WHY, EVEN I COULD MAKE MONEY THAT WAY.

Blog number 370 **** 31 January 2009

This story will most probably mean more to me than to you, but it is emblematic of the human condition nevertheless. This happened back in the sixties when I was still in the Air Force on active duty instead of my present employment as a napper*

The services have a monthly meeting of personnel called, "Commander's Call" whereby the commander's units gather to hear reports, orders, gossip, whatever, and then the commander gives the floor to whomever wants to speak. A guy in my unit wanted to speak.

He told of depositing money in the on-base bank and the money didn't get into his account. He said that when he told the teller, her comment was, "Oh yes. This happens all the time."

When the man was done talking, the commander asked if there were any more comments, and when none was forthcoming, closed the meeting.

This guy started complaining to me about not being able to get anyone interested in the fact that monies deposited were not getting into the accounts and that this was "happening all the time." He complained that he thought telling the commander and the rest of the squadron about this problem might start some fixes, but nooooooo.

A few years later I'm reading about a scam whereby criminals were rerouting other people's deposits into their own accounts. What was happening was that banks used to have deposit slips lying on the counters and a depositor had to fill out one of the slips with his name and account number and give it to the teller along with the deposit. Then along came deposit slips with a bar code so all the depositor had to do was put in the amount and that amount would go into the account of the bar code.

The blank deposit slips were still stacked on the counters, and many people still used them, so all the criminal had to do was to place deposit slips with HIS bar code info on them on top of the stack of universal deposit slips and when a person filled out one of the slips, that money would go into the criminal's account. Neat, huh?

*One who takes naps.

EXPERTS. BAH!

Blog number 369 **** 29 January 2009

"I always wanted to be somebody but I should have been more specific." Lily Tomlin.

"I went to a psychiatrist for twelve years and today he said something that brought tears to my eyes. He said, ' No hablo Ingles "

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Today I again ran into a pet peeve of mine. This has only been happening since thoughtless engineers have been trying to conserve water. Up to the time I was about forty years old, I never ran into this problem, and now I run into it whenever I use a toilet in a fairly new public building.

I am talking about these new low flush toilets evidently designed either by women or by men who imbibe steroids. You just cannot sit on them without your private parts (if you are a male) dangling in the toilet water. You can imagine what this feels like if you have just eliminated breakfast into it before you inadvertently douched yourself.

I HATE THAT!

IT'S SO TRUE!

Blog number 368 **** 27 January 2009

I was looking through a "philosophy" book at Barnes and Nobles today - the title was something about a hippo and Socrates getting into heaven or something like that. Anyway, it was peppered quite liberally with funny stuff - jokes, cartoons.

One of the cartoons showed, from the viewpoint of the back of a TV, three large zombies caught mesmerized in mid stride, staring at the television. Against the wall was a cowering man and woman. The caption read, "half way across the room, the zombies suddenly noticed that 'Friends' was on."

It's is a terrible time in one's life when you have to murder a loved one because they are the Devil. - Emo Phillips

In another book - "The Hero Of the Pacific," the author states about the Japanese at that time, "...were cunning little fellows but not very imaginative. For instance, having purchased an old surplus destroyer from the British in order to build a modern warship, they duplicated the thing precisely right down to the dent in its bow, occasioned by some forgotten collision with an inconvenient pier."

WEATHER 'TIS BETTER TO SUFFER THE SLINGS AND ARROWS, ETC.

Blog number 366 **** 21 January 2009

It's raining in Arizona. How do I know this? Because the local news stations are continuously breaking into my favorite shows in order to inform me of this. I didn't buy this TV in order to watch weather reports. I bought it in order to watch the programs they so heartlessly override.

The main guy says they would not interfere with the regular programming to report this rain. He said this right after weather reporting over the first five minutes of "The Mentalist." Then he said he wouldn't interrupt any more of the program, but not five minutes later, "We interrupt this program to report reports of tornado activity."

Then a few minutes later? He interrupted again to report, "We don't have any reports of tornado activity."

And when the regular program is running, after a report complete with diagrams and colored maps? Then they have a large scroll running across the bottom third of the screen, describing what's happening with the weather. They don't do any of this during commercials. I wonder why?

Reminds me of my time in the military, the stupidity of it.

You would think, from the excitement in the news room that weather only happens every decade or so. These guys would probably go nuts if they lived in the Midwest where they have real weather.

Bitch Bitch Bitch.

THE "A" WORD

Blog number 365 **** 19 January 2009

I just read the most amazing thing in Elizabeth Thomas' book, "The Hidden Life of Deer."

Elizabeth describes some of her experiences with authority figures and the efforts they make in order to avoid appearances of anthropomorphism. Continuing this theme, she describes obvious human attributes animals continuously show, such as reasoning, planing, communicating, and she even once heard a mouse sing. I have read of camels swaying to music. Dancing? I'm sure.

She then goes on to say that when you see an animal do something, that something is very important to that animal in some way or another. Important for their survival. She then describes the activities of a fungus called, Cordyceps, and if you have trouble believing the following, I suggest you Google it like I just did.

