Day: 4/27/08

If you live in the Southern part of the United States, then this topic is something you probably know more about than you cared to: Mosquitos!

Yes, those pesky, biting, pain in my arse creatures that leaves one wondering just what in the name of all that is Holy was somebody or something thinking when they let this blood-sucking parasite of a creature come into existance. What plague these creatures are on all things that walk! I only happen to bring these pests to light as I was outside this night and noticed just how many of them there were hovering in the light, on the wall, on the floor, on the ceiling, I thought I was at a vampire conference or something. Being myself, I proceeded to reduce the gross population of mosquitos to a more manageable number that decided it was safer elsewhere for the moment and left my immediate line of sight. 30-0, my favor!

So I was left wondering, besides squishing these beasts into oblivion, was there a cleaner, more sanitary, and 'green' way of doing this? I needed information! OFF TO THE INTERNET, CHARGE!

As is custom, my first stop was wikipedia.org. A quick search for mosquito and viola! Information! I am so happy. :)

Well, it turns out aside from being a plague upon all that is alive and blood-carrying, they are also a natural disease carrier and a bugger to kill. I did learn, what most mosquito ridden people know, that while standing water is most often the place of choice for breeding of mosquitos, it is new to me that in order to be able to lay eggs, the female MUST feed on blood.

Now interesting enough, mosquitos are actually not primarily blood-feeders, they actually can survive on the nectar of flowers and such. Only when a female wants to lay eggs is the blood required. Now I knew, but for those that did not, the male mosquito does not feed on blood, ever. They do not have the equipment for it. There is also a LOT of study going on regarding the saliva injected by the female mosquito during feeding as to just how this stuff works. It is truly a coctail of 'stuff' from Mother Nature's kitchen. Anti-coagulants, immune response inhibitors, and various other proteins, acids, and what-not are just some of the ingredients.

Now when it comes to killing these bugs, there are a few options. Squishing is satisfying if you just got bit, but messy. Poisons can be delivered either against the larvae or the adults, both of which require different spray types to get to them. Or, there are a few plants, such as Venus Fly Traps that may eat them.

There is also a lot of rumor and old-wives tales around how to protect yourself from mosquitos. Much of this lore has been proven false, or mediocre in their effectiveness. So far, the science of the matter seems to agree that DEET is the best way to protect yourself from the bite.

Well, end of my lecture, if you want to know more, well, I don't think I would be the best to ask. :)

Dream: 4/24/08

Tommy Chong was chasing me with a pistol. I was running in a shirt and underwear. I attempted to hide in an abandoned room and he followed not too far behind me. As I was hiding, I heard another person enter the room. This new person was toting a very, very large blue serpent. The room I was hiding in was the cage/housing for this particular serpent. I fled, with Chong beside me, from the room. After a distance, I turned on Chong and wrestled the pistol away from him. I pointed it at him and attempted to fire the pistol; it was loaded with blanks.

(Author's Note: There was more before and after this snippet of the dream, but I do not know what those parts included at the moment. Perhaps in time...)

Day: 4/21/08

As I was surfing around the internet today at Entrecard.com I found myself peering into various blogs that I was wondering just what the overall purpose was. Admittedly, I don't particularly have a direct purpose for this blog ( I pretend I know what I am doing ), but some of these blogs were so choked with advertisements and link exchangers that I could not find what the person writing the blog was trying to say. Are they saying the only have it for the money? I do not know if some of you have noticed or not, but I have been adding a few things other than RSS or Atom feeds to the panel on the right. Yep, I have been cyber-pimping my blog here. It turns out that I would like to know that someone somewhere is actually reading what I am typing here. I do not know why I feel that it is important, it is not like I am giving any serious relationship advice, or strategic business advice here. No, it is just me ranting and raving and talking about weird things here and there like toenails and product distribution on store shelves. So why would I care that people read this? Honestly, I do not have an answer for it. Perhaps I am feeling a little cut off from the world lately. Perhaps it is akin to giving a lecture and then having a Q&A session afterwards.

