with the knowledge that I have forms of ADD and perhaps TBI. These are serious challenges that have kept me from leading a more normal life, yet are not readily detectable by others except when I act out in a negative way. I have been reading some books on ADD/ADHD by a couple of authors and a little on stroke, but have been writing journals etc. for a long long time to deal with my frustrations on functioning in a world that emphasizes individuals yet when someone such as me comes along fails often to reach us, to seek what it is that makes our individualism and fails to help us with our assets. What society has always done with me is tried to change me to fit into preexisting categories which requires changes to my make up that doesn't allow me to pursue my own assets with my own abilities. I don't know if this makes any sense. It is my way of attempting to clear my thoughts so I can get back into my own manuscript.

It seems I have spent my life trying to find my path and my path keeps coming back over and over, starting over and over. My path has to do with communication and truth, integrity and honor. I have taken the long way around to come to this conclusion often blinded by frustration and anger because there has been few people who were willing to listen to words that I use to attempt to describe who I am what I am about. Writing is a way to get the words out, to calm myself, because we all need to find our focus, our center, our peace. It is becoming more and more apparent that I need to continue on my path of pursuing my writing, my book. I'm encouraged by some books I've read that are small and have less than 200 pages because thinking of a book presents a library in my brain of all kinds of large impossible books that tend to daunt me into inactivity. The struggles I have, they are not the greatest or most painful struggles in the world, there are people with greater struggles, more pain, yet we each have a story. I am alive because of many factors. I tell newer friends I have checkered past because I have done many things that I am not proud of beyond the past 25 years. I have been making amends to myself and others this last 25 years and continue to struggle with how I feel, changing my patterns of behavior, doing what is right as opposed to self destructive life styles etc. At least now, I have had plenty of time to steer a different course, one that is not so self destructive, but it is still not the healthiest. I know what I need to do, but turning direction is hard to do with years of self doubt and shame etc. Details... I don't want to list things I've done. I want to get out of here and work on the piece. I came to clear my head and this is about as good as it get. Thanks to the universe for allowing my existence and pushing me to reach beyond my comfort zone.

Tuesday, August 9, 2011

When I was a young curious lad in North Los Altos, CA

When I was a young lad with my friends, we got into the basement of a house that was vacant at the end of a street that was a dead end. I remember Bay trees there. We got into the basement and it was stacked with magazines and newspapers and there were little pathways between them. It was dark, but we had lights and I found a Life Magazine from either 1921 or I recollect 1926 and in it were pictures that were taken of Lincoln's exhumation in 1901. I remember seeing a picture in that Life Magazine of Abraham Lincoln with coins on his eyes in his coffin. Now, I am looking on the web and I have found nothing to substantiate my memory of that day, that magazine. I am going to continue looking more, but it could be that someone made a decision to suppress that picture at some point along the way. I would have grabbed the magazine, but I did have a sense of right and wrong at the time. Of course, I think that month's later I found out they destroyed the house completely loosing all of those magazines to the land fill. They are probably decomposing under the Shoreline Amphitheater complex in Mt. View, CA.

Thursday, August 4, 2011

A poem by Wallace E. High about War!

I copied this text by Wallace E. High after reading it in the June 24, 2011 Street Roots, which I hadn't read until Aug. 3, 2011. I don't necessarily, am not starved for information that I have to read something right now, after purchase or getting a hold of such as free press. I like to let things rest before diving in sometimes.This week the Veterans for Peace and the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans Against War are having their National Conference in Portland.


This poem by Mr. Wallace E. High brings home to me the devastation of war. It makes me want to gather body parts in a bag, take them to those who would wage war, yet not be among those who were losing their lives and go to their palaces with their fine furnishings and place the bag of body parts, bleeding and discolored with death upon their tables of plenty. I have not lived through war in this lifetime, but that is not to say I don't have memories of carnage. My memories weigh heavy in the depths of my being. I wonder if those that promote war, read the accounts of war by those whom they have sent to it, who have returned, changed forever?


" I Am War" by

Wallace E. High


"I am war,
I am a living, breathing, beast,
Mercy I know it not,
My fuel is diesel and blood,
Bleak detritus of forceful men
Who once knew honor,
Who once knew love,
But power stole their souls.


I am war,
Unleashed bequeathed upon the earth
Where no segment lies untouched,
Carried by the winds of hastening
To escape the horror that stirs them,
That makes the cyclone a child's toy,
A mere puff from a lad's lips
Blowing at the dandelion's laces.


