Life is Life

Well with current change in environment thing always seem to cross my mind. I hear everything people say about me and use that to evaluate myself from time to time to see if  I can improve my overall person. Now some of this stuff is just me , it will never change. I am me I change for one person and one person only...ME. The thing is I have made minor and major changes due to my life priorities have changed . I did these in order to live a better life, but they were by my choice. We all have a choice to change or  not to change . We live in a world that is uncertain and very confusing. The whole thing is so confusing that it is hard to keep up with. I sound like and old fart now, but hey its not like I am up on all the cool lingo. We have problem in our society now a days sending our younger generations mixed signals on what is right and what is wrong.  There is too many gray areas to deal with, in my opinion the guy who came up with political correctness should be slapped with a book. To many of our younger generation feel like they are entitled to stuff , the core values are flying out the window. And the problem is a simple one, it is us the parents. Now I know that some people will or will not agree with this , and that's ok but its a fact. We haven't taught our children the value of earning thing and how to appreciate the value. Most of us are guilty of this in one way or another, I am I cant deny it. The environment has changed also, it use to be one parent could support the whole family on that income. Now you would be lucky if you can do it on two.  All we try can do is to try our best , teach our children what we believe is the right way and hopefully it will work out. This is a hard thing for a parent to sit and think about, because it scares me to death. With the way our world is now I worry about what the future holds for my daughter. I will continue to do the very best I can, and improve on stuff where I can and when I can. In other words Welcome to Life....

Until Next Time

Peace,Love and Chicken Grease

The Indiana Expedition

Captains Log  692013

This morning I woke up to see that do to unforeseen forces the weather is still very cold, colder than my current home of Tn. And due to some ominous forces in the background of this culture fuel here has become extremely high in cost. Even with intense investigation with the locals there is no true rhyme nor reason for this only speculation as to who or what caused this hardship on the surrounding indigenous population. I have  taken a few excursions with my brother who is a local here where we were born and raised. It is very hard to describe the feeling I get coming back here to see the changes that have happened over the course of my time of being away. I can say I do find comfort in the fact I still have some great friends that are in the area. At some point I intend to see if it may be possible to meet with some of them and see about there well being. The time for festivity's are starting to approach us, so this may present an opportunity to allow me to meet up with some. Contact with my home world has been brief, due to the fact that they are on a different time cycle. I will attempt to get in contact with some of my fellow Tennesseans in the near future. My daughter is adapting, well OK. See enjoys seeing the friends and family but She has also shown signs of missing her friends. I guess its a good thing she has her portable communicator to be able to stay in contact with them. Seeing my nephew and niece is always and exciting time, they are growing up so fast it is hard for me to keep up. My Mother and Father are doing well, and My Brother and Sister-in-law (or really just Sister) are doing well also. The atmosphere here is playing havoc with my Ménière's disease,but that is OK I will adjust the best that I can.  I will be exploring more in the up coming weeks on my expedition here to see what other interesting things I can find,if any. As my home world the ammo situation is very dire here, but I will keep exploring to see if I might be able to establish a source to acquire some. Some of the native have not taken kindly to me as of late, but I am hoping that will change in the during the rest of my expedition. I will update as best as I possibly can with any breaking news that is important. Tell then.....

Peace, Love, And Chicken Grease

FAMILY

Well First off I would like to send out prayers to all the families and victims in Oklahoma. You never know when tragedy will hit. I wish you all the best in your recovery from the events that have happened over the last few days. Ok on to the my post here, you know I have a million things that I could talk about or write. The thing is knowing when to put them out there, timing is everything. I could literally write on this everyday if I wanted to. Then I think that people would get bored with what I am writing about. I have many thing that I am passionate about. One of the most important things that I hold very close and sacred to me is my family. Now well all have our defined answers to what Family is. I have to say I have family that I am not even related to. I have a group here in TN that treat me as if I was one of the family and my daughter looks up to them and loves them all. I love this because the bond is so much better that even when we are mad at each other we are still family. I have my biological family in IN, I love them unconditionally. They would do anything in their possible means for me, and I know this. I have my adopted brothers that are scattered over several states. I keep in touch as best as possible, to keep up on their lives. The thing is Blood doesn't alway make you family, the bond between you does. Are you willing to stand up for these people when they need you the most. I have become friends with a lot of people in my life time and each and ever one of them brings  something unique to the table. I really don't think you can ever have to many friends.. But one thing is for sure if your family I will bend over back for you when you need me. My father told once, well maybe more than once. "You Always Take Care Of The Ones That Take Care Of You" and I try my hardest. Well folks I outta here for now.. Be safe and Be smart.