Some of this blog, like this posting in particular, are more for myself than necessarily for others. Then why blog about it if you do not want anyone else to read it? Well, I actually do not concern myself about whether someone else reads this or not ( I just conflicted with my previous statements, I am so proud ) on a normal basis. I do know that some parts of this blog are to be like a second memory for myself. To help me remember things that I would like to remember. Or, just to talk to myself to work out things that have been rolling around in my brain. It is not like I have many marbles up there to begin with so I have plenty of other things rolling around up there. :)

In time, this blog will become a sort of online Grimoire or Book of Shadows for myself. I am not like many Wiccans that believe that our Book(s) of Shadows must be hidden and not shared. I see little purpose in this thinking. The information is there, most people are not doing much that is truly groundbreaking. The books are out there ( *pimp alert* see the amazon.com widget for a brief listing ) for everyone who is interested. So hiding my Book of Shadows is kind of silly to me. Ok, on to the next point, I am starting to repeat myself. :)

See? I am sitting here having this discussion/lecture with myself and ye faithful readers and I am listening to this advertisement on TV about whitening your teeth so that you will be more attractive and get the big promotion at work while getting the supermodel of your dreams and having everything you could ever want. Yeah...right. These late night info-mercials are absolutely ridiculous. Everyone is so 'perfect' in them. Oh sure, they feign being 'normal' people, but you look at their hair, their clothes, the lives they portray and you wonder where these people come from and how did they have time to use these products for years when the product is just now available to the public? Theoretically, they were part of a select group for a trial run of the product, kind of like focus group testing. Yeah, these happen. Ever meet anyone in one of those? Honestly, I d have never known anyone offered to be a part of a focus group for a new product. Just like you, I get those spam emails saying you can win this or get this if you fill out the survey, etc. etc. I have not gotten flippity flop from anyone of them that I did.

Sigh. I seriously dislike our society and the focus on appearance as the main indicator of who a person is. I tire of 'perfect' people being shown before us 24/7 in every conceivable manner known to mankind. I am not perfect, I have made, and continue to make, mistakes. I do the best I can and you know what? If that is not good enough for them, then they can take a big bite of me. ;)

Day: 4/19/08

Well things have been pretty slow around the house and at work lately. I have not had much energy to do much exploring of the internet or much else. I really am starting to hate being sick like this. It has only been a month or so, but the constant cough and sinus problems are really starting to wear thin. The antibiotics I am on are giving me the runs, so keeping myself well hydrated is more important than ever. I suppose it is all paying off though. I can sleep through the night, only waking up because of the diarrhea instead of coughing fits. Yeah, I just know everyone wanted to know all about that. :)

So I was sitting here playing with my chaostar and I have been feeling a gentle peace over me while I wear/play with it. I have been letting out my path selection a little more lately around work and friends. Mostly they ask what the star is, and I tell them, and most are content to at least have a name for it. I did get an odd look from my mother about it, but given that she is a Roman Catholic, I kind of guessed it would come. I never have been able to talk to my family regarding my choice of religion or my beliefs, I just never seem to find the right way to broach the subject with them. They are all church going people who are there every Sunday without fail to hear the 'good word'. Don't get me wrong, if it is good for them, more power to them. I never found any peace in the sermons or the book.

I really need to get back into my research and learning. Just after the year on the school project, I'm not much in the mood to exert much mental sweat at the moment. Perhaps in another week or so I will be more up for it.

Day: 4/13/08

Well, my year of work on the Domani School has come to an end. I have studied, drafted, erased, and pulled more than a few hairs out over the course of the year. At the end of all that, progress has been minimal.

The most I can say I actually did is modify the school motto.
Regenerate the website (did a lot better this time. :) .
Pared down the course list and generated a rough idea of what the courses should be about.
Outlined the structure for creation of the syllabus of each class.
Learn that there is a lot of legalities behind the words.
And that there are many more years of work to be done, whether it is done by me or not.

Aside from that, not much else was done. There are a lot of procedures that still need to be decided. And a lot of those can not be done until a better understanding and know-how is gained on how the actual school will operate.