When an insect walks over Cordyceps, the fungus secretes a chemical that burns a hole in the insects chitin and the fungus then enters the body of the insect via this hole.The fungus secretes antibiotics to protect the insect from other funguses, injects the insect with insecticide to ward off other insects that might harm this insect, and it then proceeds to eat non-vital organs until it has eaten them all and then it eats a small portion of the brain which causes the insect to climb a tree to the top.When the insect is anchored at the top of the tree, the fungus eats the rest of the brain and the insect dies, whereupon Cordyceps releases spores on the wind from a tree top rather than from the ground, which it would have to do without the insect's help.

Can plants think?

I LIKE YOU, SO I'LL KILL YOU LAST

Blog number 364 **** 15 January 2009

My mind can be changed by others. Yeah. I know. Weird, huh? Never thought it could happen, but just shows to go ya.

Yesterday I hated pigeons. Flying rats, right? Now I think they are kinda neat. "How did that happen?" you ask. Well, this lady author that I'm reading talks about people's attitudes towards pigeons. She says pigeons have a bad rep because they are so plentiful. Like rats. Like any animal of which we that we think there are too many. She says to remember that at one time passenger pigeons when migrating covered the sky from horizon to horizon for hours. Then they became extinct. Now we wish them back.

She says pigeons were brought here from Europe where they were called, "rock doves" because they nested in rocks. Here, they found tall buildings, so they used these as rocks. Building doves, I guess they are now.

So now I can look at these pigeons I used to hate so much and pretend they are doves.

Maybe I can think of another name for selfish arrogant greedy non-caring people I occasionally run across and find them endearing.

It could happen.

WANDERING THE HALLS

Blog number 363 **** 15 January 2009

I went to the doctor for my annual checkup. After weighing me and checking my blood pressure, they put me in the waiting room. A little later two nurses came in - one was teaching the other. The teaching one told me, "We're going to take your blood pressure again, check your bone mass, take a sample of blood, give you an E.K.G, and you need an X-Ray."

I asked, "Am I going to die?"

My wife and I went out the next day, and since we happened to be passing by the X-Ray place, we decided to go in and get the X-Ray. Since we hadn't planned on going there, I wasn't dressed for it. I was wearing my bib overalls.

I had to unsnap my overalls and hold them about my waist while they took the pictures. Then the girl told me I had to grab the bar above my head with both hands. She asked if my pants would stay up. I said, "Probably not. You won't do anything, will you?"

When I grabbed the bar, my pants did fall down, so there I was in a room with two pretty young girls with my pants in a puddle around my ankles. Every old man's dream.

TWO OR THREE OR MORE THINGS

Blog number 362 **** 14 January 2009

I read a long time ago that the only difference between the chlorophyll molecule (the one that lets plants make food out of sunlight and water) and hemoglobin (the molecule that transports oxygen from the lungs to the cells in animals) was a single hydrogen atom. I read this. A long time ago. It was a "truth" for decades.

Today I learned that the difference is not a hydrogen atom, but that chlorophyll has a magnesium atom where hemoglobin has an iron atom. Phfttt.

I was taught all through high school that neither energy nor matter could ever disappear or be changed. Then the atom was split. Phfttt.

I was also taught all through high school that humans had 48 chromosomes. Nobody ever checked until sometime in the late forties two guys checked and found that here were only 46. Phfttt.

My niece got ulcers when she was only four or five years old. In those days, everyone thought ulcers were caused by stress. How much stress could a baby have? And there must have been other cases. Why didn't anybody question this "truth"?

Two doctors in Australia finally, just a few years ago, investigated this and found that ulcers were caused by a virus. No scientist believed them, because obviously they were mistaken. And they were not even real researchers, just common medical doctors, so again obviously they didn't know what they were talking about. One of them got the virus into his body and treated it and cured it. NOW the two were believed.

Cultural conditioning.

ION, I always put a brick on my pile of recyclable papers so that the wind doesn't take them away. They always take the papers, throw the brick into the yard. But not today. They took the brick too. I can just hear the guy thinking, "Oh, good. A brick. I been needing a brick. Guess this is my lucky day."

I NEVER SAW A PURPLE TREE

Blog number 361 **** 13 January 2009

I'm reading a book called, "The Hidden Life Of Deer" written by the same author who wrote about those Bushmen and the poisoned arrows I wrote about a few entries back. The author started feeding the deer in the winter because there was a very poor acorn crop that year, and acorns are what deer feed upon in winter.

She tells of a "knowledgeable friend" of hers that told her that "nut trees do this [limit their production] from time to time in order to cut down on their predators. The trees do this because if they didn't, their predators would increase to such an extent that they would eventually eat every nut that fell and Viola' ! No more nut trees.

To handle that problem, the trees hold back and let the animals starve.

