Bucket Lists

First, the one somebody else came up with:

Place an X by all the things you've done and remove the X from the ones you have not, then send it to your friends (including me).

Things you have done during your lifetime:

() Gone on a blind date
() Skipped school
() Watched someone die
(x) Been to Canada
(x) Been to Mexico
(x) Been to Florida
(x) Been to Hawaii
() Been to NYC
(x) Been to Las Vegas
(x) Been on a plane
() Flown a plane
() Been on a helicopter
(x) Been on a motorcycle
()Ridden ATV's
(X) Been lost
() Gone to Washington, DC
(x) Swam in the ocean
(x) Swam with Stingrays
() Cried yourself to sleep
(x) Played cops and robbers
() Recently colored with crayons
(x) Sang Karaoke
(x) Paid for a meal with coins only
() Paid for a huge bill (thousands) in single dollar bills
() Been to the top of the St. Louis Arch
(x) Done something you told yourself you wouldn't
(x) Made prank phone calls
(x) Done something VERY naughty (your mother would gasp)
(x) Been down Bourbon Street in New Orleans
(x) Laughed until some kind of beverage came out of your nose
(X) Caught a snowflake on your tongue
(x) Danced in the rain
(x) Written a letter to Santa Claus
(x) Been kissed under the mistletoe
(x) Watched the sunrise with someone
(x) Hiked a Volcano
(x) Blown bubbles
(x) Gone ice-skating
(x) Gone sledding down a big hill
(x) Gone to the movies
() Been deep sea fishing
(x) Driven across the United States ( alone or not)
() Been in a hot air balloon
() Been sky diving
() Been white water river rafting
() Been bungee jumping
(x) Inner tubing down a slow moving river
() Boating on Lake Powell
() Gone snowmobiling
() Lived in more than one country
(x) Vacationed in another country
(x) Toured Europe
() Ran for your life from NY street thugs
(x) Lay down outside at night and admired the stars while listening to the crickets
(x) Seen a falling star and made a wish
(x) Enjoyed the beauty of Old Faithful Geyser
(x) Seen the Grand Canyon
() Seen the Statue of Liberty
() Seen the fireworks over Mount Rushmore on the 4th of July
() Gone to the top of Seattle Space Needle
(x) Been on a cruise
(x) Traveled by train
(x) Traveled by motorcycle
() Been horse back riding
() Ridden on a San Francisco cable car
(x) Been to Disneyland OR Disney World
(x) Truly believe in the power of prayer
(x) Been in a rain forest
(x) Seen whales in the ocean
() Been to Niagara Falls
() Ridden on an elephant
() Swam with dolphins
() Been to the Olympics
() Walked on the Great Wall of China
() Been spinnaker flying
() Been water-skiing
() Been snow-skiing
() Been to Westminster Abbey
() Been to the Louvre
() Swam in the Mediterranean
() Been to a Major League Baseball game
() Been to a National Football League game
() Swam with sharks (knowingly)
() Went Scuba diving
(x) Swam with barracuda
(x) Snorkled
() Been to Alaska
(x) Watched volcano lava up close and personal
() Danced ballroom
() Gave birth to a child
() Paid a fertility clinic for services
() Buried a child
(x) Been married
(x) Been divorced
(x) Been married twice
() Gave birth to a child at home
() Gave birth to a child under water
() Gave birth to a child without pain killers
() Had a c-section
() Has and did, or is, raising more than 2 children
(x) Sent a child through college
() Walked on a glacier
(x) Swam in a lake
(x) Saw a bear up close in nature (no fences)
() Been in, or been to, jail (even if for 1 hour)
() Visited someone in jail
(x) Know someone who has been in jail (longer than a day)
() Been in the movies or TV (extra or actor)
() Met a star (famous person)
() Got an autograph of someone famous
() Lived next to someone famous
() Related to someone famous
(x) Thrown a party (big or small)
(x) Drove way over the speed limit
(x) Argued with a cop
() Gotten out of a big speeding ticket in front of a Judge
(x) Been beaten up
() Beat someone up
(x) Sang on stage
(x) Loved deeply
(x) Grown a garden
(x) Raised animals
(x) Owned a dog or cat
() Home schooled children
() Sat in natural hot springs
() Banked money in the Caymans Islands
() Been a Vegetarian
() Been a strict Vegan (eats NO animal products)
(x) Fought against the IRS (and won)
(x) Been to court
(x) Been stung by a bee
(x) Been face to face with a snake in the wild
() Been bitten by a snake
() Been bitten by a spider
(x) Played a prank on someone
(x) Sued someone
(x) Built a snowman
() Been in a major car accident and lived to tell about it
(x) Been in a small car accident
(x) Had a house built
(x) Built a house (or helped build one)
() Had a cabin built
(x) Been personally in the hospital for any reason
(x) Had a major operation done in the hospital
(x) Had flowers given to you
(x) Given flowers to someone
() Had a professional massage done
() Had a massage on a tropical beach
(x) Have given someone else a full body massage
() Had plastic surgery done
() Had a mud bath from a spa
(x) Owned your own business
(x) Given thousands of dollars to charity
(x) Won a major prize in a contest
(x) Been enrolled in college
() Graduated from college
() Graduated from trade school
() Stitched (sewed) up a cut yourself
(x) Been a teacher
() Watched the professional X-games live
(x) Broken a bone
(x) Been stranded at an airport
(x) Been to a concert of a famous band or group
() Died and brought back to life
() Reported a crime in progress
(x) Participated in Patriotic movements
() Joined the Army
() Joined the Peace Corp
() Hiked the Y
() Hiked Timpanogos Cave
(x) Been to a garage sale
(x) Had your own garage sale
(?) Saved someone from dying (I've donated platelets enough times that I can say that)
(x) Sat around a camp fire
(x) Given a speech in front of a crowd
(x) Joined a cause
() Rode a bike down the board walk on the beach (for miles)
(x) Wrote a book (published or not)
(x) Read a big novel
(x) Kissed on the beach
(x) Started a group
() Been a surrogate mother for someone (carried their child in your womb)
() Lived on an island
(x) Learned a different language
(x) Sent someone love letters in the mail
() Joined a different religion or philosophy
() Sewed an entire piece of clothing (ie. dress or pants)
(x) remodeled a home (one room or entire thing)
(x) planted flowers
() planted an entire yard of grass
(x) Been fishing
(x) Roller bladed
() Been a lifeguard
() Gotten a tattoo (real one)
() Worn a thong bikini (and looked good in it)
(x) Been over weight (more than 10 lbs)
() Worn a bikini after having lots of kids (girls only)
() Danced the Salsa
(x) Worked on the engine of a car
() Put up Christmas lights on your house outside
(x) Played Santa Claus (all dressed up) (or Mrs Claus)
() Made a gourmet meal from scratch
(x) Been married longer than 10 years
() Have twins or triplets
() Coached someone through the birthing process
(x) Sang a child to sleep
() Know how to cook without recipes
(x) Bought a house
(x) Bought more than one house
(x) Played dead and others thought you really were dead
(x) Danced around your living room naked (didn't dance well, of course)
() Thrown a costume party
() Written your name in perm. ink on something you shouldn't have
() Broke into a friends house and cleaned it
(x) Fiddled around with a Ouija board
(x) Shaved your head or got a flat top (baldy or at least super short)
(x) Wrote a rant letter to someone (telling them off)
() TP'ed someones house or room

