Category Archives: Internet

Future Me

Posted on September 14, 2011 by | 11 comments


Morning Blogsters:

Someone showed me a website where a person can send emails to be delivered to themselves at some specified future time.  http://www.futureme.org/

Interesting thought.

What’s more interesting, however, is that a person’s allowed to have those emails to his future self posted for the public to read, though those are anonymous.

It’s a study in the way a lot of people view themselves.

One intriguing shot some 16 year old fired at his 22 year old self,

“I hope you’re out of the Marine Corps by now.  If you aren’t, you are an idiot.”

A 16-er who ain’t yet in the Gyrenes telling his future self he hopes he’s out by now and implying going in was a mistake???

But what’s most puzzling is the way so many are lecturing their future selves.

“I hope you own fifteen rent houses by now and are driving a Corvette.  If not, you’ve been procrastinating.  Get busy.”

Evidently a lot of people are going along on the assumption they’re as wise now as they’ll be five or ten years from now, and that the person they’ll be won’t shudder, nor blush that HERE’s what they used to be.  Here’s how they used to think.  Whew.

“No wonder my life is such a mess if THAT’s where I came from”, they’ll be saying.

One cute one  from some young adult of indeterminate age was addressed to him/herself to be delivered, January 1, 2013.  It congratulates the future self for being there to read the email, reminding about how he/she had been into Mayan prophesy predicting the end of the world in 2012.

OOOOOOOkay.

Got me thinking, what’s really needed is a site where we can send emails to be delivered to ourselves at specified times in the past.

For instance, I could send one to me for delivery January 1, 1999.

“Hi guy.

“You just took your retirement funds out of their safe haven, retired, and you’re getting ready to go off and prepare for the collapse of civilization. 

  • “You think the banks, the IRS, everything’s going deep South a year from now. 
  • “You think buying that land on installments is a smart move, that the money’s better spent buying food, shelter, barter items, medications, for hoards of refugees that will be coming out of the cities.  Because,
  • “You think when civilization collapses the taxes, the installments, even paper cash will be gone, kaput.

“I don’t want to influence you about most of what you’re going to do during the next year, but I do have a couple of suggestions.

  • “First, notice I’m sending you this email by computer from 2011.
  • “Second, you’ve asked yourself what you’re going to do if the lights don’t go out and think you know the answer.  Prepare yourself for a surprise or two.  No need to change anything much, but keep in mind life is full of the unexpected.  Savor the adventure. 
  • “Third, store your retirement cash you’re depending on in case Y2K doesn’t happen in a metal container where the rats can’t get to it. (Trust me on this one.  Just do it and don’t ask any questions.)

“Other than that, you’re doing fine, sport.  Just go on with what you were doing when you opened this email.

“From the man you’re going to be twelve HARD years from now,”

“Jules”

“PS – There’s a website out there where you can answer this email and have it delivered to me now.  Don’t bother.  I  was you once.  I remember all about it.  You don’t have anything to say I don’t know already.

“PPS – Start learning as much as you can learn about playing blackjack.  You’re going to need it for a while. 

“I’d probably be remiss if I didn’t mention that you are one incredibly stupid SOB, though you don’t know it yet.  You won’t know it in 2002, 2006, 2008, even 2010, either, though it won’t have changed.  In fact, you’ll always be convinced you are right on top of things during all those times.  No problem, chum.  It will add a lot of adventure and spice to our life.

“You don’t get to be smart until September, 2011.  Tough gig but it’s something to look forward to.”

Old Jules

George Harrison– Any Road

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NOTE:  I can’t visit Face Book because of the load time and my slow connection.  However, Jeanne’s posted a video on my FB what? Account?  Site? Whatever they do over there.  It’s a short thing of a fawn born under my porch she caught on camera while she was here.  Those of you who are able to open Face Book might enjoy it.  Jules

11 Comments

Posted in Communication, Creative Writing, Current Issues, Human Behavior, Internet, Writing, Y2K, Youth

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To Live is to Fly

Posted on September 10, 2011 by | 7 comments


Good morning everyone, Admin. (Jeanne) here.

Old Jules told me that some folks have been asking about who I am and wonder how I came to be “behind the scenes” on this blog. He asked  me  to explain a bit about how we met and got to this point.

We actually met in a y2k chat room. When my ex and  I were researching y2k in ’98, I  was new to the internet and immediately became addicted to chat, where this guy who could really turn a phrase caught my attention with his sharp, although often warped, sense of humor. He obviously was an expert about  emergency preparedness and soon he and his y2k website became my number one resource.

