FREE MONEY!!!

Well, not really. LJ and I just got our tax refund back and though many people like to look at this as “free money”, it isn’t. I like to look at it as money happily yanked from my paychecks before I could ever get my hands on it. And what does it mostly go toward anyway? Social security and the military. Frankly, I think I could do a better job with it than the government. I wouldn’t be paying old people to sit around and go to the doctor for shits and giggles when I can’t go myself and I wouldn’t be funding operations to liberate anyone who didn’t want to be liberated (that’s a different discussion though and I won’t get into it now).

So we have this money and we need to do something with it. Yeah, I know “save it”. Hmmmmm, no. We had some ideas on where it could be spent like a new computer or maybe a PSP or something equally fun but I think we are going to spend it on boring things that, in the long run, will be better investments.

First, LJ and I need our eyes examined. We can do this and get new contacts. I have been having to wear my glasses for more than a year now and I hate it. God, do I hate glasses! I’ve never worn contacts but it must be wonderful. The only thing is I’ve never had to touch my eye so I am more than a little freaked about having to put them in and take them out. Ggggraaaababababa and EEEWWWWWWW!

Second, we are getting the carpets cleaned. They are gross they need cleaning. That’s it. Other than I will kill any animal that pisses on my floor afterward.

Third, LJ needs her wisdom teeth out. Her parents said they would help with the expense so I think we are going to have to do it. Yeah, sorry babe but its for your own good. I won’t even tell you how bad I had it when my teeth were out. I’ll have to use some devilishly clever ploy to get her to go, like telling her we’re going to a tea party and when we get there saying, “Oh, I said teeth pulling. You must have misheard me. Well, while we’re here we may as well…” Man, that was weak. My ploys have been a bit lackluster lately. I’ll work on it.

Fourth, LJ’s truck is getting recharged with air-conditioning stuff. I hate that neither of us has a car with A/C. Summer in FLA sucks enough; the least we can do is have one comfortable vehicle.

Anyway, you can see where I’m going. I think we’ll be better off paying for the things that normally we wouldn’t spring for due to our tight budget. I think in the end it will make us happier and be things we can look back on as good investments. Though I can’t believe I’m giving up a PSP…

What do you people normally spend your refunds on?

Terror

**I suggest turning off your lights for this post to have a better mood. Also, turn off any music or other noise.

So, I was talking with Mike about stuff in general and the subject of fear rolled around. I don’t know about most of you but I grew up terrified by my own imagination. I had an amazingly vivid imagination and consequently had some pretty scary childhood moments. I was never really scared of anything real. I guess it was more a fear of the unknown. Let me relate a reoccurring nightmare I had as a child so you could get an idea.

---The Dream---

I wake up to a loud thunderclap. It’s completely dark in my room except for the occasional lightning strikes that illuminate the whole room in those brief ultra-intense flickers from my window. Through the rain I hear these short series of clicks. I listen closely to it and realize that these rapid clicks are not rain, but something on the outside of the house. Another bolt of lightning draws my attention back to the window where I see a dark figure in the upper corner glaring in at me. A silhouette of the top of its head is all I can see. Whatever it is, it’s clinging from the house outside my window. The eyes glint like those of an animal in the beam of a flashlight. They look hollow and ethereal.

I’m terrified to look at it but I must, I know that if I take my eyes away it could move before I have the chance to look back. I blink, and it’s gone. Was I imagining it? I’m listening very intently now; searching for any sounds that may help me identify its location. The clicking returns, but now it sounds different somehow. I cautiously get out of bed and creep toward my door to listen. The clicking sounds come again but now they sound as though they are upstairs…inside the house!

I act fast. I have to leave my room. “It saw me in my room, it knows I’m here”, I think as I dash down a dark hallway and to the basement door. I have to put as much distance between whatever this thing is and myself. I can feel the cold wood of the stairs and the humid air as I run down into the dark. I race across the basement already knowing where I intend to hide, the dark corner between the couch and the wall. I press my back up into the corner and sit in the cold dark room waiting and listening.

