Travel

On Saturday morning drove to Fresno on business and took the whole family with me: round trip over 400 miles. Purely by coincidence, today, Sunday, is my birthday, and yesterday I visited my birth place, Fresno, CA.  Odd, no? 

By far the most astonishing geographic part of the trip was climbing the "Grapevine" en route to Fresno, and driving back down the Grapevine on the way home. Going and coming, going up and going down, the speed limit for trucks is different from, and frequently posted, the speed for automobiles. Also, trucks must stay on the right hand side where there is provided in several places, going up and coming down, a truck safety ramp to act as a brake. Brake testing provisions are available for trucks. In other words the mountain(s) are very steep.  Cars are forbidden to go over 70 mph up or down. Coming down, on the way home, I did something I'd never done before except on a motorcycle, and that was using the engine as a brake. That is, clicking off the Overdrive button, which then lights up on the dashboard as "O/D Off",  and slows you down without having to use the brake. (Mazda transmissions are good.) At 70 the RPM goes up to 3,000 when ordinarily it would be at only 2,500 RPM or lower. Just as on a motorcyle changing down, coming down a steep hill acts as a brake.

The Grapevine is on the news every winter when it snows. Passage is often blocked for hours/days every winter. What the news doesn't convey at all is the breathtaking beauty of the mountains even in Autumn when there is no snow at all. (Nestled in between the mountains is Lake Castaic, site of some events, such as sculling, in the 1984 Olympic Games.) Son Vincent, 12, took some photos through the windshield. I hope I'll be able to post them here.  The months long snow coverage seems to have permanently prevented plants from growing successfully, so in Autumn the higher parts of the mountains almost look like stationary light brown clouds going off in many different directions.

Going North, toward Fresno, after traversing the Grapevine, the land is very flat home to orchards, vineyards and fields of corn. At one vinyard one can purchase one's own brand of wine, with your own label.  Too rich for my blood. Besides I don't drink. I'm a drunk.

The six of us had a grand time. But, frankly, it'll take me a day or so to recover. In spite of the beauty of the surroundings I couldn't successfully forget the possibility of crashing and, God help me, dying.

Happy Sunday!

Barry

http://journals.aol.com/bbartle3/Vengeance/

 

 

The Mutiny

CVS Pharmacy is selling THE BOUNTY "The true story,"new from Viking, for $4.99. That's almost one cent per page: it's 491 pages long. It's also one dollar per pound: the beautifully bound book weighs 5 lbs.

I can't leave this subject alone. A History professor at Melbourne U, Victoria, Aust., wrote a book on that subject. His surprise at the end was that Fletcher Christian, and the rest of the island survivors of the mutiny were murdered on Pitcaine by the South Sea Island mutineers. They wanted the women for themselves.

Another aspect: The bounty was taking breadfruit (there's a picture in the book) to Jamaica in support of the slave trade. Soon after the mutiny England banned slave trading. America followed some years later but England was first. Jamaica today is an English Protectorate. One year the Queen was there on her birthday.

It's hard to believe in the face of Charles Laughton's truly great Oscar performance, but the History prof. says that Bligh was the Admiralty's hero and he commanded many another ship. After the trial of Bligh there was another mutiny, and this time 36 mutineers were hung before the fleet. England feared the French Revolution might leak over to England and undermine the Monarchy.

MGM, I learned from another source, almost cancelled their production of the 1935 Mutiny movie for fear it might exacerbate labor agitations in Culver City: LA Times for 1935 reported that blood ran in the streets of Hollywood, labor negotiations stymied by the woosening Great Depression that had finally caught up with CA. (My family was inveigled by my rich grandmother to return to Australia.)

Both books, the profs, and this one by Caroline Alexander, are not history, nor are they fiction. They are fictionalized history. Shoot, they are fiction. We'll never know what happened.

