If you live it up, you won't live it down.

The end of another calendar year has spun around. It has always seemed a strange time of year to celebrate the changing of the year. It could happen on any old day of the year on our trip around the sun. If you think about it much, the winter solstice would be a better day as the days begin to get longer and the end of cycle of growing night ends. The celebration happens close enough to the solstice that it doesn’t really matter that it isn’t really on the exact day. How it came to be a night of drinking until your eyeballs fall out is a mystery and it has been a good long time since I’ve rung in the new year with a resounding hangover. Nothing like the thumping of the twelve beats hammering on your noggin all the next day. On weakened knees, you promise to Bacchus that you won’t pay homage as fervently the next time or forsaking the god of wine all together in that moment of defeat. However, the next year, there you are raising a cup to the lord of the grape… Feel free to insert your beverage of choice and appropriate god of your drink. Hopefully the repeat of the cup raising doesn’t repeat in screaming at your footwear and why would you name your shoes Ralph anyway. Fortunately I learned that drinking doesn’t actually kill brain cells. Well it does if you die of alcohol poisoning but otherwise you are safe, because, we all know a person who has drank enough booze to kill the brains of several people. Unfortunately, I’m not sure I’ve learned much more than that during the year and I remain as unevolved as I have been. I did learn one other thing but, I’m not sure how useful the information is at this point or if it is at all. Then my favorite part of the new year calendar flip ritual are the promises to be better people and not the worthless meat sacks we have been the previous year. Mostly thought we end up being the same old people we were when we started the whole ring in the new calendar celebration. Those promises were just noise to fill in space and there was no intention of making good on them anyway. As of late I’ve flipped the calendar in a rather uneventful fashion, which I’m not sure I prefer apart from the obvious lack of a hangover. Living January one, sans the headache has been nice, even if it is a little boring. Boring is probably a bit too harsh a critique but it certainly has a lot more solitude. The solitude has added to my cynicism which may or may not be a good thing. Looking back over the year past, it has been harder to keep looking back and not be tempted to look forward and wonder how many more of these calendar flop overs remain which has more to do with a certain day that happened a while back. The changing of the calendar hasn’t woken in me a resolve to do anything differently but perhaps do to it with a little more purpose than I have and perhaps that information I learned will be useful. Perhaps it won’t be useful. So with a cup of Sir Arthur’s brew, I raise it up, tip it back and swallow the frothy bitter sweet ale and savor the taste and remember that you have to follow your dreams or they will die and kill you in the process. Happy New Year, follow the path you want and ignore those that would stand in your way or make you doubt your heart. Thank you to those who sent me post cards in 2014, you know who you are. Well, that’s all for now, other stuff to follow most likely Happy Birthday if it’s your birthday and a very merry un birthday if it isn’t your birthday Today’s title: Lyrics from Tom Waits, “Hold On” – Mule Variations Thank you for reading, please subscribe, Have a great day and play nice in the neighborhood. Ciao, Invisible Don PS 3 / PS4 Gamer Tag: invisible don Invisible Don PO Box 4425 Roanoke VA 24015 Send me Post Cards … I love Post Cards

How did I survive my childhood?

There are so many thoughts rambling around in my head that I don’t even know where to start with trying to unpack them all and get them out of my head. Most of the problems I have in my life are first world problems and really in the whole scheme of things do not matter even a little bit. The world will spin on even if I don’t do a thing. It just takes up too much space in my head and I don’t relax. However, the other day I was watching some kid do something that a kid will do and the helicopter parent was right nearby muttering something or other I couldn’t hear. Most likely it was some warning about not doing this or that or some such noise. The kid kept right on doing whatever it was he was doing over the objections of the parent. I could tell by the annoyed look on the parent’s face. That is the look of ignored authority. However whatever the kid was doing did not seem particularly dangerous. My childhood was a bit different, parental units did not helicopter around us. We didn’t wear helmets or knee pads or other safety equipment. I could say I came out the other side unscarred but that would be a blatant lie. I had my share of cuts sewn shut and scars from less than well thought out plans. We hunted each other in the woods with BB guns, rode bikes down hills with no brakes, my youngest brother rode a big wheel down a quarter of a mile hill on a main road around blind turns and the list could go on and on to the horror of those who were unaware of our hi-jinx. Yet somehow we lived. Every one of my friends stepped on a nail, cut themselves with a knife or some tool, ended up with some pretty deep cut, scrape or other injury and mostly we just kept playing. We just rubbed dirt on it and went on. I remember one time I wrecked my bike trying to impress a girl with a daredevil bike trick. At the high point of the trick I would zoom by the girl’s house at the bottom of the hill. The high point was me standing both feet on the left pedal holding the handle bar with my right hand, leaning the bike out to almost a 45 degree angle, going top speed, which may have only been 15 or 20 mph. It seems faster when you are in middle school. Well that incident ended with me hitting something which caused the front wheel to wobble and me over correcting the handlebar and leaning the bike too far out to the side which caused the bike to slide completely under me launching me forward no longer a passenger on the bike but an airborne thing above it. I landed on the bike and it and me skidded by the girl’s house in a twisted heap of metal, boy, and tires. The girl was not even home, I found out later, and therefore not impressed but several of her neighbors were impressed that I did not die as they saw me flipping down the road and came running from their houses. Fortunately I was able to ride the bike or more to the point it was not damaged to point of not working. It hurt a lot and I was bleeding from a lot of places but at the moment I was more embarrassed by not doing the trick well than being hurt. I wasn’t the only mental midget either, one friend deciding it would be a rather good idea to run across the field were are bull was fenced. The bull did not like his company much and chased him around a bit. Everything we did was legal, …well we will assume it was legal but to be sure most of it… well maybe none of it was not very smart. Like the time I jumped off the roof of my grandmother’s house to impress a girl and ended up with me in a leg cast and the girl not being very impressed. I’m not sure that there is a moral to all of this, maybe don’t do stupid things to impress girls or at least make sure they are home first. Maybe it is that boys are dangerous and shouldn’t be left alone for long periods of time. Well, that’s all for now, other stuff to follow 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, Have a great day and play nice in the neighborhood. Ciao, Invisible Don PS 3 / PS4 Gamer Tag: invisible don Invisible Don PO Box 4425 Roanoke VA 24015 Send me Post Cards … I love Post Cards

I could tell you but I probably won't

Stuff and stuff We all have things. Stuff, even, thing that are ours and no one else’s. Even if our thing, is just like their thing, it is our thing. The stuff we have is ours and it makes us…happy? We all have stuff, stuff we don’t use, and for that matter stuff we do not even need. Hell maybe even stuff we don’t actually want. But we have it none the less and it is our stuff. Some of us have more stuff than we have places to keep stuff. I’m trying to get rid of stuff On one hand it is really easy to get rid of stuff. You find the nearest trash can and you toss that shit in. Go ahead, do it… if you can. Some stuff goes pretty easy other stuff doesn’t want to go. Trigger stuff. Stuff that makes you remember. Remember something that you haven’t thought about in ever so long. Like that kiss under the stars, leaning against the damp stone of the building not caring if anyone saw. The horrible trip, The broken bones, The funny story you and your best friend laugh about with only a single word, because of some ugly little trinket. A child’s first homework, The piece of art which is a tree? No, it’s a shark…what the hell is it? It doesn’t matter what it is now you remember the child that needed you more than anything else… the child who is now an adult. All time gone away. Saved in the bits and bobbles all in boxes, up on shelves, tucked into corners. All the stories, travels, memories of a hundred yesterdays all begin to pile up and accumulate. Then you look at things and struggle to remember, why did you keep the placemat from the Chinese place, which time was it that you went. What is my animal sign? The memories are there but the reason for the touchstone is lost but many times it is not. Cleaning up can be a bigger adventure than you supposed. Perhaps more than you bargained It can seem like each little thing you touch comes with a flood of memories and you find yourself sitting in a room that isn’t really cleaned up any more that it was two hours ago but you are mentally worn out from all the emotions you’ve just experienced. Well, that’s all for now, other stuff to follow 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, Have a great day and play nice in the neighborhood. Ciao, Invisible Don http://invisibledon.diaryland.com/images/burningname.gif PS 3 / PS4 Gamer Tag: invisible don Invisible Don PO Box 4425 Roanoke VA 24015 Send me Post Cards … I love Post Cards

Sexy Ugly

What is attractive, good looking or beautiful depends largely upon who is doing the looking. The saying, ‘beauty is in the eye of the beholder’ rings true, because as much as we try to homogenize and make it all the same, we fail. As much as the beauty industry tries to bring it to a science of this is attractive and this is not, the mark is missed. We still find things to be alluring to us that do not fit with convention. The idea of sexy ugly is something I heard in a film and the concept stuck with me. The line, if I remember correctly, was that someone is so unattractive that they are attractive. Which I didn’t really disagree with because at the time I had my own popular sexy ugly person I could point to and say yes I agree. However this not really fair to the person I labeled as sexy ugly because I did not think they were ugly but did not try to make it more understandable and went with the words sexy ugly. Driven yet again by convention out of my own lack of motivation to define it further. Everyone finds attraction in something and sees a beauty others may not and while someone may not be conventionally pretty does that necessarily mean that they are not attractive. I say no. I like a face with character something that is unique and has a quality not in other people. And while a broken nose may disfigure one person it adds character to another. All the lines, wrinkles, scars, freckles, and the other countless little imperfections which the fashion and beauty industry would have you erase and cut away make a face unique. It is odd how we all try to be the same, yet strive for individuality and work against the things that truly make us just a little different to meet someone else’s definition of beauty. I think the people who embrace themselves for who they are genuinely are the happiest. However I struggle with the plight that many do when I look in the mirror I don’t always see what others say they see. We are all bombarded by all sorts of image standards and it is hard not to let it take a toll or maybe it is easy avoid it and I am just that superficial to allow it to bother me. Some days I see a reflection I enjoy and then other days I would rather break every mirror than to see the reflection looking back at me. Usually I just let it go, I think of the sexy ugly thing and go about my day avoiding my reflection until I have to wash my face or brush my teeth. Then I will scowl at myself and make faces and generally let myself have a good verbal beat down. I’m pretty good at it too. Name calling is a skill best reserved for yourself. No one knows your weak points like you do and I don’t usually pull any punches when I’m mirror bashing myself. Then I’ll let it go because I can’t really change it and I embrace it, and then the cycle will repeat again. Have no fear most days I look in the mirror and I just see me for me and I don’t worry about what is conventional or not. Well, that’s all for now, other stuff to follow most likely Happy Birthday if it’s your birthday and a very merry un birthday if it isn’t your birthday Today’s title: line from the movie, “Kissing Jessica Stein” Thank you for reading, please subscribe, Have a great day and play nice in the neighborhood. Ciao, Invisible Don PS 3 / PS4 Gamer Tag: invisible don Invisible Don PO Box 4425 Roanoke VA 24015 Send me Post Cards … I love Post Cards

