When I first heard about The Grand Canyon Skywalk, I have to say - I was impressed. No, not just impressed - excited! The web site and Snopes article made it seem to me like it would be a job done right - a tremendous engineering achievement that respected the natural beauty of one of the natural wonders of the world. What my wife and I found was something...quite different than expected.
On the scenic tour we took ourselves on, best described in ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) misty_moonlight's blog post on this very subject (with pictures!), I became increasingly excited. When passing a sign noting this area was of "Vital environmental concern", it actually made me giddy - "WOW!" I thought, to be allowed to do this they must really be going to great lengths to minimize any negative impacts on this amazing, holy place!
You see, about a year and a half ago I saw the Grand Canyon for the first time. Now, I am not what most people call "spiritual" - I do not believe in divinities or spirits, an afterlife, the supernatural, or just about anything that I don't have very good affirmative reason to believe in. But I am far from being without spirituality - it is this very world we live in that I look to as my sanctuary. When times are tough I look to this extraordinary universe, observe it's many wonders, ponder it's many mysteries, and revel in awe at my place within it. If the universe and natural law is as close to anything that you could say I 'worship', a place like the Grand Canyon is as close to anything as I will ever have to a church, a temple, a shrine. To look out at it standing at the very edge of it's rim, one feel's a reverberation in one's heart, a reckoning of the truth of our existence - our world is very old, very strong, very beautiful, unbelievably vast, and we are but small and short-lived, yet we are inheritors of the tremendous honor and reasonability of being able to choose how we spend the little time here that we are so privileged to receive.
It is in this spirit that I approached Grand Canyon West and the extraordinary Skywalk. Now, I also happen to be a free-market libertarian and capitalist of quite a high order, and that there would be development at the edge of the Grand Canyon did not bother me. Sure, they are building a resort - with a $30,000,000 gimmick! How can they afford not to take the greatest care to prevent marring the natural beauty of the place? What bigger incentive can you have in the material world, really? Surely this will be a top-notch establishment, I reasoned.
I don't consider humans to be outside the natural world - and I believed this Skywalk would be a man-made wonder of the world! You see, whereas the natural wonders of the world show us how extraordinary nature as a whole is, man-made wonders should impress upon us how incredible humans really are. They should inspire and fill us with pride - experiencing them should push us to release the tight grip we have upon our dreams, letting them soar, gliding upon the emanating power of the unmistakable reality of what mankind can achieve if only we will dare to try. They are shrines to humanity - monuments of our greatness, of which we should feel no shame.
To top it all off, it will all be done on an Indian reservation. I am of Indian ancestry myself (Cherokee, specifically), and this also thrilled me. "Finally! A tribe is finally thinking big! Bigger than some god awful obnoxious casino!" At long last, a tribe who is not trading the priceless for a pittance - people who know the true worth of things!
What we found upon our arrival was, to say the least, not what we hoped to see. Where to begin?
First, after parking and going to the set of buildings in the parking lot, we got directions from a nice Indian man. A nice Indian man in a gimmicky ceremonial headdress, in what appeared to be a leather jacket, Hanes T-Shirt, blue jeans, and white tennis shoes. "Uhhh..." is all I could think. Then a few tourists came and took and picture with an especially overweight, even more ridiculously dressed Indian man in a headdress. I just figured this was a bit silly, but wasn't going to let myself be down heartened. Then I noticed how remarkably cheap the buildings were - little more than metal sheds laid out next to the permanent structure. I figured this would just be temporary, but it sure was cheap looking - though I decided to just ignore it and forge on.
After some heavy consideration, we decided to go inside and inquire about the "shuttle ride" the nice gimmicky embarrassing Indian man outside had told us about. There we were confronted with an interesting array of options. To see anything at all, other than the Grand Canyon in the distance beyond ugly chain-link fencing, we would have to at least pay $29.95 Per Person just to do...well, anything other than stand in the parking lot. You can't even stroll along the rim - it's blocked off by fences with No Entry signs and such all over, completely inaccessible. This is where things started to get ugly.