Barry

http://journals.aol.com/bbartle3/Vengeance/

No subject

Ever seen a rainbow that touched ground at both ends? I doubt that I have until the other day while driving half the length of the San Fernando Valley going East. My wife took photographs thru' the windshield. Later, I discovered that the gorgeous rainbow pictures had been taken with my tiny digital camera, the size of a pack of cigarettes, with the lens setting on macro and not normal focal length. Oddly the photos on the screen thingum at the back of the camera, tiny, makes some of the pictures look normal, but I've got my doubts. Oh well, it was the experience of seeing the rainbow that matters. Right?

Barry

Vick, his dogs, his broken career, his looming 40 years in jail, etc.

Isn't this Vick dog fighting thing a bit overboard?! Before this case made indignation so popular, among pet owners especially, I would have guessed that if one staged a dog fight the neighbors could get seriously PO'd, and even bring about a 'Disturbing the peace' conviction, but 40 years in jail, and the ruination of a promising NFL career and universal shame?! Before this is over Vick is gonna get dragged by a pickup till his eyeballs drop out, and then given a public flogging.

In short it's over-kill, false piety, and racist.

What say you America!

Barry

 http://journals.aol.com/bbartle3/Vengeance/

After Thought #1

I've since writing this entry received an email giving details of the killing of dogs.  Butchering (my word) dogs cannot be tolerated, that's for sure. So I must back off from my former position. Added to that the high stakes gambling element and you have a sticky wicket. What climate allows that to happen?

BB3
 

AFTER THOUGHT #2

I dunno, #1 was posted out of respect for the love of dogs expressed indirectly by the email sender. Dogs are grand, and I've always loved them, even a Bull Terrier named Tyson (ha ha ha) I still own, now in the care of my friend in Puerto Escondido, Oaxaca.

But dogs are not people. Killing a dog must have a lesser penalty than killing a human being. It is insane, in an age when second degree murder of a human being can bring only 15 years in jail, while Vick is having dangled before him endless penalties. It's racism RACISM clear and simple-minded.

Barry

http://journals.aol.com/bbartle3/Vengeance/

 

Wars One & Two

To get a handle on WW2 I think some knowledge of WW1 is necessary.  I know almost nothing about WW1. Ken Burns, are you listening? In my rah rah enthusiasm for accounts of WW2, some of which I actually remember; for example I remember my father telling me what Russia "sitting on the fence" [1939] meant; he told me his version of Hitler flirting with Russia in an attempt to prevent them from interferring with Germany's expansion plans, I forget that young people today would just as soon forget all about the embarrassing mess the whole thing turned out to be; embarrassing because of all the death and destruction. 

After WW1 Germany almost starved to death. It was that starvation and humiliation, brought on by Allied reparation demands, which brought on, or helped bring on, the incomprehensible enthroning, exhaltation, of the cunning little rat, Hitler. What fun the dopey corporal had stamping his feet. It isn't just a joke, he practiced his act in front of a mirror.

My prejudice and contempt is so conditioned by having been alive all through WW2 I could never in a million years agree to drive a BMW.  Ha ha ha ha ha. Toyota is the most popular automobile in California, but not with me!  Mazda I've forgiven, ha!

It's stunning and sobering to realize what a dwindling minority one joins in old age.  One has to steel oneself because young people know EVERYTHING!  Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha......

[TWELVE O'CLOCK HIGH is the name of the Daryl Zanuch movie, released in 1949, which deals with training American bomber crews to be totally reckless with their lives: To the point of brain washing IMO.]

                          ...to be continued.....

Barry

 http://journals.aol.com/bbartle3/Vengeance/

 

More WW2 Chat

The first installment of Ken burns WAR (ww2) has come and gone. Now I know where Guadalcanal (sp?) is located. Not so far from Australia, just North of the equator. The Japs (allowable expression in talk about WW2; you know, Pearl Harbor n' stuff. Now, it's our honorable friend and ally Japan. You still haven't seen Sayonara? Japan helped us a great deal handle the war in Korea. I went on R&R to Japan from South Korea; that was background to a terrific, cross cultural love story with Marlon Brando making some fans and some money.)  Ken Burns lays it on the line about the WW2 sub-human, or, oh so human, Jap ferocity in the Pacific, and in China, and in the Philippines. I didn't know about the baking and eating babies, but I did know, from my Mother-In-Law, about the catching of Philippine babies with a bayonet. When a child she spied from cover terrified for her life. Thanks to America, The Japanese didn't set foot in Australia. They did enter Sydney Harbor in a mini-submarine; they sank a ferry in mothballs that had no engine.