Let my skull be a home for the mice

Given that it is the season for the macabre and the gruesome it seems appropriate to talk about the things that aren’t oft spoken about in polite company. I have always been a fan of the darker side of things, found beauty where others only see ugliness and I know I’m not unique in this sort of thing. There are whole industries built up on those things which avoid convention and embrace the darker side. Not sure how much truth there is to the saying, if you stare too long into the darkness it begins to stare back into you. So to celebrate the time of year and my love of the less than conventional dinner conversation in the query as to what becomes of the physical me once I’m gone. Well to honor my love of learning I really would like to donate my body to science. Which I did not know until recently that there are all sorts of restriction and such to that or at least donating your body to some things. I also think it would be fun to get entertaining tattoos so med students could read them and laugh or find inspiration. To borrow from “Breaking Bad” I have considered getting, “Yeah, science bitch!” tattooed across my chest. I think that would a bit uplifting to see that staring back at you, especially on a bad day. Other things: the bio hazard emblem, “Enjoy today it has to be better than mine” and on and on. Make anatomy a bit of fun. Someone suggested getting the body parts tattooed but that might be a disqualifier for a classroom cadaver. Once my work was done in the classroom as a cadaver, I’ve always wanted to have my skull cleaned and then bronzed. You know to be used as a book end or paper weight. Something to pass on down to the kids and grandkids. I mean show and tell would be awesome for the great grandkids, who else would have the actual skull of an ancestor to bring in for that, no body …bahahahahaha get it no body just the head. But seriously, this is my great granddad or great great granddad…winner. How about tagging along to a party long after you’ve shuffled off the mortal coil. Guess what is in the bag? A human skull. That would be the best Halloween party decoration ever. I’ve also wanted to start building the family “spice” rack or moveable cemetery. Cremation is one day going to be a requirement and cemeteries will be outlawed and a thing of legend or storytelling and no longer a place to go hide because most people are too afraid to go into the cemetery at night. So having the whole family in little labeled jars makes for a very interactive family tree discussion. This here is your great aunt so and so and she did whatever it was that she was famous for like robbing banks or something. Recently though science has come up with anything carbon can be made into diamonds thing, which has gotten me to thinking that jewelry which is actually family members would be totally awesome too. Having a family charm bracelet made of actual family members compressed into diamonds. I mean seriously how cool is that. If you are a guy having the gems put into a watch face as the numbers. It’s half past Uncle Billy or a quarter till granddad. Then what about the rest of the bones or tattoos. I mean skinning people has been done for ages and made into book covers, lampshades, museum pieces and lots of other products have been made out of human skin. Not exactly a gift for everyone, and that may not be a thing that most people want as a present or even to have around. But I like my tattoos and it would be a shame for them to just rot away or burn to dust. Then there are all sorts of things that can be made from bones; tools, art, and functional décor to name but a few. People have always kept bones around until recently. Stored them up in catacombs or ossuaries. The Sedlac Ossuary in the Czech Republic has the bones of perhaps 70,000 people as adornments and functional pieces. Rome and Paris had catacombs so large they have no idea how many peoples remains are stored under the cities. I’m not sure why we have strayed away from the practice to be honest but we have. Hopefully my bones will be dice or table legs or perhaps the eyeless face staring back from a bookshelf watching future generations of my line celebrate living. Who knows maybe I can even get the part of Yorick in Hamlet, “Alas poor Yorick I knew him well …” Would you get billing in the playbill as the skull who played Yorick. Happy Halloween Well, that’s all for now, other stuff to follow most likely Happy Birthday if it’s your birthday and a very merry un birthday if it isn’t your birthday Today’s title: Lyrics from Tom Waits “ Satisfied” Thank you for reading, please subscribe, Have a great day and play nice in the neighborhood. Ciao, Invisible Don PS 3 / PS4 Gamer Tag: invisible don Invisible Don PO Box 4425 Roanoke VA 24015 Send me Post Cards … I love Post Cards

6 degrees

There was a saying that between you and anyone else there are only 6 degrees of separation, the saying came from a theory and the theory spurred a film that hardly anybody saw and a game that people used to play called, Back to Bacon. The idea of the game is the same as the theory name an actor and in six films or less you can find a link to Kevin Bacon. I don’t hear this said any more or play the game any longer either but I have pondered the 6 degrees thing and it works. You would be surprised how quickly you can get to most anyone. Some of it is conjecture and you guess where paths might lead and at least in theory it would seem to work. I’ve not ever called in any of my guess work to cash in on meeting anyone in particular by my mere six steps away from meeting someone famous or infamous. Say you only get to do this one time in your life, how do you pick who you would want to meet? Do you just on a whim pick whomever strikes your fancy that particular day or do you try to sort out someone meaningful and fulfilling. The problem is the fulfilling person is statistically more likely to disappoint you than impress your pants off, the crush is going to be a real person with their own thoughts and not your super imposed ones. The point is that your fantasy meeting quickly spiral out of your hands and into reality. Which if you are lucky slightly resembles your idea of the perfect evening, tryst, or conversation I’m not certain if I would aim for the lofty or the bawdy if I dared to take the six steps to meeting anyone. A lot of the people I would like to meet are dead, and that has its own set of drawbacks. However, keeping with the living. The theory only puts you in the room with the person nothing else. So anything happening beyond perhaps embarrassing yourself or the other person is not terribly likely. Take for example when the other one and I met Ryan Reynolds. We are in Vancouver waiting in the smoking lounge and the then not so famous actor asks to bum a cigarette. I glance at him, the other one does too and we trade looks and say we know this person. The other one say, you look familiar. Mr. Reynolds goes into explain how he is on this program and I so eloquently blurt out as loud as possible for everyone to hear, YOU’RE THE PRODUCT TESTING GUY. Yes I became the beaming excited dolt who scared off Ryan Reynolds to hide in some corner with his borrowed cigarette. You are welcome for the cigarette by the way, Mr. Reynolds. Sorry I was an idiot. That said he never tested any more products on that show as part of his character, you’re welcome for that too. Probably saved your career. However any six way step you take to meeting anyone is likely to play out just as well as my random encounters with known people. No matter how you envision it, it is not likely to play out the way you hope. Then you are left wonder why you even bothered in the first place. Disillusioned and perhaps sad about the fall from the pedestal you put the person on. They haven’t really changed only how you see them with less separating you from them. Them from you for that matter. Fans are scary up close, unrealistic and loud. Still who would you try to meet if you could? What would you want to do? Why that person for that reason? I have crass answers, lewd answers, philosophical answers, across the board to meet some desire or another simply too many to pick just one. Well, that’s all for now, other stuff to follow 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, Have a great day and play nice in the neighborhood. Ciao, Invisible Don PS 3 / PS4 Gamer Tag: invisible don Invisible Don PO Box 4425 Roanoke VA 24015 Send me Post Cards … I love Post Cards