It feels like an eternity passes and I see and hear nothing but I know its there…somewhere…in my house. Then I hear it. The clicking sound of claws is closer; it’s in the upstairs hall. I hug my knees up to me. I can feel the fear like I can feel the cold wall on my back or the dusty floor under me. The sound comes again. It’s in front of the basement door. I pray…I pray for it to pass, I pray for someone to come home and find me, I pray for all this to be over. I know none of this will happen though. All I can do is sit and be still and quite. There is a clicking on the stairs…then nothing.

I look hard through the dark and can see that it’s crouched there on the floor at the bottom of the stairs. Its been staring at me all this time. Its small, maybe the size of a large dog but still its as big as me and I know if it comes for me I’ll be dead. The eyes glint again like those of an animal, but from where? There is no light down here. I’m not even breathing now I just sit and stare and it stares right back. I think that maybe that stare will hold it, lock it into place somehow. Maybe I can just sit here and keep it at bay because it knows I can see it. Then it moves but almost too fast for me to see. Its claws clicking on the floor furiously as it races toward me…

I wake up; in a cold sweat usually. I had this dream off and on for years. To this day I have a hard time with dark buildings. I don't know, I guess I'm just affraid of some unidentified thing coming after me, or maybe it's being alone. Though, I have camped several times by myself and have no fear of the woods at night. I just thought it was a creepy dream and you guys might think so too. However, If I hear a camp councilor telling this story to a group of boy scouts several years from now, I'm gonna want some royalties.

We all need a Hero

First, I would like to thank DeWey, for without his contribution this blog may not have even happened. Yes he fixed my computer hard-core and now it’s running like a champ. Way to go DeWey. I would also like to say that he has a pretty cool pod-cast going. It was actually featured on a fairly large pod-cast hosted by the guy who used to do Headbanger’s Ball on MTV. Coolness.

Next, I thought I would do a blog about my own personal heroes. Not any actual people mind you because I think, that for me anyway, it is more truthful to talk about the fictional characters on TV that I watched growing up rather than…you know…real people. I guess it was easier to identify with the television characters that I saw daily versus those I could only read about and whose actions I had to interpret. Not that I didn’t know about Martin Luther King Junior, Mother Theresa, or Neil Armstrong. I just thought that the fictional characters on TV had more definable qualities. So let me give you a few, but please don’t laugh remember that I was a kid and these were some role models of mine.

MacGyver: He was a nice guy who wanted to help people. He was some kind of peacekeeping agent that didn’t carry a gun. No, all he needed was pocketknife and some ingenuity. I always thought that this guy was smart enough to solve any problem that lay before him, all he needed was a little time and some common household items. I always have a pocketknife on me to this day, in part, from watching MacGuyver.

Danger Mouse: I know it’s a cartoon character, but he was cool nonetheless. He was always really brave. He could march into any situation head first with the utmost confidence. He could even march several times into the same situation where he would inevitably be hanging from the edge of a cliff with his partner, Penfold, dangeling at his feet. I try and have that kind of bravery even if it means hanging from a proverbial cliff.

Captain Jean-Luc Picard: The captain of the starship Enterprise (from Star Trek: The Next Generation). He was an amazingly wise character. He was measured and in control. When the shit hit the fan and two Klingon warbirds were coming in for an attack he would be the guy you wanted at the helm. I always thought that someday I wanted to have the same weathered experience and comand this guy has.

Indiana Jones: Was there any doubt he would make the list? C’mon, he had it all. He was smart, brave, and clever. He was as smooth as James Bond and as tough as Rambo. He is the reason I think archaeology is so cool to this day. He could take on an army of Nazis kick their asses and be back to recover whatever sacred object needed recovering before flying off on his next adventure. And it was always for a museum, so he even had integrity. Not to mention that he always got the girl.

So there you go, some of my personal heroes. I think they are pretty cool. Yeah, I never really idolized the sports stars or the rock stars. I guess I just thought that those people were just people, totally flawed, normal, nothing special...people. Where as these fictional characters could be the embodiment of the traits that I admired. I am sure that most of you out there have at least a few heroes of your own that aren't real life people too. Though LJ thinks I'm weird.

Race is a 4 Letter Word

I haven’t been posting recently due to some computer problems, which still aren’t resolved, so I made an effort to find a computer that worked. While I had tons of things I wanted to blog about a situation arose that I felt needed some comment.