The air war over Europe is a subject I look forward to hearing and seeing on the continuations of Ken Burns' documentary. I'm anxious to see if he takes a position on the brainwashing of American flyers to get them to enthusiastically fly into devastating attack over Germany. "Here's a new wrinkle," says the RAF dispacher to American bomber crews en route to Germany: "Their pilots are ordered to ram your aircraft if necessary." From: The Daryl Zanuch movie about "Daylight precision bombing."  

               to be continued..............

More moving pictures

Two strong dramas open this weekend. One has opened already, IN THE VALLEY OF ELAH from screenwriter/director Paul Haggis. The reviews have all been raves. Three Oscar winners are in the cast. The title refers to the place where David Slew Goliath. The subject of the movie is the Iraq War; but with some very odd exceptions none of the action takes place in Iraq; the power of the drama comes from "Indirection" (says The New Yorker.)

The other begins on TV tomorrow, Sunday. The Ken Burns documentary "WW2." The sum of the episodes is 14 hours.  I'll be interested to learn how it will go over with young people. That war was shorter than the Iraq war, and of course that still drags on and on.  WW2 required total mobilization and intense home front morale boosting. In view of the Iraq war being still in progress, groan, that rah rah spirit during WW2 might be presently off-putting, if in fact Ken Burns reports that war effort. It was amazing. A movie star was pleaded with to cut or hide her hair because American women in Defense plants were immitating her long hair and getting it stuck in machinery. At the end of the war a great movie opened foretelling the down side of the war, and dealt with the plight of returning soldiers out of step with the America they came home to.**** It'll be interesting to see how Burns deals with all the myriad facts about that dreadful war that killed hundreds of millions of people. Two million died in only one city: what is now St Petersberg, then called Stalingrad. Canibalism broke out. Soviet composer Dmitri Shostikovitch refused to leave the city so the Russians had him taken out by force. He was a National treasure. His work, called the Stalingrad Symphony is one hour and twenty minutes long. Incredibly stirring. At the end of one radio broadcast of that music the announcer, after a long pause, said, "Nothing puny about that work."

The Iraq War: how will it seem years from now when Ken Burns, God bless him, undertakes to document THAT fiasco.

**** The Best Years of Our Lives  [1946]

 

Luv,

Barry

 http://journals.aol.com/bbartle3/Vengeance/

 

 

Scalzi wrist slapped

 Comment from bbartle3
9/22/07 9:23 AM | Permalink

The cult of thinness is sick, and,
I believe, the fashion industry has
taken steps to get real.  In the
photo, however, what's really wrong for fashion
is that the poor woman is not ideally
proportioned to be camera-ready;
see how she's trying to squeeze her
hips and legs to be more narrow? If
she were to stand military straight,
she'd look a ton too bottom heavy.
(I know, you're trying to send a
'You're perfect, Honey' to your wife, maybe.)

In the current AIR FRANCE TV commercial
the one with a fake swimming pool into
which the female model dives, then 'swims'
to the other end, the swimmer looks as
if she was just freed from Dachau. She
is hideous!  She can't dive, and can't swim;

The only remedy is DO NOT fly Air France.

Barry
The French, I'll guarrantee did NOT make
that commercial, GD Madison Ave made
that commercial.

PS: I think it is poor form that you (John Scalzi)
never acknowledge receipt of my
Comments on your Entries.

(Scalzi treats me as if I were a leper!

All I do is tell the truth! Shoot...)