There were 4 package options, of increasing cost and (theoretically, at least) value - Earth, Spirit, Sky, and Explorer. So, you see, Earth is the "entry-level" model. One step above that in worth is Spirit. Then, interestingly enough, above and beyond that is...the sky? This set me to wondering, I must say - I'm no expert on Indian religious beliefs, but I'm pretty sure The Great Spirit is quite a bit 'greater' than merely just the sky. It was obvious they were sticking to the Indian-theme with everything - all the employees appeared to be Indians - so it really started to set in with me now that something was seriously screwed up here. Then, above everything else, in a position literally above all the others (the sign itself was clearly in a place of superiority to the others, as was it's description and pricing), was...the Explorer package? Oh, let me get this straight - greater than the Earth Mother, greater than The Great Spirit itself, above and beyond the sky, is the Explorer - the white man. Columbus. Ponce De Leon. I hear they're hard at work putting together a new, even-better package - it'll be called "Conqueror".
Oh but wait, that's not all! The Indian run gift shop? Clearly displaying "Proud of our heritage" T-shirts for sale, within could be found such tribal treasures as incredibly low-quality, cheap Mexican rugs done in native American styles, and Indian dolls with barcodes (I couldn't bring myself to see if they were made in china as I suspected they were), and the exact same kind of crappy merchandise you can find in just about any gift shop or truck stop in the tri-state area.
But I hear in the future they will have all sorts of great things. For instance, starting in 2007, for a nominal fee one of the poorer local tribesmen will dress up like an Aztec villager, and you will be provided with authentic, genuine imported Malaysian clothes inspired by the original historic garb of Francisco Pizarro! And then, you get to kill the Indian! Fun for the whole family. Photograph opportunities are available for an extra charge.
Top on my to-do list though is The Grand Canyon West Package! Here, for only $299.99 a person you get entrance to the Skywalk, whereupon you can walk up all the way to the end, stand up on a specially designed pedestal, and take a shit right on to the grand canyon itself! The Grand Canyon West developers had to spend over 30,000,000 dollars for this privilege - but it can be yours for 0.0001% of that! What a bargain!
Also inspiring is the genuine, authentic, one of a kind Hualapai Indian Package, where, in addition to being inducted as an honorary member of the most sacred mystical inner-circle of the tribe, you will be issued a ridiculous headdress and given extensive training on how to be a horrifically greedy, bad businessman and utterly incompetent trader! Can't you just TASTE the pride? Yours for only $9.99 per person!
As I said, man-made wonders should inspire us with their grandeur, fill us with pride in our heritage and society, overcome us with their magnitude and splendor, and set to soaring our imaginations as to what our incredible race is capable of - if only we will dare to dream. The Grand Canyon West is, so far, a wonder all right - a wonder of an entirely different kind. My wife and I left ashamed, awed by the sheer greed, off put by the small-mindedness, horrified with it's ghastliness, and depressed at the thought of what could have been - and yet, clearly is not, and will not likely ever be.
Indeed, what is being made at Grand Canyon West is, as far, not a resort - it is perhaps the very first attempt at a Distopian Tree Museum. Whereas the Joni Mitchell song tells of people being made to pay $1.50 just to see trees, this marks the beginning of something far more real, and thus far worse - the beginning of attempts to literally fence off the Grand Canyon, restrict private access, and charge exorbitant fees for even the smallest of privileges of viewing it without obstruction. If they could have their way I would not doubt for a moment that they would happily fence off the entire Grand Canyon - or, for that matter, enclose it in the world's largest ever mega-dome - just to prevent anyone for getting to experience it without paying them a fee.
Perhaps the developers will wisen up, force the Indians into cleaning up their present day farce, and hire people who actually know about and care about the Grand Canyon to guide their presentations. They would do well to be rid of their horrid fences, hide their audacious tanks, and replace their ugly buildings.Current Mood:  disappointed |
Got this from misty_moonlight
Two Names You Go By
1. Bri
2. Daddy
Two Parts of Your Heritage
1. English
2. Cherokee (I'm such a peaceable sort of individual)
Two Things That Scare You
1. The possibility of hurting people I love.
2. Not being able to live up to my responsabilities.
Two Everyday Essentials
1. Laughter
2. Sleep!
Two Things You Are Wearing Right Now
1. Silk shorts
2. Black undies :)
Two of Your Favorite Bands or Musical Artists.
1. rubber (get it? hah!) Seriously - Presidents of the United States of America
2. Ozzy!
Two Things You Want in a Relationship
1. Honesty
2. Affection (I'll third, Misty :) )
Two Truths
1. There is a space between stimulus and response - between what happens and what we choose to do about it.
2. Life is finite, death apparently inevitable - to live as though it were otherwise, and thus to live as to make death visit us ever sooner and assure the meaninglessness of a life, is foolishness and leads to great tragedy.
