Atlanta, I hear you calling...

Hail pounding on the metal skin, our bodies bouncing like ragdolls, we checked our thoughts for signs of comfort - prayers, assurance that pilots and planes are safer than texting drivers - wondering, wondering, wondering... then, out into the sun, over water vapour mushrooms blooming in unstable air masses (a cold front? all is relative) and landing in the mess that is ATL in sweltering summer storms. Enuf sed!

Taxes? What taxes?

Here in the balmy state of Alabama, parents head to stores, determined to save a few percent off total cost to buy their children school supplies without paying sales tax.

"Get the package that you want!"

My frugal wife and I shopped and shopped and shopped for days, spending more in hours than we'd ever hope to recover in savings trying to determine which low-end budget computer system we wanted for Web surfing, email and rare home video production (including photo and music storage).

I'd detail our decision process but won't. Instead, I'll summarise:

Looked at Intel i3 system - too slow (due to emulated 4-core?); Intel i5 system out of our budget range; AMD Phenom II not worth the extra cost; AMD Athlon II x4 630 and 635 about the same. Settled on HP Pavilion P6520F at Staples for $529.88 plus HP S2331 LCD monitor for $199.99, staying below the $750 limit with room to spare! Purchased clothes at Burke's Outlet and called our tax-free shopping spree a complete success.

Nobody Doesn't Hire Thinkers

[personal flogging session - not meant for consumption by general audience]

I am worthless.  I have no motivation.  There is nothing I want - unused material possessions swallowing me up as it is.

Why live?  Why carry on a big dream if the world is fully of petty squabbles and selfish hoarding?

I have only one body.  I am only one person.  I want only because my social side sympathises with the wants of others.

Death is inevitable.  My family will all die in time, leaving dreams and plans in the hands of others who will also die in time.

What is love if I can't share it with others, ignoring local social/subcultural mores?

If we are one species, why do others spend so much time and energy declaring we are not?

I am conquered by my fears in today's battle with self.  I have lost.  I am captive to the cruelty and shortsightedness inherent in our drive to get ahead at others' costs.

I don't want to see anyone else anymore or hear the un/spoken trails of negative thoughts permeating our planet.  I am burdened with too much personal negativity to hold up much longer.

Some days a couple of beers or glasses of wine or swigs of whiskey smooth over the rough seas pounding against the portholes of my thoughts.

I'm too tired to lift a glass of good cheer today.

Rest.  Peace.  Quiet.

Watch two chickadees looking for "natural" meals in the tree limbs instead of handouts.

Not as many granddaddy longlegs on the window screens this year.

Is there a low-cost place where I can fade away, unaware of the pains and progress of the species to which I was born and raised?

I am a nobody.  Unable to rescue my wife on my own.  Lost and alone.

I don't want to be a helpless dependent.  I want to die with my boots on, walking the woods the last action I remember before a myocardial infarction takes me off of my feet.

I am an old man in thoughts,  if not in body.  Worn out by seeing storylines play out like life is a set of easy scripts to be written by those who have loose connections with the whole species.

Novelty for novelty's sake has lost its novelty.

My fine-feathered friends come to the window expecting a meal from me.  Have I disappointed them, too?

When we run out of exotic metals and other easy-to-manufacture chemicals, who's going to find the Amish, Amazonian nomads and Asian/African desert tribes had it right all along?

Will the majority of our species' members willingly live low-tech lives to send the select into space to preserve a portion of our planet's ecosystems in perpetuity elsewhere?

I can only be an example of myself to myself, choosing a mixture of high-tech and low-tech to live daily.  Should I be more aware of the rare earth elements in my life that are unnecessary for my simple existence, needed more for packaging and sending others to new satellite/planetary bases?

I am a book reader.  A thinker.  Useless in today's fast-paced, high-tech society.  A relic of days gone by.  Where can I go out to pasture and slip away unseen into the hills from whence I came?

My time (and others like mine) has come and gone.  The youngest generation must find the strength and determination to save our species and planet from our selfish desires.  Will they avoid the traps we set to set high-volume consumption examples of ourselves?

If I was born Amish, I wouldn't be here.  Perhaps it's just as well, able to represent more than one alternate lifestyle.  Maybe I can become Amish or something like it before my time is up and leave the sub/urban life to those who don't know better, who aren't aware they're repeating historical civilisation rises/falls, making no more progress than an 18th century farming family makes without all the fuss, worry and stress of reaching for the stars.

I am only one person.  If I won't be one to make sure there is low overhead in how I consume in order to live, then who will?

Today, I don't have the energy to paint a humorous picture that resolves all the conflicts in the world.  I feel humourless, deflated, empty.  Ready to roll up in to a ball and wander away from all this (except, as always, from myself).

Just because I know how the world works and how others twist and turn and manipulate to maintain a constantly-interesting image to the mix of subcultures doesn't mean I want to change how it works or rework it to my advantage.

We are seven billion people, not one.  It's up to you to see how it works, too.  If you want to believe in hatred and pettiness, there are plenty of people to feed that belief.  I no longer want to believe those or feed them, even jokingly.

