I was Thinking, or Not

At the end of the day, homelessness means nothing to me.  Of what use do I need a home, I have no family, I have no friends, and only my words keep me company.  I can always climb back into the bottle and practice the great art of slow deliberate suicide by bottle. It is the love of my life, my beautiful and caring wife Arleta who I strive for.  If not for her I would not most likely be here today to write this, and there are plenty of people who would most likely prefer it was that way. I read the comments, go to social services, or other such services, you don’t think we didn’t consider that.  Even though it pains me to do so, we have, but they have no help for us, especially for us to move away from the services.  The pure ignorance that I run into all the time just makes me ill.  You all say you can’t help others, but you will gladly go to your local church and put $10.00 every week into their coffers.  For what a chance at salvation, reall...

From: Letters to No One in Particular These friends that you speak of, yes I know them quite well… they are an illusion to me now. I still think of “friends” that were friends once upon a time, far far away.  I see their lives play out on the screen from the safety of my monitor, alive, but barely living.  Why haven’t we kept in touch, what has changed all that much, I can not say, but it was a long, long ways away. Ah, but I have reached out, here and there, the occasional call, a casual hello, maybe even a conversation sometimes, that will lead to an agreement to meet sometime, but it will never be arranged.  We are all too busy with our lives.  We have all changed, and grew away from that time, we remember, if we choose to, but most of us choose not to, it wasn't all that pretty even back then. The last time we met, I was too strung out to forget, or I was too sober to compete with anyone’s bet.  There were a couple of times I do not regret,...

I wonder sometimes if anyone actually reads this stuff, or if all the hits to the site I get are just spiders on the web checking for prey. Well anyways, here is what I would like people to do, just comment on your social site of choice, be it Google+ , Twitter , or Facebook , and let me know if you think I should get rid of the advertisements on my blog. I really do not like them, they slow down the page load by a lot, and often I really do not like the ads I see, as they are often not really related to the post I am making.  They may often be related to me, the person I am, based on my web history, but they are not related to the blog, or the person I am, the author of this blog.  I think if I am going to have advertising on my blog, rather than it being an automated script, maybe I should just host static ads from things that matter to me, the author.  In this way I am endorsing that which matter to me. I figure if it matters to me, as the author, the readers wi...

Michael Shermer: What Is Skepticism, Anyway? : 'via Blog this' While I would like to agree with this article, and its author, his level of arrogance and ignorance (which by the way appear to be often closely related) make it nearly impossible to lend it any credence.  Add to that the hundreds of comments, all which tend to display but additional ignorance, it only allows me to come to the tentative conclusion that this is one subject that few know much if any about. A belief does not require evidence, and evidence does not require belief.  More so evidence is momentary, it is all that is known of a particular state at the time that it is given.  Like security, it is only as secure as its last update.  Sometimes people confuse truth and fact.  The fact is there is no truth.  All that he espouses in his post is subjective, for as humans we are psychologically incapable of objectivity, even with all our "tools" and tricks and peer reviews.  We are h...

I never did learn to play guitar.  It is not the discipline, or the time it would take, but that it just did not seem to serve my purposes.  I like to experiment with the shape and color of the sounds that I can create with the instrument.  It is for I that I play with the guitar, not that I am opposed to the audience, or even aware of them, but that I just have no other interest in that aspect of the music. Over the years I have learned a few cords, and if I take my time, I can play a tune or two, maybe you might even recognize one, but it does not happen often, as it really does not mean that much to me.  I do not care if it means anything at all to you. I have written a few songs for others to play, based on the rhythms and melodies that they gave me to work with.  It is an enjoyable enough experience to provide them with something they can use in their pursuit of music.  I am almost always happy to try to help out an artist in the creation of th...

Please donate to Doud Dairy Farm , help us to achieve our goal of a safe and secure farm for our animals and ourselves, and the coffee is on the house. A regular medium cup of coffee at Dunkin Donuts cost $2.00 at least.  I really can’t say, because I rarely buy coffee from coffee vendors.  However if you ever want a cup of good coffee do not hesitate to come over and we will put on a fresh pot of coffee, and we won’t even charge you for the conversation. That is all it really takes, one cup of coffee.  If you donate one cup of coffee we will easily reach our goal.  Have all your friends donate one cup of coffee and not only will we reach our goal quickly we will extend our offer to your friends as well. Donate one cup of coffee and any time you come over to visit, we will offer you not one, but several cups of coffee, some interesting conversation, and maybe even some doughnuts.  If you call first maybe we’ll even make lunch or diner or coffee ...

