Popcorn

I remember when I was a kid. My dad made popcorn almost every night, it was almost a religious ritual. We always had our own small bowls and we would watch and laugh as my dad teased the dog throwing popcorn and making the dog sit up on hind legs for a piece. After my dad finished his popcorn he would drift off to sleep. As he did one of his crossed feet would move back and forth growing slower as he drifted off. Once the back and forth movement stopped then my little sister and I could get to work.

Sometimes we would sneak up and steal a house shoe or maybe a sneak around to his side table and quickly grab a lighter trying not to giggle to loudly at our grand heist. Very often my dad had us fooled and would suddenly grab us, pulling us up onto his recliner and tickling us until we begged for mercy, apologizing profusely and promising never to make him our intended victim again.

My sister and I were trouble X2 there is no disputing that. My father was tolerance X10. There were very few times he actually grew angry at us, and I remember several times he would warn us, with his eyes closed about the tickling punishment that was to come. I remember my dad walking into the room and asking if we wanted to play "tree" and we said "oh OK!" he would say "chop, chop, chop" standing completely still with a slight grin on his face and then "falling" on us to give the well known tickle torture, or tapping his index finger on my chest until I begged for the tree to fall on my little sister instead of me giggling all the time.

As we grew older our thoughts were not so innocent. We tested my fathers patience and a for that I am truly sorry because it was wrong. If my father reads this he may find it funny, I am in his shoes now.

My daughter and I have played the "tree" game and had many laughs doing it but as she has grown older the game has changed and it is more of a challenge. Don't get me wrong I know she is a great kid and will be loud and mouthy, just like I am when is is needed. She also has showed she will speak out when she sees someone doing harm to another (that is another story I will tell you later) but she also pushes the limits of my patience at times on purpose. My problem is I cannot fault her because it seems to run in the family.

Don't worry Dad, I am paying for my actions! What goes around does come around.......and still I giggle.

I am going to Hell

I was told I was damned to hell today by a member of my family. I am not that worried about going to hell what worries me more is the reasons given for my trip to the devils door. Does God really need me to go to church every Sunday? Should I take a book of 2000 year old stories and use it to live my life by? Should I take those lessons literally? Should I follow another persons thinking on how those lessons apply to modern times, or should I apply my own translations to fit my life?

Should I follow a creator who demands I worship him even though the mind and body he/it/her gave me does not feel that is what it should do? I wont do any of those things. I will continue to do the best I can to be fair, it wont always work and I will make some mistakes but I will try to learn from them. I will have compassion for others and I will speak out against actions which I think are wrong. I will keep an open mind to the thoughts/feelings of others. I will be thankful for the time I have on earth and I will not live my life based on reasoning which has its roots in the phrase "just because"

If that results in my going to hell than so be it at least I will be in good company.

God's Plan

The Jehovah Witnesses come by my house once in a while. To be honest I don't mind it. They were a couple of older ladies who were a bit taken aback by my tattoos and bald head at first but after a friendly welcome from me (which they probably are not used to) the conversation started.

The best thing about these two ladies was the way they were not afraid to say "I don't know" when I asked them the tough questions. Such as, why is beer okay but weed is not? They tried to tell me drinking beer was natural because the ingredients it was made from were created by God which I of course countered making the point marijuana was also created by God and didn't even have to be "made" by people so it was even more pure than beer, if we were to use their reasoning. After that point they told me they had not considered it that way before and assured me it was something they would ask their pastor about.

Don't get me wrong, the conversation was respectful and these two ladies both had a wonderful sense of humor. We laughed as we realized that the "other side" was not so bad after all. As we progressed they did start to quote scripture which has always annoyed me a bit, because I know the facts about the translation of the bible which I wont go into here other than to suggest you google "King James" and learn how than't whole deal works.

After a couple of scriptures I brought up one of my biggest pet peeves when it comes to belief in God. The suffering of innocent people needlessly. I have heard it explained as "Gods plan". I wonder what kind of "plan" God could possibly have to cause people to suffer the way they often do. Another argument I often hear on this is you can't not have happiness without sadness or good without evil.

Even if that was true why would God need to cause the suffering of innocent children? Isn't there enough sadness and evil without putting it upon babies and children? After making this point I had left my new friends at a point to which they had very little to say in answer. I actually felt kind of bad for them. I felt like a pair of headlights which had come up a pair of deer.

Realizing this I gave them a smile and a bit of a laugh and told them how much I had enjoyed our conversation. They snapped out of the daze and thanked me back. I informed them they were more than welcome to come back anytime to chat some more and wished them a wonderful day.

