Musings in Search of a Muse

Sunday – First Travel Day! The trip from Penn’s Woods to the Pine Tree State was uneventful. I decided to take a route that deviated from my usual course and found myself stuck in traffic in the Pocono Mountains. This meant that to save some time I would need to route through the Nutmeg State. Big mistake. I had forgotten about the construction between Waterbury and Hartford. That cost me probably another 45 minutes on top of the hour that I had lost earlier. Rather than fight on I bailed and went headed for the nation’s northern-most Commonwealth to take advantage of the speed on their excellent turnpike. This allowed me to finish the trip in nine hours rather than my usual eight.

I was rather disappointed that the podcasts I had saved just for the trip were too quiet to hear properly, even with the volume cranked to eleven. And I just wasn’t into music for some reason so the trip could have been more enjoyable, but at least it was safe.

Monday – The Big Day! Mom and I were both baptized today in the chilly waters of the Piscataqua River in Eliot, ME; her with the assistance of her eldest brother, James, and me with the assistance of my best friend, Paul. Too bad the Hawaiian-style shorts I bought didn’t fit, but image didn’t really matter, of course.

Mom went first. At 72 years she’s the youngest in her family and the last to make a commitment to the Lord. Only one of her remaining bother and sisters wasn’t present, but as I mentioned, her brother helped with the honors and that just made the moment for her. Everything was about as impromptu as it could get.

Then it was my turn. Personally, I wanted to go out farther and the whole experience seemed too brief, but then I really had no idea what was going to happen anyway.


When we got dried off everyone packed up and went their separate ways. Later Mom and I took Paul, his family, Uncle James, and his girlfriend (yes, they are in their 80s) out to a big seafood restaurant for a couple hundred dollars worth of food. Uncle James and I sat at one end with the littler kids and had a chance to talk. It was probably the most we had spoke to each other in some 35 years.

Tuesday – Whale Watching Day! Some of this was described in a post on the 18th of this month. Not much more to report, really, but I would like to add that I used the opportunity to teach a bit of seamanship to Lyndy, the eldest daughter. I can’t help but teach something now and then.

Wednesday – Lay About Day! I had picked up a bit of a cold and was exhausted from all of the relaxing done the day before so other than beating mom in a few hands of cribbage not much of anything was accomplished today.

For the most part, that describes the rest of my vacation, except for some basement painting and a few other chores. Time really flew while we tried to decide where to take an overnight trip. Eventually we didn’t go anywhere and I know this really disappointed my mother. It might have been nice to do something out of the ordinary, but I see vacations as a time to relax, not run around like crazy.

Thursday, the following week – Another Travel Day! My drive home was rather good, actually. I took my favorite route back home: West over to Bennington, VT then south from Albany, NY. I added a twist by avoiding Scranton, PA and found the drive seemed to go faster and was certainly far more pleasant. I love having an iPod in the car, I really do.

Wait a minute ... turtle eggs make men more 'manly?' Since when? Man, am I up a creek 'cause eggs go through me like, well ... you get the idea. Good thing I'm hopelessly single, I guess.

"In this photo relased by private U.S. conservation group Wildcoast on Tuesday Ayg. 23, 2005 , Argentine model Dorismar poses for a publicity campaign poster aimed at halting the illegal consumption of endangered turtles' eggs in Mexico. The campaign has run into trouble before even starting, with a women's rights group asking government officials to block public announcements featuring the scantily clad model. The text reads: 'My man doesnt need turtle eggs. Because he knows it doesnt make him more potent' (AP Photo/Wildcoast,HO)" (citation).

Yahoo! Photos featured this picture at left and the first thing that caught my eye was not the colorful mask, but the mobile phone. And it struck me, "here's this guy during some important cultural celebration -- one with Christian overtones if the Cross is any indication -- and he's checking his txt msgs or something!" Now if it had been a camera phone I could almost understand. Some of them are getting to be decent enough quality that they are almost worth using. But this is not a camera phone.

