Tag Archives: lifestyle

It’s been a hard days night

Posted on August 8, 2014 by | 4 comments

Hi readers.  Thanks for coming by.

I was going to tell you and forgot.  Graduation day at the cardiac physical therapy facility a little fat guy about my age who’s always pretended I don’t exist was standing nearby as I chugged water.  He asked one of the other guys who the graduation banner was up for.

“It’s for Jack.  He’s graduating today.”

“I wonder if he’ll celebrate by getting a shave and haircut.”

To which I couldn’t resist, “No, but I might try to gain 40 pounds, get six inches shorter and start picking my nose a lot.”

I’m thinking I might have run into the guy in an all-night truck stop when I was hitching through in 1965.  2 am drunken local good old boys noticed me in a back booth swilling coffee waiting for daybreak.

“Hey, what have we got here?  Are you one of the Beetles?”

“Isn’t it a little late for that shit?”

Some things never change.

Old Jules

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Posted in 2014, Adventure, America

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Graduation March

Posted on August 7, 2014 by | 7 comments

Hi readers.  Monday after Physical Therapy they stood me in front of a Happy Graduation banner, gave me a diploma and card signed by all the nurse-ladies, put a mortarboard hat on me and took a picure.  Then they played Graduation March and I went around the room shaking hands while all the old codgers on machines cheered and waved on their various machines.

So the VA paid-for session of my return to physical perfection is done.

I’ve paid for another month use of the Olathe Community Center machines because I’m not 17 years old again yet.

Some of the guys who’ve been using the medical center facility a long time who’d been through similar cardiac situations to mine said they kept improving a while after the first physical therapy, is the reason I’m still hopeful it’s going to improve more despite congestive heart failure.  But they also said, every one I discussed it with, that there’s a plateau that comes somewhere afterward, and things don’t get better from then on.  It becomes a matter of maintaining, holding what you’ve got.

So I’m hoping the plateau for me will involve an ejection factor a bit higher than the 10-15% the VA and private cardiologists measured before therapy.  I need to be able to go out in the world and climb over fences, trespass onto forbidden places.  I need to be able to walk down to the grocery store somewhere and back with a bag of groceries inside each arm.

Or at least I need to be able to walk around the streets somewhere pusing a shopping cart with my belongings in it without tiring myself out too terribly.  Some things in life a person just hates to give up the prospects for.

But phase one is done.  Sorry if you didn’t get your invitation but graduation was never a sure thing.  Even during the final weeks, even the next-to-the-last session the fast six minute measured distance walk took the wind out of my sails.

I’m going to miss all those old guys.  Especially the ones doing post-graduate work hanging around because they didn’t have a courthouse square to hang around in playing dominoes and spitting tobacco.  They’re paying a dear price to go there and can’t even spit.

Old Jules

 

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Posted in 2014, Adventure, America

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Veterans Administration assigned responsibility for preventing Ebola outbreak inside US

Posted on August 6, 2014 by | 2 comments

Hi readers.  Thanks for coming by for a read.

Most of you will have already seen the news that the VA Medical Centers have been given complete responsibility for preventing spread of the Ebola pandemic to the US.  The White House issued the statement Tuesday that, “the facilities are in place all over the nation and are under utilized.  Recent new attention to possibly funding the VA Medical Centers and providing physicians who have not had their licenses to practice medicine suspended yet provides a solution to two problems.  And a possible solution to a lot of others.”

Workers in VA Medical Centers are numerous and if Ebola or some other contagion doesn’t prevent it, many will enjoy Federal retirement benefits within twenty years.  Potential fiscal saving spinoffs for giving Ebola to the VA are enormous.

Old Jules

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Posted in 2014, America, Government

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How can Facebook going down not be a reason to call 911?

Posted on August 5, 2014 by | 1 comment
Sgt. Brink ✔ @LASDBrink

is not a Law Enforcement issue, please don’t call us about it being down, we don’t know when FB will be back up!

11:37 AM – 1 Aug 2014
Some things are capable of being reduced to such a small vessel of reality nothing more needs saying.
Old Jules

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Posted in 2014

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A Fresh Look

Posted on August 5, 2014 by | 2 comments

Hi readers.  Thanks for coming by for a read.

We humans, we Americans are chock-full of opinions.  Most we’ve had for ages, decades, and we can’t actually identify when we came to adopt them, can’t support them with anything deeper than gut feel.  Mostly it doesn’t matter because nobody cares anyway.