Holes In The Wall

Wouldn't mind getting back on the subject of "Interviews" simply because they become almost effortlessly comic, fun, entertaining and convivial. Blogs (in practice does 'blog' mean exactly the same as 'journal' or is there a semi-secret difference?) I've noticed, are relatively unmolested by excessive advertising, which is a huge plus. On AOL's most visited message board, DO YOU BELIEVE? Ford Mercury advertising is so outrageously greedy you'd wait many minutes to be able to move on; I've settled that by not going back there anymore (?)after leaving a complaint.  "Belief" is a wonderful subject to write about, think about, and experience, but it sure does quickly lead to arguments and ill-will. Ha! Snippets of Scripture get flung at each other.  Does no good of course, just leads to ever more acrimony.  I'd like to talk solely about 'Belief' without any compulsion to 'sell' that belief, just give an accurate report of subjective experience. For reasons not very clear to me, that is not going to happen. Ha ha!

Today, as on some other days, I must admit I have no subject. Well, there's no rule you HAVE to leave sage words here is there?

Maybe I'll scribble some notes before coming back so I'll have a rough outline of what I want to say.

More and more I've noticed how much I enjoy taking a very small digital (well the cheap ones are ALL small) camera everywhere with me. I use just the still picture part. Composing ordinary scenes so that a design pops out being the goal. Not easy. One of my favs is a late night shot with my vehicle in the foreground, with the front of my Bank in the middle distance showing the four 'Holes in the wall' where you take out money; I invented the name to amuse my children. At another branch of the same bank the 'Hole-in theWall' is in a separate, protected large room you can enter only with your bank card. Gives me the creeps. There are at least twelve 'Holes in the wall' in that room. It too is open 24 hours. A digital camera, even a cheap one, can handle the exposure demands of the outdoor shot at night with zero trouble: amazing!  The vehicle, close to the camera is exposed by weak flash, and the outdoor holes in the wall lit by the good bank. With film and the very best camera it'dtake hours to get that shot exposed correctly.

The visual arts, for me, lead to tranquility more often than do music and writing. Not that I compose music, no no no, can't even identify one single note, boo hoo. Wouldn't it be great to know how Beethoven put all that noise down on paper?! I think about it all the time. Do you know anyone who composes classical music? (At the movies pop music is composed by one guy at the piano, with another guy standing at his elbow saying, "That's it, that's it!" and B'way history is made.  Ha ha ha ha....!)

Luv ya.

Barry

 

Marriage et al

" I don't follow why one has additional responsibilities if one enters a biracial marriage."   - Sheria

 

 

Thanks loads for your kind, patient, well thought-out observations.

 

When one gets married you first go to the marriage license

place to get virtual 'permission.'  Marriage is a public matter.

That's why, for example, same-sex marriage is such a hot button

social issue (I never use the word "issue" so plse overlook this

lapse, ha!) that is still fermenting in the body politic.

 

I am in a biracial marriage. I've posted photos to prove it.

One has to steel oneself for the inevitable protest. In my case

the biracial factor allows people to pontificate about the

unsuitability of the union, a ton of which BS I've had to endure.

Regardless of the age of my wife there would not have been one single murmur of criticism if my wife were Caucasian. The age difference acts as a cover behind which to be racist.

 

The truth is OJ married White trash.

 

            :  -  ]

 

Barry

Letters, and how to alienate your friends

Well, mind if I blab with nothing serious going on?

Waddid you think of O.J's latest caper? Could he have locked himself up 'cause he regrets the murders and wants to be punished?!  Is that theory any crazier than any other? Too bad Johnny Cochran died. Shoot, if ever OJ needed a sly, tough lawyer it's right now!  Remember it's Las Vegas, so don't get too pissed if OJ wriggles out again after he gets tired of remorse.

His wife, after they divorced, tried to get even by maddening OJ by sleeping with, right under OJ's nose, the waiter, and the manager of a nearby restaurant. Who the hell was she?  Well, one thing she was, guess what? stupid. She's dead isn't she? Do you resist the conclusion that deliberately enraging someone to murder you is stupid? More proof she was stupid: when a white woman marries a famous Black man, and you divorce, then sleep with two plain NOTHING white men, you're borderline mentally retarded, not just stupid. If one enters a biracial marriage one has additional responsibilities. For example, if an illegal immigrant marries a citizen, that fact had better not feature in the subsequent married life of the two, 'cause if it does there will be hell to pay.