When he got his property at a land auction in the summer of ’99, we also bought a piece of land and I went from Kansas to  New Mexico for the first time to sign the closing papers. My family put up our own getaway cabin about a mile and a half down the road from his place.  After three more trips to put supplies in place, I had a suspicion that y2k was going to be less of an event than had been predicted. I  decided to take advantage of the chance to give my kids a taste of a life not only in a different culture, but without telephone, electricity, or indoor plumbing. By New Year’s I was there with all five of my kids, and I  lived there for 4 more months with the three of them that were homeschooling.  Jules and my family became good neighbors. He again became a valuable resource for us when we were studying New Mexico culture, history, and geography.

After my family reunited back in Kansas, we stayed in close contact. When I quit homeschooling and began working outside the home, he again became a mentor for me, since his career  in management positions gave him perspectives that would have taken me years to learn.  After my divorce a few years later we shared a house in Placitas, N.M. for a couple of years before I again moved back to Kansas. I’ve visited Old Jules in New Mexico many times, and in Texas a few times.  We’ve taken a lot of day trips, hit the thrift stores, and shared our cats, music, and books.  We’ve also collaborated on various  projects.  He’s been great about encouraging me in my art work, too.

I work two library jobs, and I’ve always had a passion for reading and writing.  I’ve had blogs myself, but I decided a while ago that my own expression should focus more on my art  than writing. I have other friends who are writers and I enjoy following their progress. Living on the edge as Old Jules does, with a slow dial-up connection on a phone line that I happen to know has a tree branch lying across it right now, makes it difficult for him to maintain a blog site. Since I’ve always enjoyed reading what Old Jules writes, I’m happy to help by using my fast internet connection to set up and maintain the blog.  So this blog is truly a joint project.  When we can, we use photos that we’ve taken ourselves, and discussing which music  fits each post is one of the parts about it that I enjoy most.

Because we live 800 miles apart, we don’t actually see each other very often,  so we’re grateful to live in a time when y2k didn’t bring down the grid,  destroying communications and becoming the end of the world as we know it.
We hope you’re grateful, too.

Mandala 56
Addendum: Here’s a link to my Deviant Art page for those who’d like to see more of my drawings. I don’t update the page very often, but it’s a handy place to have a gallery!
http://mandalagal.deviantart.com/gallery/

Townes Van Zandt– To Live is to Fly

7 Comments

Posted in 1990's, Admin., Adventure, Communication, Emergency Preparedness, Homesteading, Human Behavior, Internet, NM, Relationships, Y2K

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Weekend Note from Admin.

Posted on September 3, 2011 by | 6 comments

Labor Day weekend greetings from Admin:

I thought since it’s a holiday weekend, most people will be out and away from their computers, and  it might be a  good time for  me to  insert a couple of comments about the blog.

First, an apology to the subscribers who have on at least two occasions received notice that a new post had been published, and then found that it was unavailable. I take responsibility for that mistake–when I’m proofreading,  I sometimes get so distracted with Old Jules’ scintillating wit that on occasion I hit “publish” instead of “preview” or “save draft”.  You’d think that someone in charge of the details  would be more careful, especially after the first time, but… it happened again today.  So, I’m sorry for the carelessness.

Second, Facebook users might want to know that So Far From Heaven: Old Jules has a Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/pages/So-Far-From-Heaven-Old-Jules/123855484372872 in spite of the fact that Old Jules himself doesn’t have a fast enough connection to view it.

I’m posting a feature called “Ask Old Jules. ” On an irregular basis, I put up previous material from Old Jules in a question/answer format, and you’re welcome to post questions on the wall as well.  When a question is posted, I forward it to him and post the reply when I receive it.

As usual, if anyone has a comment or suggestion about the blog’s appearance or features, you are welcome to email me at the address found on the Admin. page on the navigation bar.

The above image is one of my gel pen drawings. It’s what I do when I’m not  working or laughing at Old Jules’ stories.

Have a good holiday weekend!
Mandala56

Ozark Mountain Daredevils – You Made It Right live 1976

http://youtu.be/k8NPdyVw5XE

6 Comments

Posted in 2011, Adventure, Internet, Relationships

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Learn a New Language with YouTube

Posted on August 22, 2011 by | 14 comments


Hi blogsters:

I rarely talk to young people, though I’ll confess to craftily observing them when I can, watching their interactions reflected in a plate-glass window, sneakily watching them at another table in a restaurant, trying to hear and understand what they’re saying.

The problem is, mostly I can’t understand what they’re saying.  As the years have progressed I’ve noticed that, even in convenience stores and fast-food joints I often can’t understand the simplest thing that’s being spoken.  I tilt my head, ask them to repeat, explain I’m a bit hard of hearing and ask them to repeat again, and finally usually give up and just smile and nod ‘yes’ if that seems it might be appropriate.

I don’t believe it’s entirely my hearing doing this.  I think there’s something new and different going on with language, but more importantly, inside the heads of people who sound as though words should be spoken through a mouth full of something, and really fast.

