Holiday Hangover

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and was fortunate enough to share the day with loved ones.

Today, though, I'm suffering from Holiday Hangover. I've got many things that I need to do but don't have the energy or the motivation to get up and do. Due to an unexpected incident, my cable needs to be repaired; I need to exchange a Christmas present and Ryan needs to do some shopping for himself and his girlfriend. Caffeine has not helped my lack of desire to move from the recliner and take of business.

Is there a cure for Holiday Hangover? I should look into that but for now, I'm just going to think about it for a while longer...

Happy Thanksgiving, Friends & Family

I hope everyone had a happy holiday filled with food, fun and laughter.

Changing Seasons, Changing Color Palettes

In the spirit of changing seasons, I've decided to change the colors of my blog. I'm unhappy with the limited color palette offered but this will have to do for now. It's about as Autumn as I can make it. I really need to learn html.

It's Veteran's Day - Thank a Soldier!

It's Veteran's Day once again and time to give thanks to those who have served and are serving in the country's armed forces. Politics aside, it's a brave and heroic thing these people do when they gear up and go out to defend a convoy, a city or a country. Being a soldier often requires the ultimate sacrifice and we often forget that as we go about our daily lives because we don't see it up close and personal here on American soil. We forget until something, or someone, reminds us in the most brutal, up close and in our faces personal way.

Today we remember.

Somewhere in your life, you know someone who has served or is serving; your spouse, child, sibling, parent, uncle, teacher or neighbor. Don't let the day end without doing them a service. Tell them Thank You!

To my dad who served in the Korean War - I Love you and Thank you!

Hang in There, Honduras!

Hats off to the small country of Honduras for sticking to their guns in the face of extraordinary controversy. The backlash from the world has been tremendous but the Honduran government has remained stoic. Talk about your peer pressure! This takes it to a whole new level. It seems the world is trying to force the country of Honduras to reinstate their ousted president. He was removed from office and escorted out of the country for attempting to have an unauthorized vote on a referendum to change the Honduran Constitution, which would allow him to stay in office beyond his legal term limit decreed within that constitution. In the articles of the constitution, it also plainly states that his "intentions" will also be grounds for immediate removal from office. When someone takes over the government of a country, or tries, it's called a coup. How is this any different? Zelaya attempted a coup of the Honduran government by trying to circumvent the law and his country's constitution and was immediately from the office of the presidency. The Honduran Supreme Court ruled according to the articles of their constitution and the Honduran military carried out the orders as stated. That should have been the end of the story. So why is the world so dead set against this one small country for only doing what their constitution was designed by the people to do? My personal opinion: This scares the living daylights out of the leaders of the free world because any one of them could be next. When one tiny country is determined to live by the rules of law they created, just imagine what a bigger country could accomplish if they set their minds to it and took back the country from the usurpers and moneylenders. Now there's a thought!

Michael Jackson: A Love/Hate Relationship

Michael Jackson like Elvis Presley is a name known around the world. I believe everyone has at least heard of him and formed an opinion. You either love him or hate him. There doesn't seem to be much middle ground where he's concerned. Right now, you can't turn on the TV or radio, read a newspaper or magazine and not see his face or hear his music. Sadly this global pop icon died suddenly and unexpectedly last week and that's the why we're being inundated with everything Michael Jackson.

I'm an MJ fan and have been a fan my whole life. He was only 4 years older than me, after all; so, we sort of grew up together. His music always made me feel. Ben was one of those sweet songs that made you believe you had a true friend through thick and thin. It was years before I knew "Ben" was a rat. I'll Be There was another song that made you feel like you weren't alone. Songs like Beat It and Man in the Mirror helped form my social consciousness. And sometimes, his music just made me happy - Rockin' Robin, Enjoy Yourself and Shake Your Body (Down to the Ground) come to mind. Yes, some of them were recorded as part of the Jackson 5 but it was Michael's voice that gave them life. His Thriller album, which I own on vinyl by the way, changed everything the minute MTV started playing those music videos. Who could forget the first time they saw the Thriller video on MTV? And what girl didn't want to be a PYT?

It hasn't always been politically correct to admit liking Michael Jackson. His troubles with the law, including accusations of being a pedophile, and a general descent into weirdness have kept many from admitting to being a fan. It's amazing to me how being an MJ fan commits one to condoning sexual abuse of a child. I've never understood the logic of that thought process but there are millions out there that make that intellectual leap of logic every day. As far as I know, Michael Jackson was never convicted in a court of law. I was not at any court proceeding nor was I privvy to any of the court documents. I cannot make an informed judgement without having the facts. Yet, people the world over have judged and condemned him in the court of public opinion daily. Some day we'll all know the truth, whatever it may be, but until then, we need to rediscover the American adage of 'innocent until proven guilty' instead of the French rule of 'guilty until proven innocent.'

