Monday, December 27, 2010
The Deep
Monday, December 20, 2010
The Gospel of Tron
- Kevin Flynn is God. He has the white clothes, the beard, the inscrutable mystic ideology and the power to create. He creates an entire universe within a computer and populates it with programs.
- Programs are angels. We have Flynn's archangel, Tron and a new one he creates in his own image (literally) named Clu.
- Clu is Lucifer. The best and brightest and obviously the most beautiful of all the programs. Flynn creates him to aid him in creating the Perfect System. The one that will bring light to all the universe, both in and outside the computer.
- Obviously there has to be a fall. God and his angels can't just go on to create harmony and beauty. And here's where Disney really starts sucking the Jelly out and injecting silicone.
- ISO's arrive. ISO's are people. Innocent yet wonderfully wise as Flynn describes them. ISO stands for Isometric algorithms. Which, as near as i can figure is what mathematicians use to discover things about stuff they don't understand by finding identical parallels between the mystery and already known areas of study. i say, "arrive" because that's how Flynn describes it. He didn't create them, the conditions were accidentally right for them to spontaneously form. Translation: there is a God but we evolved without his actual design.
- Flynn is enthralled with the ISO's. He forgets about his original ideas and henceforth, CLU. CLU becomes jealous and overthrows Flynn. Translation: Lucifer is God's fault cause he's absent minded and callous. Lucifer has a legitimate beef with God.
- Kevin Flynn's son Sam shows up on the grid. Sam is Jesus. But he has no idea why he's here or what he's supposed to do. He want's to rescue, not people, but God, Flynn.
- As a matter of fact, rescuing people/ISO's is gonna be a bit tough, cuz there's only one left, Quorra. Far from the outcast, downtrodden, poor and needy that Jesus came to, Sam is going to end up rescuing a pretty hot, pretty capable, pretty worthy critter who will help rescue Sam as well. Translation: God needs us as much as we need Him.
- Cutting to the chase, literally, in the end, God has to sacrifice himself in order to kill Lucifer and allow Jesus and his chosen person to escape. Translation: Good and Evil are two sides of the same coin, God cannot exist without the devil and no matter what happens, we normal folk are probably better off without their interference anyhow.
Friday, December 03, 2010
Much and Little about Far, Much and Little
Thursday, December 02, 2010
Plan?? There ain't no plan!
- Finding a quiet little private campground out of the way.
- Waking up in the morning with muddy raccoon footprints all over my sleeping bag.
- Seeing stars again. No really, you forget how many there are until you get away from the lights of the world.
- Shooting stars.
- A full moon so bright you mistake it for a manmade spotlight.
- An entire church group throwing aside their dignity and jumping in the river. Frolicking like they got no sense.
- A horseback ride where Wayward and i "accidentally" became separated from the group for a while and then got to gallop for a bit when we got caught.
- Morning on the water with no one around and mist devils, little swirling fog tornados rising off the river all around our canoe.
- The ride of the midnight snorter! Deer, apparently taken aback by men sleeping in their path to the river, running right through our camp in the middle of the night and then stopping and stomping on the other side while trying to figure out what the heck was that?! Not one night, but two in a row.
- Listening to my sons laughing and tearing the heck out of the inside of the tent while i cook.
- Starting a bison stampede with the thunder of the motorcycles and then outrunning it.
- Finding Moose Drool. And enjoying it.
- Finding an underground river. While still above ground.
- Waking up to six inches of snow.
- The mountains, the rivers, the sunsets, sunrises, the forests, deserts, lakes, skies, the secret glades and scenic valleys, furry critters, feathered critters, bugs, noises, music and silences that you will only find away from the things of men.
- The highs and lows and mysteries and stories, the light and the darkness in the souls of companions, Ballisticat and Wayward and the Ballyhoo. Being there for each other when the trail becomes the trial. Griping at each other when the trail becomes the trial. Sharing the awe when surprised by the serendipitous. Staring into campfires at the end of a day, partly from wonder, partly from exhaustion. Wondering how people lived like this all the time? Wondering if we could? Wondering if our wives would let us. (That's not a typo. You don't need a question mark at the end of a question you know the answer to.)
- Learning new meanings to old words like, "friend" and "home" and "dinner."
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
Wanna go camping?
- There was the first trip i took on my own, the Wayward Son and i managed to lock ourselves out of my bronco at a rest area on the turnpike, a subject i've written ad nauseum. When we finally arrived at the State Park there were no campsites available.
- There was the one and only trip i took that Mynnie came on, the one where it rained the entire weekend.
