I am somewhat shy, and feel like it might seem like bad manners if I were to go up to a woman in a coffee house and introduce myself and etc.

I don’t go to bars.. almost never, I should say. There is one place that has good live bands, and no cover-charge, so I have been there twice. It is an odd place though. People talk over the music quite a bit, so it’s deafening in there. I don’t like loud places, unless I can clearly hear the bands. I don’t like to shout.

I don’t think I will spend much time at that bar, but as far as bars go, it is a good one.. not much of a meat market, and it has a laid-back atmosphere to it, besides the noise level. And, the open-mic night I went to there some months ago.. the performers were generally better than at most open-mic nights I’ve been to at other places.. But I won’t go there to meet women. I don’t feel at all comfortable trying to meet women in bars. I’m very much out of my element.

No.. I feel as if I would be intruding, at a bar, coffee house, or wherever, and I’m shy, so if I see a good-looking woman who appears at least somewhat friendly, and she is sitting at a coffeehouse reading.. I am just going to let her alone, and go back to my own book or sketch pad..

And the gym.. I have noticed that unless an attractive woman is taking part in a class, she’s likely to have a boyfriend lurking around somewhere, and the boyfriend probably looks like a gorilla, so I have not talked to any women at any gym I’ve been to.

I managed to hurt both feet in less than a year’s time, so I am not at the gym, or otherwise exercising, as much as I’d like to, and I’ve put on a few pounds.. and have a tummy, and love handles, and this is bad.

I already have self-esteem issues due to dealing with various forms of mental illness pretty much all my life, and being on disability, not having a job, and not having my own place.. so.. losing these pounds would be nice. More than nice.

I have found a somewhat radical diet that is supposed to not only help get people into better shape, but has the possibility of clearing up sinus problems and maybe even some mental health issues as well.

One difficulty in dealing with mental health issues is that it is hard to get focused, motivated, and organized enough to go on healthy but strict diets. So I haven’t gone on this one yet. But I probably should. Soon.

Ok.. so yeah.. anyway…

Since I haven’t met any single ladies I’d like to date, and have been living in this state (geographical state, I mean, not state of being) for over a year, I finally put up an ad on a free dating site.

I put up one on a paid dating site too, and looked around a bit on it, but didn’t want to bother paying almost 30 bucks a month, when I can just use another very popular dating site that is free, so I took that ad down.

I’ve not had the best of luck with online dating in the past.

In previous years.. I’ve had unintentionally long email conversations with women who were too timid to meet, or who just wanted pen pals.. these women I never did meet, and that was a good thing.

I have been out with a few women who I met online.. three, to be exact.

One I didn’t click with well, but both of us were desperate, I am guessing, because we went out on several dates, and had sex. Once. It didn’t go well.

The other two I went out with online.. both I went out with only once.

One invited me back to her apartment. I suppose I should not have gone, but was curious to see if she really wanted to go all the way on a first date, or if we’d just have a drink and talk some more.

She wanted me to go all the way, and that was farther than I wanted to go..

Especially since she felt somewhat nervous, so needed to smoke.. and I don’t like even kissing women who have been smoking..

And.. we were not alone in her rather thin-walled apartment. Her young daughter and niece were in the room next to her bedroom, and I wasn’t cool with that. So I kept my clothes on that night, and did not go out with her again.

The last one I met online I just met at Denny’s. She was nice enough, but didn’t look much like her profile picture. She was heavier, and I wasn’t pleased. I like full-figured women sometimes, but don’t like it when their stomachs protrude from underneath their winter jackets. That was not pleasant. Yes, one of the many pitfalls of online dating.. sometimes people do not post recent pictures.

Also, during our conversation, this woman admitted to me that she wasn’t a good mom.. wasn’t taking as good care of her young daughter as she should.

I STRONGLY prefer NOT to date women with children, but again.. I’d gotten kinda desperate.. And.. I liked this woman’s profile.. she wasn’t the most attractive woman on the site, but she looked alright, and I liked what she’d written, so I went out with her.