You may not want to read this if you are a fan of WVU... fair warning

There was much debate over writing or not writing my thoughts about today’s topic. However, I finally landed on not voicing disgust and outrage is really what has led to the recent events in Morgantown so I decided popular or not I would go ahead and dive into the topic. As I begin I will say I am not alumni to WVU, but I am a West Virginia native, I realize that this was not the entire student body and not all students. WVU is not the first school to do this type of stupid thing but it also is not the first time that WVU / Morgantown has done this same kind of stupid thing. In case you live under a rock or just don’t care about anything West Virginia, following the win in Saturday’s football game, the grand ol’ tradition of “sofa burnin’” commenced. Most people including myself are not sure how this sacrifice to the gods of upholstery even became a thing there but it has and it had gone on for damn near 40 years. So while it was mainly young people out in the streets this past Saturday, the college presidents past and present, and every leader in Morgantown elected or appointed from the mayor to the chief of police for the past 40 years hold a certain amount of accountability for the antics and out of control behavior that isn’t just Saturdays around football season, it is all the time. Morgantown isn’t any worse than any other town in West Virginia, which unfortunately in the last decade isn’t saying much. I hate to see that West Virginia is becoming abused by businesses coming in and taking advantage of a crumbling economy, that many of the best and brightest of West Virginia have to leave the state to find a sustainable wages because there just are not enough good jobs to go around. Drugs, gambling, alcohol, and other crimes and vices are becoming more and more common place in the state but especially in the towns with a college. You may be saying what the hell does any of this have to do with anything that went on in Morgantown on Saturday. Well it lends to the general tone of how people think of things, if you let your town become a crappy little village where slum lords gouge students to the tune of 400 to 500 dollars a month for a bedroom in a shitty little house that has 5 to 6 bedrooms, that was built in the 1930’s which probably has lead paint, no drive way, wiring that would not pass code anywhere else, has carpeting from the 1970’s or 80’s and most likely is not on a bus route because the buses can’t make it up the streets because they are too narrow. A university that crams as many students into a classroom as possible without regard if they graduate or not but only concern themselves with making sure tuition is paid in full, then for the most part ignores the deviance and criminality of the student body. Such as, batteries and bottles thrown at visiting teams, drunken block parties, and the list goes on and on and it has for 40 years. WVU is a bad joke to most of the rest of the country, sadder still the joke extends to the rest of the state. I know that every student who goes to the school isn’t a trouble maker, isn’t a drunk, that there are actual classes taught there and people do graduate with knowledge. I know people who live there and they are good people. However, the students and citizens who participated in the events on Saturday should be ashamed and embarrassed that they have just added more ammunition to the loaded gun and more people not taking the school and the state seriously. Long before this Saturday’s antics I advise against any student wasting their money and time at this college not because of the school but because the leaders of the college and the town don’t care, they all the bad to go on, slum lords, crime, burning things in the street and looked the other way. They have allowed this behavior to become tradition. I lost count of how many times I read the phrase, “It is a tradition” as this somehow defends the criminal acts, a lot of things were traditions until people stopped doing them because they were stupid. The truly sad thing about this is, that nothing is going to change until one of these stupid couch burnings, gets out of control and burns down several blocks in the town and a few people die. It is only a matter of time; beat up old houses which need to be condemned, drunks, and burning sofas is just asking for problems. As someone who is from West Virginia, I’m mad as hell that one stupid town paints the whole state to look like a drunken bunch of hillbillies with no manners and no sense. Students of WVU and the leaders of Morgantown, it is time to grow up and act like you have a major college in your town, take some pride in the state and not just the fucking football team, and stop acting like the cast of a Jackass movie. Well, that’s all for now, other stuff to follow 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, Have a great day and play nice in the neighborhood. Ciao, Invisible Don http://invisibledon.diaryland.com/images/burningname.gif PS 3 / PS4 Gamer Tag: invisible don Invisible Don PO Box 4425 Roanoke VA 24015 Send me Post Cards … I love Post Cards

Remembering my dad on his birthday

My father and me, me and my father. The parental unit, alpha unit, dad, daddy, pop, papa other moniker which indicates a male parent. I generally referred to my father as dad. He signed his cards dad, letters too were all signed dad. Well unless they were to someone else then he signed his name or dad if it was to one of my siblings. Dad, has been gone now for 11 years, it seems so much longer. The empty place that is created by losing a parent is always there. Nothing fills it back up. Memories are just that, memories. I can’t call him up and talk about something that is bothering me or to tell him what the kids are doing. I still remember his voice and the rough feel of beard stubble and the smell of coffee when he would hug me. He always had a firm hand shake and although he was small in build was stronger than he looked. I remember him telling me stories of his growing up in various places because his father was in the Navy. How one time he had convinced his older brother John to piss on a car battery behind a garage and the resulting shock his brother got and having to run home with his brother chasing him. Living in Florida and Michigan and how one was different than the other. What it is was like being a child diabetic. I remember him telling me how his high school girlfriend, not my mother, got mad at him and threw his class ring into an open field and he had searched for hours until he found it. There was one about wrecking a car and it rolling over a bunch of times on some back road, and how his mother’s favorite punishment for him and his brother was to hit them with a shoe. His story about meeting my mom, and how she almost didn’t go out with him. He wore a beard most of time when I was a kid, until it was too grey for his taste and then he never wore one again. In fairness he did go pretty grey in his late 30’s so I can see not wanting to have that much grey hair before you were in your 40’s. There are a lot of memories of my father, various things good and bad. The morning he called from the Cleveland Clinic to say they found a donor match for a heart transplant and he would be going into surgery soon. I remember talking to him about nothing really important just stuff, a normal conversation, but in the back of my mind I was thinking this could be the very last time I talk with him we should be saying something important. Ironically the last conversation my father and I had was just a normal conversation about getting ready to buy the house where I live now and how the kids were doing. Nothing earth shattering, not so very important, just a normal conversation. Our last words were good ones, typical last words in a phone conversation; Love you, talk to you soon. Sort of the automatic things you say when you talk with family. I didn’t know it then but that just regular conversation was the last one we would have. The thing I associate most with my father is coffee. He drank the hell out of some coffee. Those who know me and think I drink a lot of coffee, have no idea what it is to drink a lot of coffee. I rarely saw my father without a cup of coffee ever. Even when he had an orange juice he had coffee too. What I learned from my father is you never give up and that life only kicks your ass when you stop trying even though I may not always remember that lesson. When I think about what my father was like as a person it isn’t that he was perfect or the greatest it was that he always kept trying to make the lives of those he loved just a little bit better not with a grand gesture or a big prize just little regular everyday things. Well, that’s all for now, other stuff to follow 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, Have a great day and play nice in the neighborhood. Ciao, Invisible Don PS 3 / PS4 Gamer Tag: invisible don Invisible Don PO Box 4425 Roanoke VA 24015 Send me Post Cards … I love Post Cards

My Family

This past weekend I went back to the home town area to celebrate the wedding of a cousin. One of the things I have always enjoyed about my family is the inclusion over so many years and the accidental similarities which have occurred over the years. This is mainly my father’s family, his siblings and their children but my mother’s family has always been included. When a lot of the gatherings began my paternal grandmother and great grandmother were both still living. For those not familiar my father had three siblings; a brother and two sisters. Those four children had 12 children, oddly 6 boys and 6 girls. I’m one of the 6 boys and myself and my other 11 family members have added 20 something children to the family. Now, those children are marrying and having children. This wedding isn’t the first of those to occur and surely won’t be the last. As our family has grown we have grown apart by physical distance and also sadly the number of occasion in which we gather has also started to dwindle. Things change, but I don’t really want to see this change. I remember very large family gatherings from when I was a child. One where our great grandmother who would have been in her 70’s straddling a Harley with a cigarette in her mouth and a beer in her hand. I know the cigarette was hers but the beer may have been a prop for the photo. My father, uncle and aunts continued this tradition for years over the all the teen angst of their children. People have come and gone in the group as one person marries, and another divorced, special friends who have become just like family, exchange students from all over the globe have become part of our family, and those included in the group continue to grow. We all haven’t always gotten along and there have been times when there have been sore feelings a time or two. What family doesn’t have those ups and downs? We have always come back together and been a family, laughed and cried together and celebrated all the accomplishment and step toward the next generation of this family. I extend this out to my 11 fellow family members, to remember all the good that came from our parents bringing us together all those times and how it has brought our children together to celebrate and to know they are loved. We have traveled from ocean to ocean together and a lot of the spaces in between. While we may not be able to have the Thanksgiving dinners that grew so large that no one person’s house could hold it any longer every year or the Christmas white elephant exchanges for other reasons. We grew up and knew each other and our children have come to know one another because of effort our father’s and mother’s put into making this happen. Let’s continue this tradition our parents started so our grandchildren and great grandchildren will know and love each other and hear us tell the stories about our mother’s and father’s and our grandparents and great grandparents and to make friend with cousins they would otherwise not even know. I really believe our lives were better for our parents bringing us all together and that our children’s lives are so much richer because they know their history and can see that from very humble beginnings in the hills of West Virginia, that we have roots all across this nation now. We have all laughed together, cried together, hugged and loved one another for so, so, many years. We are the ones now, that must carry this forward for the next generation and the next after that one. I am glad our parents started this tradition of gathering to celebrate our lives and I hope we will continue to celebrate our lives, our accomplishments great and small, and the events of our lives happy and sad for many generations to come. Without family you have nothing and we have a great family Well, that’s all for now, other stuff to follow 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, Have a great day and play nice in the neighborhood. Ciao, http://invisibledon.diaryland.com/images/burningname.gif PS 3 / PS4 Gamer Tag: invisible don Invisible Don PO Box 4425 Roanoke VA 24015 Send me Post Cards … I love Post Cards

Pick a battle ...eenie, meenie, miney, moe

Seems lately my blog, about nothing really, has become a rant against stuff and things and that isn’t me. When did I become a curmudgeon? I mean, I certainly don’t think of myself as one, I like to have a good time. Honest I do, be that it in the wall flower sort of way which is my own version of a fun time. Who says fun has to be amplified and echoing off the canyon walls. Excuse me for a moment, (whispers) Really? (More whispers) Well, who knew? Seems that it loudness is a widely held version of what is considered fun, as well as frolicking, jumping joyously, varying degrees of intoxication, and mad capped shenanigans to include running about with little to nothing on. You will be happy to know, that as to the last bit of “fun”, I will remain fully clothed at all times in the presence of others…ah hem… most others, to include myself in proximity to mirrors. Still despite my, shall we say, less than exuberant displays of frivolity I like fun, I enjoy a good laugh, chuckle, guffaw if you will, I just simply prefer my buffoonery to be a bit more subdued, on the down low and perhaps a bit more high brow but I do enjoy a good bit of gutter humor as well. However, there are times when I see things that are billed as fun and I’m thinking that isn’t really fun so much as it is tormenting others for shock value or to elicit some sort of reaction which can be mocked. Is that really fun? My thoughts are that this is sadistic? But given how well the poorly penned tome about bondage did perhaps we have swung to the sadistic side of things and I just missed the boat or a bus. I’m sure I’ve missed it, if I can’t figure out if it was a boat or a bus. Mayhaps, it is that I’ve just gotten to be eld, and have forgotten what it means to engage in a bit of tomfoolery. Which can’t be right because I surely don’t think of myself as a grown up yet. There are things to be done, cans to be kicked, and larks to be had. The mental image of me is less like the person who stares back in the mirror. Maybe I just never knew how to have fun and it sort of accidentally happened around me and I just thought I was fun because it seemed to be that way. Feelings of satisfaction do sometimes wash about me and when they do I’m usually alone but not always I do some times have fun with other people but then I worry because I’m some what eld that they must think that I’m irresponsible because I’m doing something fun and the eld aren’t supposed to have fun anyway. Then I go back to doing the wall flower type of fun things which entertain me but then I worry that people think I’m the creepy eld dude. It feels that I’m a square peg when I should be round and a round peg when I’m supposed be a triangle and a tetrahedron when I’m supposed to be a rhomboid. No wonder I can’t figure out dating if puzzling out fun it this complex. It might actually be rocket science. Well, that’s all for now, other stuff to follow most likely Happy Birthday if it’s your birthday and a very merry un birthday if it isn’t your birthday Today’s title: Lyrics from Alt J “Left hand free” Thank you for reading, please subscribe, Have a great day and play nice in the neighborhood. Ciao, PS 3 / PS4 Gamer Tag: invisible don Invisible Don PO Box 4425 Roanoke VA 24015 Send me Post Cards … I love Post Cards