So now I lay down my pen and free my thoughts for a while to wander as they will without the worry of the school for a while until I feel the muses descend and grant me the desire to push onward.

Day: 4/11/08

Please give a moment of silence for the passing of my friend, Chuck Paslay.

A young man, at 32, who fell to a heart attack. He will be missed by many.
He leaves behind a wife and child and father.

Day: 4/9/08

A strange night this night.

I awoke at 1:30'ish in the morning to a fit of coughing. I had taken some Robitussin to control the cough not an hour earlier, but it didn't seem to have the punch to knock it out. So, I was left wondering what I would do about this situation. I felt a bit sore from the coughing so I figured what I needed was a good warm bath. Perhaps the vapors from the hot water would ease my sinuses and cough, and the warm water would ease my body.

We had some aromatherapy bath crystals from an earlier cold that had been in the house, so I threw a good heap of those into the tub and turned the hot water onto high. The crystals immediately dissolved into the water and the smell filled the bathroom with a pleasant odor of eucalyptus, menthol, and echinacea.

Not wanting to wake the entire house, I figured I would keep things dark and just sit in the tub without turning on the lights. I also thought that this would keep me from starting up my night owl tendencies to want to stay up if I kept things like I should be asleep. Not wanting to kill myself around the bathtub, I found a small candle and lit it and placed it on a small shelf in the tub so I would have a little light to work by. By now, the water in the hot water tank had pretty much run out and the water had turned cooler. The tub water was plenty hot, and I tested it, finding that it was too hot and added some cold water. Of course, this would be much more pleasant if I had a tub I could actually relax in. But, we make do with what we have.

So I'm relaxing as best I can in the tub and given that I did not really have much else to do, I sat and watched the candle while the water and bath crystals did their things. It is a funny thing to sit and watch...

I sat thinking about the past. People I could remember. Places I had been. Things I had done. I thought about the day's events, who said what, where I went, who I saw. I watched it all with a cold detachment, like it was a fleeting memory. No real emotion to it, just a fading film of time past.

I sat and thought about the future. I had talked to a friend, Faith, earlier regarding just what the future is and how divination foretells the future. I have found it best for me to consider that the future is not a set thing. I have believed it to be the result of a course of decisions. Given any decision we are offered, we have multiple paths that extend out from the decision. Each path is an option. Depending on which option we take, we lay out the future in a like manner. Divination is just the Universal Concious saying, "Hey! You've got some decisions ahead of you. Given the past and your nature, this is the most likely way it could turn out."

I sat and considered the relationships in my life. Some are better than others. Some I wondered what purpose they served. Some I wondered if they were really worth even keeping. We are often defined in society by the company we keep. If you hang out with a certain type of people on a regular basis, society has the tendency to just lump you in with them, even if that is not who you really are. Society does funny things like that. I normally dismiss such assumptions, knowing better who I am than what they perceive. But, like so many things in our world, things are based more on what we see than what we know.

I sat and considered the candle. Yeah, I know, but it is really interesting when you sit and watch the flame. The way it flickers back and forth. Almost...as if it is dancing for you. The way the wax melts, normally a bit unevenly. The smell of the burning wax and the slight wisp of smoke that you can see if you watch just right. I thought of days of old when candles were all there were for light. Before electricity, but out of the stone age. Simple, yet deadly, times. I watched the shadows and the light dance on the walls, in the water, all around. How it stretched and skewed this way and that with the changes in surface.

I thought about where my life was heading. What I needed to change. How I needed to change. Why I needed to change. In the world of the Chaote, everything is a possible change at some point. I even considered coloring my hair a nice shade of neon green. :) I thought it would look pretty good, but probably not until I was tanned instead of pasty white. :) My job, that was an easy one to decide on, that needs to change. My family...that is a difficult one to consider. I would say I am probably stuck with them until I die, or run off into the wild, change my name and never look back (but that might be a bit extreme... :) )

I finally found out that the water was getting a little on the cold side, so I broke out of my thoughts and took a few minutes to chuckle at how I had spaced out for nearly an hour and a half. I felt much better after all my time in the water. I wonder how much of my ease was caused by the water, the crystals, or just letting my mind go a wandering.