It troubles me a lot that the two women I’d been on only one date with were obviously not good mothers. If I’m going to date a woman with children.. (which I hope not to do, and plan not to do, but slight possibility I might).. I want them to be good mothers. That is VERY important. Their kid or kids should come first.

So it’s been quite awhile since I’ve last had a profile up.

There’s another reason for this besides my less than awesome luck..

Almost all women have the same stuff on their profiles!

Shocking, really.

Almost all woman have listed as interests: football, skiing or snow-boarding, other outdoor activities, many activities that were once commonly associated with men.

I’m not interested in a woman who is hooked on the NFL or NASCAR. I’m not into sports. I don’t want a woman who is really into sports.

As far as skiing or snowboarding, hiking, etc. .. Yes, I’d like to do these things, and it is cool that women are interested in them.

But..

In less than a year’s time, I’ve succeeded somehow in injuring both feet. I fell down some stairs last April, and really messed up my left foot. Even after physical therapy, my left foot has not totally healed. I can go on short, not exactly arduous hikes for two hours or so.. but I am guessing that skiing and so forth are out. And probably martial arts and ballroom dancing.. yes. I’ve been wanting to learn dancing.. especially the latin dances.. VERY sexy.

And my right foot..

This part is nuts.. not my foot.. this part of the blog..

Many months ago, a friend lent me his bass guitar and amp. The bass was in terrible shape.. filthy and needing new strings.

I took the strings off, polished the fretboard, removed the bridge, cleaned all the dirt out of it and polished it, partially removed the pickups, cleaned the dust from underneath those, used some scratch remover on the body of the instrument.. with some success, polished the body, and put on new strings.

(Yes, this music stuff does relate.. keep reading, if you feel so inclined, thanks very much).

Bass guitar strings, especially good quality strings, are not cheap. A good set costs close to 30 dollars.

The first pack of strings I ordered.. I hated both the feel of the strings, and the tone. Same with the second set I ordered.

I bought a third set. MUCH better! Attention bass players! Try D’addario flatwounds!! Yay!!

But.. in order to put a new set of strings on a bass, the ends of the strings have to be clipped, and.. this part is important.. one must be VERY careful NOT to clip the strings too short. Leaving them too long puts a bit of extra strain on the tuning pegs, which the strings are wound around.

But, in my opinion, it’s worse to clip the strings too short. This renders them useless.

Sadly, I clipped the D string from two packs.. two short.. so had to buy yet more strings!

I finally got the bass set up with strings that I liked, but thought I’d buy one last pack of strings, in a slightly thicker gauge (thicker and thinner strings feel different and sound different from each other), and found out that the thinner gauge was just fine.

I ended up buying 5 packs of strings.

I also ended up with 20 VERY SHARP clipped ends of strings.

I tried to be careful, and make sure I deposited all the clipped ends in my waste basket. But I missed one.

While I was vacuuming my room just over a month ago, a freak thing happened. I’d somehow dropped a clipped string-end. It somehow was not picked up by the top of the line vacuum cleaner my relatives bought, and I somehow moved my foot in just such a way that the end of the string punctured my foot at an odd angle.

Ouch? Oh hell yeah ouch!!

So I went to urgent care. The doctor asked if I thought there was metal still in my foot. I told him I couldn’t tell. He said I’d know if there was metal still stuck in there. I hope he is right, but I sometimes worry. My foot still hurts sometimes, and is still a tiny bit swollen in the area where the wound is.

I didn’t get into the gym for over two weeks, and since have gone only twice a week, and have not spent as much time doing cardio as usual, and have not hiked at all.. so I have put on a few more pounds… great.

So I can’t go hiking, or snow-shoeing.. don’t have the money for snow-shoeing either, or snowboarding or skiing.

So that rules out most of the women in this area, who are interested in hiking and romping about in the snow attached to various pieces of wood. Because that, and sports, are just about all most of them list in their interests section of their profiles. And therefore, we are not compatible.

Let’s see.. other objections..

Yes, looks do matter to me. I’m not looking for a beauty queen, but I do want to be at least somewhat attracted to any woman I go out with. I am not being shallow, I am being human.

I also would prefer to avoid women with kids, although I am a tiny bit flexible on this issue.. maybe.

