Spring Has Arrived, and Life Is Still Here.

Spring is finally rearing its head back around. FINALLY! While this last winter has been much easier than the winter before, and I should be thankful for that, I still, as a matter of principle have to complain. I hate the cold weather, The fact that snow soaks my boots and makes my socks wet and thus my feet are long term grape-ified from a night of work walking around businesses and houses that weren't kind enough to ensure me a dry manageable route to traverse at all times. But finally the snow has melted and the temperatures have gone up somewhat. It still gets cold at night, and during the day while it is considerably warmer, the moderate spring breeze keeps it too chilly for me to go out and about in a t-shirt and shorts. I have a heck of an issue with holding body heat apparently, since I have other friends who complain that they get hot in their apartments, even though the windows are open and the breeze is blowing thru and I feel like I have to put my coat back on just to be comfortable.

But, that will all come to an end soon enough. I now have rain and thunderstorms to complain about coming soon, and once those quit, I'll have the high humidity levels to complain about that make me sweat profusely and cause me, a guy who will sweat like Richard Simmons at the very thought of physical activity, to take 2 showers a day, just to avoid being as smelly as the landfill. But I much prefer the heat of summer to the cold of winter. Much more that can be done outside, whether its a game of football or basketball, walking or biking the trails, hiking through the woods with the kids, or taking them to the lake to watch them have fun in the water. I'm not much of a water person...and for some reason the local authorities have not seen fit to heat the natural waterways to a comfortable 75 or 80 degrees as of yet for my swimming comfort.

As spring represents a new beginning, I got some bad news this weekend that I have to stat a lot of things over. The computer we had last fall crashed and burned. SO bad that a computer genius was unable to pull the 7000+ photos we had amassed over the years, nor my book writings. Now many people might ask why I didn't have them backed up. Well, I intended to back them up, but never got around to it. So now, with the exception of what photos I have posted on previous blog entries and elsewhere online, pictures from holiday events, family get togethers, and vacations are all lost, never to be seen again. This was quite disappointing, given all the years of memories encapsulated in those photos are gone forever. My electronic form of my book writings was also gone. This, I considered less important than the photos, since I can always rewrite anything, and I had the majority of the book printed out. I only have to manually re-copy all that, and rewrite the few chapters I hadn't finished and/or printed out prior to the computer dying on us.

Since I have cancelled my netflix, deactivated my facebook and will soon rely on the public library for my Internet, I will have time to get on with my writing without the excuse of distractions such as facebook. As of Monday April 11, I will be devoting 2 hours a day to rewriting everything until it is done. Then I will work on submission to some agents I looked up and think might be favorable to my writing style for representation. Then maybe I can sell some books and make some money. I don't expect to be able to retire on that kind of money, but it would be nice for an unknown author to set some sort of sales record, and be able to concentrate on either more writing, or whatever whim catches my fancy on any given day. It's a dream to keep in mind I suppose. And since I doubt I can convince the government or taxpayers to beginning allotting 1-2% of their income to supporting me and whatever lifestyle I choose to lead, I guess I'll have to keep plugging away until I figure out what's going to work best for me. This overnight work as a rentacop has served a basic purpose providing something resembling 'making a living', but just as I am, its getting old, and BORING.

There has got to be way more to life than going to work, coming home, eating and sleeping. And I don't mean all the things you see in luxury magazines, but even the simplest lifestyle where one can find the fun activities to participate in (such as skydiving, family vacations without worry of having enough money to do anything AND pay the rent) or observe (like live sporting events, without worrying if I'm going to have to sacrifice sleep before work time arrives). I remember growing up, I had all kinds of plans for life. I was going to make life my bitch essentially. Life was going to be your average sitcom. Nice house, family pets, money to go on vacation or get gifts for people, all your problems solved in a half hour with simple fatherly wisdom, or an hour if you couldn't fit the script in a particular week's episode. I would have all the great perks in life, including the well paying job I loved to go do in between well balanced meals served to me by my loving spouse and getting to eat it with the family, while they tell me the tales of their adventures throughout the day while I was away.