Dream: 4/8/08

I had been transferred to Chancery Court. I found myself seated near the middle of the office (similar to where I am now) facing the front doors and I could see a small marble topped counter ahead of me where filings were taken in. I heard a dot matrix printer begin printing, and thinking to myself that someone had printed a label for a court jacket. I looked about to see where the printer was or who was printing it.

At some point, I began talking to someone to my left about some 'odd' slugs that had started to appear. Just at that time, I saw a slug-ish type creature on this person's right shoulder. I don't remember the color, but it was multi-tentacled. I knocked it off this person's shoulder and watched it fall to the ground. It was still alive, so I put a binder clip on it (I suppose to keep it from getting away).

I then sat wondering why I was in this office and feeling a bit awkward, and I noticed that there was a computer in front of me. I started to use the computer and found myself in a screen where I could see multiple images of a pointing hand with finger extended moving around the screen. I guessed that this was representative of the other users of the network and I could see what they were at least doing with the mouse.

I think it was about time to leave so I turned off the computer. At some point in the dream, I recall there being conversation/someone saying to 'do not drink the water' in a kind of menacing voice/tone. End of memory.

Day: 4/8/08

It particularly irritates me at the absolute laziness of some people in the business world. Granted, there are some jobs that just by their very existance makes you wonder what they are there for since there are no duties actually assigned to such a position. But, it is the labor force of our society that I am talking about. The grunts in the foxholes on the front lines of retail. I have tried over the years to do my job, regardless of what it is I am supposed to do, to the best of my abilities at the time. I like knowing that a job I have finished is done to the best that I could have done. Sure, someone else might have done it faster, or even better, but for me, it was my 'A' game.

While I was at job #2 last night, I was given the task of filling the open door drink cooler. Normally, this is a job I try to get out of, just because I already know what is about to happen. It turns out, I was right this time too.

In a retail environment, it is only natural that there is some level of disorganization that occurs as customers browse the varied products, read labels, and even change their minds on a product. It is natural that while some people actually think to put the product back where they got it from, many at the same time do not. So, in the end, the retail employees usually have to spend some part of their day straightening and reorganizing merchandise so that customers can find things more readily.

This disorganization is only increased when the employees do not take the actual time to reorganize properly and just start putting products all willy-nilly in the general vicinity of where it belongs. This is my store's big problem with the drink cooler: Willy-Nilly Organization.

Now, I don't know how many people have actually noticed, but the price stickers in front of the merchandise is actually quite informative when you learn how to read the information. Typically, there is the price, a short or abbreviated description of what item the price refers to, and in some cases the UPC that is printed on the item. Other bits of info may be here, but these three are the most important parts. This information is critical for the organization of the store. We place product on the shelves using this information. We receive a product and send it to the department it is assigned to. The clerk of that department then takes the product to the proper area of that department. Using the package information, the price stickers (mylars), and a little common sense the clerk matches the product UPC and/or description to the mylar and places it on the shelf proper.

So when it comes to the drink cooler, I have to ask myself if it is just laziness or that someone actually can not read? I opt for the first, laziness. For an example: We carry some fifteen varieties/flavors of Gatorade. Each flavor is assigned a position in the drink cooler and is mylared to indicate where each flavor belongs. Not all flavors are kept cold, some are kept room temperature on the 'hot' shelf. So I ask you, why do I have to remove near every bottle of Gatorade from the cooler, resort the flavors into their respective position in the cooler, take the 'hot shelf' items to the 'hot' shelf just to take cooler items from there to put back in the cooler? Does it make any particular sense that I should remove from a single line of Gatorade six different flavors?

What really annoys me about all this willy-nilly'ness is that it is detrimental to the customers. I think everyone can agree that there is a particular flavor of something that they like. Be it a drink or a candy bar, when you go to a store you expect to find it without having to go on a treasure hunt for it. I certainly hate to have to look for a flavor that I like. If I don't see it on the shelf where it should be, I will ask an employee where it is (perhaps it had been moved to a new location) or I will just leave without and go somewhere else to find it.