- One where i was a chaperone to the church youth, where i led my charges into the waterfalls to do some rock climbing and one fell twenty four feet to break his arm and glasses. And then it rained the rest of the weekend, so hard it flooded all the tents. Fortunately i don't use them.
- There was the time the Wayward Son and i had all of our gear stolen out of our campsite.
- There was my brilliant idea for Ballisticat and i to put a canoe into the West Branch Susquehanna and then row UP stream.
- My other bright idea to take a four year old back packing. Yes, i carried him the last few miles of the last day. i talked Ballisticat into going on that trip too. Funny, he hasn't been able to go camping with me since.
- My one and only motorcycle trip, again with the Wayward Son, involved finding no campsites at the park (maybe that's his thing) and so we camped in a carwash in the streaming rain. At least we weren't able to lock ourselves out of the bikes though it did take me a while to figure out why mine would inexplicably die while i was riding it. (The rather loose kickstand had a kill switch attached to it. Bungee cords, don't leave home without them.)
- The Ballyhoo gang and i started our second trip together (Rascal was now eight) with a car accident.
- On our last trip together and our first trip without Happ the Pretty, Rascal and i chose the wrong side of the gorge to camp on and ended up sleeping in the truck in a tourist trap.
Monday, November 22, 2010
For Kevin
- 95 is urban blight made into a road. Too many people on top of each other means, less progress with more violence.
- Okay, one more time for the cheap seats... MERGING IS MUCH, MUCH EASIER AND SAFER FOR EVERYONE IF YOU ARE TRAVELING THE SAME SPEED AS THE TRAFFIC YOU ARE MERGING WITH!!!!! NOT TEN MILES AN HOUR SLOWER, THE SAAAAAAAAME SPEED!
- You know that commercial where they ask, "What if cars behaved more like schools of fish or flocks of flying birds?" and it shows all these cars moving in total harmony to merge at high speed into just one or two lanes of traffic? Yeah, they need to perfect that technology and stop worrying about whether or not people can parallel park. (See bullet point two.)
- Cruise control people! You have a forty thousand dollar Toyota! I know you have it!
- Sudnah's drive slower as a people than yankees. It's not a criticism, it's just an observation. Up here in the colder climes, if someone is doing less than five miles over the speed limit, we look for the Person with Disability tag, otherwise we assume there's just something wrong with their car.
- i understand why you would put one rest area in between the north and southbound lanes, i just question the wisdom of having people merge with the fastest traffic. (See bullet point two.)
- This one's for the Washingmore area. If you are contemplating widening a four lane highway because of your traffic woes... you have a larger infrastructure problem that you are totally ignoring. It's a band-aid for a sucking chest wound, Mr. Cityplanner. That's way too many humans in way too many cars all trying to go to the same place! There has to be a better way!
- That said, the answer, Tokyo, is not to have guys who's job is to physically stuff more people into the train than it will hold so the doors will shut.
- The path to bigotry and elitism is a steep hill smothered with lard. We have toll booths. Someone invents EZ pass. Fine. They no longer have to come to a complete stop. Those of us with conspiracy issues can continue paying the toll with paper and chips of metal that no longer represent a bar of gold in some deposit somewhere so the government that's taking our picture anyway can't track us as we drive our families to grandma's. Then they create special lanes for the EZ pass. Fine. Makes sense. Why should Tamika the Tolltaker have to stop painting her nails to watch an EZ passer pass her? Then come the express lanes for EZ pass. "Come to the darkside," they murmur as they rip through the toll booths at highway speeds. "We have cookies." Then someone lets you use their EZ pass on 95 and you spend a half an hour in Maryland traveling four miles in stop and go because they only have two lanes of express EZ pass and four of regular toll booths but fourteen million cars trying to use them and you start thinking, "This is stoopid. All those idiots who don't have EZ pass should get only one lane a mile from here so the rest of us can drive!" Then it hits you, "Eep! i have become one of ....THEM!"
- When the real #{}<<'n issue is, WE ALREADY PAY TAXES! WHY DO WE HAVE TOLL BOOTHS AT ALL??
- i've never used the caps lock button this much.
- i heard of a population study done on rats once where the rats became increasingly violent and manic as the population increased beyond the environment's ability to sustain. i saw this study in action in that traffic jam yesterday. (see bullet point two)
- This one is not technically a 95 issue except that 95 touches Jersey so maybe that's the transmission point for this stupidity. Traffic circles are not a viable solution to anything. They are the problem. They are a virus that must be stamped out with extreme prejudice.