Hail Caesar

The American coliseum brought to you every day of the week live in your hometown or in your very own home. Spectators to the games and the gladiators live and die by the mobs approval or disapproval. Think not; better look again perhaps you even attended in your local arena over the weekend. I know I did for my own brand of entertainment. Sport is an opiate for the masses and it keeps us from tearing down the wall of those in power. You don’t think about anything else while you watch your team do the what ever it is they do. Sport isn’t a bad thing, not really there are certainly beneficial things to sport; fitness, healthy competition, challenges to overcome, an emotional test and many more. However sport has become a business and it is corrupting. All of the good thing about sport can still be there but those things aren’t the focus anymore. Chemical enhancers have replaced fitness, win at all costs thinking regardless of the rules, and if your ability is good enough your social indiscretions can be overlooked. We teach this whether we mean to or not. When any athlete says I am not a role model I believe them because they are not role models or at least not role models I want to be an influence in anyone’s life. The athletes themselves don’t necessarily teach the bad behaviors though. We do that for them by reinforcing and rewarding their negative behavior. It goes back to little league teams. Those players who are talented or do well in the sport have their sins over looked. Late for practice, that’s okay run a lap but the kid who isn’t so good is off the team. Failing a class and you are the star whatever, we will find you a tutor if you are the so-so kid on the team, you are off the team or benched until the grade is improved. We are all about double standards in this country. If the star player gets in trouble with the law, some coach will come speak about how the opportunity to do better depends on this kid staying on the team. However is you aren’t so good at the sport, sorry kid you are all on your own with this one come see me if you get probation. We are the Dr. Frankenstein’s making the Ray Rice’s of the sporting world. Does that mean Ray Rice gets off for clocking his fiancé, No he should not get away with it, and he should be in jail. And if he were a Joe nobody he would be in jail. We allow this, not them. They have the bad habits, bad behaviors, etc. but we are the ones letting them get away with it. They do it because we let them. I can not say being able to play a sport well contributes nothing to the world because that would be a lie. Sport does inspire others to do better. However, excusing those athletes who excel in a sport of their anti-social behaviors, win at all costs drug taking, and others deviance creates a cycle, where people who see that if they are good enough they can do what ever they want. Think sport is not a business ask anyone who is broken by the sport and can no longer play how often all those people who used to cheer them on come around any more? Ask if they get those perks anymore or if they are excused for their sins? Bet the answer is no. They are the dead, they are the blood on the sand which gets raked away so the games can go on and the next batch of fresh meat can be thrown into fray. For the next group we can excuse from the rules of the social order. I’m not sure why anyone shakes their head and wonders why so many athletes don’t feel like they have to follow the rules. We simply don’t make them. And now when some athletes are being held accountable for their sins, rules that the rest of us have to follow. People are confused and are saying, “That is not how this is supposed to work.” It is how it is supposed to work. Still we flock to fill the seats and watch as those on the sand bleed and we ignore all the other sins of the world and breathe in a little deeper the poppy smoke. Well, that’s all for now, other stuff to follow 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, Have a great day and play nice in the neighborhood. Ciao, PS 3 / PS4 Gamer Tag: invisible don Invisible Don PO Box 4425 Roanoke VA 24015 Send me Post Cards … I love Post Cards

The death of the fourth estate

As much as I would love to assume that most people know what the reference the fourth estate means I will fill in for those who don’t know. It refers to a press that holds the other parts of society accountable, those parts being largely government and the church and also the people. Church meaning any organized religion not just one specifically. The fourth estate is one of the things that make revolution and change possible. The concept a powerful fourth estate is why those in power work so hard to spin what is known about them. It is why in the modern day that big businesses and governments wants so desperately to reel in, fetter, chain up, and control the internet to a nice manageable place that they can turn off if they need to, to maintain their hold on power. The concept of a powerful fourth estate is why Julian Assange felt that it was necessary to make public, records that businesses and governments kept secret. In part it is why Edward Snowden leaked out information about the NSA. Holding those who hold the reigns to task for what they do. However the main stream press works to vilify the people like Assange, Snowden and even groups like Anonymous for taking up the fallen banner of the fourth estate, to cry out when others have fallen silent. The most troubling thing about the information age is that it has become nearly impossible to sort through opinion and find the facts. Pick any issue, doesn’t matter what and you will find yourself unable to sort out anything that useful without giving yourself a massive headache in the process. The mainstream press spends more time just reporting “the what” that is happening in micro stories, which have absolutely no substance what so ever and there is never any follow up or it is complete over saturation of topics in speculative opinion without any fact to support what is being said. It would be nice if we could get back to the days to read something put together like Woodward and Bernstein that shakes the very core of the political world. We need leadership that leads and is fearful of the press because they are no longer just their megaphones for spouting out whatever gibberish they feel like hoodwinking the public with this week on what ever the topic of the minute happens to be. The press should be something more than the puppets of the powerful. The press used to be lions and where they tread the wicked and corrupt trembled because they could not hide the truth forever. I want to believe there are still real journalists out there who pick up the cause but I don’t see them. Be the change you want to see in the world. Well this is me picking up my piece of the banner and I use my voice and this internet while we still have it to ask questions of my leaders but I don’t get any answers or the ones I do get are just the same drivel that is already splashed out in mass quantities and is more propaganda than substance. The sad thing is that anymore the only useful information on the news is the weather and the rest is garbage or your daily dose of apathy and complacency. Well, that’s all for now, other stuff to follow 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, Have a great day and play nice in the neighborhood. Ciao, PS 3 / PS4 Gamer Tag: invisible don Invisible Don PO Box 4425 Roanoke VA 24015 Send me Post Cards … I love Post Cards

Martian spiders

The nomadic life has always struck a cord with me for some reason, the idea of being untethered from polite society and to live when and where the day takes you. It sings a song not unlike the Sirens which led sailors to their watery graves. It is a life of hardship and purity. There are no unnecessary things carried by a nomad, everything has a purpose, a use and a function or it is discarded. There is a creativity to nomads if you need it; you find it, you make it or you repurpose something else. Probably the most tempting nomad thing I’ve heard to do isn’t a thing yet, but may be at some point, that thing being a manned flight to Mars. It’s a one way ride there is no coming back, to truly go where no one has gone before. The thought is oh so seductive. There isn’t really much here on the mudball that has that appeal to it. No matter where you go, someone has been there as some point of other. There are vast areas where you can go and not be with another person or a very few. Being nomadic doesn’t necessarily mean hermit on the mountain top but it certainly means different. However where ever you went on earth you would know in the back of your mind you could always make your way back to the familiar, to safety, to roots and places known to many. It is a scary sort of feeling to know that if you hopped on that rocket to Mars you would only ever see those people who went with you from then on. They would be your only companions. What changes would there be in the social order? What remains? Survival becomes much more a reality and mistakes ever so much more costly. I’ve dreamt about it not because I want to be an astronaut or ever wanted to be one. This is different. There is the knowledge that when you leave you are gone from the lives of everyone you know and everything familiar. It would be like dying without the death, well at least for a little while death has that pesky way of finding us no matter where we hide. Everyone who you left behind would never see you again. There would be no way to impact there lives directly any longer. You become the memory of the person they know or knew, even though you are living. You could record messages and they could too and have them sent via radio wave back and forth. It takes time to send messages and then depending on how large a message can determine how quickly you get the whole thing, anywhere from 4 to 20 minutes, not exactly feeling a connectedness to people anymore. Knowing that the person who sent the message has already started doing something else when you read or hear their message and are they still there to get your reply or not? No matter the appeal to be free of the known and despite my love affair with nomadicness I always think about the loss it brings as well especially with the Mars thing. While the song to wander plays in background of my soul I am tied to places, at least earthly places, by powerful things. I don’t mind having roots, they are important. Having a connectedness to others a stable shelter from the harsh things out there in the world. However there is so much world out there to see and I’ve seen more then some and less then others but there is so much more I haven’t seen or done. I want to wander but I want to know I have a place that is warm and familiar. Well, that’s all for now, other stuff to follow 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, Have a great day and play nice in the neighborhood. Ciao, PS 3 / PS4 Gamer Tag: invisible don Invisible Don PO Box 4425 Roanoke VA 24015 Send me Post Cards … I love Post Cards