Whether or not Michael is/was guilty does not change or detract from the immense talent of the man. MJ has left his mark on the world and I, for one, am glad that I got to experience that incredible talent when his star shone brightest.

A Test of Faith

Ryan has been sick off and on for months with what appeared to be a cold, or possibly the flu, that he just couldn't seem to shake off. I've talked to him several times since Christmas - he was here and sick then, too - and he's been hoarse sounding on multiple occasions. He's often tired and sleeps a lot. He's thin because he can't ever seem to gain any weight even though he eats like a horse. Ryan is my son; he's 19 years old and going to college at the University of North Texas. He's so young and like all young men in college and away from home for the first time, he stays up too late hanging out with his friends, drinking and smoking; he's too young to have to worry about his health. Ryan was recently diagnosed with Generalized Lymphadenopathy, which is swollen lymph nodes in two or more areas. It sounds ominous and it can be extremely bad but it doesn't have to be fatal. Various causes range from Hodgkin's Disease to leukemia to lymphoma and TB to Mono to Hyperthyroidism. Ryan is going to have a biopsy Monday afternoon. I'm not sure how long it will take the results to come back but I believe they will find the cause to be Mono, or possibly hyperthyroidism. I have faith that Ryan will have something benign and treatable.

We've prayed for him and his Grandpa George has claimed a healing on Ryan's behalf. If I hadn't spent years growing up around my Cherokee grandmother, the claiming of a healing might seem like hocus pocus but I've seen her do some wondrous things that just can't be explained. So, to me, claiming a healing doesn't sound any more unusual or different than asking a friend to lend a hand with a task; and I suppose, in a sense, it isn't any different.

My son claims to be an atheist according to his religion preference on his MySpace page. I wonder if that will change and if it does, will it be a lasting change. I don't preach religion to my kids, in case you're wondering. They've made their own choices, based on what they've learned, for themselves. My daughter, Erin, is a believer and has gone to church regularly in the past. I think Ryan's choice has more to do with his father than anything else. His dad was agnostic when we were married but he's gone completely atheist since that time. I could be wrong, too. We've never really discussed it but I have a feeling we will in the near future.

Please pray for Ryan and for me. Pray that his test results are clean and pray for me to have the courage to face whatever happens next. Thank you.

A Day for Reflection

Rain drips from the eaves while birds flit from limb to limb and the cat watches with coiled intensity. How is it that we can observe the world around us and be so blind to it at the same time? We look at the lives of others and know exactly what's wrong and usually don't hesitate to tell them about it. It's when we look closely at our own lives that we tend to shy away from the harsh truths. We can't withstand those deeper delvings into all the flotsam and jetsam that passes for thoughts and emotions. The real guts of us that we try to hide when we think someone's looking. The stuff we drag out in the middle of the night as we're falling asleep and poke at with a sharp stick to see if it's going to hurt us in the dark. Well, guess what - it BITES.

Epiphany: My life is filled with small, meaningless pursuits that keep me entertained so I don't notice the emptiness. During a conversation recently, I stated that "I have no joy in my life. I have moments of happiness but I'm discontented and restless." My discussion partner concluded that my joyless life needed God to make everything better. God...what does that mean - I need God in my life to give me joy?

My initial reaction to this pronouncement was disturbing. Immediate denial; later, I examined that denial to find the truth of it. Religion makes me cringe; I can't abide most of the trappings of organized religion. I believe in a Supreme Being whether that being is called God, Allah or Ra; I don't believe it matters because they're all connected - one and the same. Every culture around the world has at least one Supreme Being and some have more than one. The Mayans had many Gods and Kukulcan, the feathered serpent, has been tied to Atlantis's Tehuti, Egypt's Thoth, Sumer's Enki and Peru's Quetzalcoatl. I don't believe in coincidence either. Our cultures define for us by what name we call our god.

Religious ceremony and rites also give me pause. Sacrificing virgins? Goats and chickens? Blood and life sacrifices are beyond my comprehension because I don't truly understand the purpose of them. I suppose if I knew what lay beyond the death of the physical body I might understand it. A release of the spirit into the next world, that I get. I have many thoughts on this but that's for another time. Meditation and prayer makes sense to me. Clearing the mind allows for peace and calm to enter the body, driving away the stress, and opening the mind to greater possibilities within ourselves. Prayer has many functions: to say thanks, to ask for help, to praise, to ask forgiveness. Preaching bothers me, especially the old-fashioned hellfire and damnation sermons. Old Testament preachers (southern Baptist, revival tent preachers from my childhood come to mind) stand at their pulpits, thumping their Bibles, shouting about sinners and point accusing fingers at the congregation. Are you going to HELL?! they shout. New Testament preachers teach their followers the lessons of Jesus during his time on earth before he sacrificed himself for us sinners. Another sacrifice and more blood. Reconciling the two halves of the Bible has always been a problem for me. Suffice it to say, that I'm a believer in the teachings of love and forgiveness without judgment. To me, love and forgiveness without judgment means there is hope - hope for a better tomorrow, a better world, a better afterlife.

