Message in a bottle adventures

A friend posted a photo of a USB memory stick in a bottle with the caption, “The modern day message in a bottle”

My thoughts were well that is interesting and I liked the image of a bottle on a sandy beach, ocean in the background with the modern device inside the bottle waiting for anyone to open up the secret messages inside.

Then I thought well water would destroy the memory stick. Then I thought sealing wax like on a wine and booze bottles would fix that problem and that would have made the photo look even cooler if the person taking the photo had thought of that little addition.

Alas they did not. Still it was a good photo.

It also reminded me of when I was kid. I grabbed a coke bottle back when they were made of glass and not the thin glass that they are today, it was thick ass glass that took a beating. For some reason there were corks lying around the house too various sizes and shapes and I found one that fit the bottle.

I then wrote a note in the bottle saying that I was this kid living in this particular town, going to this particular school, what I liked and if this message was found would you please, please, and probably threw in another please for good measure and as I was a kid I didn’t think it would be annoying to write please so many times in a row, write me back. I included my address as well.

Which in retrospect probably wasn’t really all that smart because and today everyone would be like WTH dude, do you want a stalker to come kill you.

Admittedly that isn’t very high on my list of things to get done in my lifetime.

So thinking ahead I put my letter in a plastic bag in case the bottle leaked and like the photographer didn’t think to seal the bottle in wax at the cap point. I was a kid though and while we had corks lying around we did not have sealing wax, so there is that in my favor.

Then once I had my message in the bottle I ran down to the town bridge which crosses the Cheat River. It was raining and the river was up and moving very fast. The water was brown with dirt and stirred up silt, and for what ever reason I tossed the bottle out as far as I could, because dropping it straight down seemed less dramatic I suppose.

It was dark and raining and I couldn’t see the bottle any longer a second or two after it left my hand. I don’t think I even saw it hit the water it was a very exciting moment. But from there the bottle was out in the world on its’ own waiting to be found where would it go, how far would it go. The excitement lasted for a few days and my daydreams of where the bottle might actually end up filled my head.

Well technically it could have possibly made it to the Gulf of Mexico
The progression would be from the Cheat, to the Monongahela to the Ohio River to the Mississippi River to the Gulf of Mexico… to the whole wide world

Well to a kid probability means squat and that bottle had a great chance of making it to anyone in the world who might be near a body of water.

The reality is that the bottle survived and made it a pretty good distance and made it to the second river in that chain to the whole world and as luck would have it a kid found the bottle. An adventurous kid who liked to play on river banks like myself, except this adventurous kid was a girl.

I got her letter a few weeks after tossing my bottle into the river, closer to two months. So the bottle just sat there for a while I suppose. And largely I had forgotten about the bottle but the when the letter was there when I got home from school. It was one of those confetti moments when you just explode with happiness.

The girl and I wrote for a while and then we just stopped. I don’t remember why just that we don’t write anymore. This was before computers and easy photographs. So I never knew what she looked like and she did not know what I looked like. Hell we may have met later in life. I don’t remember her name and if the letters still exist then they would be in my mother’s house probably in the attic hard to say. Would be fun to find them if they are still there. I wondered about this person after seeing the bottle photo and thought what her life if like today and does she remember a childhood adventure of finding a message in a bottle on the banks of a river one autumn day.

Because I’ve had success with that little experiment I’ve done the same thing a few other times and tossed bottles into the Atlantic Ocean, the Pacific Ocean and a few rivers here and there. It has only worked that one time. But I have moved a lot so if it did work other times it was after I moved and the letter probably got sent back to the person.

I suppose GeoQuests replace the message in the bottle sort of adventures and my blog to letter box challenge is very much like the letter in the bottle thing. Except that the river this time was cyber space. That adventure continues and it is never too late to jump on board if you want to play as always the PO Box is below. I like to get cards and letters and it makes the spider happy.

I would encourage people to participate in this type of adventure but certainly use so precautions like a PO Box or just and email address that you set up specifically for the adventure. You will be surprised by the amount of excitement it actually creates in your life.

In other news…

Confirmation of the acronym in this last week from an unlikely source so that was fun


Well, that’s all for now, other stuff tomorrow most likely

Happy Birthday if it’s your birthday and a very merry un birthday if it isn’t your birthday

Thank you for reading, please subscribe, you know if you are reading this on blogspot or on diaryland. If you are reading on face book well you are already subscribed. Aren’t you happy.

Have a great day and play nice in the neighborhood.

Ciao,






PS 3 Gamer Tag: invisible don


PO Box 4425 Roanoke VA 24015

Can you say witch hunt boys and girls... I knew you could

So there is a lot of buzz going on about Lance Armstrong and the US Anti Doping Agencies allegations against Mr. Armstrong.

As far as I’ve heard related to facts that Lance Armstrong has never failed any tests from any agency including the US Anti Doping Agency or failed any test given to him by any officials from any race he has competed or for the IOC or for the USOC.

Yet for some reason the US Anti Doping Agency and I think more specifically Travis Tygart the Director of the USADA, continues to blare out “We don’t care what the test results say, we know Mr. Armstrong is guilty of some performance enhancement we just know it.” Not an exact quote but I think the sentiment it correct.

How do you know it? Please tell us how you know this? Show us some facts and not the word of some official or team mate who says I know because I saw this or that. Ok where is the proof of these people’s statements. If we convict people completely on the word of others now every one is going to be guilty of something they didn’t do just because someone doesn’t like them or is just pissed off at the moment.