This 'find it or leave' mentality is what I consider when I'm resorting the drinks in the cooler. How are we supposed to sell this stuff when noone can find what they want?

Anyways, I think I've ranted enough for the moment. :)

Day: 4/7/08

Now, I can appreciate the countryside as much as the next person, but I swear, if I have to drive by one more empty field on the highway, I think I will scream. So me and the girlfriend drove to Jonesboro this day. Boring. We did manage to keep ourselves conscious be talking, but there was not much to look at. I was particularly surprised at how little traffic there was. In my little world, I had thought Jonesboro to be a city of some significance, but with so little traffic on the expressway, I was really given reason to wonder if I was just imagnining the size of Jonesboro, or its importance. Even once we reached the city, there was not much traffic. Weird. A work day, not too long after most people had left work, and there still was not much in the way of traffic.

We made the hospital in plenty of time for visitation, and I must tell you, they have apparently some really good drugs up in there. My girlfriend's mother was flying higher than a kite after her procedures. All she could really talk about is how it was 'like being at Disneyland' with inflatable space suits she got to wear and the flying cars in the OPEC building. :)

The rest of the visit was mostly uneventful. We didn't have the test results back from the G.I.s and no doctors came by to visit to give us any information. The nurses on duty only took her vitals and left, bearing no information for us. Eventually, time came for us to leave. We gave our support and goodbyes and headed home.

If the drive up was boring, the drive back, at dusk/night was worse. Did not even have the fields to look at. So we chatted it up on the way back to pick up the kid. We arrived at our friends' house and spent a bit there talking about this and that. Finally, I was wore out and had to call it a night. We got home late and cleaned up and went to bed. A long day to be had.

Day: 4/5/08

Yep, I have been slacking off at my blogging. Truth be told, there is not really much to talk about. The only real article of semi-interest is my girlfriend's mother. As it is, they ran her to the emergency room over the weekend and ran her through the gears a few times, a real guinea pig routine. They at first thought that she had a cancerous growth, but now that is questionable. There are various other things going on with her, but nothing quite as severe. An upper hernia, high blood pressure, panic attacks, and blood clotting are giving the doctors and nurses fits. So now it is going to be an upper and lower G.I. probes to see why some swelling has not gone away yet, and then back to other things wrong with her. It is not all bad though, she is getting morphine shots, so she is feeling quite well. :)

In the meantime, work has been work. I again want to make it known if my co-workers are reading this, I do apologize for being out Friday, but there really was not to be any other way around it.

My girlfriend has been having some bad headaches the past few since all the emotional stress with her mother is just kind of riding on her shoulders right now, and she's in that time of the month which really is not helping matters. The boy has been a handful, but manageable. Me, well, still sick-ish, but I really do feel like I am improving. I only cough now and again, but I make it a doozie when I do. :)

Other than that, I do not really think there is anything much more to say. I have some work to finish on The Domani School, but that is something really for another day.

Day: 3/31/08

Well, today was one of those days that I feel like I have more to do than I really do. I don't really know why I get that rushed feeling. It's annoying to say the least. Oh well, made it through the day with nary a scratch. As for my activities, spent most of the time working on the webpages of The Domani School for the better part of the day. I had told Lord Shadow that I would give a year to working on the school before I made any further decisions regarding it. Well, as it is, the year is almost up and I honestly don't have much to show for it. I secured sites for the School, a website, email, and I had a discussion board around here somewhere...oh well, I'll find it one day. :)
The website for the School is probably one of my better achievements. I even finally managed to find a news ticker for it that I liked. :) So now it looks mostly professional. :)
I've really been struggling to work on the handbooks, the student and the faculty, there is just so much to cover and I don't even know half of what should be in there. Of course there is always the legal-ese stuff that needs to be in there, but that is for later. If I could just nail down a few things I would be more comfortable with my progress. Well, I don't know. Guess I'll just see what comes about.