IMO OJ's first knife murder was of the drug dealer who gave his former wife drugs.

I've read four books on the OJ Trial.  The white prosecutor, a woman, during the trial, slept with the Black prosecutor in a San Francisco Hotel. Well, the trial did last a year. Ha!

OJ got off partly because the prosecution completely misunderstood the import of there being a female, Black foreman (woman) and a majority of the jury at the end almost all Black. Marcia Clark was too much of a smart ass to have read BLACK RAGE (written by two Black psychoanalysts) which posits that in Black culture women shield their men and send their females out to get the jobs available to Blacks. Those Black women weren't about to convict OJ Simpson!!

So, it took a white woman to bring OJ down, but to do so she had to forfeit her life. Yes, the whole thing was that mad.

Las Vegas convicting OJ seems, on the surface, an unlikely outcome. Personally I don't give a damn.

Barry

 http://journals.aol.com/bbartle3/Vengeance/

 

 

 

 

 

Interview

 

Ask and you shall receieve. I am going to interview you my dear; remember, be honest and post onto your blog, all the best zoe xx

 

Gee, what a hoot! Thanks for offering me this wonderful opportunity.

 

1) If you had a time machine, but it could only work the once, and could not make the return trip, what time would you go to and why?

 

I'd go back to the year One and on my knees Witness the crucifixion.  Reason? So I might have an opportunity to become a complete human being. 

 

2) If someone threw a bag onto your lawn, and when you opened it, it contained $1 million, and you later discovered it was stolen in a local bank heist, would you choose to keep it and let the bank claim on its insurance, or would you return it for the $1000.00 reward?

 

That's a tough one. I'm afraid I'd keep it in spite

of the difficulty of transporting it to a Swiss Bank. Drive

to Canada with the loot might be the first step.

 

3) If you could live your life over again, what one significant thing would you change and why?

 

Avoid divorce through living more honorably.

 

4) Which would you prefer to do, sit in a bath of snakes or a bath of leeches?

 

Leeches I guess: Not all snakes are poisonous, but I couldn't take the chance. If the "sit" is till death the leeches would probably take longer to suck my blood. If I had a box of matches I just might avoid death from the leeches. I had a leech glom onto me in a muddy dam outback in Australia;

in those days I'd swim in anything. It dropped off when a lit match got close.

 

5) If you HAD to choose between a woman who is an excellent lover but wouldn't speak to you, or a woman who only wanted you as a companion, which would it be?

 

Oh, oh, oh, this is an easy one: I'd be the "companion." Talk can be sexier than just about anything. A woman who did it well but never spoke would feel to me like making love to a corpse.  In a pinch of course I'd go with whatever I could get. Call me Tolerant Baz.  (Aka Barry).

 

Thanks Zoe for your invitation!

 

Barry

 http://journals.aol.com/bbartle3/Vengeance/

 

 

Asking to be "interviewed"

 Comment from bbartle3
9/14/07 6:26 AM | Permalink

Well, that's all a new kettle of fish!
At the risk of sounding churlish.......
      Had to look it up....

Main Entry: churl
Function: noun
Pronunciation: 'ch&r(-&)l
Etymology: Middle English, from Old English ceorl man, ceorl; akin to Old Norse karl man, husband
1 : CEORL
2 : a medieval peasant
3 : RUSTIC , COUNTRYMAN
4 a : a rude ill-bred person b : a stingy morose person

Ain't English wonderful? One of my fav.
stolen words in the English dictionary
is the German Schadenfreud

Main Entry: scha·den·freu·de
Function: noun
Pronunciation: 'shä-d & n-"fro i-d&
Usage: often capitalized
Etymology: German, from Schaden damage + Freude joy
: enjoyment obtained from the troubles of others

I believe there are something like 250,000 words
in the OED. (That is, many more than in other
languages; which gives legs to the the argument
that our President always speak regular English....ha ha ha ha...)