I am war,
I am a ravenous beyond sating,
Starving for destruction,
There is no justice here within
For there is not heart n this;
This is the madness of men,
Cruel beyond imagining,
Relentless in pursuit of death.


I am war,
I am brilliant in my scheming,
My intelligence soars soars seeking,
Leaping like a springbok
For meaner ways to erase
Memories of faces smiling,
Baby's tiny fingers grasping,
Laughing at daddy's nose.


I am war,
I am the master of waste
Making mothers pale and cry
For dying children torn from the breasts;
My breath comes of napalm blasts,
Clouds of sinister, seeping gases
That stifle feeble efforts at life
And turn good deeds to mockery


I am war,

I am a strident voice ringing
In cloistered halls where
Old men gather to vent their ire
With the lives of stalwart sons
And daughters directed to the fray
Beguiled and betrayed to stand
Before the maws of howitzers roaring.


I am war,
I am misery beyond reckoning,
The greedy grider hastening
The return to the earth of dust
Made of moldering bones
Strewn by deadly claymores leaping,
Blasting upward from concealment,
Scattered by jackals of the desert sands.


I am war,
I am relentless in my pursuits,
Making no distinction in the dying,
Man, woman, child or beast,
What care I where shrapnel flies'
Suffice to say I am here,
My history written in blood, darkly,
Learn form this, my child, and fight no
more”

Monday, August 1, 2011

I am consistently inconsistent

At least this is an attribute, there is a plus side to me that is not always obvious to me and if not to me, how to you?

I'm still driving a school bus here in Portland Oregon, except, not really because it is summer. I have pursued this way of earning a living now for almost 4 years and am looking at getting in with the regional transit agency. My age may play a part against me, but I am keeping a positive hopefulness and projecting that feeling outwards so that I may get an interview. I have also this last weekend cut and shaved off my long, can't remember the exact name of my type of beard that was 3 or 4 inches long in hopes of the whole feeling of being willing to go to lengths to make myself appear to be less gruff.

I really do love this blog, but there is just so much info available and I am working on other pieces not electronically on any media, but somewhere to get into the public eye through paper media. A friend of mine says I am looking always for a way to get something published to become established and at my advance age. It is a daunting task that is as much push and pull as any of my endeavors. Got to go, think I will attempt to come here more. :)

Friday, June 3, 2011

I know that face book is not the place to post my rants

I am disgusted with our society! Here we are living our lives, complaining about our lives or not and 1% of our population is off in countries chosen by our politicians fighting wars they are never going to win. Of course, the credo in that is we can't not fight or our fellows that have died will have died in vain. WAR! What is it good for? The wars we have been engaged in have plenty to do with our economy! They have to do with profits and companies such as Boeing Aerospace Corporation and making money for their share holders. This sucks! Boeing is not the only company that profits from a war economy. Many of the aerospace companies, the oil companies, and many more, to many to list are making money from WAR! Isn't it time we stood up and said no more. Sunny weather is here and there is nothing stopping us from massing in the streets and saying NO MORE WAR, fuckers!

the company I work for pretty well sucks.....

Every time our buses go out, the propane ones there is a huge sucking sound. Since propane is like having a V-6 running on 3 cylinders they suck a lot and give us little power to get out of our own way.

I finally broke down and applied for Tri-Met, but think that maybe they aren't biting my application. Maybe I have to know someone which is often the case when applying to some jobs. I just know that I need to work more, earn more. I am so tired of working part time and being hungry for work and having to deal with harassment from other workers who don't have a procedure, from the bosses down. You don't know about a procedure until you violate it because they don't want to be held accountable for having said anything. Some of the issues I have are "oh, we haven't paid for that in the past" My answer, page 32 or 34 of employee handbook that says "any work you perform that benefits the company shall be compensated" I printed the page and every time I do work that they don't pay for attach it to my pay sheet. And there is a system they use for electronic pre trips that is shaving time off of our sign on times. We have to pick up our pay and trip sheets and keys and this disputed and sign an attendence sheet and they give us 5 minutes to get to our buses and wand on there, but if you get there 6 minutes late, then you are late 6 minutes, even though you have already started working. This. job is taking and they want to take more. Our next contract negotiation is scheduled for June 13th. And of course the company wants to only pay us 1% for the first year and 0.05% the second year. That's down from 3% We have no leverage, since we have a no strike clause and our union officers are signing contract extentions without asking us what we want. Oh well, same union at Tri-Met and the union officers made these operators essential services back in maybe 2005 taking away their ability to go out on strike. Our Mar/Apr transit magazine reports on Toronto Government stripping transit operators in Canada of their right to strike calling it a set back to labor. Hello! drip, drip drip.