Mostly I don’t have a clue.  Frequently my curiosity taunts me.  I don’t know who these people are.  I don’t know what, nor how, they think.  To me it would be easy to merely mutter to myself, these kids are incredibly stupid, illiterate, and so whacked-out on television and public school brainwashing it’s a wonder they can function at all.

But I’m trying to insist to myself that the human race hasn’t truly devolved all that much in only a couple of generations.  These aren’t subhumans, though it would be easy to conclude they are, based on a lot of their mannerisms and behaviors in public.  I think these creatures probably think and feel, but that they don’t express those thoughts and feelings in ways that allow me to fathom them.

Enter, the blessing of YouTube.  When they aren’t too long, it rarely takes more than half-hour download on my dial-up.  But it’s a chance to actually decipher something one of those people thinks, feels and expresses, in a way that bypasses the mouth full of marbles and the speed with which the words come to the fore.  Once it’s downloaded it can be repeated until near-understanding arrives.

Old Jules

Steve Goodman– Talk Backwards [Edit: hope one of these links will work better]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AMSMAjg2zCU

http://youtu.be/AMSMAjg2zCU

(Cee Lo Green) “Fuck You” sign language performance
http://youtu.be/sv3tadz5Q3o

Note: Thanks to Monique Maes for her photo.
http://moniquemaes.tumblr.com/
http://www.reverbnation.com/teapartyseance

14 Comments

Posted in 2011, America, Communication, Education, Human Behavior, Internet, Senior Citizens, Youth, YouTube

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Some blogs you might sneak a peek at

Posted on August 11, 2011 by | Leave a comment

I’m finding I like them fairly well:

the slitty eye  See the reality from my slitty eyes – Asian perspective ..

different slant on a lot of issues

http://theslittyeye.wordpress.com/

Looting Matters – Discussion of the archaeological ethics surrounding the collecting of antiquities.

http://www.lootingmatters.blogspot.com/

The Outspaceman – unusual art, music observations, woodwin instruments

http://outaspaceman.blogspot.com/

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Posted in Adventure, Creative Writing, Internet

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Internet Wisdom

Posted on August 3, 2011 by | 8 comments

I spent a while this morning visiting various blogs, groups and reading blasts.  Stayed mostly away from the news feeds, however.

But I came away renewed, refreshed and relaxed from all the exercise dodging ricochets of wisdom, originality and profundity.

  • Found out Love’s a big deal however it happens to be packaged, especially if it’s universal and unconditional (not making any demands), and I was appropriately edified with the knowing of it.
  • Found out pets are cute and smart, which I hadn’t noticed before,
  • Found out wild animals wouldn’t hurt a flea, mostly, unless it’s the fault of some human,
  • Found out humans mostly wouldn’t hurt a flea if they’re properly loved,
  • Found out millions of chickens spending their lives in lines of 3′ wire cubes a mile long and three deep from egg to hatchet were capable of being subjected to some irony  called legal cruelty if they died prematurely by some other than the normal method,
  • Discovered there’s an amazing breadth of conflicting, mutually exclusive truths floating around,
  • Discovered the wisest folk on the planet and those most prone to pass one-sentence fragments of that wisdom along to others are those who wish they’d been born with a Tribal Census Number of one sort or another, but who almost certainly weren’t (though they, followed by I, would be the last to say so).  The good news is there are plenty more of the same tribe willing to shoot it back at them.

I suppose I’ve almost exhausted that source of wisdom for the moment.  Thinking next I’m going to study the labels on food cans.

Old Jules

http://www.pcworld.com/article/137100/the_10_funniest_sites_on_the_internet.html

8:00 AM afterthought

I probably should have mentioned something else I’m noticing and find a lot more humorous than any of the above:

The emergence of the “I fought in [name a war the US indulged in during the past half century] syndrome.  Most don’t come right out and say so, but the great majority attempt to convey a distinct impression they were infantry point men, or at least out where the bullets were flying.  And it was tough.   The PX, pizzas and whores were all off somewhere different than where they were.  Tough and scary with all those meanies trying to get through the wire every night and them laying ambushes on the jungle trails, crawling in tunnels full of snakes and little brown brothers with hand grenades.  Unspoken implications they weren’t among the 150/1 REMF [rear-echelon MFs] in Vietnam, not among the 500/1 in everything since.

Naturally all this gets followed by a lot of fawning modern day patriots thanking them for protecting all this freedom we now enjoy, frowning about how little thanks and respect vets get for being vets.

If you hold your mouth right you can get a smile out of this phenomenon.  Twist it around a little further and you can even squeeze out a laugh.