I sidetracked myself....If I'm asked to be
"interviewed" my answers could very well
be more forthcoming than if I'm the one doing the
asking: For reasons not clear to me I cannot
find the chutzpah to "ask" to be interviewed.

Main Entry: chutz·pah
Function: noun
Variants: also chutz·pa/'hut-sp&, '[k]ut-, -(")spä/
Etymology: Yiddish khutspe, from Late Hebrew huspAh
: supreme self-confidence : NERVE , GALL
synonym see TEMERITY

I just lack the gall to actually ASK to
be interviewed!

Barry
http://journals.aol.com/bbartle3/Vengeance/

Writing

Writing has the power to make us happy. Happier? Yet, some writers, good writers, writers with publishing ambitions, go hide in secret, barricaded Nirvanas called secret Blogs or somesuch. Private? Nah. If only one person has access it ain't private. It's servant and slave, ha ha ha....

My adult daughter and I exchanged emails the other day, maybe six or eight, and regardless of content the exchange made me feel oh so great! But the dialog wasn't really private. After all we are father and daughter.

Private.  What's private? One definition goes something like, 'doing something in a room that you would immediately stop doing if someone were to enter.' Or, threaten to enter. Or, if you imagine someone might enter. Some acting classes have as an exercize doing something, having a "Private Moment," that one would instantly stop if the presence of another seemed possible or likely. The idea being that what is truly 'Private' is also what is truthful. Actors tell us they want, more than anything, to be believed!

One secret to a good relationship might in many instances be the ability to share what's truly private. Sharing nothing that is private is most likely only an accomodation. Lovers have reported feeling as one. Private.

It's been reported that the Sacrament of confession by Catholics has in recent times been on the wane. Down to something like only 34%.  The import of this is that taking Holy Communion not in a State of Grace (having committed an unconfessed whopper) is a large sin.

Now my readers are down to zero, right?  Ha! ha ha ha ha ha...........sob.....

Point: The Confessional is private. I mean, imagine the druggery for the poor, well-intended, priest having to listen to all that garbage day after day after day! And for virtually no pay!

That might seem trivial, worrying about the decline of the Confessional chamber/box.  Yeah, but what about the precipitous decline in Freudian analysis?! Present day humans have no guilt, no sin, no worries, fears, declines in energy and goodwill toward men women and children?????? Rubbish.

Where does one go to purchase the complete works of Sigmund Freud?! I wanna study up. Freud had an enlarged appreciation for the importance of the 'Private.' He oughtta get a postumous Oscar. Come back Sigmund, all is forgiven. We forgive you for embarrassing us so often and so deeply and so hurtfully. Boo hoo! sob sob sob.....

Writing, my writing anyway, is mostly bragging. I'd like to veer slightly more toward the private without getting my ears boxed. Know what I mean?

Luv yas all................

Barry

http://journals.aol.com/bbartle3/Vengeance/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Animal I am

My answer to one of John S's make-busy chores. 

 

Comment from bbartle3
9/6/07 6:12 PM | Permalink

I'm an Australian rabbit. I made
my burrow under an enormous
bolder, half of which goes deeply
underground. There are many
exits and entrances so that if
they send a ferret down one or
even more entrances, I'm outta
there in a flash. Dogs I avoid by
smelling their approach. Guns
are the biggest menace which is why
I feed usually after dark. My burrow
is so long, secretive, and many-chambered
I can have many different types of female
rabbits to breed with, play with, and cuddle
with. When a bunny, I had many a long,
safe chat with Beatrice Potter.  I don't
tell many people this secret but Beatrice
and I were lovers, testing the biology
of Natural Selection. The result?
Peter Rabbit, my true son!