Now, here's my own list:

Things you have done during your lifetime:

(x) Performed in a play that ran more than five weeks
(x) Hiked more than ten miles in one day
(x) Written a play and seen it performed
(x) Seen the Alhambra in Spain
(x) Had an entire stage all to yourself during a musical
(x) Gotten lost in a cave
(x) Explored an abandoned house
(x) Stood on a tile or floor two thousand years old
(x) Been in the southern hemisphere
(x) Been to a castle (or ruins of a castle) once owned by an ancestor
(x) Sang in a choir in a church more than 750 years old
(x) Walked on a grave dating from the Crusades
(x) Toured the Tower of London
(x) Been under a bat flight
(x) Seen a vampire bat, not in a zoo but in a cave
(x) Eaten food from a street vendor in Mexico
(x) Seen the International Space Station and a comet on the same night
(x) Eaten snails (escargot) with butter
(x) Seen a real live sea turtle, not in a zoo but in the sea or near it
(x) Slept with a candidate for public office
(x) Heard gunfire in your own neighborhood
(x) Seen someone get shot with a gun
(x) Seen a stealth bomber in a hangar, under armed guard
(x) Had dinner with a Scottish man wearing a kilt
(x) Gone swimming in a cave where people had drowned before
(x) Climbed a ledge where people had fallen to their deaths before
(x) Worn pink pajamas in public
(x) Given a eulogy at a funeral
(x) Done a secret act of random, senseless kindness
(x) Appeared in a television commercial
(x) Designed one or more websites
(x) Picked up a hitchhiker on an impulse
(x) Lost more than 30 pounds in one unbroken effort or program
(x) Faced the possibility of dying
(x) Pulled off a tough guy bluff to protect someone else
(x) Hiked in a tropical rain forest, in the rain
(x) Been a designated driver for your friends who were Partying Down™
(x) Pretended to be British and pulled off the ruse
(x) Pretended to be anything you're not and pulled off the ruse
(x) Refused to do something that was socially expected, for moral reasons
(x) Written a letter to a national publication, which was then published