So that rules out yet more women.. the ones I am not at all attracted to, and the ones with a kid or kids.

Then there are the women who, going by their pictures, are heavy drinkers, and spend a lot of time in bars. Nope. Not the gals for me.

And there are the horribly unoriginal women who think it is just the coolest thing ever to stand in front of a mirror, usually a bathroom mirror.. classy.. hold up a cell phone, and take a picture of themselves.

Stupid idea. And so many women do this!!

And what they write..

I cannot tell you how many women write things like “no games,” “no players,” “no guys who are after just one thing,” you get the idea.

I am thinking.. women are not very wise to write “no games.” I am guessing they mean no head games.. although I am not sure exactly what sort of head games they are referring to. I am not a guy to play headgames. I am a very straightforward and honest guy.. maybe a tad too honest, but definitely not a “game-playing” sort of man. That ain’t me.

I am thinking it is unwise to write “no games,” or “tired of the games” on their profiles, because I think this clues the bad guys into the fact that these women have fallen for these headgames or whatever in the past.

I like the rare woman who writes something original on her profile. Some women are into things that most women are not. Certain authors or creative activities. One woman I found online listed shamanism as an interest. I thought that was very cool.

I look for creative women who are feminine, and also who are not so outdoorsy or manly. Women who have pictures of themselves shooting assault rifles really don’t turn me on, sorry.

I’ve looked at lots and lots and lots of profiles, but I try to do this only once a week or so, because I despair.

For the reasons I mentioned above.

The woman who listed shamanism as an interest.. I wrote to her even though I wasn’t attracted to her. I wrote to her to ask her questions about shamanism. She didn’t write back. A good thing, I think, since I am not attracted to her. But I wanted to learn more about shamanism, wanted some advice, so I thought a few questions about this subject would be alright. But she didn’t write back, so nevermind.

I didn’t look for several weeks, and was contemplating taking my profile down, because of my setbacks.

But, today, I wasn’t feeling horny, like on other days, when I felt I really needed sex.

I wasn’t feeling all that romantic either.

I had been looking through the “scene” section of the paper. There are tons of things to do around here, and there’s a band coming to town in March.. not one of my favorite bands, but they have a few excellent songs, and are a positive group, and I’d like to go see and hear this band, but I don’t think any of my friends would like to go.

I’d like to have someone with me.. a woman.. a woman I’d like to date..

Today.. I was thinking.. this afternoon or evening.. I’d just like to have a single woman to go out for coffee with.. someone I could possibly date in the future, and have sex with and all that.. but for now.. today.. coffee and a good chat.. that’s good enough.

So I went back on the dating website.

And I looked, and I looked, and I looked… and I looked.

I decided not to insist that a woman have brown eyes.. I am generally most attracted to women with brown eyes.

I decided not to just go for a woman with a petite or average build.

The past several women I’ve dated and been intimately involved with have been rather full-figured, and although I quite liked them that way, I’ve recently felt like a change. Maybe I’d be better suited to a more petite woman.. and it’s quite alright with me that smaller women have smaller boobs.

I like women who are proportional. Full-figured women with large breast look good to me. Petite women with large breasts don’t. I see a petite women with big boobs, I am guessing her boobs are fake. She’ll look top-heavy and unbalanced.

So I’m looking… and I finally spot a woman I am attracted to.. who has some common interests, isn’t blasting away with a machine gun, is not an outdoors freak, is not religious, and has no kids. Wow!!

I’m not looking for someone I’m instantly horny for… not this time anyway.. not at all..

And this woman.. ironically.. has very large breasts, and despite wanting to find someone more petite.. I find myself aroused, and, considering I wasn’t looking for an excellent lay, a bit bothered that of all the women.. this one.. finally I find someone with many things I like in her profile.. she has large breasts..and I am feeling turned on, and I don’t want to be.

But I wrote her anyway. Her profile.. what she wrote ..much of it was excellent. Brilliant even.. she has (if she is representing herself truthfully) many interests that I share, has a great outlook on life, and is even rather funny. Some of what she wrote was very humorous.. and I was chuckling for some time.