Barry
http://journals.aol.com/bbartle3/Vengeance/

AA Battery Recharging

To my puny hundred dollar digital camera I've amassed 12 AA rechargeable batteries and five chargers. One of the latter is to recharge in the car (seven seat Mazda van which has an 110V outlet). One nifty recharger claims to recharge in 2 hours. This one is the only one which specifies green light for "Ready" and red for "Charging." Another is the reverse! At Best Buy over the holiday weekend I stumbled upon a 2 GB camera card on sale for $19.95. In my toy camera that stores over 300 photos. Not sure what to do with my several times filled, and deleted other 2 GB camera card.   

The bee and the landscape snaps were taken quickly: the bee one in case it bit me, and the second taken thru' the windshild while stopped: didn't want to get hit from the rear. The white cloud is directly East from Griffith Park. It is a regular feature seen from LA, often many much bigger white clouds. They are formed when cold air from the ocean 25 miles away, moves inland to take the place of hot air from the desert rising. If you could throw a stone over that white cloud it might land 175 miles away near Las Vegas.

Digital is better than film. Pretty soon different, longer lasting batteries will go on sale, IMO.  When I look back at my film photos I flinch in disappointment. By comparison everything looks artificial on film. Never dreamed I'd say that.

Now I have to wait for Vincent, napping after school, first day back after summer holidays, to wake up and post my two blue photos.  

P.S.  The bee crashed the party at a bench under the trees in Griffith Park. Later the merry-go-round, the children's train, riding ponies, and later still, steaks et al at Sizzler. Nice happy holiday.

Barry

 

 

Dunno yet.

I've got everything crossed hoping that clicking on Permalink before starting to type will narrow my journal format when I click on 'Save'.

Well, I'm in a bit of an uproar this morning. Well, for one thing this is the second day after surgery and I hurt a mite. It'll heal.

The truth is I'm feeling a little sorry for myself. After a life time, almost, and anyway beginning when I was 14, and my mother died - yes this is a sob story, so perhaps have a hanky handy, heh - someone I've known Online for maybe ten years mercilessly attacked me on a message board after she'd seen my AOL Journal photos - I've struggled to find family again. All attempts failed until 1992 when I met my wife. So, we've been married 15 years, four children, and we're all as happy as bugs in a rug.  Take a gander at the following directed at me, and not just some third world despot:

One glimpse of the family photo told me all I ever need or want to know about his vacuous, narrow-minded arrogance and his sad-looking wife and children -- who should now definitely be off limits. That photo tipped everything he's said over the last few years into a scary, fun house perspective. It's just wrong. Not funny, not kooky, and not interesting for any longer than it takes to hose maggots out of a garbage can after the first shock of discovery and the brief fascination at the teeming number of them.

From: Daedalass

At first, years ago, I surmised that this Member was a woman college professor. She was measured, semi-literary, undeclarative, distant. Because of the ending of the screen name I assumed it was a woman being humorous. But suddenly Daedalus has flown too close to the sun, again, and her wings have melted.  But that's idle conjecture; truth is I'm stunned at the out-of-control vituperous onslaught against me, my children and my wife. There was a time when one would be benched for such a personal, take-no-prisoners wipeout.

She mentioned she had a Jade tree. Later I said "You have a Jade tree," and she replied, "No, I have two."

"Mary Mary quite contrary how does your garden grow?" asks the nursery rhyme. I'm surprised her jade trees don't wither up and die. Perhaps she's getting old, has no children and nurses bitter regrets?

Thisnot to air private grievances.  No, no, her broadside was posted on a message board. We've never met, never had any intercourse other than on an AOL message board.

____________________

I might try to write here about the thumbs down I got via several communications that my crash photos were not well-received. Gee, I just carry a tiny digital camera in my pants pocket and shoot whatever grabs me.  Today I might try to get a shot of the enormous white clouds that rise majestically over the San Gabriel mountains, clouds formed when cold air from the Pacific meets hot air rising from the desert.

Have a GREAT holiday weekend. (Support your labor Union; I do! This is Labor Day weekend, correct? :-/

Barry