I also was going to be some sort of real life action hero. My plans included the military life. I was going to be like a one man wrecking machine. The guy the President and Pentagon requested whenever something went wrong in the world and some bad guys needed killing. What's this? Libya is acting up. Quick, call up Mook, apprise him of the situation and give him whatever he needs. WE need this taken care of now, for the good of the country and the rest of the world. And then I would go parachuting into some far off land loaded down with twice my body weight in weapons and ammo. Who knows, maybe I'd just get into a tank and have it air-dropped in while I was at it. I'd have all the know how of MacGyver and the ability to drop my enemies with deadly Chuck Norris like moves (I am a ninja after all), in the eventual happenstance of my weapons all jamming up. I figure no war would outlast a single week. Then I'd go back home, get the ticker tape parade, commercial endorsements for GI MOOK action figures, free sandwiches at Subway or Jimmy Johns. More official visits to the White House...as Forrest Gump said: AGAIN! Eventually I'd probably end up being elected President of the United States, and all the fun that comes with that business. Of course being a one man walking army, I'd abolish the Secret Service... after all, when you're as awesome as I am, the few crazies who might want to harm me needn't put up with amateurs like those guys.

You know, all that crap that only screenwriters can come up with. But, with any luck, I can chase down my own piece of the American Dream, where I can at least have a nice house and some dogs to terrorize The Colonel. Maybe go catch a few MLB games, and if they still play in the future some NFL games (Maybe I can catch a 49ers game where they actually win!), drive back and forth across the country checking out a few of the major touristy spots, but mostly the lesser known local haunts that make each place interesting in its own way. Or just get up at 0-dark-thirty with a thermos of coffee and go fishing. Wouldn't matter if I caught anything. The supermarket has fish that I don't have to gut and clean!

As for right now, I'm just happy that I have Scentsy stuff and a new brand of cat litter that seem to be doing the job keeping the smell of The Colonel's latrine and his acid pee from overtaking the apartment. And I get to hammer my kids over doing their homework and then going outside to play for a couple hours. Even if they find me boring and decide they'd rather play with their friends and not their dear old dad.

Today Is A Wonderful Day!

First off, my mother was gracious enough to loan us her laptop until Christmas, when we get a desktop computer to replace the old one. This allows me more time to contemplate any blogs, emails etc, beyond the 2 hour limit set at the library up the road. It also allows my wife time to practice her pre-tests for work without having to leave home after getting home from work.

It's also snowing out. Usually this is not something that thrills me, but I have tonight off so far. Still trying to figure out how to work tonight if at all possible. Wednesday night marks the first time I've called off sick from work, so I lost 8 hours of time. I haven't been sick in almost 11 years, and I got hit hard by some sinus/head/chest cold business that hit me in the face like a bag of bricks. I was definitely not expecting it to happen. I avoid all the colds and flus, normally. However, while I'm not quite back to 100%, I have realized a couple things. One, this marks the moment I am getting better, and my immune system has one more set of antibodies to help defend me. I expect nothing short of 30 years without illness now, minimum. Also, I have had a lot of stress I have been mulling over, and I think this was God's way of telling me I'm not superhuman, to quit acting like I am, stick my faith more in Him than me, and now that I've hit sort of a bottom in my life, everything is looking up.

I think the fact that I actually called in sick, rather than try to tough it out at work for a few measly bucks shows I may actually be learning. And of course with that learning, I also realize that if I had been thinking more clearly and not just about money and bills, I would've called off on a few occasions just to spend time with my wife when she asked me to do so in the past.

I spent way too much time worrying about such trivial things, and not about the more important things in life, like my wife and kids and spending time with them instead of working so damn much. I remember once my 2nd dad once said he "works to live, not live to work." in reference to a conversation with his boss about not participating in overtime so he could go to the kids ballgame. I sort of let life get in the way, and forgot that little nugget of a life lesson.

However all being said and done, I am reminded by something the Reverend Tim Storey said:

"All of us experience setbacks in life at one point or another. Maybe one of your children is in trouble, our finances are in crisis or your marriage is falling apart. But, just because your dreams are currently a nightmare does not mean it's over! God is in the business of resurrecting dead visions. It does not matter how big a mess your life may be- don't take a step back- because God has already prepared your comeback."

I spent way too much time examining my past and the wrongs within it, my limitations and all the excuses in the world. Now it has come time to just drop them and do what needs to be done, no matter what anyone else has to say about it, since its my life to decide instead of using it as I had: a life to default.

Technology As A Tool Of Anti-Mookism

WARNING!!!! This post may contain some inappropriate language and attitude within the contents. Those who are prone to picking up a stick and beating random people after reading displeasing material should just stop reading now. For the rest of you, well, you've been warned.

As I have mentioned before, I am the target of many conspiracies to hold me back. In fact some of you who read this refuse to add yourselves onto my blog as official followers or to comment openly (there is an option to post comments anonymously without logging in, you know). I can only assume it is because you have heard or know of these conspiracies, and you don't wish to be targeted or have members of your families circumcised merely for your associations with or to me.