I want technology turned toward positive solutions so we can use this small window of opportunity to get our species and surrounding ecosystems firmly established on other bodies bouncing around the galaxy.  Island hopping, if you will.

It'll take thousands of years to get us safely far away from this solar system and into other safe zones.  Several waves of settlers will pass away in the process.

Today is the moment to make the decision in y/our life to contribute to that line of reasoning.

I'm just one person, eating a bowl of oatmeal and drinking a cup of tea for breakfast before using a high-power network for expressing my thoughts here.

Maybe it's time to rethink my life.

No "maybe."  It is the moment.

I gave up facebook and linkedin to preserve my quasi-independent mindset.  Time to give up online blogging/browsing, also.

Like watching the chickadees that roam this part of the countryside, there's too much out there that this electronic world doesn't provide, and at a lower cost to the environment (thus leaving more environmental stuff for those who will explore the planets in my/our name).

I'm closing this blog.

Thanks for stopping by.  We'll stay in touch using the other methods, of course.

What if...

Marie Osmond appeared as body-double to Hope Brady or vice versa in Nutrisystem/DOOL fantasy sequence tie-in?

Chip Ganassi was remembered long after Penske is gone?

Haier-type factories flew American flags in Chinese factories?

Symbiont-receptive quadriplegics became known as the best remote robot operators (i.e., cyborgs) in the solar system?

"Samourais" (2002) and "Howl's Moving Castle" (2004) were found to be something else entirely?

Older Nephew At Work

Good to see my older nephew's company getting profiled (in a good way):

Small Huntsville company developing 'eyes' and 'brains' that can help soldiers

And to think, I still remember playing hide-and-seek and Frisbee tossing with him and his sister.  That three-year old fascinated with ceiling fans sure grew up fast!

Nuhjygfivoed

Oddly enough, finding recruits is easy. Never go after the elite. Go after the hungry.

My associates build and I gather.

Entrepreneurs with abundant resources revise plans for established defenses inaccessible by conventional forces.

Wouldn't you like to be the first to rule a brand-new sphere, able to collect docking fees and issue mining permits in the name of your own political entity, knowing you controlled the currency values of political entities on the neighbouring sphere?

The art of doing business with all the power at your (and thus, your colleagues'/associates') disposal.

The ultimate end-around maneuver.

Your ubiquity superfluous and omnipresent, duplicate copies upon duplicate copies spread out, over and in the competition's domain, virtually indestructible?

How can the competition eliminate you if you're part of them? Would they know they handed you the key to unlock their guarded secrets by NOT sharing them with you?

I'm a tired, middle-aged man who has figured out too many simple games we play and want something more than mass hypnosis and tomfoolery. I want to rule a small body circling around our planet for the fun of setting up an ecosystem of living beings adapted to low gravity and lack of a lot of symbionts (not forgetting other harsh conditions).

This is a blog. Words. Inside and outside of real life.

I'm not interested in snapping my fingers and causing massive earthquakes through the "magic" of science or toppling empires through mass media messaging.

I wonder. I imagine. I ask questions. I am unimportant.

I just figured out that I got your attention with this blog (how quickly I forget; never was my whole reason for being here, merely an easy place to store/backup my notes). Guess I better stay the course, huh?

Our species, our family, is all that counts and all I'm concerned about. That's what most of us only ever really know about and I want us to keep it that way, as secure as we can be in this day and age, as technologically backwards as it is.

One of you will see a new type of government centered on the Moon. With it comes its relationship with the rest of our solar system governments. I envy you, whoever you will be then. In the meantime, learn to lead, to coach, to mentor, to manage effectively, and remember you are family. Just like the rest of us.

We'll be keeping tabs on you. Don't worry, we'll nurture you along and ease you into your position of responsible power sharing when you/we see you're ready. It's what we do, what we've always done. Taking care of family, like a distant benefactor/relative rarely letting you know we're around.

Time for me to slip back into anonymity, the aimless wandering wonderer, humbly staying out of people's way, ending intolerance wherever feasible.

Hard to be an irresponsible practical joker and solemn, serious leader at the same time. Or is it? Hardly! Hardily! Half-Heartedly!

Ode to the Unemployed

How well were we trained to recite rote lines in school,
How much do we seek unblemished records,
The times when we thought for ourselves were few,
And now we wait for an opportunity to keep our worthiness alive.

If I could invent a new life for myself -
Gutsy, inspirational, a 24-hour self-starter -
I'd give back to those who gave to me a definition of self
Found in work procedures, company policies and paychecks.

My vision's too far off to feed the masses now,
My dream of a solar system economic/political base not ready for primetime;
Where are the intermediate steps that profit us,
When will the dreamers step forward to keep the dream alive?

I am no poet...
An amateur thinker,
Knowing that legal routes and black market bargains
Drive our drive to break the gravitational pull of a shrinking planet.

I envision a future close by
Made of this moment and others like it,
We'll figure out symbiotic relationships start with us
And carry bacterial buddies to new homes.

Robots will be the next pioneers,
Risking no conscious lives sacrificing faulty electromechanics,
Blazing a trail for the first wave of settlers
Who'll redefine our species in new ecosystems.