Thinking on the edges.

Well here is an interesting issue for me.

Last Saturday I was up late totally absorbed in a Terry Pratchet book. One of the things his main character in the book was dealing with was trying to think of something that was lurking on the edge of her thought.

It made me think of quite an interesting point, how many times have I also done the same thing? I have often had thoughts on the edge of my mind which I could not quite grasp.

I wonder if that happens to others... I think it does.

But then I wondered why people don't search for those thoughts. most of us, myself included, tend to just write off the issue and don't chase those thoughts down and I wonder why.

I think we all are trying to escape too much. If you think about it our society has been pushing for a long time to make us all easily distracted.

I am aware of my escapism tendencies, I have always looked to reading to escape. Sci Fi Fantasy, mystery... didn't really matter which, as long as I could use those books to get away from it all.

Today there are a lot of other choices to distract and escape. And at each stage it gets more invasive and total.
It started with Radio then it moved to movies, then T.V. then Video/s then DVD's now Blue-ray's. Then there are also the video games... it started with the Commodore's and now you have Xbox and Wii and PlayStation, the graphics are being touted as "awesome" or "lifelike". And they are but this isn't necessarily a good thing.

Maybe as a nation we need to grow up and learn how to face ourselves again.

What a week!

well this last week was quite the doozy. If you read my last post you know what was going on then, but after that post I got a call from the babysitter I had planned for. She said she wasn't going to be able to help out. So even though our 10th anniversary was last Wednesday, we are going to have to go out to dinner this next week instead.

Ah well

Also had some fun dealing with a little more illness as well.

But hey we are all still alive so...
I suppose we had a good weekend, I wish I had gotten something better for my wife but apparently that wasn't going to happen... something I ordered wasn't sent, but at least I wasn't charged for it either.
And a lot of the other things I looked at were expensive ad I wasn't sure if the wife would be o.k. if I bought them. I still suffer from the scars of a time when my dad, wanting to do something nice for my mom, got reamed by her for spending money on the piano he bought.

But all in all I am looking forward to the next week. I have a couple of plans lined up this time and about three babysitters to contact if the first bails... at least I hope I do, the best laid plans of mice and men and all that you know.

School starts soon for the girls and tomorrow we have to meet with a representative of Megan's preschool. that should be fun.

Hope all is well with you, until the next time...

what next?

Well now today isn't being very good to me.

This morning I had planed on several things that I needed to get done but unfortunately they are not working out too well.
At the top of my list I have a problem with a portable DVD player that I received this past father's day.
Barely two months old and it quits working.
It was supposed to be a replacement for the one I had bought before it. That one broke after only three months. they both came from the same seller and if I do not receive satisfaction on this issue I will probably post who they are here and in my other blogs and go on to form a group on Facebook since that seems the in thing right now. But until then...

Faith woke up sick this morning, that was troubling and when I looked into my Blogs here I discovered that the background I was using on one of them had been deleted and I had to restructure that blog. So I have been dealing with those issues all day, (Faith being Ill redoing my blog/s, etc...)

And then I fell asleep which was nice, if short, when I woke up I realized I had not put away the leftovers from my lunch from last night. When I went to do that I found that one of the ice-packs in the lunch box had sprung a leak and was literally ALL over everything in my lunchbox.

As I was in the process of cleaning that up I went to hang my lunch box out to dry in the shower and discovered that my NEW bottle of body wash had taken a header from it's storage space and now all the "soap" is covering the shower floor.
I guess to sum it all up I would appreciate your prayers.

Of course, there is more!
What I find most interesting right at this moment is that I am fairly o.k. After looking at all those things that have gone wrong I can still think I am better off than I ought to be and better off than many others. So I guess that means there is a praise report in there too.

Well I better get a little more sleep so until I see you again...

Catch y ou on the flipside.

my new blog schedule

Hello all.
I am so sorry that I have not been following up on my blog/s. the good news is that I will be tring to do a better job of it. I think there will have to be a schedule though. For my general blog I will try to post three or four times a week. The politically incorrect and Christian blogs though will be a once a week option.

It seems that for me I get so caught up in things that I tend to forget these things. (or I get so tired of being online that I give up before I get to the blog/s. so I will try to change that up.
I also sometimes cannot think of anything g to post. So I will have to switch on my brain a little more often. But I do want to post regularly and in such a way that it is pertinent and of value to my readers.

Thank you for your patience as I get my self sorted out.

Your’s faithfully…


Colt!

Movie Ideas

So Lately I have been thinking about a lot of things.

And I have to ask, Why is it that Hollywood is incapable of anything original anymore? All the movies you see anymore are remakes sequels or prequels. But none of them are original.

I think that what needs to happen is that Hollywood needs to get rid of all the writers, actors and directors who have been there for so long. After all they have all had their chance to make it big, give someone else a chance. And that will also give a fresh perspective on how things could be done.

That’s what we need is for a new breed of entertainer.
Maybe we could also get cleaner movies. That would be a good thing! I am very disturbed about moves that are presented as being suitable for children! I mean Tim Burton, In my opinion, ought NOT to be making kid flicks and neither should Johnny Depp. These movies are to dark and disturbed for any children I know.