A little while back my roomy Mike went to the beach and had some humorous, yet annoying, situations occur; consequently he blogged on the subject and then from out of no where was hit with all sorts of angry comments. He checked out where they were all linking from and found this other blogger that had read his page and taken it as a slap toward gays, Hispanics, and the French. If you haven’t, I suggest reading the comments on that page to get an idea for some of the hateful responses.

I was raised in an upper middle class suburb of Atlanta. I didn’t live in an all white neighborhood and I didn’t go to an all white school. I grew up, went to school and was in boy scouts with a multi-racial, multi-ethnic community. To me the only diffrence between the people in my town were whether or not they were intelligent or rude. The only time I ever experienced any kind of racism was when I moved away from there. I have seen racism from many different people, whites, blacks, Asians, Hispanics, etc. I have been called a racist from people who didn’t know me. I have called other people racists on the merit of how they had treated friends of mine or ideals that they made clear to me. The subject troubles me.

There are two words that have become an embodiment of what they are supposed to oppose. One is the word “racist” which is defined as “prejudice or animosity against people who belong to other races.” The other is “reverse-racism” or racism that may be aimed at whites by other minorities. When did the word racism become a word to solely be associated with white people? Isn’t this ugly word just as apt when applied to anyone no matter their color or ethnicity? The very existence of a term like “reverse-racism” is a troubling sign that our community is segregating more and more.

If anyone is interested I would urge you to read some anthropological works in regards to the term “race” as it is. If you do you’ll find that this word is not scientifically accurate. In fact most archaeologists and anthropologists today will never use the term race to describe anyone.

I hate that people use language that singles out generalities about an entire group of people, but let’s leave our politically-correct selves for a moment and be real. People are all prejudice. If you don’t believe me then look the word up and honestly tell me you’re not. Everyone is, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. It doesn’t mean that you can’t be friends with someone of a different origin than yours and it doesn’t mean that you are hateful. What it means is that you judge people from what you have experienced. I can’t fault anyone for that. I don’t hold it against the people who have played the race card on me. I just have to assume that they have only had bad experiences with people of my background, too bad for them they judged me poorly before they got to know me.

While I’m on the subject, it is also a shame that in our country today it is almost impossible for a white person to redeem themselves after being labeled a bigot or a racist. Take the example of my friend Mike. After reading all the uninformed mudslinging that others had done, one of the people who had him linked on her page took him off. If you try and defend yourself by saying “No, I’m not racist” people seem to be more disgusted with you. Finally, as a white person you can’t even tell someone about other people you’re friends with without sounding like a desperate back peddler. It is almost like someone being branded a leper and then being shunned by everyone around him. He may not be a leper but the acusation, once made, has more weight than the truth.

You know what people, save your scorn and disapproval for someone who really deserves it. Try and be less sensitive to what might offend and wait for someone who really is a bigot. And for the love, stop being so damned politically correct. It’s stupid. There is no one who isn’t guilty of telling a racial joke, and no one who isn’t prejudice in some small way. Get off you’re your high horses. The thing, I guess, I hate the most is that none of these people feel that they should be held accountable for their harsh words. All of them feel that he "blog-spammed" them. Hey, if you don't like this issue stinking up your pages don't sling it so gleefully at others, it could come back at you.

**Due to public outcry I am removing the racial jokes. I felt they made the point and while being funny to me were not funny to all. That’s fine; I don’t feel they coupled well with my overall argument anyway. I noticed that the only argument that people had though was over the one joke that had to due with minorities, while no one was upset by the white joke. Hmmm, what does that tell me? Maybe that’s why comedians like Dave Chappelle, the South Park Guys and Richard Prior have a booming career.

System Failure

The reason I haven't been posting recently is due to my computer being stone-cold-dead. I can't access the net or even get MSword running. I can't figure this problem out! I have formatted like 5 times and have just about given up. Not to mention that the school's computer lab is down for a while so I can't blog from there. I was toying with the idea of just giving up blogging. My wife says not to but I don't know. I'll think about it and decide whether or not I'll continue. This may be my last post...

Then again this may also be a sympathy plee to get a new computer. DeWey, HELP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!