I wrote her a letter..a polite one of course.. not even mentioning her looks.. but instead complimenting her on her writing, and letting her know that we have some common interests.

It was a short letter, but a good one.

I have mixed feelings about her writing back.

After I wrote to her, I went off to the gym. Even though my feet are not in the best of shape, I can still work out some.

Even though I’ve worked out in health clubs for years off and on, many years, I’ve tended to be at these places during non-peak hours.. and I’ve almost never ever seen any attractive women at gyms.. even during non-peak hours, I expect to see some, occasionally. But I almost never do.

Odd timing.. having just written to a full-figured woman, but preferring a nicely-toned more petite woman instead..

I, after so much time, finally finally saw one at the gym.. with a body .. not a ridiculous swimsuit unrealistic playboy bunny-type body.. but a very very nice body. Wow.

Small breasts, yes, but a woman in excellent shape… and of course wearing those skin-tight workout pants. Women say they don’t want to be ogled, but they go around wearing skin-tight pants made of very thin material.. and sometimes their workout wear even has a word or two scrawled across their asses.. and they say they don’t want us to look. That.. is a lie. They want at least some of us men to look, or they would not dress that way, and they most certainly would not words on their fine or not so fine posteriors. Our eyes, both men and women, naturally gravitate toward words.. toward text, especially if this text is on an unexpected place, like a woman’s ass. C’mon now.

And this woman.. at least sensible enough not to have anything written on her behind.. she not only has the height and build that, these days, I like best, but.. she also has long, light brown hair, and brown eyes.

And that just brought it home.. my desire for someone who looks like her, vs. the woman who I’d just written to.

And I felt frustrated.

No, I did not talk to this woman. As I mentioned earlier.. women at health clubs who look like this.. tend to have a rather bulky dude somewhere in the building. I saw her talking with several overly fit men while I was working out.

And, it being a gym, I thought it would be bad manners for me to go up and talk to her, even if all I did was talk, even if she has no boyfriend in the vicinity.. because it is the gym, and I am guessing that in most gyms, women just want to work out, and be left alone.

So, I didn’t talk to her. Just watched her from time to time, without being creepy about it.

Odd I should see her tonight.

And so.. I have mixed feelings about the woman I’ve written to.

If she didn’t have such large breasts, she’d be easier to go out to coffee with. The more petite women.. yes, they look good that way, more than good, but I tend not to be so instantly aroused, as when I am sitting across a table from a woman with large breasts.. even when I’m not much interested these days in women with large breasts.. I cannot help it.. I just wanna touch ‘em!!!! Touch ‘em, for starters, at least!!

I just cannot help myself.

Maybe this woman will write back, maybe not. If I decide I don’t want to meet her, all I have to do to likely cause her to lose interest very quickly is mention one of several things.. I don’t have my own place, I am on disability.. and the real kicker.. I have mental health issues. Gone.. in an instant..in a cloud of dust.. just like that.. so quickly, she breaks the sound barrier.

I don’t know what I shall do if she writes back.

I’ve been thinking a lot about sex and relationships.

In the past, I’ve felt very sexually needy, it’s been a long time since I’ve gone all the way, and I would not have minded at all having a short fling.. in fact, at times in the past, I have had just such relationships. Quick, and naughty, and we’re done, by mutual consent.

However, my conscience is somewhat different these days. I don’t feel near so keen about going out with a woman mostly because of sexual reasons.

I do, and have always had, a policy that I do not want to get sexually involved with any woman who I cannot also have a good conversation with. That has always been true. But I can have good conversations with lots of women.

I have been thinking of the women in the past who I have liked the most.. who I have had the best chemistry with.. women.. some of whom I did not ever get the chance to know well, and none of whom was I able to date… but still .. these women, who have made the best impression on me..

And I have thought..

I would like to meet a woman like these women.

I would like best to meet a woman I want not only to have sex, with, or have coffee with, but someone who I would love … to love.

Someone who I can have a serious relationship with, someone I might even marry. Someday.

I am thinking that would be best.

The woman I wrote to today.. I can tell just by how she looks, and what she wrote in her profile.. even though I quite liked a lot of what she wrote.. that she is quite likely NOT such a woman as I’d MOST want to be with.