Peace, Love, and Chicken Grease

BULLYING

Bullying , this right here sparks many thoughts and emotions in people. The fact is that better than 95% of all people has had to deal with this issue at one point or another.  So what do we do? How do we handle this problem? I am not going to say it has gotten worse since I was in school , but I will say that the methods of bullying have change very much. There are many places,clubs, and organizations out there to try to address this and help our young people. But the same problem still stands today as it did when I was a kid. Kids are just too afraid of backlash and ridicule from there peers if they report this. One of the worst labels that you can get in school is a snitch. So this creates a problem, if we as parents,teacher, and friends don't know about the problem we cant help. Even if we do our children beg us not to say anything because of  the fear of backlash. Now as most of you know that read my blog I always have an opinion on things all the time. Right or wrong in a sense I think that with our society now a days children feel entitled. With that said and all the political correctness that is swirling around , most children haven't been taught to have what i call thick skin.  Now I am not down playing bullying by no means, but let face the facts here people kids are mean to each other for what ever reason. There is a line that shouldn't be crossed and once it is then we should constitute that as bullying. Other wise our kids need to suck it up and learn to deal with it. I know this sound harsh , but think of the logic behind it. When they get out of school and college if choose to go they are going to be entering the REAL WORLD. It is not a nice place out there , and painting the picture of that to our children is hurting them and setting them up for a rude awakening in the future. I have had some bosses that were way more abusive verbally and mentally than any bully i met in school. The fact is you will never be able to stop this completely. What we can do is teach our children to stand up for themselves build their self esteem  and learn the right way to handle these situations. A child should never feel that suicide is their last option to stop  what is happening to them. We as parents and people of the community need to stop our busy lives and listen. Once again if you don't know there is a problem you cant fix it. Ask questions and watch what is going on in you childrens lives and if you see something that doesn't feel right about one of their friends ask them, or inform the parents so they know to watch or ask. Now  a lot of the parents that I know have teens or pre-teens and it is like trying to wrestle food out of a gators mouth to get them to open up because they are embarrassed or afraid of what will happen.  We need to let our kids know we have their backs when shit hits the fan. Empower them with the knowledge that they are capable of letting things go and dealing with these bullys , have thick skin. We as parents have many  option to explore when situations get to a point that it needs to be handle by us, and we need to not be afraid to use them. I love my daughter and if you know how I feel about her you also know I would go through hell and high water for her. But I am also teaching her to try to handle and resolve problems on her own. Boy or Girl now is the time to teach our kids to have a backbone, other wise when the become adult they will get walked all over in life. I apologize if anything I said offended anyone ,but once again it is my opinion

Peace,Love, And Chicken Grease

My Life In SciFi and Fantasy

This is a very large and open topic, it can cover a whole range of things. At least once in everyone's lifetime they have read ,watched or play something that involves either scifi or fantasy. Now i personally love these to   subjects as I am huge fan of several books,game,movies, and TV shows that  fall into these categories. I am a huge StarWars fan as well as Firefly. Most of my friends are geeks in one way or another. One of my great friends and his wife are huge Star Trek  fans. Me  and Andy grew up together and were nerds from the very beginning  Now he moved away for a couple of years , but returned back in the 6th grade. We picked up right where we left off and spent a lot of time doing different weird and fun things. He is one of my friends that I can truly say I don't think that we have ever had a disagreement ever, if we did we always found our middle ground. Now the thing about me and Andy is when we got together is our imaginations were equal in every way. We like to dream big about some of the stuff we did. We started to play Dungeons and Dragons in about the 8th or 9th grade. We had an awesome group of people we played with, and would spend hours playing. In order to play a true role playing game like this , imagination is a must. There is no telling how many hours just flew by without us even realizing it. That was probably one of the most defining moments in my teenage life. It allowed me to find my self and know that I wasn't the only weird guy out there.  Now this was a time when I remember that the main topic of kids was sports in school . That just could be only what I remember also. But one thing was for sure I never felt like an outcast because of what I did. Let me tell you this Andy had one of the most amazing minds out there when we were kids, he still does. He has an imagination that is matched by very few,and he is not afraid to use it. We decided one day that we wanted to make our own role playing game. This started an adventure that I will never forget. I bet we spent close to almost  2 months planing ,read,writing, and drawing (Andy did the drawing) this game. We had a great start and gathered a bunch of friends and started to play. It was so awesome,  to see people enjoying something that you co-created . I remember just about every time we played , it is still etched into my brain like it was yesterday. One day many years later after we moved on with our ADULT lives , I grabbed a note book  and just out the blue started to write about some of the adventure we played in this game adding some stuff along the way. By the time I had finished the first time I had filled the entire notebook without even realizing it.. To my amazement I still had so much more to write about. That is how much of an impact this time had on me. I still believe that what we created so many years ago would totally make some of the most amazing books and movies you would ever see or read. That is if I ever get around to finish writing them and transferring them to the computer so everyone can read them. One of the big problem I have is that my brain is running way faster than I can type or write. So I know what it is that is supposed to be written , but  Ill  forget to write some stuff . I have to reread it several time in order to make sure it makes sense to everyone else.  I would most definitely would have to get Andy to help me finish it. Of course then we would be instantly rich and famous from having bestsellers and movie deals. I really need to set a goal to  finish  this in the future, it would be awesome just to complete it . If for nothing else than to publish only a couple of copies for Andy and me. I think that every parent should encourage  their children to embrace their own  imagination and let it flow. For myself and Andy ours did and today it has made us both unique individuals.Our children are exposed to experiences that foster and nurture this . I see this with both of us, and I believe that  both of our girls will grow up and change the world in their own way. If not for imagination all of the things you surround yourself with would not be there today. This is one of those topics that I could honestly go on forever about. So imagine big ,imagine often. Write it down, draw it out and change the world.