REMFs circa 1963

[Edit:  Sheeze.  Just got an email from someone thought I was saying I was a Vietnam Vet.  I’m not.  This pic is Korea, 1963.  Nobody ever heard of Vietnam yet.  That 1st Cav patch – in those days was “The horse we never rode, the line we never crossed and the yellow is the reason why”]

I took the picture but I’ve since then metamorphosed into a point-man with a nasty scowl figuring on getting a Veteran bumper sticker and some thanks for all I must have sacrificed so you modern patriots could stay free, etc etc etc etc etc.

Sometimes I think we old people really are as pathetic as young people believe we are.

10:00 AM afterthought

If lip-service croc-tears patriots actually wanted to say thanks to someone who made a sacrifice they’d pay a visit now and then to a long-term care VA hospital instead of displaying “Support Our Troops” stickers and sloganizing a lot of easy, empty rhetorical cliché.  The wheel chair population wasting away forgotten in those hospitals sacrificed something they wanted to keep, even though they probably never believed they did it to protect the freedom of anyone else.

Likely it gets lonesome in there being a has-been swept off into a corner so’s they don’t distract from the enthusiasm for the ones haven’t done their unintentional sacrificing yet.  Paying them an occasional visit, taking them a pecan pie, sitting around exchanging lies about wars we fought would get a lot nearer to sincerity than a thousand flags and bumper stickers.

And those guys would welcome it, though they’d have every right to be suspicious and wonder whether the world’s coming to an end.

8 Comments

Posted in 1960's, America, Human Behavior, Internet, Liars, Reading, Senior Citizens

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White Trash Repairs: Throwing Down the Gauntlet

Posted on July 31, 2011 by | 15 comments

It’s a slow day here, is the reason I’m posting this.  It’s not because I was over reading White Trash Repairs/There, I Fixed It – Repairs blog http://thereifixedit.failblog.org/ and got riled with their uppidy attitudes.

No, I just feel a need to be forthright about the kind of person I choose to be.  Maybe that can best be expressed with a sneak preview of some projects I’ll be discussing here later.

After I haul some more rocks the above is going to be a woodshed with a watertight roof.  The hot tub was on the porch when I moved here, cracked, home to wildlife.  Now it’s metamorphosing into an eventual place to keep my firewood dry.
There’s a lot of work yet to be done raising that roof a few more feet.

Then there’s this.  A nesting box for brooding hens to keep them separate until the chicks are old enough to mix with the flock, but still protected from predators.  Refrigerator shelves cut down to fit the cable spool, mounted on a sawed-in-half lawn mower platform for mobility:

Or this:  A chicken-house fabricated entirely from salvage, discarded shower doors, camper shell roof, refrigerator shelves, whatever came to hand free:


There.  I fixed it.

Old Jules

15 Comments

Posted in 2011, Country Life, Homesteading, Human Behavior, Internet, Poultry, White Trash Repairs

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Riding the Bread Line

Posted on July 13, 2011 by | 3 comments


Someone sent me an email forward the other day explaining to me how illegal aliens, welfare recipients, other low-lifes and me, retired and living off Social Security,  is what’s causing this great country to go down the tube.  I swan.

I don’t have a TV, don’t listen to radio, don’t read newspapers or magazines, but I do get email forwards and see sidebar news flashes at Internet sites.  So knowing the country is down the tube didn’t come as a complete shock to me.  Every couple of weeks I go to town for groceries, chicken feed and other necessaries, and the fact gasoline prices are a mite high, bread, milk and produce are worth more than they used to be, and people are older, all had me wondering if things hadn’t slipped downhill.

But knowing all those old people in the grocery lines and I are causing it surely gave me pause.

Made me realize life is harder for people with ball-caps turned sideways, studs in their nostrils, belly buttons and lips, tattoo-tears running down off their faces, and attitude have it tougher than I did all those years I was younger than I am now, because I wasn’t up here then.

I mostly try to mind my own business and tend my own affairs.  I don’t want to be a part of a problem someone else has.  If people living down in the trailer parks sitting in the backs of their pickups drinking beer Saturday afternoons are suffering harder than they would if I was out living under a bridge somewhere dumpster-diving for a living I wouldn’t be half the man I think I am if I didn’t consider it a viable alternative.

I paid money every paycheck for about 50 years into Social Security, but I never figured I’d come to depend on it for a living.  When it happened I never stopped to consider that expecting some of it back was different from people living off their military retirement, Federal Employment Retirement, or Congressional Retirement systems.

If I need to go dumpster-diving and live under a bridge to clear my conscience I figure I can do it.  Lots of people are already doing it.  Just looking at them I hadn’t thought about the moral high ground they’re holding.

Old Jules

King of the Road- Roger Miller
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GOkc6aEfkM

3 Comments

Posted in 2011, America, Communication, Current Issues, Free, Homesteading, Human Behavior, Internet, Politics, Senior Citizens, Social Security, Solitude, Survival, Welfare

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