Something in the way....

So I went to the pub tonight, as planned. It was Book Club night. We read The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis,which turned out to be a book excelling in the art of mediocrity. It was not altogether bad, all things considered.

But the fun part happened afterwards, during "Regulars' Time". Jesse and Biff and Jenn and I had a ball. Shawn was the tender, but I am not sure who was the locomotive.

I love the pub. The people there are without fail some of the best people in my life.

I always end up having a dandy time. To name any one of these people as responsible for that is an exercise (exorcise?) in futlity.

I love the pub and its patrons. Thank you, one and all, for the gift of brilliance.

-Rich

One quick thought...

I love the anonymous comments. There are a couple of stunningly brilliant women that were recently given the key to my Blog. I screwed up one of the addresses I gave out...but she soldiered on. And I must wonder which one is commenting. I don't want to know. I just wanted to let you know that I am amazed. It might not even be one of you ladies...that's even weirder. I like smart people. Thank you.

-Rich

More music and thoughts...

So Norman Greenbaum has a wonderful little ditty called "The Day They Sold Beer In Church". A couple things come to mind. Mainly, who is the "They"? And would it be taxed? Technically, it would be a form of donation, no? Screw it...religion baffles me to no end. Definitely read the posted comments form my "God" post a few days ago. Some worthwhile reading.

An interesting Kant quote: "Error in principles is greater than in their applications."

And a great little story from my dear friend (I wish), Tim Burton:

"The Boy with Nails in His Eyes
put up his aluminum tree.
It looked pretty strange
because he couldn't really see."

There are certain inevitable happenings. At least that is what I believe. Rather, what I know. The best woman I ever shared part of my life with also shared this knowledge. We used to find odd places, simply to be a part of them. Do our food shopping at 2 AM. Eat at the Raceway Diner in the middle of the afternoon. Sit on a park bench with headphones on, but plugged into nothing. The point is to listen to your surroundings. It is easy for us to forget we are all part of a whole. Are you always aware that you are in a crowd of people every time that you are? I doubt it. We all say things under the pretext that we know we will likely never see these people again. So, in a nutshell, here are a few of the inevitables...

1) Sit in an establishment that serves food and drink (not necessarily alcoholic) for 20 minutes, and someone within earshot will always talk about a medical condition.

2) Someone is always better than you. In every way. Someone is doing something better than you. Someone is better looking. Or worse, depending which soapbox you are on at the time. You will always be outdone.

3) Cat hair will find its way into everything you own if you happen to own a cat. Everything. Including, but not limited to, the freezer. Don't ask how. Just believe it.

4) People will always amaze you at their ability to infiltrate your psyche. The most forgettable person in the world will do something that you will remember for years, or ever. How many times have you recalled some event or saying, but not the person that caused or uttered it? Point made.

Our life is made up of events. We can't run away from the fact that everything that happens must have happened that way. There was no other way it was meant to happen. Do I believe in fate? Sure. Do I believe that my whole life is planned out? No. No one would waste their time with that. I freak myself out when I try to plan out a whole day, much less execute it accordingly. But I do believe that there is no reason to doubt or regret our actions. Life plays out in the way it was meant to. And we must deal. What doesn't kill you makes you weirder. I can see the lips saying that...but I have no idea who said that. #4 proven again.

OK, I need to go get some things actually done today.

-Rich

And the oldies are new again...

Damn iTunes. A song off of an "old" album of mine slips into the shuffle and things get wacky. Music always had this power to make memories crisp. To bring back images...times...places...people. Haunting, almost.

I look at a section of torn-off napkin to find a friend's email address, scribbled onto it a couple nights ago at the pub. "Shoulda fuckin' betta known betta." Can't read it. I bet it looked completely legible at the time. I remember Aeon Flux, when it was on late on MTV...there was something that applies here. One guy was invisible, simply because he was vibrating side-to-side so quickly. So in order to see (and thusly communicate with) him, one needed to be in this special contraption that vibrated you at the same frequency as the dude. Well, apparently bar-scribble is the same way. Like some ancient Sanskrit, Biff's pen appears to only be legibly to the terribly gifted. Maybe I should bring it to the pub tonight for translation.