Then there are the few former team mates who say they saw this or that but didn’t say anything at the time. And why not gather up the used needles if they existed that would have evidence of the substance and probably a small amount of Mr. Armstrong’s DNA. Then you could have just turned it over to a race official but none of that ever happened. No one ever came forward during races and said you know what I can’t support cheating.

Ok so why now after he is retired? If you want your sports to be fair and free of doping and performance enhanced abilities, why are you waiting to come forward when there is no proof in what you are claiming and it is so long after the fact that new evidence can not be drawn in the form of a blood test or urine screening.

Many writers and commentators and Mr. Tygart are saying that because Lance is quitting the fight against the allegations this is “an admission of guilt” on his part, because if he were truly innocent he would fight every minute of every day to clear his name.

Really, would he do that?

If Lance Armstrong is guilty of using performance enhancements he did so in a way that avoided hundreds if not thousands of doping tests? Well if he did use and was able to pass the tests well the secret dies with him or he admits it. You don’t have any proof that he did anything wrong.

However without proof how do you have a legitimate claim to continue to pour allegations out against this person?

The thing about this is that we’ve become so jaded as a society that we don’t want to believe that any one is able to achieve anything great anymore at least not with out cheating the system some how. And there is proof of it every day, not just in sport but in every part of out lives.

In the just recently concluded 2012 Olympics more than a few athletes tested positive for enhancement drugs and doping and there was still a fair amount of other cheating going on. From the badminton court, cycling, basket ball, martial arts and others. A side thought however is getting high on marijuana a performance enhancer? I would think it would be the opposite but hey it’s a banned substance so I get it he knew he shouldn’t have blazed up but did, and was banned

Some of it was the use of drugs, doping techniques, stretching the rules to your advantage, playing for position rather than wins and on and on. Our sports have become breeding grounds for lies and very un sportsmen like behavior. In all of these cases there is proof, there is immediate action taken. It isn’t month or even years later and without proof.

So when some one makes allegations against someone we are likely to believe them and given the number of times that someone has said oh no I didn’t do that and then later says ok yeah I did. We tend not to believe the person saying I didn’t do it. But in all of those other cases there has been some tangible proof of wrong doing.

There has yet to be any against Lance Armstrong that I’m aware of at this time. And this isn’t new for years this has been going on. It isn’t like oh now some years later people are saying Lance is a cheat. No they have been saying before he had cancer, they were saying it during his cancer treatment, they said it before, during and after every race he competed in after coming back and was tested, and tested and tested. Surely years of testing for by so many different agencies he would have slipped up some where along the line and there would be proof of the cheating.

Where is the evidence?

How many years of abuse would you take before saying you know what I’m done fighting with you I quit. Because it doesn’t matter what the truth is, it is what you (Mr. Tygart) want the truth to be that he is a cheater so you will continue to make allegations until when? Well until the person just quits fighting because it is such an expense in time, money, mental state and just an all consuming thing to the person who has been accused.

There comes a time when the fighting just doesn’t make any sense anymore because no matter what the out come there is always another fight about the same thing you just fought about.

He knew he was going to be tested. If I were an athlete in today’s world of drug testing it would be on my mind that if I do well someone is going to test me for something. So of course he knew he would be tested

And again if he is guilty and is able to beat all the tests well then that is something that agencies need to look into in testing athletes and if Lance got away with it, how many others have gotten away with it as well. Derek Jeter just had allegations made against him by an announcer who has chosen to make his money by being an ass hat but will Jeter be put through the same onslaught of accusations now. Hard to say but you don’t need evidence anymore to make someone’s life a living hell. You just need an audience and a few people to listen and pick up the torches and pitchforks.

Also what authority does the US Anti Doping Agency have over any competitions or to remove victories? The truth is they don’t have any authority over any sports but once the agency was empowered by the US Congress, who are all as we know very truthful people without any flaws in their characters, the USADA gave themselves unlimited authority to test anyone who does anything with any sport on the planet if they have competed in the US, plan to compete in the US or may think they might like to compete in the US or for the US.

Can you say witch hunters? If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck I’m sure it’s a witch but if says it isn’t a witch it’s a witch and if it says it’s a duck it’ is probably still a witch.

All in all I don’t know what to think about Lance other than to say show the public some proof other than he just doesn’t want to fight with you any more because that isn’t proof that he did something wrong it’s proof of Mr. Tygart has started a witch hunt and that’s all and now that Mr. Armstrong doesn’t want to play any more he is guilty

And I will say this if there is proof turn it over to the Tour de France and the IOC and the USOC and then by all means strip every award the man has gotten but prove it first.

However sadly the USADA has chose not to do this and have taken his unwillingness to play their game using rules they made which really ultimately give them the accusers the most of the power and those accused none. This is fair Mr. Tygart? Well I’m sure you don’t care about fairness you only say you do and the more important thing for you to do is to validate the existence of a money wasting agency which is redundant in every way. All the sports you test athletes for have their own testing, they have there own oversights and they have their own rules and authority to ban competitors you and your agency are not needed and should be abolished. You are a waste of tax payer money, you are a blight on the existence of fairness, and you probably aren’t a very nice person but I’m not sure about that last one but I think your actions justify my allegation.


In other news,

Internet fights between two people are fun to watch… god I love twitter it is better than day time TV


Well, that’s all for now, other stuff tomorrow most likely

Happy Birthday if it’s your birthday and a very merry un birthday if it isn’t your birthday

Thank you for reading, please subscribe, you know if you are reading this on blogspot or on diaryland. If you are reading on face book well you are already subscribed. Aren’t you happy.

Have a great day and play nice in the neighborhood.

Ciao,






PS 3 Gamer Tag: invisible don


PO Box 4425 Roanoke VA 24015