So it goes...

In lieu of a decent posting, I offer this not so decent attempt at poetry. It was inspired while I had the house to myself when Donna and the kids were in New York. Four Walled Box They’re gone now All three, gone Silence echoes Stillness permeates Solitude stains Loneliness sets in like cancer Small at first, a lump The memory of misplaced socks, appointments, laughter Then ravaging, it eats away. The touch The voices The emotions Electronic chemo fails So alone in this Four Walled Box One miracle cure They return

I went shopping for our upcoming BWCA canoe/fishing trip today. It was a bit of an eye- opening experience, to say the least. What camping is really, is trying to recreate your home in the wilderness. Therefore, you have to buy many things in an effort to simulate your house and lifestyle. The unfortunate thing is that trying to recreate your life at 1/2 the weight and size, it seems, takes a lot of money. I wonder how the homeless can afford it? I looked at Therma -Rest self inflating sleeping pads thinking they'd run about 17 bucks. Yeah, right. Try four times that. Those things run about $80 for my size. Now, if I sleep crappy on a regular air mattress camping, is spending $80 to sleep crappy going to solve anything? No. I couldn't bring myself to do it. That's not to say I won't be renting one (I will), because hey, I'm not 27 anymore. Life jackets are another story. Ring three of them up at $90. Ca- Ching ! Gotta have them though. Throw in a sleeping bag for ...

Feeling a bit frazzled at the moment. Got a few writing things hanging, including this blog, so wanted to get one or more of them out of the way. Not the way I want to look at my writing...as something to get out of the way. It needs to be more sincere than that. Kids can sense when you're not sincere. So can readers I think. Can you? ;-) I'll try and be sincere. Seriously. San Diego was absolutely fantastic. What a great, beautiful city and climate. Tons of homeless folks from what I could tell, but I think that tends to happen in the warmer climes. Up north here people tend to say, nah, it's easier to find a job than to freeze my butt off sleeping outdoors. I don't mean to make light of it, but I think there's a certain element of truth to it. Got to hob-nob with the prez of ESRI, the software company who was hosting the conference. (Above) Most people don't know this guy from Adam, (Jack Dangermond) but he's big in the industry. Nice guy with a Humanitari...

I'm back from San Diego. I will probably post again later this week. (Thurs.) Much to tell. Stay tuned, bat fans. Blogging off.

Toby was taken over to our friends' today, so it's just me and the two cats. Or in other words, just me. They're such pitifully bad friends those felines. Dogs on the other hand worship their owners. This will be the last post for a week or so as I'm headed to San Diego for the ESRI Users Conference. San Diego, home of the most consistent weather in the continental US. What a great place to live. A good, though busy day today. Not much time for doing what I want (like writing). In the middle of the day I had to trek to Ewald Kia and get a new key for the van. Well, the one they gave me got stuck in the ignition and they had to have a service guy come and extricate it. This was after the sales guy and another guy tried the same thing I did. Turn harder. Pull harder. Yep did them both. It was a frustrating end to a frustrating ordeal, but we did get a new one, with promises to get a new FOB next week. In any case, I miss my family. It's going to be a long week in C...

You'll never believe this. (I know I don't). A poem woke me up this morning. No, not one that was written, but one that was forming in my cranium. I gotta stop going to this writing class. It's starting to affect my sleeping pattern. Too much neuron stimulation and I'm a mess. I'd rather be dumb and rested. (Not really.) It startled me with it's beginning; "Lonliness rains on his heart like a velvet mist" and then left me to stir from 4:54 AM until 6:15 when the alarm throttled me. Of course I had to pursue it, so got a pad of paper and skipped my yoga workout and fleshed the thing out. I guess I never fancied myself a poet, but this is a good one. Like all my writing (See yesterday's post) I don't know what to do with a rogue poem that seems like an orphan with one shoe and a bad limp. I can't really publish ONE poem. Should I type it out and carry it in my wallet? Put it on my tombstone? Fish wrap? Bird cage lining? A Nobel Peace Prize? Y...

The house is as quiet as, well, as an empty house. Donna and the kids flew out to NY today for a week with family, cousins, the pool and the dog. I am attempting to get some extra posts in during this stay of execution. Watch, I'll fall into a pit of writers block when the chance to write is golden. WWWWD ? (What Would Walt Whitman Do?) The dog, is begging for the rest of my sandwich that he is unaware, is inside my stomach. This is why dogs don't lead the country. That and they lick themselves in places no politician should. I'm still waiting for that scandalous headline. Writing class tonight was so awesome. http://www.allwriters.org/ For someone who weekly wonders why I write and where it's taking me, it is always so clear to me after class that this is exactly what I was starved for. I'm no author, but it sure is cool to be producing again and getting critiqued while I do it. Listening to poetry, some brilliant, some mediocre makes the class so interesting, so c...

Everyone loves the car shopping experience, right? I know I do. The waiting. The BS. The bait-and-switches. The waiting. The small talk with 3 different people, none of whom you wanted to meet in the first place and post-purchase, hope to never see again. My wife and I had that wonderful experience last night. Oh, it was so special. The circumstances surrounding our hasty purchase need outlining first. When we went to the same dealer last week, they had one vehicle that we liked, except for the color (white). Well, the sales manager said "Never fear, I'll find you a vehicle in the color of your choice in the next week." Let's note this as lie #1. After not hearing from them for a week, Donna calls them yesterday and the same sales manager had a completely different tune; like he'd never heard of us before. "Vans are hard to find right now," he says. Last week he sounded like they were falling out of the sky. Funny, those sales guys, evidently they have ...