- Finally, driving 95 has reinforced my desire to someday retire to a boat. That and the list of cool restaurants that have docks that i'm compiling. i need one somewhere in between the Rideau Chain, Ontario and Annapolis, Maryland though. That's a long way to sail between Guinness and fish.
Monday, November 15, 2010
No one made me do this.
Thursday, November 11, 2010
Hello, I'm Johnny Cash
“It’s getting away from me, Dad!” I pointed out, most likely, unnecessarily to God. All around me the woods were burning. Small pines were starting to catch. The first neighbor’s house in the path was only twenty feet away from the rapidly growing, rapacious demon I had given birth to. I needed water but the house I was working at hadn’t had water since the pipes froze sometime last winter. I ran for the nearest neighbor that I knew was home, slipping and falling as I went. There were no introductions.
“Do you have a hose I can use?”
“Why sure, lemme…”
“My fire got out of hand!”
“Oh! It’s right around back!”
As it turns out, they had two hoses, already linked. I was hoping it was going to be long enough as i stumbled back to the rising flames, slipped and fell again. “Should I call the fire department?” She called to my running back.
“Probably a good idea.” I answered, not really wanting to need them but knowing the genie was out of the bottle and chaos theory had left Jurassic Park and taken field trip to the Poconos. Now I’ve worked on houses all over, most of them nearing the million-dollar mark. I’ve borrowed lots of hoses. One thing I’ve seen a lot of is poor water pressure. Here, in a little prefab in the hills, which gets its water from a little pumping station down the road, the pressure was phenomenal. Go fig. From then on it was just fire versus water. Time felt very fast but before I had half the circle drowned, a young man appeared with a rake and began pulling back everything the hose wouldn’t reach. I took the moment to grab a hose my house did have and got very wet adding it to the chain with the water going. Another lad with a rake showed up. He raked half-heartedly for a minute as if disappointed that he wouldn’t get to throw on his turnout gear and chop something with an axe and then called off the Dalmatians. Then he was gone too. The first lad borrowed the hose, something he’d probably been wanting to do since he arrived. While he was using his extensive training to carefully aim the garden hose at some remaining hot spots, I surveyed the scene.
From edge to edge the swath of black was now fifty-one feet. That’s no exaggeration, I measured. My throat was acrid and dry and my pants were soaked. My boots were black and my face and hands felt singed. I felt like a fool crossbred with a moron and slathered with some idiot.
I have been using November to remember to be thankful. Each day giving thanks for some blessing of God’s small or big. Tonight, I’m thankful for long hoses, good water pressure, an accurate self image and for mercy on a fool. I think I’ve got a new perspective on the Gospel.
Wednesday, November 03, 2010
Who indeed?
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Looking for the Ghost smoocherer
Friday, October 08, 2010
The Wilderness waved
Of late, I have been working in the Poconos. Everything about the Poconos is a misnomer. They are called mountains, THE Mountains, by most Philthadelphians and New Joykers. But they are at best, foothills. The only reason they probably sidestepped that label was the lack of any genuine articles over their shoulders for people to skip over them to goggle at. It doesn't end with geography though. Every clump of cabins, shacks and hovels are called Estates. Every hotel with a putt-putt and waterslide is a Resort. Actually the Resorts might be the only names around here that possess a kernel of truth. If one accepts the alternate meaning of the action of turning to and adopting a strategy or course of action, especially a disagreeable or unpleasant one, so as to resolve a difficult situation, that is. The whole place just has the look of a run-down movie set for a white trash zombie flick that may or may not have ever gotten made.
Sure the work has been lonely, nasty and unrewarding; spending long days in a dank, dark crawlspace in dirt, filth and rotting fiberglass that are probably agitating my chest cold. Sure, I’m trying to fix up a pre-fab house that appears to have been assembled by the three stooges, maintained by someone who firmly believed in the Bugblatter Beast Philosophy of: if you can’t see it, it isn’t real and is ten years beyond it’s shelf-life. Sure, it’s rained most of the time I’ve been here and today, the first time I had a moment, pilfered really, to sit in the sun and write, I was immediately discovered by a swarm of gnatskitos and a pack of puginese yap-hounds. Sure, there’s no running water, no shower, no way to wash hands, face or dishes. Sure I spend two or three nights a week here now away from hearth, home and holly, sleeping on either the floor or my woodpile.
But the two hour drive up here, framed on either side by rolling foothills packed solid with autumn leafy things all the colors of the MnM's in the faithful jar at my side and WHUT slingin' its eccentric mix on the crackily ol’ jukebox reminds me that in my humble, pointless opinion, journeys are a heck of a lot better than destinations. Just hope now that I live long enough and strong enough to retire to that motorbike and tent someday and prove it.