I'm pretty sure the UN is part of the grand anti-mookist conspiracy

Well, the grand conspirators have struck at the Mook again!!! Last year there was a fake virus warning that was in fact itself a virus. Clicking on anything pretty much guaranteed your computer was going to be infected and you could do nothing. This happened to my mother's computer. My brother-in-law used his laptop to figure out how to take care of the problem. Then mere weeks later, our computer became infected while I was online. I got into contact with my brother in law, and after 2 to 3 hours we got things fixed. All was good, that is, until yesterday. The bastards struck again while I was online researching information and reading news articles. In fact I didn't even get a warning. Some random pop-up appeared and I merely tried to close it. The computer went into some sort of delay, then a balloon showed up from my task bar saying a virus has been detected, blah blah blah, and then the antivirus window popped up and things went crazy. Just the latest example of a wave of anti-Mookism that has infected the power structure of our world.

Naturally I called down to my sister's place. They don't admit to it, but they are Mookist sympathizers, so I knew I could get help from there. Unfortunately for me, my sister informed me that her husband was at work, so it was going to have to wait. I called my wife and let her know of the situation, and she contacted them last night to get the computer straightened out.



I was informed by my wife after getting up for work that the computer was in fact all fixed up now. I was also told in a frustrated and unjokingly joking manner that if it happens again while I'm online I'll be banned from the computer save when adult supervision is available to monitor my activities. Even with the adult supervision, my activities would be severely curbed. Probably limited to checking but not actually reading my email and getting to play minesweeper or solitaire, games that aren't connected to the Internet.

Of course this is what the grand conspirators are counting on. By curtailing my access to information and being able to disseminate that information along with my own high brow intellect out to the world, they can keep Mookism confined to my household instead of to the masses who deserve to hear sane messages (save these crazy blogs of mine anyways) and have better options for leadership in this world (like mine...remember to write me in for President in 2016!).

For there sake, these anti-Mookist conspirators had better hope I never find them. As a matter of fact let's just go ahead and include anyone who plugs nasty viruses into the cyber world to mess up people's computers and lives. If I do find these people, I have great plans for them.

While I am normally mild mannered, this kind of crap really pisses me off to a degree which none of you can possibly fathom. (Hell, I get overwhelmingly irritated about open cabinets or refrigerator foods being left out. much more so than I should be over something so dumb) Most of you know I'm pretty ardently "anti-electric technology". I hate phones, cell phones, texting, voicemail, ipads, etc, etc. But I do like my computer and what limited things I am able to do with it. I can write my blogs, check and answer my emails, read other blogs, research stuff, write my books, play games and all that. These are the kinds of things I do to entertain myself during the day while being at home alone. I am a man of routine. Ask my wife, interrupting my routine is NOT a good thing. And these conspirators/virus hacking engineers, whatever you call them REALLY ruined my routine.

I just hope someday I run into one of these guys who does this stuff to amuse themselves. I hope he is drunk and just looking for someone to socialize with and blabbers about doing this stuff. And I will be his best friend for the moment. I'll be more than happy to give his drunken ass a ride "home". But when he wakes up, he will find himself tied down to a table. And there will be me, the mad scientist, armed with multiple syringes of adrenaline, a funnel, and a nice vat of corrosive acid.

RE-WARNING: THIS NEXT PART IS CRIMINALLY INSANE...LAST CHANCE TO TURN AWAY!!!



I will pour the acid all over the evil bastard's daddy parts, starting right down the guy's pee hole, with the funnel, and let it burn in real good, dissolving all the important stuff. I will be injecting the guy with adrenaline to keep him from passing out from the shock of it all. And then I will make sure he lives, so that he will remember it, and he will be made to know exactly why such a fate befell him. If it's a girl that does this hideous crap that messes with people's computers and/or steals their identity ruining their lives and all that, she'll get the same treatment.

Now, full disclosure here, this is all some evil fantasy in my mind. Its the kind of stuff I think these morons deserve, but is in no way the premonition of some criminally insane plot by me. It is however something I obviously wouldn't do in real life, but I'm free to imagine it. And also a legal disclaimer, I do not condone this actual activity in any way shape or form, and furthermore I refuse to be held accountable in the event some complete moron actually goes and does this. We've seen the acid-based disfigurement of people in movies before, so it's not like this is some original idea of mine. You're free to think whatever you want, just don't act upon it.