Two things You Hate (or at least really dislike)
1. Being guilted (and other such manipulation)
2. Not having enough money for essentials
Two physical features that Appeal to You
1. The natural jiggly-ness of breasts (that almost makes me blush)
2. Soft, bright eyes
Two of Your Favorite Hobbies
1. Contemplating
2.
Two Things You Want Really Badly
1. A successful career I actually enjoy and that makes a contribution to the world - something that really matters.
2. For my family - especially my children and wife - to have peace.
Two Places You Want to go on Vacation
1. Greece (I want to try Uzzo - the real stuff)
2. Nepal
Two Things You Want to Do Before You Die
1. To have created an organization that will continue to exist into perpetuity, dedicated to contribution to the power and character of individuals, leaving a legacy of making the world better through creative and productive work.
2. See my son build a legacy for himself that will live beyond him, and to have a family of his own.
Two Ways that you are stereotypically a Chick/Guy
1. I don't enjoy shopping.
2. I don't seem to be able to cook worth a crap (I use to, but everything burns now...)
Two Things You Normally Wouldn't Admit
1. There are things I know I shouldn't do, that don't make sense or aren't right - but I do them anyway.
2. I tend to prefer to do nothing and just sit around, and it only rarely bothers me that I haven't accomplished anything all day.
Two people I would like to see take this quiz
1. Richard Branson
2. The Dalai LlamaCurrent Mood:  confused |
To my dear son, Collin,
There are times in everyone's life when they feel poor, impoverished, without anything of value. It is easy to feel inferior in this world. So much that is sold as valuable and portrayed as good and admirable is worthless, impossible (like being some sort of super-action-hero), and harmful.
But I have come to learn someting of great value, I think, that if understood deeply and practiced will unleash unlimited potential and reveal priceless things hidden within you. I believe it will do the same for others, too, as I feel it has already begun to work within me. What I have learned is that there are certain gifts that we have as our birthright as human beings; capacities, intelligences, and access to truths that if discovered, used, and nurtured make us the most powerful beings in the now known universe. Amongst humans, those who discover and take advantage of these priceless rights and treasures become the people who change their lives, others lives - sometimes the entire earth - for the better. Hafiz, a Sufi poet from long ago, spoke of these gifts:
There are so many gifts
Still unopened from your Birthday.
There are so many hand-crafted presents
That have been sent to you by God.
The Beloved does not mind repeating,
"Everything I have is also yours."
There are so many gifts, my dear,
Still unopened from your birthday.
As an aside, you know I am not a theist - though I once was. Still, I have felt salient truths reverberate within me from readings of Sufism, things far beyond the limited concepts of theism. I have found the work of Coleman Barks to the be best translations, should you decide to seek it out for yourself.
Now from the moment of your birth you had four gifts. These gifts are within you now, and will always be yours. No one can ever take them from you. But these gifts are not automatically opened - you alone can choose to open them. No one else can ever make you live a life of greatness, or embody the great man it is yours to be.
First, there is the Gift of Learning. When you were not yet born, still in your mother's womb, we saw an ultrasound of you. In it you had not yet grown arms; all you had were little buds. Not even 3 weeks later we saw another ultrasound of you - and you had grown arms, hands, fingers...and had learned to use them! We watched with awe as you opened and closed your hands, bended and flexed. At 2 months you would, after a single demonstration, fully understand how to work a complex toy with lights, handing sensors, and a footpad. You learned so fast that it quickly bored you. There are countless other examples, and there will be countless more. In your own life you need merely look - you are incredible.
Your brain is an incredible learning machine - over 15,000 years of human ingenuty has not produced anything so powerful as the brain between your ears. You are a genius; remember that genius is not perfection, however. No one is always right, never mistaken, never uses flawed logic or draws conclusions from incorrect information. You have an innate power to grow, to discover. And it is your to develop, strengthen, to expand for as long as you draw breath, no matter what your environment may be. It is your birthright to be able to be more tommorrow than you are today or were yesterday. It is this gift that enables you to open the next and make full use of it.
The second gift is The Freedom To Choose. First, there is a stimulus - something happens, someone does something, someone says something to you. Then there is the response - you do or say something. It starts to rain while you are walking - then you might hurry to where you are going, or even stop and enjoy the feel of the rain. Someone says something nasty to you, and you might respond defensively, or with equal nastyness, or you may choose an entirely different response all together. In all cases, there is a space, a gap between the stimulus and your response. That space is your freedom to choose - no matter what happens, it is within your power to choose what you do in response. If someone confronts you in an attempt to control you, to make you do what they want you to do, there is more than one way to respond. You could throw back a cutting remark, or refuse to engage them whatsoever - you could comply, or attempt to reason with them, or fly off the handle and curse and scream at them. Your birthgift is that unlike a deer caught in the headlights, you have a certain level of freedom to respond according to what you want, who you are, and what you believe.