You can't carry it with you, if you want to survive

Dating is supposed to be fun and I guess that it is fun while it is going on. Finding someone to spend a lot of time with is difficult. My advise for young people is to date as much as you can, date a many people as you can, make a lot of friends, be as vivacious as you are comfortable being. That may mean that you are the wall flower at a party but you are a wall flower at a party not a homebody on a sofa. By dating a lot of people I don’t mean have sex with a lot of people, while it may sound like loads of fun it isn’t really all that rewarding and leaves deep empty hollow places in you that are hard to fill back up. This can also lead to wonderful parting gifts like STDs and children. Have realistic expectations that you are good enough, smart enough and gosh darn it people like you but the Victoria Rae Blacks and Johnny Depps of the world are not going to date you. Be yourself but don’t be uncompromising. Yes there should be limits to what you do but if you’ve never had Thai food go, have Thai food, unless you are allergic to peanuts then maybe you shouldn’t the Thai really seem to like peanuts. The point is try new things, if you don’t like it fine at least you know why you don’t like it. Be bold but with more than just food, there a lot of things to try in the world. I’m not sure why all of a sudden dating is more like work than having fun. I suppose people have this expectation that they can’t go out with someone they wouldn’t eventually want to marry or at the very least have a serious relationship. Not really sure what either of those things means to most people anymore. I do know several people who I think are in good marriages but I don’t know if they are or they are not. Mainly because I don’t ask, but I assume they are good because they don’t complain. Then I know people who only complain about their partners and I have to wonder, what is the point of it all if you can’t stand the other person? Dating in the work place is a bad idea because statistically all relationships fail on a long enough timeline, all of them. So unless you want to find a new job once the love of your life because the person whose photo is now glued to a voodoo doll it’s better to look else where for romance. Romance, what the hell does that mean? Aren’t we really just looking for companionship? Someone who won’t drive us batty after an hour on a road trip and if you are really lucky you get to see naked now and then. Although I don’t even like seeing me naked so I imagine no one else would fancy it either. Mostly though I think people have this very fucked up way of looking at interpersonal relationships that are born out of fairy tales, romance novels and Hollywood happily ever after bullshit which makes it all but impossible to find happiness anymore. Doesn’t mean I still don’t try, part of me is still a heart on my sleeve romantic, that has been kicked in the teeth by love more times than I care to admit. Part of me is a cynic that truly believes love is nearly dead lying face down in a ditch on the wrong side of the tracks. I’m not sure why anyone does it other than we all must be a bit sadistic and masochistic to endure what we call romantic relationships. However, I think that for who ever we are in this world no one wants to be alone and because of that we are willing to endure unimaginable amounts of pain, even if the rewards are few and far between. For most of us being alone is a hell unlike any other and we will do almost anything to avoid being with just ourselves, because you may be your own least favorite person. Then we wonder why all our relationships seem to unravel we don’t even like us, how is anyone else suppose too. My problem is that while I don’t particularly like me, I like me a lot more than I like a lot of other people and I enjoy my own company most of the time. I’ll figure it out one of these days or someone who can stand me for more than an hour will end up crossing my path. Well, that’s all for now, other stuff to follow most likely Happy Birthday if it’s your birthday and a very merry un birthday if it isn’t your birthday Today’s Title: Lyrics from Dog Days by Florence and the Machine Thank you for reading, please subscribe, Have a great day and play nice in the neighborhood. Ciao, PS 3 / PS4 Gamer Tag: invisible don Invisible Don PO Box 4425 Roanoke VA 24015 Send me Post Cards … I love Post Cards

I walk a crooked road to get to where I am going

We all try to deny who we are or what we are and think of ourselves as who we want to be in some made of version of reality that we try to pass off to others. Sometimes it actually works other times it doesn’t and we get called out on the rouse. I wonder sometimes if anyone is really who they want to be. More often than not I land on that we aren’t the “who” we want but rather the “who” we ended up. For better or for worse there we are, all the wrong turns, bad choices, broken promises, abandoned dreams, crossed wires and misunderstandings that make us the us that stands in the reflection. Surely people are happy with these mistaken versions of themselves or we wouldn’t have laughter and is laughter as bright without a little sadness to balance out the madness. All the roads not taken, paths unbeaten to get to where we stand, does it all lead to the “who” we are supposed to be or just the “who” we are? Perhaps the lie we tell ourselves isn’t that the reflection isn’t real but rather that Pandora was able to trap hope back in the box and hope, like a certain German cat, exists only because we refuse to look again. You eventually have to look and face the reality that we aren’t who we want to be but are rather the person that we ended up. Maybe it is just me that looks back and sees the winding path that has brought me further into the woods and not to the city of my dreams. I can see it there just beyond the trees just not so clearly through the haze. As I try to understand the where and who I am, I think back on the things that have put me in the shoes where I stand and all the times that it wasn’t the choices I made but rather the ones I didn’t make that have made the man that I am. I try to find the happiness that is mine beyond the fractured bit and pieces of my life. There are shining things for sure that I would not change and perhaps that broken path or crooked trails put me exactly where I was supposed to be and I’m just not always smart enough to see and the who I think I want to be isn’t who I was meant to be. Though just because I have longing doesn’t mean I am not a happy man and like most of us I forget sometimes to cherish all the things that I have rather than those few things I think are missing. Well, that’s all for now, other stuff to follow most likely Happy Birthday if it’s your birthday and a very merry un birthday if it isn’t your birthday Today’s title: Lyrics from A Crooked Road by Darrell Scott Thank you for reading, please subscribe, Have a great day and play nice in the neighborhood. Ciao, PS 3/ PS4 Gamer Tag: invisible don PO Box 4425 Roanoke VA 24015… send post cards, I love post cards.

The whole world is moving but I'm standing still

The phrase, “because I said so”, has never really set well with me and I would imagine it probably hasn’t ever really set well with anyone on the receiving end of the statement. Because it is pushy, it is arrogant, and it presumes that the receiver is lesser than the person making the statement. Saying, “because I said so”, tells me one thing above all others things it says it that you don’t really have a legitimate reason for your position and don’t have the ammunition to debate the issue, or at the very least it is the blind unyielding support of the status quo. As someone who sometimes puts words together about things that I think and puts them out in the world there are things I have said which others have not agreed with, all I can say is we won’t always agree. There are more than a few things which have made people very upset with me and I have been told in no uncertain terms what I could do, with what and how often it should be done or that I should take up residence with an address much closer to hell because of something I’ve said. You are entitled to be upset but so am I about what ever it was or is. That said I do a lot of self censoring, there are a lot of things I don’t ever write about at least not for public consumption for a number of reasons. One it is private, another is that it isn’t really my story but someone else’s story and I was only an observer to the story, other reasons relate to it has to do with my jobs. Usually the last thing is the thing that keeps most of the things that I experience out of what I write about not because it isn’t interesting, quiet the opposite it is very interesting but it isn’t for me to talk about in detail in a public forum or at least that is my belief. Self censorship has kept me from writing about my thoughts about issues related to my work as well partly because others feel it is their right to tell people what they can or can not think. They will say they are not telling you can’t think a thing but are only concerned with that you have written what you thought and that is the real issue. Say what you want it is difficult for me to see how the censorship of writing and the censorship of thinking as complete separate agendas. Sure there are ideas and beliefs people have which I feel are uninformed and wonder why anyone could think such a thing. However, I know others also think the same thing about beliefs I hold. I am not any more right than them and vice versa. I know this because I’ve had conversations concerning the topics where I hold differing beliefs from others. I haven’t written about them but certainly I should be permitted to write about those things if I choose to. I don’t because what I feel about it is only for me and it only impacts how I choose to live my life and if someone else doesn’t think what I think I let them think what they want to think and believe. More importantly I let them live how hey want, as long as it does not impact my life. Critically assessing that what anyone says away from their work and that it may or may not impact their ability to do their work is absurd, especially if there is not evidence or incidents to support that the person has let there beliefs impact their work. However, there are incidents where someone has been let go from a job because of something they said away from their work and someone at their work saw it, read it, or heard it, and decided that it wasn’t right. Why? “Because I said so”, is generally the answer with no other supporting reasons ever given. We are not all same thinking automatons, we disagree and none of us has ownership of the truth or what is right or wrong. If what you believe gets you through the day so be it, let others believe what gets them through the day. If they sometimes have to say something you don’t agree with to get through the day what does it really hurt and mostly who really pays attention to what any of us have to say anyway. Ultimately what is so drastically important today will not matter a bit a week from now and in 50 years will have no significance what so ever. Well, that’s all for now, other stuff to follow most likely Today’s title from: The world spins madly on by the Weepies 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, Have a great day and play nice in the neighborhood. Ciao, PS 3 Gamer Tag: invisible don PO Box 4425 Roanoke VA 24015

Movie review: Her

Movie review: HER Unless a movie has a ton of CGI and stuff that blows up I’m not going to spend 20 something dollars to go to the theater for dialogue driven stories. I do prefer a good movie and story without all of the pandering to the lowest common denominator but I still like to see shit blow up too. That said the movie, “Her” with Joaquin Phoenix and Scarlett Johansson and directed by Spike Jonze. The premise of the film is lonely guy falls in love with an artificial intelligence system. Ted and Samantha a love story to ponder more so than any other love story you have seen asking truly what is love? This thing that really motivates us to do almost everything we do. The question most of us seem to ask is how can you love something that isn’t there that isn’t real. I think what Spike Jonze asks in the film is what is real and what isn’t real. Our emotions are not some thing we can lay our hands on we can’t hold them, touch them or do anything with them. I am in love, I am angry, I am sad. Why are you any of those things and how do you know. We experience things and then we define them as one thing or other. Then as we see other things or gain information we related it to what we already know. So how is our seeing a couple we don’t know in an embrace in a photograph and having an emotional response to that any different than an artificial intelligence having a definition of an emotion and being able to recognize that emotion for what it is and respond. Have you ever read a piece of fiction and responded emotionally. I know I’ve heard, oh I hate this character or that character or I so love this character. These are not real people but we respond to them emotionally. So if a computer could learn and experience and evolve and have an understanding of the world beyond it’s programming to the point it could have original thoughts, would that be different than our own experiences. Wouldn’t that relationship be just as real as one you have with a pen pal that lives in a place far away from you that you’ve never met? You can connect to that person emotionally over time and have a real connection to them. Look forward to their letters the same as you would a love one coming home at the end of the day or visiting after a long absence. Could you love and grow a relationship that benefited both sides, completely on an intellectual level without any physical contact. We become attached to things we have been given or buy because we associate meaning to them and they remind us of something. The memories are really what we have and the thing is just a thing with or with out the thing the experience still exists but we still mourn the loss of the physical connection. Do we need to physical part of the relationship for it to be real or do we really only love those we love in our minds and all the physical stuff is our inability to verbally express how we really feel not because we are not smart enough but because as a species we haven’t evolved our vocabulary to express what it means to hold someone else’s hand in ours. But is what you feel emotionally, what they feel? You can never know for sure and because we say we love someone does it really mean we love them or are we only saying the words to manipulate the other person for some other physical gratification. Overall I really enjoyed the movie and feel it is worth watching. However, the pacing is a little slow at times and could have been a bit shorter than the 2 hour run time. All the supporting cast Amy Adams, Chris Pratt, and Rooney Mara and others ground this story so well and has something almost anyone can relate to a good or bad relationship. Ultimately do we love the people we are with and in our lives or do we love our memories of them. Well, that’s all for now, other stuff to follow 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, Have a great day and play nice in the neighborhood. Ciao, PS 3 Gamer Tag: invisible don PO Box 4425 Roanoke VA 24015

Why am I on a soapbox so much lately?