Years ago, I rejected the pissed off God for a loving God that forgives sinners like me. So few people are able to lead lives without sin of some kind. In fact, I don't know anyone that doesn't sin, one way or another. We are doomed to failure from the day we're born as humans. Human nature, in and of itself, presents a daily struggle to suppress our baser instincts in order to attain a more God-like spirit. Mostly, we fail at this. We lust and envy; we are prideful and wrathful. The best we can hope for is to be forgiven for our faults and allowed to pass into a better world. If it were otherwise, I'd have thrown in the towel long ago.

Now all that brings me back to my current situation. My simple mind took that statement about needing God and created a formula that gave me an answer I could accept without reservation. For many years, I've equated God with love. So, God is Love. God = Love. Ah ha! I'm missing Love from my life. If I had love in my life, I would find my joy again because love is about sharing and there is no joy if there's no one to share my life.

Damn, I wish it would quit raining. All this introspection depresses me.

One Week at a Time

We made it another week. Maybe that's all we can do right now and if so, then so be it. Now the goal is to keep the doors open till next Friday. One week at a time.

I'm still sort of shell-shocked at how things have been going. And it's not just us. The "big" companies are having their own problems and when things go bad for them, it affects us as well. Recently, AMD had some issues come to light when the Sheriff's office sent deputies out to enforce a lock-out of the employees due to non-payment of property taxes. It cost AMD $8.8 million to get those doors open and people back to work. Of course in the last two weeks, AMD also announced a layoff of 35% of its Austin workforce; that's 1200 employees locally. I'm notoriously bad at math but my numbers say 420 people lost their jobs. And that's not all, when vendors submitted invoices for payment on open purchase orders, those vendors were informed the POs had been closed out. Now follow me here - Imagine you're a small company and your largest customer is AMD and they've just informed you that they aren't going to pay their bills. What? They owe you thousands of dollars! You can't pay your vendors who are also clamoring for their money; the bank wants payment for the line of credit they extended to you a couple of months ago when AMD refused to pay any invoices during December; and aside from all of that, you have your own bills to pay, which are already late, and your employees know that getting a paycheck might not happen this week or even this month. How do you not lose hope that everything will work out? How do you keep from throwing in the towel and saying "I give up"? Coming from someone who's watching all this from the playing field, my answer is simple: I don't have a clue but as long as the door's open and the lights are on, we'll be there - one week at a time.

NOTE: We are NOT the small company mentioned above but we know them and know all this to be true.

Need an Angel and One Very Small Miracle

Our business is not just struggling but flailing wildly. In the (almost) six years we've been in business, it's never been this bad. We've always managed to keep the doors open. Since Christmas we've said, "If we can just make it one more month, we'll be ok." Well, I'm not sure we're going to make it another month. Nobody's building anything right now and it's literally killing us. Those that have new silicon coming out have pushed the dates back another month. I hope we're still here.

It's really sad that we've been doing this for so long - 6 years come May - and we can't hold on long enough to finally get that one big contract after all these years. Two more months and we could be out of the woods for at least the next four to five years. But lately, I don't know from one day to the next. It's a good business with solid, loyal customers and some great assets. We just need an angel investor to take us under their wing and give us some hope or one very small miracle.

Cross your fingers and pray for us (or whatever it is you do.) I am.

Well, Crap! It's Definitely Friday the 13th...

GRRRR!!! Had my first screw up this morning and deleted some of my posts by accident. It won't kill me but damn, it pisses me off. Back-up of some kind. Must be a way to make sure this doesn't happen again.

Incident #2: I've been following links off a certain website to view related sites and articles. No big deal in most cases, except today of all days, I had a link take me to a sub-page on the Aryan Nation website. WTF??? Un-freakin'-believeable! There was nothing about the link I followed to suggest I was going to a site or page I would never otherwise visit. Maybe I should just stay home today...

Global Warming or Global Scam?

Do you believe global warming is really happening? Why do you believe this or why don't you believe it? Just for the record, I don't believe in global warming. My personal belief is that we're in the early stages of a new Ice Age. The last one only took 10 years to transistion; so, we're well on our way. Recorded average temperatures have dropped over the last decade. The last Ice Age also lasted for about 10,000 years so dig out your thermal undies, if you haven't done so already. All right, lets hear your thoughts on climate change - real or imagined? Hot or cold? Where do you think we're headed?

Isn't She a Doll?