But the opinions we choose reflect the health of our souls.  In a real sense our opinions are who we are.  Occasionally it’s worth distancing ourselves from them and the ego attachments we form to them.  Just to find out whether our opinions have any connection to anything inside the real world.

Old Jules

Why Can’t Americans See the Obvious Truth?

Jimmy Carter unveils truth about Israel

An honest Israeli Jew tells the Real Truth about Israel

Jews Against Zionism

Will Israel Assassinate Obama?

 

 

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Posted in 2014, America

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Pretty enjoyable grannylady chick flick

Posted on August 4, 2014 by | 2 comments
 
Hi readers.  She snuck out of the nursing home they put her in after they snagged her car and sold her house.  When a movie begins with that there’s nothing much can be done to spoil the ending.  I’d put it up beside Harry and Tonto, generally.
Redwood Highway, 2013PG-131hr 30m, You rated this movie: 5 ,  Itching to get out of her retirement community but estranged from her family, Marie uses her granddaughter’s wedding as an excuse to go on a walk.
Woman my age dons a backpack and hikes roughly 100 miles up the California coast dodging search and rescue, refusing rides and shooting molesters in the face with bear spray.

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Posted in 2014, Adventure, America

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Library Mail Art Project Received July 16- Aug. 2nd

Posted on August 2, 2014 by | Leave a comment

More Library Mail Art Project came in while Jeanne was off doing whatever people do when they’re climbing Mount Ranier and wasting their lives away in boredom from not being home with the cats. Old Jules

Library Mail Art 2014

We had several great submissions while I was on vacation, so let’s catch up with more mail art!

First, from Suzlee Ibrahim in Malaysia. I’ll show both sides of the card because I think stamps, postmarks, and air mail stickers are also interesting! Thank you, Suzlee.

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IMG_4473Next, our youngest contributor, Elizabeth Schwartz, age 9. This one is postmarked San Francisco. Nice work, Elizabeth, thank you for participating!  If any other children are interested in sending their art, we would love to see it!

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The next one is titled “Book Love” and is from Jill Wiggins, in Austin, Texas. Thank you so much, Jill, and thank you for your description of your process in the message!
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Our next artist is Consuelo Debiagi from Campinas, Brazil.  Lieratura Literatura. The encaustic technique, using wax, will take a polish to preserve the shine. It’s lovely to see in person. Thank you, Consuelo!

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This next one is…

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Posted in 2014

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What homo sapiens think about

Posted on August 1, 2014 by | 2 comments

Hi readers.  Thanks for coming by for a read.

Most of you probably are aware that as soon as human beings discovered, sometime during the 1700s, I think, that they were Homo sapiens, they figured out they needed a dictionary to find out what they were.  When they discovered they are wise and judgemental by definition, they immediately began wondering what they thought about.

The question was a tough one.  Mostly humans seemed to think they’d like a little something to eat.  Or they thought they’d like another brewsky, or they thought they were horny.  Sometimes, particularly during the winter months Homo sapiens thought it was cold and some even thought they’d like something to wrap around themselves to get warmer.

But otherwise Homo sapiens sapiens were less obvious about what they were thinking and discovering the nature of it eluded scientists.  Until psychology, then Facebook came along to allow them to publicly display what they were thinking.

“I think [name a celebrity] is awesome!”

“I think those [name a sports team] are awesome!”

“I think [name a consumer item] is awesome.”

“I think mean people suck!”

“I think I need a raise in pay!”

“I think the boss sucks!”

Researchers confirm that 98.7 percent of homo sapiens thought are either among these, or are within the same family of concepts.

Good to know we know what we are finally.

Old Jules

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Posted in 2014, Adventure, America

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Winkie Hodges – They still called him Winkie

Posted on July 29, 2014 by | 10 comments

Hi readers.  When Keith and I were kids in Portales in 1954,  a boy named Harold Hodges ran around with us a little.  For some reason we called him Winkie.  Keith and I discussed him sometime a while back and he knew Winkie a long while after I lost track.  Winkie was one of the really honest-to-goodness poor kids we knew.  Hardscrabble farm kid out in the sand hills off the Clovis highway.

I knew his dad died in the mountains deer hunting in 1955, I remembered that.  And I remembered his mom became a bootlegger to make a living in alcohol-dry Roosevelt County.

Anyway, I was remembering an incident on the school grounds involving Winkie, Keith and I getting into one hell of a lot of trouble with a teacher named Mrs. Tate.  The meanest teacher I ever had, maybe the meanest woman I ever encountered this lifetime, though she had stiff competition on both avenues.