E commerce, E banking, E bill pay, E what ever involving money bothers me. Certainly I do a fair amount of this only because it is sometimes the only way to get the things that I want, for example my paycheck. In both of my current places of employment I no longer have an option to have a physical check handed to me as payment for my work, even less likely would be to have actual currency given to me. There is no choice in the matter. More and more banks are controlling everything we do via computers and the internet, which is more than a little scary. Now you may say the amount of transactions which are completed every single day without issue are enormous compared to the problems which exist. Sure one needle in a haystack isn’t a problem unless you are the farm animal that has to eat that haystack. There is not a single day that goes by where I don’t read, see or hear about someone being hacked, defrauded or missing money because computers are being used to attack people. Our police are woefully ill equipped to investigate these crimes and good luck getting someone to even take a complaint because of jurisdictional issues. Our legislative bodies are worse because 99% of those in power have no clue how computers work enough to do anything at all on one let alone make laws which are effective at governing the use of computers to prevent crime. To paraphrase Shakespeare, “computers crimes are thievery most foul.” There is little way for the victim to know that they have even been attacked and if they are attacked they have to prove that they are not actually the offender. I am all for progress, however the banking industry and commerce industry have to really make things safer for the public to use them electronically. The banks and businesses simply do not care because it isn’t their money; it’s your money that is being taken. Law makers and law enforcement agencies need to step up their game in dealing with these problems. Until people start to feel the sting of this wrong doing, it will continue to grow and grow because there is little or no chance that they will be caught and if they are they will not have to pay any money back and will unlikely see any jail time. Do what you can to protect yourself, however eventually you will find the needle in the haystack and most of the time it will not be a pleasant experience and will probably end up costing you a lot of time and some of your hard earned money. Well, that’s all for now, other stuff to follow 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, Have a great day and play nice in the neighborhood. Ciao, PS 3 Gamer Tag: invisible don PO Box 4425 Roanoke VA 24015

1984 4891

Perhaps it is time to read 1984 again and really look at what was said by Mr. Orwell and if you can’t see the correlation between what happens in the book to what is happening now, how do I put this lightly, if you have a position of authority and you don’t get it you should probably; retire, resign or otherwise vacate your seat. If you do see it and you think things are fine. Well I just don’t know what to say to you because I don’t think we can be friends because things are not fine. I will not spell out all the similarities and things that are going on in our version of Oceania that make me want to leave society and I would were it not for my love of coffee, sidewalks and video games. I am caught in the rat trap but at least I see the bars of the cage. The thing that should alarm every single one of you is the same thing we supported when it was going on in other places around the world. Why are our government officials, employees, agents and other persons in authority afraid of a person with a cell phone camera or video device? No one likes to have someone watching over their shoulder as they do their job but if you are doing your job correctly then why do you care if you are recorded, the only thing it will do is support your side of the story in an unbiased medium. We would certainly be very unhappy if we were monitored every minute and would complain if this were happening on our jobs. I am not saying this to defend the officials who are upset about being recorded, just as a point of empathy that they are flawed humans too. They have the same problems we all have; bills to pay and a paycheck which is just big enough but barely, relationship roller coasters, dreams unfulfilled, and the list of problems goes on. That said while on the job it is important to put aside your personal thoughts and opinions. It isn’t easy to call someone sir or ma’am when they are calling you an idiot or something or other which is less than polite. The thing that is missed is that the two sides are caught up in the web of people above them. Other people telling you that this is the way it is, people who do not have to go and do what you do. I’m not talking about your boss or supervisor. It is probably someone you haven’t even met and would not give a rat’s ass about you if you ever did meet them. Because you and even the official do not matter to them, to the person behind the scenes each person, oppressed or oppressor, are just pieces on a board. Both sides salute some version of the party line, and I am not sure which is sadder the “proles”* who are being stepped on by the boot of the official or the person wearing the boot who can not see they are just as controlled as the person they are standing on and in some cases even more than the “prole”*. The issue does not matter both sides are playing the part which they are supposed to play and what “They” are most afraid of is that the “proles”* will stop fighting over the issue of the day, and they will rally together and stand up and no longer follow along. The video camera / cell phone camera/ social media allows a platform for us “proles”* to come together but it is also being used against us to keep all the “proles”* fighting amongst themselves rather than focusing on the people holding the strings. You are a puppet to the party and so am I. Well, that’s all for now, other stuff to follow most likely Happy Birthday if it’s your birthday and a very merry un birthday if it isn’t your birthday * Prole – the masses from Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-four Thank you for reading, please subscribe, Have a great day and play nice in the neighborhood. Ciao, PS 3 Gamer Tag: invisible don PO Box 4425 Roanoke VA 24015

We let our battles choose us...

We let our battles choose us Bad choices, I have made more than my share whilst on the mud ball. Perhaps you are no stranger to the lingering questions that remain following a questionable choice in your life. Whether that choice was, I’ll just play one more round of this game (three hours later) or, hey I think I’ll take my 9 year old to shoot an Uzi today. The consequences of these bad choices range from the burning eyeballs brought on by lack of sleep to in the case of the latter explaining to the child no honey it isn’t your fault the man died from the weapon you were shooting. Not to make light of someone’s death or to make fun, but bad choices have consequences. Sometimes an apology isn’t enough to make up for the lack of forethought into the things we do. “Hey you all watch me do this” or some variation of this so called rally cry of the stupid is uttered all while filming our bad choices to be posted later on the world wide web. That is to say your bad choices, not mine. I have no way to film mine, unless you count surveillance camera footage which is not in nearly as a many places as you might think. The owners of the cameras are also not usually willing to let you borrow the footage for your own purposes. Don’t ask. Helpful hint; it is always a good idea to check and look in the trees for cameras, people are sneaky bastards and are hiding them there. It can pay to know who is knocking on your front door, especially after a bad choice or five. The point is everything we do has a consequence. It isn’t even that hard to be prepared in elementary school science class they teach cause and effect. Something you do causes something else to happen. Like you put water in a freezer you get ice. You hit your friend with a brick they bleed. You bring a ratchet home you end up with a fair amount of your high dollar stuff missing or a new roommate who doesn’t pay bills and drinks all of your beer. I won’t go for the obvious follow through about the kid. No, not that kid, the kid with the fully automatic submachine gun, you have to pay attention here. Certainly you can’t account for every eventually when you do something and if you don’t think before hand you won’t account for any of them. Still it is amazing the reaction that most of these non thinkers have when something goes wrong and it is something like, “well I guess I should have known” or “I thought something like this might happen.” Really???? You thought something like this might happen. Option one that is a most likely a lie because I doubt seriously that you thought of anything beyond, “Hey, you know what will be cool”… fill in the bad choice of the moment, or option two. Option two being that you did somehow manage to think of something that might go wrong and then though ah firetruck it I’ll do it anyway. If option two is the actual answer, then you are a bigger idiot than the idiot in option one. At the very least in option one you have the excuse I didn’t think. Indeed captain obvious you did not think or you wouldn’t have done said stupid shit. All you have in option two is mea culpa, mea culpa but as I mentioned before apologies don’t clean up all the consequences. You have the right to be as stupid as you want; you also have the responsibility to own your own bad choices once they come back around to bite you on the ass or someone else. It’s fine to remove yourself from the collective gene pool but leave the rest of us to our own bad choices. Well, that’s all for now, other stuff to follow most likely Happy Birthday if it’s your birthday and a very merry un birthday if it isn’t your birthday Today’s title: Lyrics from Glory and Gore by Lorde Thank you for reading, please subscribe, Have a great day and play nice in the neighborhood. Ciao, PS 3 Gamer Tag: invisible don PO Box 4425 Roanoke VA 24015