I have not seen them again in sometime, I figure is is probably just part of "Gods plan".

Atheism Attacked

Some lady got pissed off because a friend was promoting "A" week too close to Easter. I had a problem with that because "A" week has nothing to do in any way with the Easter Holiday, it does not attack the holiday, it does not represent any type of hate towards Jesus.

To be blunt.....I am sick to death of people who expect me to have respect for their beliefs while mine or lack of can be pushed aside without thought or consideration. I have never been very religious. I watched the 700 club with my grandma when I was a kid. I attended church a couple of times but the whole "Jesus loves you" thing never went over well with me.

As I have lived my life reading and learning, and hearing about the suffering of the innocent my doubts in the beliefs of organized religion have grown stronger. It has been what feels like a natural progression in my mind set, learning about science, watching friends die before their time should be through and having a son born disabled.

I have written about my son before, a handsome boy who laughs easily and can do no harm to anyone on purpose. Happy in his world yet as a father I know what could have been, it would be nice to see him run and play on his way to enjoying the world and learning about why he is here, passing the knowledge along as he goes. That will not happen and though it gives me comfort that my son is happy in his world it also gives me one more reason to think there is no divine power that cares about how these things play out.

This brings me to the fact that many are not so lucky, needless suffering goes on even as I write this. People are destroyed each second as life throws despair at them. The needless suffering of the innocent is the one most obvious indication that the "God" the bible describes does not exist. If anyone has issue with that then I would suggest you disconnect your self from me and not judge me for my view of what I have learned as I go through my life because it is not in anyone's best interest to waste time wasting time on intolerance.

The News 3

Well McCain and Palin had a rally yesterday....biggest problem McClain had was no one came to see him, in fact most of the people who support Palin don't like McClain. luckily Sara Palin is too damn dumb to figure this out which could result in her popularity decline, we can only hope.....

The local auto plant (NUMI) I talked about in my last news report, you know the one offering severance packages of $50,000+ to the workers losing their jobs?
Well now Toyota and GM are not stepping up to clean up the land for safe use after they are gone.
Decades of manufacturing autos has done some serious damage to the land. I wonder if anyone will realize now is the time to come down on both Toyota and GM rather than leave it to a non-profit environmental group. We should be looking to the governor to try being a real-life hero and address this issue now before those responsible leave town.

Driving down the freeway today, I saw a pick-up truck with a sign proclaiming our only hope, as Americans was for Obama to fail. rush Limbaugh be damned I will never understand why anyone would want the leader of the nation to fail while proclaiming their love for the country. it is just another one of the points of view i don't want to understand because to relate to that type of mindset would disturb me greatly.

Sandra Cantu, age 8 at the time of her murder is obviously still missed. on the 1 year anniversary of her disappearance and murder i am taking a minute to think about how she was kidnapped, raped, murdered, stuffed in a suitcase, and dumped in a pond by a woman who lived a couple doors down from her.
The woman was also a Catholic Sunday School teacher. i would be stupid to lay any blame on the Catholic religion for Sandra's death but it gives me one more reason to think about my own religious beliefs and feel even more secure in the way I want nothing to do with the god of organized religion.

To wrap up today's news, it has been 1 week since my birthday and I feel just fine. The sun is out today and I am sitting in the sun....Oh, and now would be a good time to hug your kids in case you didn't get the point of my last story.
Stay tuned....more news will be coming up, much to our dismay...................

The News 2

In today's news....
A Santa Clara supervisor is looking to clamp down on the toys offered in kids meals. Seems a bit silly to me, I mean it's not like the toys are making kids obese, it's the food. A Star Wars action figure is not making Johnny or Mary fat. The choices parents are making on their kids behalf is the problem. The fast food chains have done a decent job offering somewhat healthy choices in their kids meals. The bottom line is companies will sell us what we will buy. If people want to buy chicken nuggets and double cheeseburgers for their kids, that is the issue. How hard is it to make a damn sandwich and place a banana on a plate or even cut up a piece of fruit?
Seems like another politician who wants to make it look like he is doing some good by attacking an item associated with a bigger problem that needs to be addressed.