As with all the gifts you have as birthright, this one can be developed, grown, expanded. The more you focus on that gap between stimulus and response, the more you choose your responses, the more control you will have over your responses. Possibilities you never imagined will become real. Ultimately you will develop the powers to change the stimuli themselves, to change the world, solely by using your freedom. You can elevate yourself, brighten the light within you, and in so doing you will bring light to others, making it easier for them to grow too. People who live in the dark caves of victimization and blame will do everything they can to either drag you down into their misery, or once they fail to do so they will at least try to make you cover up your brightness, to spare them the pain of seing how life could be. They will not appreciate having their belief that people are weak, stupid, evil, and selfish being proved wrong. That you can succeed while they fail, they will take personally.
...To Be Continued...Current Mood:  hopeful |
I rather regularly think about how I've changed over the last...well, going on 2 years now, since I first got together online with my wife, Peggy. Growth is funny - day by day, it's rather unnoticeable. Your finger nails get a millimeter longer, your hair grows out imperceptibly, a new gray hair begins to make it's way silently towards the surface of your skin. Did you ever have a time as a child when you did something, and suddenly realized that you use to be too little to do that? One day in the bathroom I went to wash my hands and had a sudden memory - I recalled when I could hardly even reach over that counter, much less lean over it.
Anything which changes a tiny bit every day is the same way, including your intellect, personality, relationships - even your character. Character is something that has come to the forefront of my mind in recent times. Not long ago I was in a "Season of Who" - who am I? A man, a father, a husband, a freethinker, an intelligent, humorous, loving yet discriminating person. Now, as slowly yet suddenly as summer turns to fall, I've come into a "Season of What" - what am I? Just what precisely is the stuff that I am made of? Am I honest and hardworking? Deceptive and lazy? Distant or ever-present in the here and now?
Since I've been together with Peggy, I've noted certain specific developments as far. These are the personal treasures of my marriage, the fruits of my relationship. I am not wealthier in any material way - less so, as I have some small yet still reasonable debts, yet very big responsibilities. And I am certainly older, and not exactly in athletic condition - but I'm not decrepit or sickly, either. I'm not too often well-rested either, hehehe. But for paying these prices, and others too insignificant to note, I have gained in ways I had not noticed.
To wit, I have begun to rediscover the values of honesty. I use to be utterly honest, years ago; then I became less so, more deceptive, guarded, more willing to lie than tell the truth. I became defensive. Lately I have begun to consciously choose to cultivate this trait of character. That I have come to this point of self-awareness, that I can begin to choose my basic response to things, is perhaps more incredible than words can convey. I suppose it might not sound like much as I speak of it, but I know deep within me that it is something incredibly significant.
In being with Peggy, I have begun to heal. There has been great pains we've both experienced that at times we have even blamed on each other, that we've blamed on ourselves...but most, I have come to see, were the pains of discovering (often for the first time) deeply baried wounds, sores, mental and spiritual blocks, weaknesses, and immaturity. My image of myself as a purely reasonable and logical person has weakened, for the simple fact that I've discovered many deeply hidden realities of who I am that, once exposed to my own intellectual reasoning and logic, prove to make no sense whatsoever. This is a great victory - the discovery of a problem to begin with. Most suffering in the world seems to me to be not from an inability to fix a problem, but from the inability to even truly realize that it exists.
I have come to understand the way things truly are, the way I truly am, what life truly is, far better than ever before. My mental models are closer to reality - no where near entirely accurate or perfect, but better. It use to be that if someone tried to play a mind game on me, I didn't even notice - but now I don't simply notice, but I recognize it for what it is. I am no longer so commonly someone's unwitting pray.
When we first got together, a fight was something deeply painful to me. Anger was something I had effectively no way to personally, truly deal with. Emotionally, I was largely unequipped to deal with strong emotions of such a sort. I had lived in a void of guilt, hopelessness, of being trapped, sad, of witnessing anger at other people (often supposedly on my behalf, defending me) and being angry with others for what was no fault of my own - and that's about it. I lived wholely in a quarter of the emotional world. With responsibility, with choices, with actually making mistakes of my own and being with another real, true person, the rest of the world opened.