Sure, it might be a way that everyone in the parade (or whatever) can coordinate their activities, but it still strikes me as rather intrusive. Keep in mind my techno-usage goes back to the bag phone powered by camcorder batteries for a whopping 30 minutes talk-time so I'm not too old to appreciate the utility. But I'm old enough to miss the charm of a less connected era. If I didn't work for the nation's largest mobile phone company I'd probably not have such connectivity.

Checkout this itsy-bitsy, teen-weeny digital music player I saw at Wal-Mart's Website. I'd be tempted to throw the hundred dollar cost at them just to play with it. Called the mobiBLU, it's almost too good to be true.









While I think everyone should have an iPod, I have to admit this is rather cool.

Reason 1: Scenery like this can't readily be found there but New England has a surplus. It's even pretty in the Winter because of all the happy evergreens and because people there knows how to plow and drive properly.

Reason 2: I've been here too bloody long. Thirty years is long enough to live anywhere. I'm more or less over the loathe of being transplanted that was instilled by a dozen-odd relocations before I even hit puberty.

Reason 3: Family. I have some friends in the Commonwealth that are as close as family or even closer, but my blood is in Maine and New Hampshire. No, that doesn't make sense, but what in this warped existence we call "life" does?

Reason 4: Mom needs me. Well, maybe not me, but someone. She's always been there for me and for everyone else. Seldom is she happier than when she's a caregiver, but just as I've grown weary of dwelling in the Keystone, she's grown weary of all the giving. Her life hasn't always been easy as she's been making life easy for others, though I often think the attrition is self-inflicted to a degree and has come as much from having fun as from anything else.

Reason 5: My daughter is now buried. True, the ground closed over her years ago but I am just now somewhat comfortable with not being near the grave. She'll always be my biggest love, but we'll have eternity in Heaven where we can dance and sing and play every day.

Reason 6: It's time for a change. I've failed at trying to have a teaching career let alone actually having one, I couldn't make a marriage work, and I lost my way more often than I can count. New England isn't my cradle, but it's my home. It's the place I find comfortable. Any illusions of doing anything wonderful or meaningful on a grand scale have been supplanted by illusions of deeds no less worthy but far more attainable. The true feat will be to actually accomplish them.

Could the "A Plague on Marice and Samantha" episode (10 November 1971 episode 8.9) of Bewitched have the first reference to a Computer Bug? That's something I have to research. I came across it while flipping channels when I spotted Bernard Fox as Dr. Bombay and stayed long enough to hear him say his computer had a bug. Golly, was I taken aback.

Jactitation: "A restless tossing of the body in illness; a boastful or false statement." See what you can learn from movies! Inherit the Wind (1960) is a great movie for other reasons, mind you, but it has a fabulous use of language. This can be seen in some of the quotes listed at the IMDB.

When my friend Tom recommended that I listen to The Blues White Album I didn't think that it was a cover of the similarly named original by the Beatles but with a Blues-twist. Seeing the package didn't ring a bell either as it has been rather some time since I've held the distinctive original. And a read of the track list still left me clueless for no readily apparent reason despite the justifiable fame of the original songs.

Listening to the disc was no great revelation, either, as it is nine-tenths drivel. Sorry to blunt there, but I would have been much more direct had I harbored greater expectations. Going in with none I avoided using a more colorful term that first came to mind. Don't ask me what the clearly sycophantic reviewers at Amazon heard because it couldn't have been the same disc I heard.

The remaining one-tenth worth of it's take of bits and bytes is the sole reason the effort earns a spot in my blog. Joe Louis Walker's rendition of "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" is the only track to show even a hint of passion that the music deserves. High-quality fingering and soulful vocals make this piece stand out such that there are parts that I prefer to the original -- particularly the guitar element between 2:25 and 3:05. Around 5:20 the vocals form a near pitch-twin to the guitar that makes the instrument really seem to be more plaintively and sorrowfully crying than just straight playing could. Technically cleaner than Clapton, but with a tad less feeling. Overall, rather good.