Monday, October 04, 2010
My desert is flooding.
Saturday, September 11, 2010
Okay, one more this about that.
- i show them that Lacrosse trumps church when we skip one to attend the other
- that trying is futile when i give up on my dreams
- that work is cursed when i constantly curse my work
- i show them how to destroy oneness and unity in marriage and to be an adversarial husband when i fight with my wife in front of them
- i can see how my attitudes have passed on the idea that we are little people who are at the mercy of forces much greater than us. We can't fight city hall, fate, big business or the river.
- i teach them incorrect roles for a man when i ignore my responsibilities and let others pick up my slack
- i teach them that the computer is more important than they are when i miss what they are telling me because i'm "doing something."
Thursday, August 26, 2010
When you coming home Dad?
Thursday, August 19, 2010
Where's Sargent Ermie when you need him?
Monday, August 16, 2010
Post from beyond the grave.
Tuesday, August 03, 2010
For Nick
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Scruffilosophy
Monday, July 26, 2010
Who's steering this thing??
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
From the fricken on the roof
Saturday, July 17, 2010
Misnomer
Friday, July 02, 2010
The Fricken Blues
Sunday, June 27, 2010
i'll have what the gentleman on the floor is having.
Sunday, June 06, 2010
preachin' to meself
Wrote this for a friend a while back. Found it today, kinda like my rock. Wonder if isn't what i need to hear right now.
Arise Ponderus!
Shake the dust from thy cloak.
Now is not time for sleeping.
Though the Sun set before the hours granted our grandfathers
And may not yet rise again
Till our children’s children be in their twilight.
Though the night may last our whole lives,
Let us keep to our watch
And never let it be said
That we were found shirking.
What news, brother?
What shivers thy shoulders,
And folds them towards the campfire?
Be it not tears moistening our eyes but dew preceding the dawn.
Let us not wail in the darkness
Like those who live without hope.
Though the night may last our whole lives,
Let us sing on our watch
And frighten the devils
That at our hems be lurking.
Look up, Ponderus!
Night spreads lies of isolation,
Yet can we see the stars.
We have not the eyes of the owl nor the ears of the bat
But let us share our lanterns
And hear again the truth of the Light.
Though the night may last our whole lives,
Let us shine on our watch
And be moons of our Son
From which all heat and light are drawn.
Well met, brother!
There are many camps
And a fire in the center of each.
Though the footsteps between them be many and the shadows deep
There is but one mission for us all
And only one East that we face.
Though the night may last our whole lives,
Pray we be the last watch
And until we bask in the Son,
Good night and God speed the dawn.
Raucus
Monday, May 31, 2010
i got a rock.
Friday, May 21, 2010
A gravedigger's thoughts.
Monday, May 17, 2010
Leader or loner?
Monday, April 26, 2010
Hangin's too good for 'em.
Monday, April 12, 2010
Sunday, March 28, 2010
Witnesses
The children of God gathered in a musty, decaying hall but the lights were too low to see. Shadow hid what was undesirable and flashes of color sparkled in whirling, unceasing motion that made focus impossible. Conversation and communion were given up as the thumping music drowned out all but the shouted exchange. Alcohol dulled pain, lowered inhibitions and substituted for brotherhood. The creatures designed for glory chose to hide in darkness and noise and drunken revelry. The bride of Christ gave up her husband for a grope and bad dancing.
It’s their right to choose. A right they’ve been given. It just made the witness sad. So he wandered out into the night where the moon seemed bright in comparison and bird and frog spoke in more reverent tones. Away, away from the revelers, away from the noise, from the shouting, from the over-stimulation, from the false camaraderie, away from the bad dancing, he found a refuge beneath a great and ancient oak. Leaning back he gazed up at its proud height and strong, still branches and in its quiet way, it seemed to him that the tree was a wise old witness too. Here was a living thing that though without thought or self-awareness, fully knew its Creator, what He expected of it and its place in creation. That a tree could, in the very act of being what it was meant to be, shame those of us in rebellion.
Two thousand years ago, witnesses threw their clothing and branches before their King, their Creator, their Husband and shouted and sang his praises while they danced for joy in broad daylight even though they didn’t understand his Kingdom and that, in just a few days, he would soon hang on a tree for them. The grumps of their day told Jesus to make them stop their unseemly display. He told the grumps that if the revelers stopped, then the very stones would cry out. Creation was so intoxicated with the Holy Spirit that even stone witnesses would cry out. I wonder how often creation looks at us and just wants to cry?