Of course the health care bill has been passed and signed. No matter which side you fall on you will have to agree, it is a change. What we were doing was not working, to say the least. Any change, in my opinion, is a move forward.
Will it work? Well no one knows yet, but one of the problems this country has is we expect perfect legislation the first time, just like we expect instant results to recover from years of bad leadership. It is like expecting a drug user to quit cold turkey, that seldom happens. It starts with knowing change must occur, then trying and modifying behaviors as you go, keeping what works and discarding what does not.
Doing this will result in healthy change if you keep working at it. I'm not going to say that the health care reform bill is perfect because it is not but I breathe a sigh of relief at it passing because what we doing with health care was just sick.
And to wrap up the news..My daughter is doing well in school and my son's baseball games are going just fine. There is never a losing team at his games.. More on this in the sports segment...coming up.....

Obvious

I am sitting around relaxing at one of my favorite places to.........well, hang out! It is my birthday so I suppose a few moments of reflection on things and a look forward are required. Like I have said before this birthday does not bother me much. So many friends have wished me happy birthday it forces me to look at what I have done and the friends I have made along my road in life. It is good to know you effect things and even though it does not show my humble side I have managed to effect change. I think the best part of all my blabbing on my radio shows and pecking at this damn keyboard is the ability to make people consider things they otherwise would not.

I live with myself all the time and what I think seems obvious to me which sometimes keeps me from talking or writing about it. After all who wants the obvious to be pointed out to them? I have learned over time that some of what I think is obvious is not to others. One of the greatest compliments I think a writer can get is when someone says "I never thought of it that way, very interesting!" Yet, I still struggle with the thought that what my thoughts are will be the thought of others, I guess we all do.

On another note, all of my closest family has wished me a happy birthday today which has not happened in quite some time. Getting to watch my son play baseball and running the bases with him (not to mention the awesome underdog shirt, thanks Christopher!) was great of course. My Dad emailed me, my daughter called me and so did my Mom (miracles do happen). I am now hanging (like I said) with my best friend as we pass the time waiting for ourselves to decide where to have dinner.

Now for the future part......This is a bit trickier. I'll keep working my real life job (yes, I have one). I will keep doing my radio show, and I will keep writing about what may be obvious to me. In other words I will keep on chugging along like we all do, making new friends along the way.......was that obvious?

The Speck

It is my birthday. This year bothers me much less then the last for some reason. Maybe it is because I have gone past that big bad number 40 which has been taboo since I was a kid.
As I sit and smoke a cig I can look to the distance and see the sun slowly setting on the horizon. In the same view i can watch as the cars go by and the people walk by. It really is a strange life we lead, so caught up in ourselves and our little self-made worlds that we never realize how small we really are. We just go along thinking we are the be all end all of existence when we are not even a speck upon the universe. I think I will spend this birthday thanking god, or whoever for making me able to realize how small I am and knowing enough to appreciate who I am nonetheless.....

Watching

I am sitting outside with my girl and my beer at my side. I have got to love where I live. The people are diverse and the attitudes, for the most part, are tolerant. It never snows and there are plenty of people to watch.
As I sit here I overhear a couple as the overweight male gets a regular soda the female with him asks "Why does the girl always get the diet soda?" as they switch drinks...ha ha.
Hold on as I get another beer please....
Ok back.
People watching has always been one of my favorite things to do.
Whether I am sitting at a sidewalk cafe or at work in San Jose the watching of people is a grand thing.
Sometimes I will watch as people don't, too involved in their own conversation to ever stop and see how others act and interact with the world we share.
I think the watching of people has helped me to understand how people think, and although I will never understand them all at least I am trying...beer please.....

The News

And now for the news....
the Catholics are blaming their latest troubles they are having on the devil. While they won't go so far as to say the religious leaders who have been caught up in the pedophile charges have been possessed by demons, they do blame the sickening behavior on "the temptations of Satan" As silly as this seems it is also an indication of just how hard up the church is to lay the blame elsewhere rather than where it belongs. It belongs on the shoulders of the people guilty of such actions and on the heads of the Catholic church who have done nothing to solve the problem except den, hide, and conjure up demons to protect their own....

a local automaker is closing it's doors soon here where I live. It is called NUMI and it is a product of Toyota and GM joining together. The current economic climate has brought the closing of this plant.
The workers of the plant are, of course, not happy about the closing, can't blame them really.
In the news today there is an announcement of the severance package offered by Toyota and GM.... The average amount each worker will receive is $54,000. The workers are still not happy.
I can understand the anger over losing your job but people across the country have been losing their jobs too and they sure as hell are not getting a severance package, unless you count a pink slip which is not worth much.
like I said the fact the jobs are being lost is really bad but at least they are getting a cushion, it's more than what most get. There is unemployment to consider too.
It could always be worse.....
And as my last news report....I have planted my garden. The corn and onions are coming up quite nicely...more at 11....