To the album's credit, though, "Weeps" is the only track that could be translated into the Blues. Who really thought that "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da" would work? That's an about-face that instantly falls down. "Blackbird" could have a chance, but as I've yet to hear anyone do it even nearly as well as the Beatles, it's a ghost of a chance at best. Apple iTunes lists over 70 covers of this track and each sample I heard left me with the impression that the artist was simply trying to please themselves in one fashion or another (Really, what was Bernadette Peters thinking?). At least the producers of "The Blues White Album" didn't attempt to cover all original 30 songs. Thank you!

Let's keep this simple: InterfaceLIFT has some nice, high-resolution wallpaper. Give 'em a visit.

It's the big 5-Oh! for Lego!
Checkout the anniversary celebration!

From LiveScience.com: "Scientists have recently succeeded in doing all sorts of fancy things with light, including slowing it down and even stopping it all together. Now a team at the Ecole Polytechnique F?d?rale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland is controlling the speed of light using simple off-the-shelf optical fibers, without the aid of special media such as cold gases or crystalline solids like in other experiments."

But here's a whale. Either a minkie or a fin back. I don't know. I'd call it "bigger than our boat."

My friends Paul and Sonya treated me and their kids (Salynda - 9; Anna - 5; Alexander -3 , and Miriam - 6-months) to the whale watching trip the day after I was baptized (Hey! Watch the jokes!) and we had a great time. There were quite a few whale sightings, but this is the only one I bothered shooting. I was too busy just basking in the sun, enjoying the swells, and watching my friend's kids see animals and parts of this planet they only imagined just hours before. The biggest excitement was generated when we chased a pod of 6 dolphins. Well, if you ask the 6-month old (and she was capable of replying), the most exciting thing was the squadron of seagulls that followed us to shore in the thermals and roiled air created in the boat's wake. That's Alex pictured left enjoying the trip out of the harbor. He liked hanging on the rail so much that I kept asking him if he was bait and I started calling him my 'chum.' The girls were pretty impressed with the actual sightings, but as things usually go on trips such as this we did more cruising than watching. Just about anything would have been fine with me as I wasn't at work and wouldn't be for another 10 or so days.

All-in-all it was a nice change of pace. A few things found themselves fixed around my mom's house: a sticking screen door, a recalcitrant curtain, a basement floor in need of a bad paint job, and some other items on a small "honey-do" list. I fought a cold for a few days and suffered back aches because a 42-year old should know to stretch out before getting physical with a paint roller. Mom had a 6-hour visit to the emergency room yesterday because some kidney stones felt they weren't getting enough attention, but even that wasn't overly dramatic. The whole upshot of that was that I couldn't cobble together a headboard so that gets moved up to number one on the hit parade for next visit. Now that I've caught up on the comics (like Get Fuzzy) published while I was gone and I've put in a blog post I'm off to unpack a bit and find out where my neighbor disappeared to while I was gone. Maybe later I'll get to posting some baptism pics.

Ask anyone I know and probably all would agree that I'm a great admirer of Ronald Reagan. But I'm not smitten enough that I agree with Rep. Henry Bonilla's effort to rename 16th Street NW in Washington, D.C. "Ronald Reagan Boulevard." According to a story in Yahoo! News, "there are other streets here named for presidents, including Thomas Jefferson and James Garfield, and there is a circle named for George Washington." Mayor Anthony Williams "estimated that it would cost $1 million to change signs and maps. He suggested that Bonilla rename a street for Reagan back home in San Antonio."

Great suggestion, Mr. Mayor. The key part of that suggestion, of course, is that the decision would be made locally whereas Congress makes such decisions for the District. While I feel that the city shouldn't be beholden to a state government, I strongly believe that matters of this magnitude (or lack thereof) should be in the hands of the people. If any place should exhalt the concept "of the people, by the people, and for the people," it should be D.C. And if anyone would be a champion of this, it would be Mr. Reagan.