Sunday, May 22, 2011

a lot of drips under the bridge since last post

Well, it is all fluid. Been precipitating a lot here in the Pacific Northwest. It seems we have finally broken the cycle of all that and had some warmer dryer weather. I have been busy, to busy with my real world life and not really writing enough for myself. I have been busy with a group of other school bus drivers and looking up, down, across and throughout the web at info that is related to my working under a collective bargaining agreement. I have also applied finally for other work as summer is nearly here and school will be out soon which is the end of my lucrative contract as a contract school bus driver. My cynic is alive and well.

I have applied to the regional transit agency. No word yet since the posting does not expire until the 25th of May. I hope I get into the interview this time. Sometimes it seems I miss important parts of applications on line. I thoroughly went through the application this time checking for omission. Kind of like DEQ which is looking for emissions. I know, sometimes my writing is nonsensical, which may not be a word, but spell check didn't underline it.

Whimsical, I am certainly not musical, although that reminds me, I would like to go see Steve Earle at the Crystal Ballroom soon. I have to check into tickets. I will have to see it I can afford it. I don't imagine going with anyone else. I hate crowds unless I am with someone, so we'll see if I actually purchase a ticket or what. A lot of drips I have missed and I even have this page bookmarked on my bookmarks bar, but that is just how distracted I really am.

Sunday, March 20, 2011

More rants from a disenfranchised citizen!

I've considered several options today and ended up nixing them all and coming back to this blog, which I have not posted one item in ages.

The events of the last decade have stimulated many including yours truly to spew forth venomous verbiage about one topic or another. Several events have now pushed me into once again posting something that is social, political and economic.

Our country, the USA and now much of the world is driven by the quest for more wealth. I am aware of what this is doing to the world and my own security and peace of mind. Think Globally, act locally! It is never more apparent to me than now, how much of a snow job corporations want us to believe in the magic bubble of lies that they spew constantly to purchase their products, give them tax breaks, invest in them, and let them get away with murder, because it was just an accident! Well folks, we need to take away some of the entitlements corporations have won over the last 120 years and bring them back to accountability and responsibility.

Corporations have once again enslaved us even though we are more educated than in the past when we all were living in the feudal system. The people with money don't want fairness, they don't want to separate themselves from their hard earned cash and they don't want to die penniless which is exactly how they are going to die, because none of us can take it with us!

The rich continue to get richer which is part of their plan. Part of their plan is to enslave those whose jobs can not be out sourced and make a percentage point or ten about the previous year n profits. We have lost the balance were once on the way to achieving with the power of democratic unions, but those have been declining ever since the 1970's. Since the unions have declined in membership, they have less money to spend on political campaigns forcing the Democrats too to look to big business for campaign financing. Why don't we get rid of all that and go to a tax based campaign finance system? We don't have the money to influence or politicians like corporations do, that's why. First we lost the steel mills because the corporations could have steel made cheaper somewhere else and there went some good high paying jobs. Then the auto workers under attack because corporations don't want to pay and they are continually looking for a way to minimize their costs and increase their profits. The coal mining corporations can't outsource their work so they have to do things like have low safety standards and kill off some of their workers every once in a while. Of course, anyone might say they are not killed intentionally, yet if the mine operators were as concerned when mining was going well as they say when an "accident" happens, the chances of accidents would be much less. Coal accounts for something like 50% of our energy production. Nuclear accounts for about 20% which leaves hydro-electric, solar, wind and geo-thermal to fill the rest.

Our country, THE USA is behind in pursuing anything but coal and nuclear production because the up front costs are more than they are will to put out by themselves and the available government money is not as much as they want to use. The corporations are all the while avoiding paying taxes, yet looking for ways to get tax money for their projects. Every time these corporations look for the easier to them way, it costs us. Let me repeat that. Every time corporations look for the easier to them way of minimizing their costs and increasing their profits. They do this by whittling away at workers wages and by paying lobbiests to persuade congress people to vote in their favor lowering their taxes, making laws against workers and generally telling the public that they are working in favor of them such as the Greening of America while defacing the planet, stripping away the regulations that are supposed to be their to protect us and for what, GREED ! It is plain and simple, Many corporations have become so large that they just don't care about the people and they don't even have to pretend that they do. Well, running out of steam for this. I hope someone reads it and it causes them to think a moment at a time. Drip, Drip, Drip.