But the real Bucket List is supposed to be the things you want to do before you die, but haven't yet:

() See Rome.
() See Pompeii.
() Walk on a glacier.
() Visit Australia, and actually throw a shrimp on the barbie.
() See a Broadway show, on Broadway
() See the solar eclipse in 2012
() Celebrate the winter solstice on the Yucatan peninsula as the Mayan calendar ends.
() Have a tiny walk on role in a successful movie.
() See a Lillian Gish film in a theatre.
() Eat an avocado from my very own tree.
() Take the tour in Gruta del Palmito and see where I proposed to GA 25 years ago.
() Tour Kew Gardens.
() Give Laura San Giacomo a nice backrub.

Plants of happiness

I'm really enjoying the plants I have in my little house and yard. One of my newest is this orange tree we bought on sale because the nursery had left it out during a freeze, and all the leaves were frosted off. They're coming back to life and looking very nice now:


I'm really pleased with this one, because I thought I had lost it. I had planted this avocado seed, which had sprouted into a little tree about three inches tall, and an unexpected frost seemed to have killed it. But recently, when I went out to pull weeds in preparation for my spring garden, I found that it had survived, and sent up a new shoot:



Notice to the right is a new baby plant that I was trying to replace it with - another seed.

And finally, my little potted ocotillo. Sonya, my caving friend from from the Dallas area, shared a cutting from her ocotillo a few years ago, and I put it in cactus potting soil, and carefully misted it until it could grow some roots. It hadn't leafed out in a while, so I was afraid it was dead this time, but you never know with ocotillo, and it leafed out again to my delight:



I love plants.

Time machine malfunction

My time machine is messing up... again.

I've oiled and calibrated the flux capacitor three times now, and still it messes up. I wanted to go visit the dinosaurs and get some nice photos, maybe some video, but things keep going wrong.

I set it for the usual 65 million years ago, because that's when they were supposed to start disappearing, give or take a couple of million years - and you know they've got it pinned down to a couple of million years, being the obsessed sticklers for accuracy that they are.

But I showed up in 1956, which happens to be the year I first became fascinated with dinosaurs. Here is the first illustration I saw, in our home encyclopedia, which my parents probably bought from a slick salesman with a thin mustache:








These days, scientists are pretty sure the T Rex didn't stand like that. Here is what they really look like as far as posture. It allows the rex to balance nicely on those huge back legs without getting his tail dirty:



So they're getting closer. But as I said, my time machine keeps messing up. In the last month, I have arrived in Imperial Rome wearing a 1979 leisure suit, I have appeared in some Mayan village wearing something more appropriate to a Rocky Horror Picture Show debut, and I walked into Woodstock in 1969 wearing a business suit.

So when I arrived in 65 million BC, finally, my viking costume was probably close enough to fool the cavemen, as suspicious as they might be. I probably should have tried to look a bit more intimidating, as they might have been less likely to take my camera and use it as a hammer, and I might have come back with a more decent photograph of our friend the T Rex.

I can describe it, though. The second picture above is about right as far as posture and shape, but the color is wrong. The T Rex was jet black with red stripes, running his length and widening for his body, then narrowing again at the tail.

The movies have them all ferocious and scary and aggressive, but they're actually amazingly shy and easily intimidated. They don't fight at all - they're giant, effective scavengers, probably the ancestors to the modern day vulture.

When they feed, they pivot nicely on those huge hips, and the tiny forearms hold the corpse still while the huge jaws and teeth crush the bones and rip out chunks of flesh. The bones and flesh are chewed in mighty gulps, and the Rexes do this in teams of four or five. The locals leave them to their work, because they are doing an important job, environmentally speaking, and because they stink to high heaven, and you would not, repeat not, want to barbecue one of them.

And they don't roar - they have a loud, nasty hiss when they jostle each other for best dinner position, or if they feel threatened.

So no pictures, because I have no intention of having another of my cameras used for grinding corn.

I still love to watch Jurassic Park, accurate or not.

Insanity in political decisions

Warning: political rant.

When President Obama said he was going to raise taxes on only people who made over 250,000 a year, I figured OK, great, stick it to those rich morons in Hollywood that got this guy elected. But now we're finding out how he's going to do it. And it's brilliant in its insanity.

He's going to limit their charitable deductions! This means that the liberal rich folks won't be hurt at all, because they don't give to charity nearly as much as conservatives and libertarians. If you don't believe me, do the research.