Buddhism
Buddhists believe that sex before marriage is not immoral if there is love and consent between the two parties involved. According to Buddhist precepts, as long as the act of sex does not cause harm to you or another person in any way, it is permissible.

Paganism
According to WitchVox.com, pagans have no set rules against homosexuality, nudity or premarital sex. However, sex is viewed as "the generative force in nature and is seen by most pagans as something utterly sacred. The physical act of love is to be approached with great respect and responsibility."

Hinduism
Hinduism's received moral traditions about premarital sex are rooted in its concept of the stages of life. One of these stages is the life of the celibate student, which precedes the stage of the married householder. Celibacy is considered the appropriate behavior for both male and female students (or unmarried singles who have left school). Hinduism holds this view not because it regards sex as inherently sinful, but because of this belief in certain life stages.

Judaism
According to Jewish law, sex and other acts that may lead to sex are only allowed within the context of a marriage. Sex is not only a means of physical gratification, but an important act that "requires commitment and responsibility. The requirement of marriage before sex ensures that sense of commitment and responsibility."

Islam
According to the Qur'an, "the believers are...those who protect their sexual organs except from their spouses... Therefore, whosoever seeks more beyond that [in sexual gratification], then they are the transgressors." (23:5-6). Muslim scholars say this statement "makes it very clear that any sexual gratification outside marriage is considered a transgression of the law of God."

American Baptist
According to the American Baptists, "Christian disciples choices about singleness, marriage, parenthood, and living in covenantal, intentional family arrangements are to be made soberly, with prayer, and as integral parts of the Christian's response to God's call in Jesus Christ. We affirm the competence of the individual soul to determine God's will in such matters through the reading and interpreting of Scripture, through dialogue with God, by considering the teaching and counsel of the Christian community, and by seeking and testing the wisdom of sisters and brothers in Christ."


Catholic
The Catholic church teaches that situations where sex occurs outside of marriage "offend against the dignity of marriage; they destroy the very idea of the family; they weaken the sense of fidelity. They are contrary to the moral law. The sexual act must take place exclusively within marriage. Outside of marriage it always constitutes a grave sin and excludes one from sacramental communion."

Eastern Orthodoxy
According to the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America, "the Orthodox Church remains faithful to the biblical and traditional norms regarding premarital sexual relations between men and women. The only appropriate and morally fitting place for the exercise of sexual relations, according to the teachings of the Church, is marriage."

Evangelical Lutheran Church in America
The ELCA church's position on promiscuity states that "having casual sexual relations is sinful because this does not proceed from or contribute to respect, intimacy, and care of the other. Promiscuity is inconsistent with our identity as Christians (1 Cor. 6:12-20). Being sexually active in order to be popular or only to gratify sexual desire is morally wrong."

Latter-Day Saints
Mormons believe that sexual relations are permitted only with one's spouse of legal marriage. In addition, chastity encompasses more than sex itself. According to Mormon policy statements, "the most common sexual sins our young people commit are necking and petting. Not only do these improper relations often lead to fornication, [unwed] pregnancy, and abortions--all ugly sins--but in and of themselves they are pernicious evils, and it is often difficult for youth to distinguish where one ends and another begins."

Presbyterian Church (USA)
The teachings of Presbyterian Church (USA) state that "total intimacy should happen in a relationship of total commitment, which marriage is intended to be. We advocate responsible behavior, understood as sexual expression that matches the seriousness and permanence of the relationship."

Southern Baptist Convention
According to the Southern Baptist Convention's Faith and Message, "Procreation is a gift from God, a precious trust reserved for marriage."

United Methodist Church
The United Methodist Church's policy on sexuality states that "sexual relations are only clearly affirmed in the marriage bond. Sex may become exploitative within as well as outside marriage. We reject all sexual expressions that damage or destroy the humanity God has given us as birthright, and we affirm only that sexual expression that enhances that same humanity."