What caught my eye about this was not that trees can think and plan, but rather the way in which she simply states what she heard as a fact. Or a probable theory, anyway. That's a very unusual outlook in a Westerner, even though all the available evidence makes it obvious that not only are trees conscious of their existence, but so too are rocks and atoms.

People like this gladden my heart.

GOD LOVE 'EM

Blog number 360 **** 11 January 2009

A few years back a law was passed in order to prevent businesses from sending junk mail to people who don't want it, if you notify the business that you want your name taken off their list.

My wife notified a bunch of junk-mail-sending-businesses that we no longer wanted their junk mail and to please take our name off their list. Chase Banking did this. Today we got a letter from them addressed instead of to "Jane Doe*, 666 Summerset Lane, BreakMyBack Montana**," was addressed to "Our Neighbor, 666 Summerset Lane, BreakMy Back Montana." **

* a pseudonym because my wife doesn't want her name and address on my Blog

** a pseudoaddress because my wife doesn't want people to deluge us with fan mail from my Blog.

DOCTOR DOCTOR GIMMIE THE NEWS

Blog number 359 **** 10 January 2009

My son and his wife were over today and I told my son's wife a story which ended just as my son came into the room. He asked what I was saying, but I told him it was too long and I had just finished the long story to his wife, but that I would write it in my Blog, so here ''tis.

When we lived in Sacramento I had asthma real bad. I used an inhaler for when it was difficult to breath and I also had another inhaler for longer term relief. It was called, "Chlor-something" and was a steroid. I was supposed to use it twice a day and it was supposed to make it so I wouldn't have to use the regular inhaler so often.The directions warned that I was so rinse my mouth out after every use, otherwise I could get fungus growing in my mouth.

Now I thought, "look. My lungs ain't that far from my mouth and actually they both have the same climate, so isn't it likely that fungus would grow in my lungs?"

I told the doctor my concerns, figuring he would see the logic of this, but, "No, fungus would not grow in my lungs," this highly trained medical scientist doctor told me.

Every month or so it would get so hard for me to breath that I had to go to the emergency room for treatment. Adrenaline works wonders for this. After three or four trips to the emergency room, I got a replacement drug - Fortran. Now this sucker worked! I used to have to wake up several times each night to suck on my inhaler, but after a few days of the Fortran, I could sleep all night.

I figured from this that my original worries had been right on. That thing was growing fungus in my lungs. So when I got a telephone call from a researcher at the hospital asking if she could ask a few questions about that steroid drug, I was off and running. I didn't even wait for one question. I told her about it putting me in the emergency room and I told her it was a dangerous bad drug and nobody should ever take it, and some other things I now forget. She never did ask me any questions about it, just said thank you and hung up. I think what happened was that they were getting some bad reports and were checking out the users.

A PEEK INSIDE AN ACTIVE MIND

Blog number 358 **** 09 January 2009

I'm sitting in an easy chair in Starbucks writing this tome, essay, note, whatever, because my wife is talking to someone and I don't feel like joining the conversation and I am tired of reading the book I brought and I have to place my eyes somewheres other than on my wife or her companion because for sure my wife will ask me if I am wanting to go, which I ain't, and this would bring me into the conversation, which I don't want. I'd really like to just sit and watch them talk, but like I said, I can't. So I am writing, not because I want to, or because I have anything to say, but only as a distraction for my real wants.

Life is hard.

I spent $25 of my $2 bills just before I sat down. I didn't want to do that, wanting instead to use my Visa card, but it was the old foot-in-the-door effect. The register said eleven something, so I gave her six of my bills and she said she needed $12 more. "Oh, yeah, I thought. Two pounds of Starbucks' coffee is gonna cost more than $11. Twice that, actually. As it turns out. So, in for a penny, in for a pound. I gave her six more bills.

THIS AND THAT, BUT MOSTLY THAT.

Blog number 357 **** 07 January 2009

Peeling a temple orange, the smell made me think of Christmas back when I was seven or eight years old, eating my first tangerine. This remembrance made me think of other "first foods," which made me think of other things. That's the thing about memories. They work by association, not temporally. I remember when I first looked at my memories to see how they were connected and discovered they worked by association. I had been under the impression that they worked one after the other, earliest first. It seems odd to me now that I didn't know that before I knew it, but not long after that I found out a lot of other things about my thoughts that I never knew.

I digressed.

Again.

I used to have a haircut that got pretty rowdy when it got a little long because I have this tendency to play with my hair - running my hands through it, scratching, etc. You know the drill.

Then I got it cut short all around - almost like the cuts they give you when you first go to basic training in the military. Babies seemed to love it. But something rather strange happened.

My loving wife, said to me the other day, "I want you to go back to your old haircut because this one makes you look old."

Now, she didn't say, "It makes you look older." Nor did she say, "It makes you look too old." No, what she said was , "It makes you look old." I'm three months short of being seventy nine years old, which is one year short of being eighty. Of course I look old. I am old.

It's things like this that make me want to be able to get into other people's minds to see what they are thinking.

What was she thinking? Won't do any good to ask, because she won't know.