Biscuit is sitting on top of the monitor...squinting at me. She's just jealous of my thumbs. I hope she can't read, for she might be logging on and reading my blogs and planning her own private Jihad with her co-conspirators. Such things actually roll through my head at night. No wonder I sleep so well. And thank goodness for this horrifically dry sense of humor. My Dad taught me well.

I do love my folks. I really am eager for them to be living out here. Simply because I like seeing them once in a while. It's nice to come full circle. A little over an hour away is perfect...too far to just drop by and close enough that I can see them when I want to. I just wish things were different years ago. But someone taught me to be grateful for however little I have. I can never really seem to remember that often enough.

OK, off to the pub for some beers, and maybe Chinese food. We'll see. Nite, kids.

-Rich

Haven't thought about God...

At least not as an adult. Well, maybe I have. But never in a wondering way. Wondering if he/she/it would fit back into my life. I spent the first almost-19 years of my life as a Roman Catholic. Communion, confession, confirmation. And religiously (ha!) attending mass and even attaining religious recognition in Cub and Boy Scouts. But the last 15 years of life have been spent denouncing. Justifying my lack of religion to myself and others. Knowing in my somtimes-shallow heart that there was no place for religion. Did I merely need to make a place, or was there really nothing inside me that would allow religion to be there?

Well, I thought about all that a little bit this AM. Frightening, really. A lot of my life has veered from the path of good. But there are too many variables for me to decide that one thing has caused that deviation from where I want to be. So I think I need to eliminate some things. I believe that religion, in the organized sense, has no place in my heart or my home. If God really exists, it makes no sense. As devastatingly powerful as he should be, why has there been no clear sign? Why has he not painted a billboard saying that one religion is right or wrong? Why has he not taken his power to lead more of us to the light?

At the very end of life, most religions believe that repentance will set us free. The very notion that we screwed up our whole life, but can get to Shangri-La simple by honestly apologizing BAFFLES ME. If he really and truly wants us to be with him when we die, why not show us the true way? Make the clouds align to form words...something undisputable. If God really is out there, he is a sick twisted bastard with a painful sense of humor. I'm sure this offends some of you. Good. Life is meant to be full of these moments. I don't have ill will towards anyone who has welcomed religion in to their life. Whatever works. Don't preach your way to me, and I won't argue mine. If you feel passionately, we can talk ... like I am doing here. But don't slam me just for speaking my heart and mind. OK?

Life is truly a gift. We are all instilled with the sense of right and wrong, unless denied that through fate or mental injury. When we lie our heads on our pillow at night, as long as we can sleep well and know that we tried to do the right thing, what more is there? If we know we did wrong, right it as soon as we can. Be open. Be honest. Talk to people about our intentions when we wronged them. If they don't forgive us and carry on their life being bitter, so what? We tried, right?

That has reared its head in my life so many times. I wonder if I am more of a screw-up than most people. I wonder if I just pay closer attention. I wonder a lot of things. But I know that for who I am, where I am, religion is not welcome. I only touched on a few issues here. All of my thought processes could not fit into this blog. I have some warm fuzzy feelings about religion, don't get me wrong. Just not enough of them.

Someone (well, loads of people actually) relayed this anecdote to me. I'm sure you have heard it:

"Sit in a room. Look around. Then close your eyes. Is the room still there? Why do you think it still is there, though you can't see it? Faith."

Well, no. Because of experience. If I suddenly woke up in a hospital room, riddled with amnesia, I would look around for a moment, baffled. I would likely close my eyes tightly and re-open them, hoping that the world I just saw wasn't real. I wouldn't magically be instilled with faith that the room is there. In my life, I have closed and open my eyes billions of times. And all but a very small percentage have been welcomed with life being exactly as I had anticipated. The times it was different? Times like when you are driving and you nod off for a split second. That kinda thing. I KNOW that the world is still there. I have seen it. It has proven itself to me. I don't have faith that my furniture will still be there when I open my eyes. I don't have faith that my surroundings exist. I know they do. I touch and smell and hear and taste them all the time. I even talk to them. Inanimate or not. Maybe I am an idiot.