Same goes for Mike Myers… I mean I really feel the Cat in the Hat movie seemed to be a travesty of what Theodore Geisel wrote. And Shrek???? What The Heck???? Let’s teach the kids how to be totally gross and disgusting, like that isn’t already enough of a problem.

Oh back to the Tim Burton/ Johnny Depp combo… What was the point behind the Charlie and the Chocolate factory remake? I actually heard that they said it was closer to the book and Roald Dahl‘s writing.?! HUH?? How could it be closer to what Roald Dahl was intending when the original was supervised BY Roald Dahl himself? I mean I think if he was sitting on the set telling people how to do things then that is more likely to fit his idea then a movie made that has only an interpretation by someone else?

And what was that with Alice in wonderland?

Some people will say, “well kids today are more mature.” But I do not really think that is a good thing. We should let our kids BE kids. Let them have a childhood, let them enjoy the innocence that comes from such times. They will have to grow up soon enough.

You know I remember what it was like to be a kid and I know they will want to go see the “adult” movies (the 10 year old who wants to look all grown up so he wants to go to a P.G. 13 movie or such) But how about if we make the movies cleaner so a G rated movie is really good for kids (say 4 - 7 years old) then make movies like Shrek or the Alice in wonderland/ Wonka remakes into P.G. or even P.G. 13 movies then it might not be so bad when the 10 year old goes to see them.

a flash of common sense

lately I have been noticing a lack of common sense being displayed on our televisions.

I mean I have seen a worse then usual display of idiocy.

First I want to address the issue/s with Toyota. While I understand that there are problems with Toyota and some of the issues that have come out of that, I have to take a moment to pause and say "but I would rather own A Toyota than ..." you see I look at the Ford pinto or the Crown Victoria and here we have two cars that have shown a tendency to explode when rear ended, there are several GM cars that have also, apparently, displayed some homicidal tendencies.
the worst people can say about Toyota is the vehicle/s may accelerate on their own.

my view is, there is very little I can do about getting rear ended by an idiot. (maybe he is driving the toyota?)but if I am driving a toyota and it starts accelerating I can do something about it.

Once, when I was a school bus driver, I had the throttle on my bus stick open while on the highway. I had a load of students on my bus and teachers as I was driving for a field trip.

When this became an issue I was able to put the gear selector in neutral and pull to the side of the road and come to a complete and safe stop.

I then proceeded to fix the problem and finished taking the students to their destination.
The teacher's comments were that they didn't even realize there was anything going on until we stopped at the side of the road. And I started working on the problem.

ANY good driver who has common sense ought to be able to do this.

You can ALWAYS put the car in neutral, turn off the ignition etc... I have NEVER experienced loss of control for having my vehicle in neutral. So anyone who is "capable" of driving the car they ought to be able to take control if something goes wrong.

It is plain common sense.

The other point is a commercial I recently have seen for a new, hands free, soap pump from, I think, Lysol which states that "you" can avoid the horror of contamination by getting the new pump.
My very first thought was "wait a minute, that doesn't make sense."

If I am using soap then I am already washing my hands. I do not make a habit of touching a soap pump AFTER washing my hands so to have the pump be hands free is ridiculous.
Any germs I MIGHT pick up off the pump will wash down the drain along with the germs already on my hands that caused me to be washing in the first place.

So please people get some common sense. stop letting the advertising people out there take away your intelligence.

Stand and deliver

I think it is really sad that we have lost Mr. Escalante. We need more people like him. he had common sense and was an inspiration. Unfortunately with his loss I believe we All lose out. Anything that lessens people like him lessen us all.


Jaime Escalante was a man from Bolivia who worked hard to become a teacher in Garfield High school. He taught math and got very frustrated at what he saw as the dumbing down of the kids in his school.
He fought the critics and the other teachers, he went against the politically correct and the naysayers, and he single handed, brought Garfield High to being one of the top schools in all of America.
By 1981 THERE WERE ONLY A HANDFUL OF SCHOOLS IN THE ENTIRE COUNTRY that could match Garfield in mathematical excellence.

The entire life of Senor Escalante was so inspiring they made a movie "Stand and Deliver" that detailed his life.

Sadly we do not get to know all that happened later. it turns out that finally the politics won and they drove him out of Garfield and they have seen a steady decline in the competence of their students until we reach Last year when only five percent of the students at Garfield High tested proficient at ANY level of math.

This is really sad because when Jaime first started teaching the high school math there he compared the level of math they were learning to be on par with a basic FIFTH grade education in math in Bolivia.

So now we have all lost out. If you are a teacher or parent please push for better standards see Mr. Escalante's life as a standard to reach for and try to teach your kids that well.

I would also encourage you to watch the movie of his life. (remember that was stand and deliver) I only saw the movie once but it was very inspiring to me.

By the way just so you know one of the things that was used against Mr. Escalante was that even though he was from Bolivia he believed that the students of America needed to learn English and classes needed to be taught in English only.
Another point apparently used against him was his advising President G.W. Bush.

How sad that common sense and trying to make a difference in our lives cause so many to rise up in anger, and destroy a great person.