I am far from the way I want to be, but I can actually see some of the way I want to be now. What I strive for makes sense - it is even attainable; not in some distant future or far-away place, but just with time and effort.
This is one of the treasures, the development of character - vision. I have become able to see things as attainably better. What I want is clearer, makes more sense, and is most of all in accordance with the realities of things. It's not imagining the impossible - it's envisioning the not-yet-reality which is within our grasp. Some things are impossible, and there are vastly more things that can be real than will become real - to be able to conjure possibilities that are desirable and possible is a feat of character that seems simple, yet is utterly priceless. It is truly a worthy thing to nurture.
Also are matters of dedication, discipline, and work ethic. Not many people would likely call me 'disciplined' and 'hard working', but they do not know the realities of how I am and where I came from, nor what I do. As in all areas, I have much more I aspire to - but if we do not deeply, truly give credit to ourselves for what we have accomplished so far in our time on this earth, how can we expect that anyone else ever will?
As to morality, there was a bit Marcus Aurelius wrote that has stuck with me, loosely quoted: "I have seen evil and it's baseness, and I have witnessed good and it's nobility - and for my part, I have chosen the good." I have seen much evil lately - lying, duplicity, back stabbing, pettiness, smallness, foolishness, meanness, cruelty, emptiness, fakery, abusiveness, lasciviousness, impropriety...amongst others. I have seen the pains provided by character failure, manipulations, head games, inconsiderateness, immaturity, and promiscuity through words and thought. For this I am most grateful of my lot in life - that I can so clearly see and experience the ends of such things. I see the effect of dishonesty not merely on those lied to, but upon the liar - of the person it creates, and of the kind of people in whom it is so witnessable. It has taken me by surprise that so many can miss it - but I see it. I see it in their form, in the words, and I witness it in their actions, in their failures, in their complaints. And if I can see it in them, if I were that way could others not see it in me? The liar hides much, but what is hidden is still true - they are still what the are, even if they manage to fool the conscious thoughts of some.
There are these, and so very much more. I had feared when I first started my relationship that I was making a mistake...but now I can see that it was the fears of others, of possessive controlling people that made me think that. What was there to fear? Freedom. That I would be free, away from the grinding hopelessness, from the aloneness, from the prison of my tiny physical world. I had taken refuge in my mind, done what I could...but to truly be something more than merely living, to personify the inchoately powerful and good, important being that is within each of us, I had to be capable of controlling my life, of making decisions, of real growth that mattered. In that world, I could not - there was too much against me, so much sabotage, so many traps. In this life, in this world, with my wife and children, inside my own skin, success is possible.
Being mature enough to be happily, faithfully married with 5 children and still being able to develop my career bit by bit...at the age of 21? I still feel behind, somehow, not where I should be or need to be. But, success is possible. I can choose it. I have the ability to change my world, other's world, of making it better, of giving. I am in need of more patience, more generosity, more consideration, of accomplishing more in less time, setting priorities, implementing and executing plans, and so on...yet I have come so far in so little time. Without my wife, I know it would simply not have happened. I truly shudder to think where I would still be...if I would still 'be' at all.
So I would, in closing, like to dedicate this time to the principle that if we make the time to stop and give credit where credit is due, to consider the effects of others on our lives and of our effect on others, and to consider where we use to be versus where we are now, and where we are going...that things will, then and there, be better for having done so.Current Mood:  contemplative |
At work I walked right on through (and kept walking) the following piece of a conversation between two people:
"I know how it is after 16 years of marriage."
"Do you know what it's like after 16 years of marriage?"
"Yeah, sure, I know what it's like. I was married for 16 years...well, not in a row, but..."
Reminds me of an episode of Garfield:
"What, what do you want, it's the middle of the night?!"
"But your sign says you are open 24 hours..."
"Not all in a row!"Current Mood:  amused |
| » Backing into WIP |
|---|
Today at work I did a lot of polishing and refinement on a system and idea I'd devised to measure the department's progress. The system works like this:
1) An Escrow Officer or a private individual place an order for some kind of real estate Title work.
2) The order comes to me, and I enter it into the computer system.
3) After some passing around back and forth between customer service and myself to get necessary information (like tax history and proper legal addresses and other such lovely stuff), I make a file, run a "chain" of ownership (tracing the path the property has taken over it's entire life to reach it's present owners, sometimes going back nearly 100 years to when the property was first granted for sale by the US government), and collect documents that would be important for a title examiner to see.
4) The newly made file is now put into sets of drawers and racks called "new orders".