Peace , Love, and Chicken Grease

The Evil That Hides Among Us

With the recent events the transpired in Boston I decided to watch the local news for a change. I wanted to get live coverage of the tragedy that  had happened, because as I had mentioned in one of my earlier posts that news sources varied online . Now I know that they are still looking for answers as to what happened , why, and who. So I can totally understand the reason for the confusion of the details . And I also certainly understand not disclosing all of the details ,because of ongoing investigations. Plus the fear of copycats acts would happen else where. Now my daughter was also watching and was really having a difficult time understanding why some one would or even could do something like this. It is even harder as a parent to explain when at this point no really knows a real motive as of yet. Also this presented an opportunity to educate my daughter on some of the evils out in the world. As Americans we live our lives with our eyes half open. We don't want to believe the evil is out there until it hits home. Now you can ask anyone that knows me , anytime I take my daughter any where  I hardly ever let her out of my sight. Am I  an over protective parent? maybe , maybe not.  We have to look  at the world with our eyes wide open. Be aware that our world and our country have evil people in it. The question is why do people do these terribly acts of terror against other people. That is what I was asked last night, talk about tough questuion to answer. That fact is people around the world hate the US as a country. Some because of how we live, some of what we have done. In general  some people hate other just because they can or it could be they way they were raised. Who knows why, it just happens that way. Our children need to be taught that our country isn't as safe as we would like it to be. Also people can be evil ,so trust must be earned not given..Now understand its not easy to have your children watch such acts of terrible scenes off terror. But by denying them of these experiences we are allowing them to enter the world with a false sense of security. As a parent I feel obligated to prepare my daughter for what may lay ahead. That includes all the good as well as the bad. This is a very difficult task accomplish when you never know what the future has in store for our children. I wish I didn't have to include this in to my parenting , but predators are everywhere. My heart goes out to all the tragedies that are happening all around the world. It use to only be we would do drills in school for fires or bad weather, now we have to include for a shooter situation. There will always be people who resent us for what we have,what we believe in,  and who we worship. I don't have all the answers , I also don't believe our government has them either. Although they may have good intentions , there methods and solutions leave many doubts to are they doing more harm than good.. I think that it is up to me to  as  a parent to educate my daughter in certain subjects the way I believe. When the time comes that she is mature enough to understand all situations to make her own decisions in life. May the Good Lord above be with us all as parents and as a country as we set forward on this amazing and scary  journey ahead o us I think thats good for now.
.God Bless all my friends and family

The News

Every morning I have a routine just like most people do. One of those is I check several News sites to try to catch up on the latest news available. Which got my brain to thinking about the whole news industry as we have it today. I hate to say it in this manner, because of course it makes me sound old LOL. But when I was growing up as a kid there were very few mediums that provided news. Now you can get your daily fix anywhere. It is just so mind boggling of the fact that now all you have to do is pull out your smart phone and BAM there it is. I read 98% of my news from various sites and mostly tech blogs. But it is absolutely mind blowing to the amount of information that is at the touch of a button now. I remember having to go to the library or use the encyclopedias in order to do a school report. Now kids just Google or Bing and right there it is 15 million pages of info. Now don't get me wrong you have to get your info from a reputable source  and do some fact checking ,but its still way easier. Anyone can start a blog and throw up info based on their  opinion any time any where. It kinda makes you wonder how valid all this info that is being presented to us is. Even some of the major news companies use blogs and the Internet as a source now. I have honestly read the same story told 3 different ways on different sites. And I am not talking some Joe somoe site but big sites like yahoo and msn. Plus you know that almost all of the news is padded up to bring flare to them. We are living in the age of real time now,moving faster than ever. My father who has recently in the last few years joined the 21st century acquired his first smart phone here in the last year or so. While talking to my Mother last night she was telling me how it was storming and Dad has an app on his phone , that when lightning strikes it can tell him how far away it is. lol I really don't have a point or complaint here just making a simple observation that made me think. It kinda makes me wonder what things will be like int the next 10 years, heck even the next 5. Just something to ponder. Everyone have a great day and week. I am outta here.


Peace, Love, and Chicken Grease