OK, enough banter for Sunday morning.

-Rich

I need to write more...

Throughout my day, I find myself actually thinking some great things. Or, I find myself hearing someone else thinking great things out loud. I had all these swell things to write about, but now that I am, I can't. Shit.

In other news, my folks are buried in snow back East. And they have some people trying to get an offer together on their house in NJ. They told me that it is not their home anymore, just a house. That's kinda sad. I grew up there. I spent a lot of good days there. Some completely horrendous ones, too. But that's beside the point. It's one thing for me to move away and begin anew. But once they move away, I have no homebase there. If I visit, it's all either at a friend's home or a hotel. Not nearly as cozy.

I am having some trouble lately. Well, not so much lately, but in my recent past. I wondered for a long time if I would find/make a home of my own. Such a large part of me really got to thinking that I would end up alone. Not that that is such a terrible fate. I mean, I have lived a pretty decent life. I've seen and done a lot of fantastic things. I count myself lucky. But sharing that luck with someone would be a real bonus.

So, I have a new shirt. My friend Biff Morehead (yes, his real name) bought me an eBay item. It's a Shlitz beer delivery-guy shirt. Short sleeve white shirt with thin black vertical stripes. HUGE Schlitz patch on the back and a smaller one above the left boob pocket. But, the crowning glory is the patch above the right boob pocket. It's the guy's nickname. The name on the tag inside says "Mike". Well, it appears Mike was a funny guy, too. The nickname on the patch is "Kooter". And Biff gave me this shirt last night at the pub. So, we spent hours trying to exhaust the joke. We couldn't. Everything is funnier (and thus better) with Kooter. Aaah, a good pub night. I needed that.

OK. I am off to bed. After a nice, tasty conversation with Sarah, I am ready to tie up a few loose ends (clothes in the dryer, etc.( and head off to sleep. Nite, kids.

-Rich

What in tarnation?!?!?!

So, it's been a while. It sure has. The world has let a lot of things happen since last I wrote. Here it is, in no particular order:

1) I went to visit a fellow Blogger. Sarah, from Grunction, was the lucky recipient. Wow, I almost sound smug. Anyway, I left right after work (5PM) on Friday the 3rd of this month. And I got to her city around 1:45 AM. Not bad for 302 miles. Well, really bad, actually. Loads of snowy blizzard fun in the mountains! But I had a blast, start to finish. Met Derrick (her male offspring) and he's a trip. And he even thinks I'm not an ass clown! How cool is that? Anyway, lots of fun stuff happened there, including a multi-hour Jeep test drive. You gotta try out 4-lo, right? Can't wait to see what kind of trouble we get into on the next visit!

2) Did a bunch of work on the new Jeep. Some noticeable, some more unseen. And other stuff is completely unseen. Made and installed some rocker armor...modified and installed the old bumper onto the new Jeep...armored the diff covers...drew up a beefy skid plate for the trans/t-case...changed the diff fluids...changed the oil...greased that sassy chassis. I think that's it.

Umm...well, no, really...a lot has happened. I just can't think of it now. Lemme post some pics and maybe it'll come to me...




The new rocker armor...3/16" plate, wrapping 3" up and 3" under. The body was sanded and painted with bedliner, as was the armor. Then, the mating surfaces were coated with 100% clear silicone and screwed on with 22 stainless self-drilling screws on each side. Looks cool.. and now if I smack a rock, I wont screw up the doors.




My usual 3/4 view of the Jeep. Looks a hell of a lot better with the bumper.




Front view, showcasing the new tapered ends of the bumper that wrap around towards the rear. After torching the tubes down, I capped them off with 1/4" plate, bevelled and welded completely, then sanded down the welds just on the front face. Damn gloss black paint, though. I still have to sand it down and put a satin finish coat on it for the 18th (club meeting/trail run). Gotta get it all purty before I scrape it up.

Nope, can't think of anything major. I'll think of it later, I'm sure. Hope you all are doing swell. And if anyone build a teleporter, let me know. I could really put one to good use.

-Rich