Hope bites the dust behind all the closed doors

The one thing that makes me tired of all the connectedness and not just being connected 24 seven, is just other people in general. Everyone thinks they are right all of the time, without any discussion or presentation of fact. They are right and you are wrong. No one bothers to listen or give anyone a chance to speak or explain. They talk over, ridicule, steer the conversation off topic if you can even call it a conversation, bad mouth, scream, rant, rave, they will do almost anything but hear what the other person has to say. It is like our ears have atrophied from lack of use. So much of what I see out there are problems of all or nothing thinking. Someone draws a line and unless you bend 100 percent to their way of seeing things nothing productive happens. They are inflexible, even in the face of reason, rational discourse, fact, and scientific proof, they will argue to opposite just to be objectionable, just because, and for no other reason than to be the thorn in the side of the other person. If I can not get what I want completely, well I will make you regret ever trying to get anything. I’m not immune, no one is, every person, has a vested interest in their own success. Every problem ultimately will require you to do something. You can choose to do nothing, which ultimately will cause something to happen, perhaps what you don’t want to happen. How did compromise become such a bad thing? Argument for the sake of argument is fine in a philosophical debate where the consequences are not real and no one is ultimately affected by a poor choice. Debate is useful and even enlightening. However it does require a skill we seem to ignore. That is listening to the other side of the argument. We can see where pit falls may occur but there does come a time when debates have to end and progress has to occur. This isn’t just a person to person level problem whole governments have this problem. Our government has it on every level, and around the world, 3 entire governments were dissolved this week. Why? The simple inability and unwillingness to listen, to communicate, or to compromise, to a point where those in leadership were left with no other option than to say, well this is just not working, you are all fired, we are starting over. Sadly though the same people are likely to be elected right back into office and nothing will happen again. Stubbornness can be a virtue when it means that you are unwilling to stop trying to improve yourself. However doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results and not seeing why you are failing isn’t stubbornness it is insanity. Every good manager, leader, chief, or person in charge worth a damn in my life has had the exact same thing in common. They would listen to what you had to say and if you had a gripe, bitch, or complaint about anything they all said the same thing. What can we do differently? If you had a plan they would listen, they would debate, and they would try to sink your idea. Not to be shitty about it, but to used debate and experience to see if it would unravel the idea. Very few times was a logical alternative that would work or make things better was ever turned down. When it was it was because resources were not available to make the plan happen but those good leaders took the ideas to the next level and tried to make them work. We need to have more discussion, open and transparent, with no hidden agendas, real cooperative progress, that makes a difference for both sides of the discussion. All or nothing usually ends with nothing for either side in the end. Well, that’s all for now, other stuff to follow most likely Happy Birthday if it’s your birthday and a very merry un birthday if it isn’t your birthday Today’s title: lyrics from “Rat Trap” The Boomtown Rats Thank you for reading, please subscribe, Have a great day and play nice in the neighborhood. Ciao, PS 3 Gamer Tag: invisible don PO Box 4425 Roanoke VA 24015

ALS Challenge

Being that I am lacking in technological gadgetry and other expensive recording devices, I am at a crossroads in my life. How often do we find ourselves in a situation of wanting to please others? We want desperately, or not so desperately, to show those who have made a request of us that we would indeed fulfill what is being asked of us however we are unable to meet that request. It is a maddening place to be. Wanting to do the “whatever” which has been asked and not being able to do the whatever. Worried that others will look on our failure to meet said request as something bad, that they may make a negative judgment or that they will think you are insensitive to the request and many other unpleasant things. You may be wondering what is going on that has me so perplexed. Simply put it is the ALS ice bucket challenge. As much as I would truly love to record a bucket of ice water being poured on my head. I say that without any sarcasm at all, I don’t have a gift for that style of speaking or writing and because there is not a font for that type of language. I have a bucket. I don’t really have ice though. The ice maker in my fridge broke and Stunt boy and I don’t really put ice in our drinks. So I would have to buy ice which isn’t terribly expensive or drastically all that far away either. But it complicates the effort just a bit. The bigger thing as I mentioned earlier is that I don’t have a way to record video of me doing the challenge and that is rather costly. Now I do have a camera and I could photograph the event. One of the bucket of ice and water Then one of me wet or some stage of not dry Then another of an empty bucket. You wouldn’t really know if I had just dumped the water out and then got into a nice warm shower then tramped down the stairs back outside and then took the wet picture. I’m smart enough to dumb the water and ice where I would be standing and to take my shirt into the shower too to get it wet. Because I’m not taking any photos shirtless. You’re welcome. However my camera isn’t charged so there is that and time is running out. So not pictures either. So with no way to really fulfill this challenge in some meaningful way or at least in some way that people will fully believe what I’m writing to you in this issue of my blog, journal, note, whatever this “this” is to fulfill my not one, not two but three requests that I am aware of to do this ALS ice bucket challenge. I am still under the clock on all three of them as I did not become aware of any of these until about 10:00 p.m. last night but all three of these challenges were several hours old once I saw them, one of them a full day old. But as I was not aware of said challenge I can’t really be held accountable as I did not get a phone call saying I was nominated So those of you who are reading I have been nominated by 1. KL USAF 50th Security Police – he challenged me as I was stationed with him at Hahn AB along with every other member of the 50th SPS who has also been challenged. 2. The Peacemaker – my brother who challenged me along with my other brother and a few others. 3. City Manager – who is the city manager of the City of Roanoke and I’m not clear if he challenged all citizens of Roanoke or all City Employees. Either way I fall into his request 4. Any challenges for which I have been named and as of yet I am unaware As far as you know the following is true Beside me right now is a bucket of water with ice floating around in it and some dirt, probably should have cleaned the bucket but I didn’t. It’s a blue plastic bucket rectangular in shape and holds about three gallons of liquid. Mainly it holds water but it is a multipurpose bucket I could put nearly any liquid in it and it would remain in the bucket. Now I’m going to go outside and dump the contents of this bucket on my head. I’m sure it will be refreshing. Be right back. Pause for water dousing Okay, I’m back. Miss me? I have to say really cold water wakes you up and takes your breath away. Kind of thrilling and painful the dog did not think this was very smart. Fortunately the neighbors weren’t watching me do something which is really rather odd. Now for the ALS part of the challenge I have gone to the ALS website and I have made my donation. I have donated for my son who misunderstood the challenge and while he did have a bucket of ice water dumped on his head, well mostly the water missed him, but none the less he was somewhat wet. I am also donating for myself and on behalf of my daughter. Who as far as I know has not been challenged or randomly dumped ice water on her head. So the money bit is taken care of Now on to the challenge part. In the interest of saving time I’m only going to make two nominations. 1. My daughter because I love her and I already paid the money so go. I would nominate other family members but they either have been nominated already or fall in to the next group of people. 2. Anyone who lives on the planet earth regardless of nation, age, gender or any other demographic qualifier you want to put in here I nominate all humans who live on the earth to donate what you can to a charity or research organization of your choice. If you donate to ALS, great, if it is another charity or research organization that is great too. The point is to give and to raise awareness of these issues which are under funded for a lot of reasons, which I will not get into right now. Give what you can. I won’t specify any amount because maybe all you can afford is 5 dollars. Maybe you can’t afford that. Give your time volunteering or pay it forward by doing something for someone who needs help. Feed someone how is homeless or something else. Whatever you do, do something that makes the world a little better. Not because you will feel better about it, or you can post something on social media to say hey I did this or you will make some money but because it will help someone else. You have the rest of your lives to do something good hopefully you choose to do something every 24 hours that makes the world better. Not because it pays well, not because it feels good, not because you’ll get something back. Just because you can, so go… the world is waiting for you to do something amazing. Well, that’s all for now, other stuff to follow 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, Have a great day and play nice in the neighborhood. Ciao, PS 3 Gamer Tag: invisible don PO Box 4425 Roanoke VA 24015

A thousand years in one piece of silver

School starts anew already for some and coming very soon for others. Stunt boy returned this week for his final year of high school. Hardly seems possible and that Doodle, his sister, just started school not so long ago the day after he was born and now my son is a senior. Next fall he will most likely be off to college and on the first legs of his life away from home. Empty nest syndrome has been something that I’ve gotten to experience a bit in that my kids have split their time with me and with their mother over the last bunch of years. I have an empty house, then I don’t, then I do, then I don’t and on it has gone. Soon that will stop and they will be gone. Doodle has been out there on her own and not without a bump or two along the way for a while now. I see her like I see my mother, special occasions and holidays. Stunt boy will start that soon, far too soon for my liking and probably not soon enough from his point of view. I remember being in their place finishing high school leaving home and familiar things behind and striking out on my own, falling down only to get back up dust myself off and try again. I don’t think I ever really looked back and thought how it must be from the point of view of my parents. Or if I did I didn’t really understand what it was they may have been feeling. Probably was easier when I left because my brothers were still at home, until they weren’t, just as it was easier for me when Doodle left because Stunt boy was still at home. Now soon he won’t be either and it makes her absence more evident. As much as I lament their leaving the “nest” I am happy for them and try to separate my role in their life as parent and provider to parent and adviser. They are my adult children. Their lives are theirs and no matter what I’ve imagined would be their lives. Their dreams are now their road map and it is their life to choose the paths they will walk, even if they aren’t the ones I would pick. They will fall down and I will be here if they need me to help them, what ever that means. I have to be okay if that help is only to stand by and be silent as they dust themselves off and try again. It’s a hard shift to make at least for me and I’m sure many others. I don’t know if I really like the new role I’m in but I still have a year to get used to the change and I’ve been thinking too about what I’ll do next year, now that I finally got stunt boy to mow the grass only to have to take it back up again next year. A year off is better than none. I won’t have to give up the big TV for him to play Xbox when I really want to play on the Play Station. I can’t really say, “But I want to play my video game” and still sound like a parent. I mean I have said that and used the dad trump of, “I pay the bills for the electric and such, so un-ass the machine son” when he complained. I feel a bit odd doing that so mainly I don’t but sometimes I do. It’s good to be the king, but soon I will be the king of an empty kingdom. Well except for being the King of the Bastards but that is something entirely different. I mean the cats will still be here but they really think this is their house and I’m the hired help. Well, that’s all for now, other stuff to follow 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, Today’s title: Lyrics “A punk” Vampire Weekend Have a great day and play nice in the neighborhood. Ciao, PS 3 Gamer Tag: invisible don PO Box 4425 Roanoke VA 24015