But Winkie, Keith and I made her cry.  On the other hand, thanks to her I didn’t learn long division until a quarter-century later.  It wasn’t an even trade, but it was the best three 4th graders could do given the resources available.

Anyway, I did a websearch for Harold Hodges, then Winkie Hodges.  Just curious.  All I came up with was an obit for a name I’d encountered several years later when I lived in Borger, Texas.  Small world.  Winkie was still alive in 1998, still in Portales, and they were still calling him Winkie.

Abbie G. Friend
  BORGER – Abbie G. Friend, 85, died Monday, Nov. 2, 1998.

She married Deane Friend in 1975 at Borger. She was preceded in death
by a son.

Survivors include her husband; three sons, Wayne Vaughan of Mission,
Jack Vaughan of Pryor, Okla., and Gerald Vaughan of Long Beach,
Calif.; three brothers, Volly Hodges of Friona, Teet Hodges of
Roswell, N.M., and Winkie Hodges of Portales, N.M.; seven sisters,
Lorene Cunningham of Lubbock, Lois Hill of Odessa, Bernice Alexander
and Natoma Reigle, both of San Antonio, Geraldine Farmer of Ozark,
Ark., Maggie Rae Gibbs of Silver City, N.M., and Lena May Gibbs of
Portales, N.M.; seven grandchildren; and 12 great-grandchildren.

The family suggests memorials be to the Women’s Abuse Center.

Sooooo.  Bound to be a story worth knowing why the family wanted memorials sent to the Women’s Abuse Center, but it didn’t have anything I could discern to do with Winkie Hodges.  Just Coincideneces trekking around roping and branding everything in sight.

Anyway, Winkie’s dad died of a heart attack early in life, but I think he might still be alive.  I didn’t find an obit on him, anyway.  If I ever figure out I’ve got enough heart left to travel I think I might try to look him up or find his gravestone.

Old Jules

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Posted in 1950's

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They’re accusing him of plagiarizing from Martin Luther King’s doctoral dissertation

Posted on July 29, 2014 by | Leave a comment

Hi readers.   Thanks for coming by for a read.

The plot thickens on the politician wannabe in Montana who coincidently used identical words, sentences, paragraphs and phrases that had been used before.  The paper, The Case for Democracy as a National Strategy, was also similar in content to  approximately one point seven million [1,700,000] papers written by high school seniors during the past seventy years.  As well as 90 million [90,000,000] papers written by university freshmen for Government 101 and Political Science 101 courses.

Back when Martin Luther King was a young man doing his doctoral dissertation he encountered approximately the same phenomenon, though nobody much remembers it nowadays.  King’s dissertation was found to contain huge amounts of text previously written verbatim in dissertations earlier by doctoral candidates.  And like the guy from Montana, King didn’t want to bog himself down by identifying in footnotes all the people who coincidently had been inspired to the same choice of words and thoughts as his own.

By the time the anomaly was discovered in the academic community Dr. King was a big item on the Civil Rights scene in the US [probably which is the reason it was discovered at all].  And academic reviewers were forced to conclude coincidences happen.  Huge, 30-40% or more of the document verbatim coincidences.

Well, I don’t know what the Montana guy thinks about Civil Rights.  And I honestly am appalled the Army War College is accepting papers from anyone on the subject of,  The Case for Democracy as a National Strategy.  In this instance the similar verbage found itself dually existing in the Montana guy’s paper, and a paper put together by some national think-tank foundation a few years earlier.  Probably the Montanan believed nobody anywhere would have read it, and in a better world, he’d have been right in thinking so.

Maybe he just got caught up in some statistical thing being done by institutions of higher learning, scanning the web to discover how many doctoral dissertations across the country were composed of identical text from that particular document without being cited.  And once they discovered a few thousand masters theses and doctoral dissertations were founded on identical text not cited from the think-tank, they concluded someone had to be made an example of.

Someone safe, not from a top-drawer university, someone white from someplace where people go to South Dakota wintertimes for the warmer weather.  The Army War College and Montana seemed right.  And after all, this guy already had a claim to victimhood with his post-traumatic-stress-syndrome.

They threw the word ‘honor’ in there somewhere, but the whole issue of honor went away a longish time ago around the time Martin Luther King was doing his doctoral dissertation.  Honor’s just something high-ranking soldiers use to justify following orders to bomb civilian populations and whatnot.  A thing of the past.

Old Jules

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Posted in 2014, America, Government, Human Behavior, Military, Politics

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