Okay, it's a little unfair to put pictures of highly attractive and desirable people in this post, isn't it? My point is that temptation is everywhere, particularly if one is predisposed to behavior related to the enticement. Urban lore holds that men think about sex every six or so seconds. This may seem a bit often until one reflects on the way society values sex. You don't usually see people like me in the media promoting products (the Dove adverts are an exception), as news readers, or becoming leading men/women in entertainment. Then look at fashion. Why do girls who haven't developed hips need low-rider jeans? And don't tell me the belly shirt phenomenon is ... nah, I'm not even going there.

My point is that people need to think with their souls, their brains, and then their hormones. I like to facetiously say that the only sex I had before I married was the pre-marital variety. Hormones ruled and I was determined to not be a 30-year old virgin. But count me among those who discovered that love and commitment makes the sex better. Not everyone feels that way, of course, but it is a choice -- quick gratification at the risk of losing your soul or enjoying a full, meaningful relationship. Hmm ...

Pastor Tim Lucas of LiquidChurch.com (the site doesn't seem to exist anymore, but check this blog) discusses many of these points in his 9-part podcast called "Sex and the Bible" ( iTunes link). From the segments I've heard so far it's been helpful and informative, though it is probably a bit too progressive for some of my friends. I'm sure that it will help me deal with being single and yet still young enough to wrestle with lust. If I can balance the bombardment of temptations around me with enough positive insight, I'll probably stay sane -- and saved -- until I'm blessed with another marriage. Hopefully my wild oats won't turn into shredded wheat before then.

Thanks to Beliefnet for the information in this post. Visit their site for more information. I added Wikipedia and Merriam-Webster links to each section to save you the bother of looking up things yourself (Give a man a fish ...). And, yes, that's me in the last picture. Probably the most flattering one I have. I'm best remembered without pictures.

Atheism Means Never Being Able To Say "I told You so!"

From an online survey about lust:

Q7. When it comes to physical relationships, I draw the line at:
1. My spouse
2. Someone I've known for a while and have a deep respect for
3. Anyone I've dated more than once
4. Humans

Friction is such a drag.

"I'll have to send that telegram again," Tom said, remorsefully.

Ham & Eggs: A day's work for a chicken; A lifetime commitment for a pig.

Pithy: Precisely meaningful; forceful and brief: a pithy comment.

Most companies publish different versions of their Websites for different markets, largely to allow for difference in languages. That makes surfin' the Web a lot of fun because it is a chance to explore other cultures and different ideas. Adding to the mix is the new iTunes-Japan. Kinda cool listening to the music there, and while I can make out the eimoji, the hiragana and katakana along with the more modern kanji and romaji are impossible for me to read. Well, that's part of the fun.

I also like the international sites for Mini-Cooper and the various interfaces and local domains for Google (click here then scroll down).

If I wasn't so lazy I'd love to take the time to learn another lanuguage. Spanish is the logical choice, but I have a yen to learn Italian.

More than a few complaints have been raised that one group or another has been disproportionately harmed by the losses in armed conflicts fought in the war on terrorism. These claims are usually based on race or ethnicity. Every now and then it is geographic, as when the Associate Press reports that "Iraq attacks hit Ohio military families hard" (via MSNBC.com):

Rosemary Palmer and her husband were making plans to attend memorial services for six Marine reservists killed earlier this week -- five of them from the same battalion as her son, Lance Cpl. Edward Schroeder -- when two uniformed servicemen came down her street. It was her family's turn. "“We knew. They didn't even get a chance to knock,"” Palmer said.

I read that and immediately thought back to the tragic (and probably the deepest) scene in the movie Saving Private Ryan when a mother sees an official car pull up in front of her house and she instinctively knows that news about one or more of her boys is being delivered.

The war on terrorism is a just war, in my opinion, but I feel that it is being waged in a completely in unjust manner. Certainly I'm no expert, but there must be a better way to handle the conflict than to sacrifice more lives. It just seems so shallow, hollow, and without dignity. Compounding tragedy with more tragedy seems so ... I'm at a loss for words.

