Hey, What happened to all the invites to the holiday picnics?

They don't happen.

Back in Chicago, the early marriage years, we used to have 30-40 people over to our little house for picnics and pool parties.

When we mention this to our children, they roll their collective eyes. Sure mom and dad! We believe you, not!

Fire up the grill, serve the usual picnic fare, have plenty of beer, good times, a good mix of fun and friends.

Leer at all the women, scantily clad, or wish they were scantily clad!

Loud music, loud voices, for hours on end.

Move on to Florida.

Never again.

Time passes. Kids grow up, the party mindset passes, mind and bodies age.

Holidays are for work around the house. Work that needs to be done for sure, but fun, not so much.

Hangovers are not missed but sometimes I wish I could go back in time...

no morning after time

ray

Pitchforks and Fire, the peasants storm the castle to fight Franken food

People are fighting against Monsanto, against the gmo, (genetically modified foods), lab created seed that they have used to try to take over the worlds food supply. "Corn, soybeans, canola and sugar beets — are grown from genetically engineered seeds, creating a challenge for companies"  Who can you thank for helping out? Whole Foods, who listened to their customers and want gmo products labeled as such. 

You might think, fine, I won't eat corn, soybeans, canola and sugar beets. you are though. Fructose, is sugar made from corn! It is everywhere. The food system has a two year lag time, so we are looking at 2015 to make the change over.  Maybe Wal-Mart will be the next player in the battle. 

There is hope. Please read the article below. Bon appetite! 


                 Seeking Food Ingredients That Aren't Gene-Altered     

morning coffee

Ray

I so wanted to be the man from U.N.C.L.E.

How Bacteria "Talk"

I love to learn!

It has taken almost 60 years, but a new dust bowl is almost upon us!

The latest reports coming out of the midwest and the west is that the huge and vast aquifers that have been supply all the water for all the farm land for the last 60 years or so is quickly running out. The vast pool of underground water had been tapped into to grow crops where rain was scarce, well the water has run out in many areas.

Crops have been devastated. Small towns are going away. The cause? A watering system on wheels that carefully covered every inch of ground. Aquifers take millions of years to grow in size, but man can tap in and eliminate an source of of liquid gold in a heartbeat.

History always repeats itself. Man has the ability to forget, to its own devastation. Prices will start to skyrocket, people will complain and wonder why.

We don't learn to conserve until its too late. We are idiots as a species.

Oil used to be ten cents a barrel. Growing up, gas was 25 cents a gallon. We built cars that wasted gas.
and complain when gas is over 4 dollars a gallon.

Soylent green everyone!

ray

Kids Aren't Spoiled Today, They Just Won't put Up With Incompetence

Case in point, I tagged along for a doctors appointment with my son last week, I was needed because it was on the family insurance plan. We looked like we were running a bit late so I called to let them know we were on the way.
They had no record of him having an appointment. I had the paperwork in hand and told them so. Nope, no record. When you get here, go to building A.

You guessed it. Sorry, go to building B.

Wait in the receptionist line, shuffling of paperwork, nope back to building A, side door.

Back to A. They were supposed to fax paperwork over to us, they never do it right. You need to go back to building B.

I checked my paperwork, shows date and time faxed to them.

Back to building B. Told them we needed to see the insurance department. Uh Uh, fill out the paperwork first, five pages. Son is filling out paperwork, points out there are ten pages, five duplicates.

Appointment was for 9:00 am, now 10:00 am. Lady come over, we have an opening at 10:30 am., want it?
Heavy sigh, yes we will take it.

Different room, waiting. 10:30 comes and goes. Clerk mentions to someone when they shut down for lunch. Not looking good.

Finally, after waiting for two hours, at 11:00 am, he gets to see a doctor.

He told me he would of went home by 9:15 am if I wasn't there.

If the world is to change and be a better place, the paperwork quagmire will have to go away.

It's not the kids, it's us.

ray

Thunderstorm

billowing clouds
natures force
darkened vengeance
howling winds
sideways rain

flashes of night
crackling bolts
havoc reeked
earth
but a pawn

run for cover
warning given
destruction
awaits
for the
unbelievers

like
you
!

The year the music died (for me)

Dateline

September 25th, 1980

It was a lunch time run to try to buy tickets to see Led Zeppelin with two work friends. 

Hundreds of people had gathered, lined up on the stairs of a downtown Chicago Sears store, hoping against hope that the tickets would still be there when it was our turn to buy when the word came down that John Bonham had died.

Concert canceled.

  

We staggered out of the building to go back to work in almost a drunken like daze unable to believe what we had just heard.

October 19th, 1980

got married, a good thing!

Dateline 

December 8th, 1980

I, like millions of others, was watching Monday NIght football, when the announcement came that John Lennon had been shot.

Something was missing in my life after that. Musical heros gone but not forgotten. But that touch of innocence was gone forever. It was the same feeling I had the day we found out that John F. Kennedy had been shot. I was in the fifth grade, had settled in for another (not fun) afternoon of schooling when our teacher came into the room crying, telling us that the president had been killed. 

Mental scars. We all have them. Forever...

morning coffee

ray