5) An examiner takes the file, works it, then puts it into a different set of drawers called "open orders".
There are many other steps of the process, but this is the portion of interest to me. To make a long story short, there is very little readily available measurements of this process. Every time someone calls to ask about the status of an order, whoever was asked has to get up and go into the new and open order room, look through the files, and then take an educated guess as to when it might be done. There is no real historical information as to volume of work completed, or much of anything else. We have an order log showing when an order was entered, when it was taken by an examiner, when the file was done, and when it was recorded. But it is all in about 7 different excel spreadsheets, entered in such a way that it's almost entirely impossible to get much of any aggregate information that's useful. A file is pretty much either done, or it isn't - and if it isn't, then you have to get up and go look.
Because of this, there is no real metric for...well, anything. Did we do a lot of work today? Are we behind? How far? How many files are in danger of passing deadlines? Is our situation improving or getting worse? Do the examiners have plenty of work to do, or is it getting dangerously close to them being out of orders to run, and thus forced to pretty much sit and do nothing (which has never happened, and wouldn't be considered to be a good thing)?
Without historical information the present makes little sense. You cannot see the relation of a piece to the whole if you have no idea what the whole looks like; and you cannot see what has changed if you have no idea how things use to be.
Well, so fix this situation I designed a simple system to keep pretty darn good track of the New Order status. And you know what? I realized on the way home from work that what I designed was a work in process inventory system, just as I studied in my various manufacturing/accounting books by Deming, Goldratt, and in college. I had no idea that's what I was doing, consciously at least, but my creation reflects a reasonably good understanding, I think, of the gist of throughput accounting and total quality management.
And I haven't even been here 2 months! The boss seems to like the idea, and he only saw the old version, which wasn't nearly as exacting and useful. He said we'll find time to discuss it more monday, so I look forward to that. If nothing else, I like it and will find it useful. He, in fact, suggested we make it an office-wide available spreadsheet so it could save us all time and aggravation. Quote, "I think I like that...I really think I like that..." LOL, you had to be there, I think.
For people who seemed so very uncomplimentary, and working around...well, assholes who bitch so frequently about all and sundry and how they haven't had a raise in 8 months, I sure seem to be treated surprisingly well by the higher ups, getting compliments on my work, ideas, and suggestions already. Even the regional manager, upon meeting me commented, "Oh yes, so you're Brian - there's been quite a bit of excitement that agreed to join us!" The woman everyone else speaks as if she's the dreaded "big boss", who they scramble to clean up their desks and offices for when they hear she might be coming.
Hm...not bad for a month and a half of work. We'll see how it goes...assuming I don't join the Geek Squad instead :D
Sep. 30th, 2005 @ 11:30 pm
|
| » 21 Years and No Quixote! |
|---|
For a person who is so very enamored by the dictionary, and who use to thoroughly enjoy grabbing a volume of the encycopedia in school and burning away whatever free time was available by perusing it - especially relishing chances to find new and interesting words, like peruse and relish - it was not until today when my wife, Peggy, told me to wikipedia him. Just prior to this moment - this slightly-waxing illuminative moment - I had confessed that I had so many times heard "quixotic" and of Don Quixote, but had never had any idea what the former meant or who the latter was! Me, of all people, who looks for any excuse to consult a dictionary or encylopedia, had never thought to do so.
So for all those who shared in this lack of understanding, join me in The White Light of Understanding, and bask in the glow of the knowledge of the wikipedia: Don Quixote, Revealed!
I feel as though the convertible top of my mind has been dropped...I think. I don't exactly know what that means, but it sounds right, somehow.
Sep. 30th, 2005 @ 10:53 pm
|
| » The Nerve! The Sheer, Unabashed Nerve! |
|---|
I for one am utterly scandalized! Just this moment I discovered that there are 13 communities and 448 people who are interested in my wife!
Not that I'm not rediculously proud, as always...but I must say I have a most odd sort of conflict. On the one hand, this interest strokes my ego and releases fuzzy-sorts of hormones - on the other hand, I want to hunt all 448+ people down and kill them. It reminds me of a frenchmen on a short-lived TV series, American Cafe, who said, "I kill you. I kill you bad. I kill you two times. I kill you till the cows come home! ...and then, I kill the cows!"
To be human is such a strange thing. Compared to what? Um...
....
Sep. 30th, 2005 @ 10:34 pm
|
| » Zen Koan from the Plutarckian School |
|---|
Where are all the baby pigeons?
Sep. 30th, 2005 @ 10:09 pm
|
|