Mother Nature thinks you are an idiot; I'm reserving judgement for now

When ever I read something about someone meeting their end out in the wild, I have to wonder is this just some accident or did the person not really know what they were doing in the first place. I don’t like reading about people dying, no matter what you may have heard about me. Well I do like Game of Thrones/ Song of Ice and Fire series so there is an argument that I do enjoy reading about death. However those are fictional deaths and not the real dead. It seems there are more and more of these adventure type deaths occurring all the time. Which leads me to thinking many people have lost sight of the fact that Mother Nature doesn’t like people, it isn’t just you in particular she hates us all. No matter how nice you are to all the fuzzy little critters or how much you recycle, Mother Nature does not care if you live or not. She doesn’t get all weepy about anyone she kills, she is a mean old bitty and you best not get on her bad side. There is no sign at the edge of the forest that says you must be this tall to ride this ride. Just because you can buy a jet ski, speed boat, climbing gear, GPS and camping gear, or whatever gadgets that are available at hey you all watch me do this dot com. Most likely you don’t know how to use the stuff you just spent too much on, you are not as fit as you think you are, you have no idea what is out there or have a plan for what to do if Mother Nature decides that she is in a really bad mood and you just happen to be in the vicinity. What baffles me is these same people will just walk right up to wild animals. And not the little furry cute ones, oh no they walk up the ones which weight several hundred pounds more than any person. Animals that if you hit them with a car might look at you with disgust and head butt your car and saunter on into the forest. The great wide world is not an amusement park where if you buy the gear you have an all day ride pass and can do what ever you feel like doing. Launching rescue efforts to save your dumb ass puts the lives of people who do know what they are doing at risk. It wastes money and resources. And worst of all you have probably dumped a bunch of trash and toxic crap out in the wild which will cause other problems. However, this is becoming not just an out there in the middle of nowhere problem either. No sadly, this species of human, (homo headuptheirassious) is bringing the all idiot road show right to our neighborhoods, in to parks and recreational areas. Now not only are these tour-ons a hazard to themselves they are bringing it to others. Free for the viewing but not so much on the clean up. I don’t even know how many times I’ve seen someone crashing some sort of recreational something; bike, boat, other vehicle into people or things, or worse yet not operating them in a safe manner. It isn’t that I lack any sympathy for the people who have died or become severely injured. The thing is when you read the follow up on these folks. They were not experienced enough to do what they were doing, they had no training at all, were perhaps under the influence of something. Makes me want to move far, far away from people, but I don’t because I don’t have the necessary skills to live so far away from sidewalks, grocery stores and indoor plumbing. Well, that’s all for now, other stuff to follow 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, Have a great day and play nice in the neighborhood. Ciao, PS 3 Gamer Tag: invisible don PO Box 4425 Roanoke VA 24015

This is the one where I might piss some people off

My two cent, about police brutality, an issue which is not as clearly defined as you might think it is and each officer / citizen encounter is going to be different every single time, even when it is the same officer and the same citizen. Ferguson Missouri has this issue being bounced around and fingers are pointing from both sides. The police are wrong or this kid is no saint, the police department is corrupt, racism is rampant, rioters in the street and on and on. The mentality of one upping the opposing view with some other complaint is used too often and accomplishes nothing and devolves the discussion further and further from the issue. Our country, sadly, is a pot ready to boil over and not just in Ferguson/St. Louis. Racism is alive and well in this country. It goes all directions each race has people who dislikes, distrusts, abuses, and takes advantage of any person not of their own race. So it doesn’t matter what your skin color is there are people who are racist against every person who is not their race. We are a country of poverty as much as we are a country of prosperity. People everywhere in this country are finding it harder and harder to make ends meet and are angry all the time. It may not be fist slamming anger or cussing up a storm but there is an underlying level of I’m ready for a fight. Things are not just unfair they are unbalanced and there is a difference and citizens are tried of being on the losing end of everything. Tied to the poverty issues are unemployment, inflation and greed of shop owners, landlords and any business really. An infrastructure and government which are falling apart and division is the practice of the politics and even the media. Cities and towns all across the country are falling apart. Roads washing away. Power lines falling down in any storm. Bridges which are not safe. Buildings which are structurally unsound. Nothing works the way it should. Our leaders are more concerned about getting re elected rather than trying to do something for the communities they serve. And the media just want to sell ad space and don’t care about reporting. Is the United States still one of the better countries in the world? I think it is and I will not say it is the best because it isn’t. No country is. We are ignoring too many problems to be considered the most perfect place to live. We are still better than many and worse than others and in some areas we are a lot worse. However, changes have to be made because Ferguson isn’t the first place where there has been a shooting by officers which may or may not be a legal shooting. It won’t be the last if things don’t change. All police officers are not criminals out looking to hurt and kill people. They are hard working men and women doing a very tough job that very few people respect or would even want to do. Most of them do their jobs fairly and justly. You may not like it when you have broken the law and the officer is arresting you but they are doing their job correctly. On the other side all people in this country are not criminals even if they live in bad areas where lots of crimes occur. Citizens regardless of who they are or where they are have the right to question what a police officer says. If they do question something it does not mean they will not comply with a lawful order but it should be clear why they are being given an order. Officer: Get off the street. Citizen: Why? This is a legitimate question at this point for every citizen to ask of a police officer. Is this a situation like in Boston where the police are looking for a suspect and there is a threat to public safety or is the person being challenged braking or infringing a law. Fair or not, the burden is on the police to be CLEAR in what they are asking or telling citizens to do. Citizens once an officer has made a CLEAR statement as to why they are making the request the law is on their side and you should comply or face possible consequences. What those consequences are is where the waters muddy. What is reasonable and what is necessary. This debate has so many what ifs that it could be debated all day and still not accomplish a thing. Officers are in danger everyday they go to work. Not every second of everyday but there are times when they are in life threatening situations. However, as their job is to protect and to serve again the burden is on them by the law to make sure this is done in the best way possible. I don’t think police are overly armed, because there are criminals out there armed as well or better than the police. The police need the tools to protect themselves and to protect others. They also need to know how to operate and use the equipment. Sometimes that means officers will need armored vehicles to breach a building, to provided cover from fire bombs and gunshots. It is necessary to have to protect the communities from every possible threat and to aid neighboring jurisdictions if needed. How do you accomplish this and still be effective. Well technology has afforded our peace officers a lot of various tools to do the job. Less than lethal or non lethal methods are being employed all of the time. Tasers, pepper spray and pepper pellet guns and many other tools. Was the officer in Ferguson attacked or not. I don’t know and neither do you. Was the young man who died a good person or a criminal? I don’t know and neither do you. Was the officer a good guy or a hot head? I don’t know and neither do you. However, it is time for officers to employ less than lethal weapons/non lethal weapons as their primary sidearm. Then if they are over powered or have their side arm taken from them, or otherwise loose control of the weapons it isn’t a lethal threat. Regular ammunition can be carried in additional clips on the officer’s utility belt. It isn’t a perfect solution but nothing is and you can make the what if this or that arguments all day it does not change the fact that in most cases of officer / citizen encounters there is not a need to draw their side arms or to employ a lethal weapon at all. In a majority of the encounters where officers do need to draw a weapon a non lethal response is all that is necessary to bring the incident to a point where the treat is eliminated. The burden is on the police to do their job safely and within the scope of the law. The argument that the criminal with a gun will have the upper hand on police all of the time if the police use non lethal weapons is just not valid. Criminals have guns now and are not on equal footing with trained officers even when the criminals have higher caliber weapons or even more weapons. Officers can be just as effective using non lethal weapons and probably even more effective than with only lethal weapons. Before you start saying what do you know; I will qualify my opinion with that I’ve been in the military and served as Security Police in the US Air Force. I have two degrees in Criminal Justice and continue to teach this subject to this day. I work with officers as a part of my job regularly and have to go into the homes of citizens and confront them about why they may or may not have abused their child. No one is ever happy to see me on their doorstep. I do this without any weapons. How you deal with people 99 percent of the time will dictate how they deal with you. Yes there will be times when there is a lot of danger and I’m not saying take away the guns, and the armored vehicles and other tools. I’m saying add these non lethal tools to the arsenal and employ them are your primary tools and use the lethal weapons as the secondary weapons. On the other side of this issue are citizens attacking police, burning down buildings and cars, looting, stealing, and creating a public threat is not the way to protest police misconduct. Citizens are committing crimes and are increasing the threat to public safety which will be responded to with force enough to end the threat. One upping the violence only leads to more violence. Instead go to City Hall stand in protest, go in and form lines to file formal complaints hundreds or people deep with every worker. Call into the government offices, take up their time ask questions about how they are protecting you and your property. Do it with every government office. If you do this peacefully you will effectively force the government to take action without committing a crime. Because they will not be able to do anything else except deal with the issue, the media will be on the side of the protestors to find out why this is going on and why the government isn’t doing anything. Where as right now they are reporting the conflict between the two groups and debating about who did what and not getting answers. In a peaceful protest other government agencies not involved will begin to take up issue and ask questions of other agencies because their effectiveness in doing their jobs will be hindered by the protest. Be prepared to document abuses of authority. If officers or other officials commit crimes against truly peaceful protesting then they are the only ones who are in the wrong and it will be glaringly obvious they are in the wrong. Meeting violence with violence only creates the argument of who was less wrong and who is more right and breeds more violence. Peaceful protests can work, they have worked, and continue to work. If change does not happen something like what has happened in Ferguson may ignite riots in other cities. We are too connected as a country, not too see the issues like the ones in Ferguson are a national problem. These are issues that every community must address or they may face very similar scenes on their own streets. Fair or not it is the responsibility of those who govern to lead and make the changes first to how they best serve their citizens. It is the responsibility of those in public office to find the better way to do something. It is the responsibility of those who voluntarily take these jobs to do them legally without bending the law, breaking the law, circumventing the law and to take the higher moral ground even in the face of illegal actions, ridicule, and disrespect. No it is not fair, it won’t ever be, if you don’t like that burden find a different line of work. If you are a citizen and you don’t like being arrested don’t break the law. If you don’t agree with the law, work to change it but do it legally. You might be surprised to find there are officers who agree with you and who will be willing to help you legally protest and challenge something that is not being done right. Well, that’s all for now, other stuff to follow 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, Have a great day and play nice in the neighborhood. Ciao, PS 3 Gamer Tag: invisible don PO Box 4425 Roanoke VA 24015