While tweaking my iTunes library before an upcoming road trip I noticed a few patterns. Take this one for example:

• "Hey Baby (Land Of The New Rising Sun)"
• M.A.C.C.
• Stone Free: A Tribute To Jimi Hendrix
• My then-sister-in-law bought me this disc and this track is my overall favorite. They were truly channeling Jimi to make this one as the guitar riffs are truly euphoric and the vocals just resonate with passion. Makes me wonder why the reviews at Amazon.com generally lambaste the collection as pathetic.
  
• "Hey Bartender (Live)"
• The Blues Brothers
• Briefcase Full of Blues
• This Floyd Dixon cover is just a fun song. Jake and Elwood may not have had as much talent as they thought, but they sure do have a love of the Blues and that was more than enough. Anyone can sing the Blues, but they still did it better than most. I would have loved seeing them in concert, but alas, Belushi lost control and we now have just a few precious recordings.
  
• "Hey Joe"
• Body Count
• Stone Free: A Tribute To Jimi Hendrix
• Rapper Ice-T can actually sing! Whoda thunk? Like most people from the pre-Rap era are usually of the opinion there is little talent in artists like Ice-T. This stereotype is once again broken, though, with this track. If anyone does a Jimi-biopic, then they should get this man to do the vocals.
  
• "Hey Jude"
• The Beatles
• 1
• Probably the first song anyone would think about when talking about Hey songs would be this classic. Like many of the group's songs, it is a bit enigmatic but we now know it started out as a song for Julian Lennon. Google it sometime and you'll see that a lot of people identify with it.
  
• "Hey You"
• Bachman-Turner Overdrive
• Takin' Care Of Business
• Not my favorite BTO track, but it's in the top 15. That may not seem like much, but consider that I have almost all their albums on vinyl, most on cassette, and still more on CD or iTunes downloads (no 8-tracks I'm sorry to say). The tune-crafting is formulaic and the lyrics seldom have any sort of bite or true poetry, but oft times Blair Thornton's technical work has both bite and poetry.
• "Hey, Hey"
• The Elms
• Festival Con Dios, Volume One
• This catchy ditty is a great praise and worship song. The lyrics are overly simplified (making BTO look like Byron) and non-Christians might have trouble ciphering them, but the melody is infectious throughout. Much of the album is this way and over 50% of the tracks were good enough to be ripped for use on the iPod. I can't say that much for other collections that have come out of the annual concerts some liken to "Woodstock for Christians."

I've also noticed that BTO writes a lot about life on the road.

One of the playlists I'm putting together is based on musicians writing about being musicians. This kind of redefines road trip music. All it is missing is Golden Earring's "Turn the Page."

Pocket vetoes, recess appointments, presidential findings, and a host of other political tactics are perfectly legal, but they leave a taint that all the moral bleach in the world won't remove. Consider the latest:

Bush Appoints Bolton, Bypassing Senate - Yahoo! News: "WASHINGTON -
President Bush installed embattled nominee John Bolton as ambassador to the
United Nations on Monday, bypassing the Senate after a testy five-month standoff with Democrats who argued that the tough-talking conservative was unfit for the job."

"Bush put Bolton on the job by means of a recess appointment, an avenue available when Congress is in recess. Under the Constitution, Bolton's appointment will last until a newly elected Congress takes office in January 2007."

"Republican Sen. George Voinovich of Ohio, who had stunned the White House by opposing Bolton, said he was disappointed by Bush's decision."

"I am truly concerned that a recess appointment will only add to John Bolton's baggage and his lack of credibility with the United Nations," Voinovich said.

I'm also disappointed. Republicans spent the Clinton years complaining about unseemly political behavior yet the same is quickly becoming a staple of the current administration. Mr. Bush usually appears to have the fine morals typical of a Christian yet his second term is tracking as anything but a reflection of that standard. Well, it was this president that made me drop my life-long loyalty to the Grand Old Party when I registered as an independent.