We, my wife Arleta and myself James, are running a campaign to raise the money for the down payment on our new home. While we appreciate the efforts of the many that are doing all that they can, I James, felt it necessary I explain why we chose to attempt to run the campaign ourselves with our own website instead of using any of the established service providers such as GoFundMe or the like. The primary reason was that after a “lot” and I mean a lot of research into the website service providers that exist out there, I could not rationalize the wealth the owners of such sites have, all through the process of “helping other people”.  Yes there is expense in the process, but looking into it, and also having run businesses of my own, especially mostly online businesses, I knew that their cost were far lower than the cost they were charging for their services. I am not trying to say that I do not believe they should not make a profit, but as with all such things I look at t...

Would you watch a spectacle fall to pieces, the hanging of an innocent man, or creative process while it is still in its raw format?  Well this is your chance to look inside the insanity that is creation, while I slowly grind the seed into flour, and with that hopefully make my daily bread.  Or beer, failing the making of bread. Check out my web log lowly scribe or Road Scholar to watch an unarmed man deface himself in front of a live audience, for their edification, if you will. Did you see how I did that, a little hint, that is cross promotion, because I am hoping that someone that reads this web log will find enough interest in what I am doing to actually take the time to read another of my web logs, and maybe that way I can reach more people.  What is the point of that, you ask, well I hope someday I can capitalize on this, you know, sell a few books, or get a few articles published, so I can actually earn enough from my craft to support my habits.  Awe wel...

So you have to ask yourself, what is going on here?  There are so many stories being told, and yet when I look around me, it seems they are too far fetched to be believed.  It makes one wonder, what am I to do? Do you ever feel like there is just some game being played, on the world stage, like it is some kind of game that you just can not quite get your head around?  Like the people are crazy, stabbing each other, shooting each other, and even to the heights of government, the rulers seem to be playing a strange game that just does not make sense.  Why when we are supposedly the most advanced people to ever walk the face of the Earth, are we still fighting over dirt?  What drives this sandbox mentality.  Where are all the great thinkers, the great writers, the poets, the artist, the composers, have you listened to the radio lately, or watched the TV, where is our Shakespeare? Has it become that evident to others, or has everyone become so oblivious...

Friday, April 4, 2014 Well today I am going to have to call the guy about the land, and update him on our progress.  Which is to say I will have to stall him while I try to figure out how to raise the money for the down payment.  I had thought it was going to be relatively cut and dry, or at least it seemed so, that we were going to the SSA and they would give us the money that they owe Arleta so we could use it to pay the down payment, our first months payment, and still have enough left over to move our stuff.  No, not so, instead they want to argue about it, like it was their money, like we were stealing it from them.  I mean it is SSI not SSD so I guess it is tax payer money, but really, to the point of being almost belligerent to Arleta, trying to bully her, I mean really, how absurd. I have worked up until October of 2012 when Arleta got really sick, and I had to come off the road to take care of her.  With the exception of a few dry months between I ...

Waffle Hunt I like maple syrup a lot.  Almost so much that even the table syrup that contains 2% or less real maple syrup is good, not great mind you but good.  Maple syrup requires a delivery method however, or it just feels wrong. I also like making maple syrup, the long slow way, outside over an open fire, in a big pot, cooking it down into a rich dark amber.  It gains a lot of smoky flavor from the wood, and it is nothing like the syrup you can get from the stores, not even the stuff that claims to be pure maple syrup.  That stuff from the store is cooked on huge flat conveyor belts, over a gas flame, and you can taste the difference.  Some people like it better that way, I do not.  Sometimes I will then cook it down into sugar, but not often, I prefer the liquid, it fits my favorite delivery system better. Maple syrup delivery is really a simple affair.  It consist of some flour, salt, leavening, oil, eggs and buttermilk, or other liq...

We are considering our solar system.  We are going to be grid tied!  This is necessary because of many reasons, first and foremost, Arleta is on Oxygen and needs it for her concentrator.  Otherwise, it will be nice to have for our computers, appliances, and of course to help with the farm.  That said, we are still looking at getting off the grid, just differently.  We are now going to be moving off the grid over a period of time, much easier to do by the way. So with that out of the way, here is the basic plan to get off the grid. First we are going to get the barn completely off the grid, well because for the most part there is very little that needs to be on the grid.  Even our milking equipment is relatively low demand equipment, and so we can get that off the grid pretty easily.  Initially we will actually start completely off the grid, as we will only have the sheep, and we won’t be milking them.  Therefore, all we need for the first ...