I discovered RogueDolls by Picara amid the picture pool for The Secret Life of Toys at Flickr. I'm a total noob when it comes to Picara and her work but I'm willing to learn. Picara creates her one of a kind RogueDolls from Blythe dolls that she customizes by hand. I know very little of how she does the work but she carves, sands, paints, weaves and dresses these little masterpieces in the most fascinating ways. I could sing praises about her creativity for hours but I'm just going to post some pictures and a couple of links and let you discover how wonderful she is all by yourself.

These photos are from the last doll she sold via eBay. SteamPunk Girl was awesome and I'd love one for myself just so I sould admire her work whenever I wished. Alas, Picara is too rich for my blood. Some day, though...

I do hope that you enjoy Picara and her RogueDolls as much as I do.

What Can You Do For Your Country?

Barack Obama has the answer to that question. It seems that the new president wants everyone to volunteer their time in service to this country. Obama believes we should all take 2 weeks off work and spend some time working with groups like Habitat for Humanity or Americorps or another organization that appeals to us. I'm not suggesting these aren't wonderful groups where you can volunteer your time helping others. This is not about them. This is about a very real piece of legislation that's coming, possibly by Sept. 11, 2009. Obama wants us to "voluntarily" serve for 2 weeks a year, except for the 18-24 year olds, which would likely serve a full year. The plan's strategy indicates that volunteer service would begin as early as kindergarten and continue through college, with credits to students based on time served. Obama's also going to enable more Americans to join the armed forces. I'd really like to know how he's going to do that since joining the army, or any armed forces unit, is already voluntary and fairly simple. You run down to the local recruitment office and sign up. As long as you have a diploma or GED, there shouldn't be a problem. The recruitment centers will even put your enlistment papers on hold and wait for you to pass the GED class, if you need to take it. How much easier could it get? Well, I guess since you're already going to serve your country in some capacity, you might as well serve in the military, right? It wouldn't surprise me at all to see the draft come back soon after this Serve America Act gets passed. I say the end of this year or early next year.

The word 'service' gets used quite a bit on the Be the Change website but why would it be necessary for Congress to vote on something that's voluntary? Aside from changing MLK's birthday to National Service Day, Obama plans to offer tax incentives to employers that give 'volunteers' the time off with pay. Now you can be pressured by your boss to 'volunteer' so the company gets a nice tax credit. Won't that be fun? But wait, that's not all! You're retired and enjoying your life of leisure; gardening, playing golf, and traveling. Well, I hate to break it to you but you're not exempt from this service plan either. Obama thinks you'll do nicely mentoring to young minds that can benefit from your experience and wisdom. And because he thinks so much of our senior citizens, he's going to offer 'enhanced' incentives for a year's service and even establish an Encore Fellowship for those that would like to serve longer. Isn't that great? Now you'll be able to serve from kindergarten and all during your retirement. No worries about getting bored and not knowing what to do with yourself. Thank you, President Obama!

It all sounds good, in theory, but I have my reservations about it all. The cynic in me feels like this has been done before and it didn't work out so well for the Germans then either. Check out Service Nation and Be the Change for yourself. Read all about it and draw your own conclusions. Mine are based on the fact that I don't trust a politician as far as I can throw one.

Links for more info on Service Nation and Be the Change:

www.barackobama.com download the .pdf entitled: National Service Plan Fact Sheet

www.bethechangeinc.org

http://s3.amazonaws.com/btcreal/816/ServiceNation_Policy_Doc_Exec_Sum.pdf

http://s3.amazonaws.com/btcreal/856/SERVICENATION_POLICY_BOOK.pdf

Stephen Colbert of The Colbert Report:
http://philanthropy.com/giveandtake/article/867/stephen-colbert-signs-declaration-of-servicesort-of be sure to watch the video from Comedy Central at the bottom of the page

My Inaugural Post

In two short days, Barack Obama will do something no other black person, male or female, has ever done in this country's history. He will become the first black President of the United States. I'm ambivalent about it since I don't like politicians in general; however, I'd like to see Obama make a good showing. Not only is he going to represent the black people of this nation but now, he's going to represent me as well – a single, middle class, white woman. I sincerely hope that this man puts forth a face and a character that represents me and my idea of what this country should stand for. I want to be proud to be an American again because I’m not proud of the torture, humiliation and abuse of fellow human beings – regardless of their crimes – that has been done under the cloak of patriotism and in the name of the United States of America for the last 8 years. That was not me and those were not my principles being represented. Now maybe there’s a chance for the world to see the real me. So, how hard can it be? I want the world to see that I’m intelligent, compassionate, tolerant, giving, firm when necessary, hard if I have to be but fair; a wise and worthy leader and smart enough to know that I can’t do it without the help of good people to advise me. I believe I could live with that. I could hold my head up again and be proud.