And what does this mean to America? It means that charitable giving will go down, way down. Which in turn means that the government will have to do even more in the way of socialism. But consider this: when the economy collapses (which it will thanks to our president's stimulus package aka drunk sailor spending spree) where are all those homeless going to go? Remember, if you don't have an address, you can't apply for those government checks. And those soup kitchens and charities that kept them alive can no longer count on the large donors they need so badly.

This will in turn further increase dependence on government programs (emergency programs, of course, because this is a crisis), which will further strain the state's ability to take care of us. Socialism isn't perfect, but it's the worst system we can have.

As I predicted, disappointment is on a frantic increase with this administration. If he does even half of what he promised, he will plunge us into national ruin, which will disappoint even the working poor in the country. Taxes will have to be raised drastically on them, the poor, but even more on the middle class, because there lie the numbers you need to get any revenue. You don't understand? Try this...

You can get the same money by either of these two actions: take one million bucks from each of 100 millionaires, or take 100 bucks from each of one million middle class types. Which group are you going to run out of first? Hint: how many millionaires live in your city, and how many working class? Drive around and make an estimate.

Even if you took 100% of the income from all the truly rich, it wouldn't run this country on its current budget for more than a week. The money has to come from you, the working stiff. That's why you need to understand that when they say they're going to make the rich pay their fair share, they really mean you, bucky.

Feel stimulated yet? Between Bush's Bailouts and Obama's Stimulus, we're either going to kiss America as we knew it goodbye, or we'll throw out both parties as we should have done thirty years ago. It can't go on like this anymore. Math, like the moon, is a harsh mistress.

Hey, you in the chattering class

The Tenth Amendment

This blog, or at least this particular post in this blog, should be required reading in schools, in state governments, and in both houses of Congress:
Tenth Amendment Rebellion
If you're socially conservative, ignore the fact that the author is a dope-smoking lesbian libertarian hippie-hating Catholic "recovering attorney" who understands economics. This is a good post.
Here is the text of the 10th amendment:

"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

That really isn't so hard to understand.

Let's break it down, just because the Supreme Court and the United States Congress seems to have been so confused by it for the last sixty or seventy years or so.

If a certain power (or authority to legislate) is not specifically assigned to the federal government, that power belongs to the states or to the people. If the Constitution prohibits a power to the states, it is reserved for the people.

Put another way, The feds can't do stuff unless the Constitution says so. What they've been doing is turn it backwards and say that they can do stuff unless the Constitution directly says it can't. Of course, lately they've been doing stuff that the Constitution directly says they can't, but that's what happens once you assume the power to interpret the law as you see fit from one day to the next - "Living Document" and all that nonsense.

Super Bowl Violence

I started out a little late watching the Super Bowl, because we waited until almost kickoff to make a trip to the HEB, knowing that it was going to be crowded until then, what with all the parties and cookouts that were being prepared.

When we got home, the game was already about ten minutes under way. But I was in time for the first commercials, which is the only reason I take the time to watch this popular game. The first commercial I saw was for Doritos - and I was appalled. It featured a glass snow globe being hurled into the glass of a vending machine so that the employees could reach in and steal the packs of Doritos. As if that weren't enough, that was followed by someone else hurling the same snowglobe into the crotch of an elderly executive at the company, who collapsed in agony. How clever.

Before the game, I was cheering for the Steelers, mostly because they sort of represent the working class of America. But in the course of the game, I twice saw a huge Pittsburgh Steeler pounding a smaller Cardinal with his fists, long after the play was over, and even though the Cardinal was refusing to hit back. In one of those instances, the player being assaulted had taken off his helmet and was trying to reason with the block of beef who was trying to hurt him. By halftime, I was very much in favor of the Steelers losing by as much as possible. If you can't even practice a little sportsmanship at the Super Bowl, of all games, what does that say about your team?

The violence continued with more commercials. A guy, still in his chair, being thrown out of the fourth floor window because he suggested not buying Budweiser. A woman being covered with pigeons (and you know what pigeons do) because she was using a cell phone. The Jack in the Box guy getting hit by a bus. A woman being insulted and humiliated by a box of cheap flowers - "nobody wants to see you naked" was the final putdown - as her co-workers look on in pity. Meanness was the running theme of this Super Bowl.

Violence aside, the quality of the ads this year was way down. There were no ads that have the potential of starting a campaign - nothing like the Geico gecko, no Budweiser frogs, nothing. We got the usual Clydesdales for old times' sake, I suppose, but nothing really special.

The two best ads of the night were the one for pet adoption (clever and well done), and one for job searches involving a hunting safari chasing down a herd of office chairs. Even those were lame compared to other years. (added: there was also an excellent ad involving a moose in an office).

To put it another way, the NBC promos for upcoming shows were better than anything showing during a football time out. That about says it all.