I feel it is practically impossible for me to find my close-to-perfect mate though.. who is best for me, and who I am best for.

I’ve only met a few women like this in my entire life, and some of them I never did get to know well at all .. but could somehow tell.

One I met when I was only 15, and she was 13. She was amazingly cute. Blonde hair, brown eyes. We met at a summer camp, and talked during several evenings, but then camp was over, and she lived in a different part of the state, and we didn’t write to each other.

That same summer, I met another girl, this one my age. Light brown hair, brown eyes. She was part of a youth group I went to, but she almost never came. Over a year passed. She started attending the youth group at least semi-regularly, and I asked out. We went out once, but then she and one of the assistant youth leaders fell for each other big time, and they eventually got married (and sadly.. eventually divorced).

The others..

One I met back in 2000, at a bbq. The best conversational chemistry I’ve ever had with a woman.. amazing.

This one.. beautiful, single.. blonde, with brown eyes..I think.. surprisingly, I cannot remember her eye color as well as the others. That is at least in part because she was wearing sunglasses for much of the time I was talking with her, and I only talked with her once.

Two days after the bbq, she moved back to the Philippines. She wasn’t originally from there, but was the daughter of missionaries, and lived with them in the Philippines. I could have written her, but..

I can only guess that she was religious, (I was not religious at this time, even though I was at a bbq mostly populated with people from a bible study group) and also, she had the same name as my mother, and that just won’t do.

The last one to make such a powerful impression on me.. a brunette (dark brown hair) with brown eyes.

She approached me. We’d had a class together before and had spoken very briefly. I’d certainly noticed her, and, from talking with her a little, I knew she was married. So I hadn’t talked to her further. But then we had another class together, and she approached me.

One place I find it easy to talk to women.. one setting.. that is a class of some sort. Women are cool about guys talking to them in class.. as long as the guys are polite and not creeps. I’ve not had a problem talking to women in classes, no matter how strikingly attractive they’ve been. A class is one environment I feel safe in, and so do women.

This class was a singing class. Three hours long.. once a week, several breaks during each class.

I was sitting outside on some steps, just enjoying the evening. It was nice out. She came over and talked with me. Another day, I was walking to class, and she caught up with me and we walked to class together. Amazing chemistry.. I don’t have a better word for it.. some things can’t be put into words well enough.. amazing.. just talking.

If you are reading this hoping for some intimate story.. no, we just talked, at school.. that was pretty much it.

We sat together, we’d joke and laugh, and she’d be flirtatious, in an innocent way.. she’d touch my shoulder, or punch me in the arm while giving me quite a look.. that sort of thing.

Once, I saw her at a church, where there was a school-sponsored concert. The auditorium at the community college was being renovated, so the concerts were at various churches.

After the concert, I was walking slowly through the lobby. I felt a tap on my shoulder, turned around, but didn’t see who it was. Then I looked forward again, and there she was, walking ahead of me, had her back to me.

Then she turned her head around, over her shoulder, and gave me the most amazing look and smile I’d ever seen.

Wow.

Beautiful. Not just on the outside.. an inner glow too.

I’d never felt like I did that night before. A lightness of being, an anxiety of sorts, but a sweet anxiety.. An intense, heavenly, pleasant yet anxious feeling.. oh what am I to do?

And.. she’s married, religious, with two kids.

Eventually, we stopped talking to each other much in class. Neither of us was going to do anything. No future there.

She was one of the reasons I dropped the class.

I only saw her once more at school. Very briefly. She was waiting to take part in a guitar recital. She looked lovely. She was happy to see me. But I didn’t talk with her much. Left quickly.

I can’t take that kind of frustration.. even sadness.

This was at the end of 2008.

Since then I have been involved with a few women, briefly, and have enjoyed some of them..

But none of them has been like a woman I feel I’d want to be involved with for a very very long time.. the chemistry has just not been there.

Sexual chemistry, by itself, can be awesome.

Yes, but I think, what is best for me..

.. is more.

This woman I’ve written to.. the one on the online dating site .. if I go out with her.. I will, in some ways, be settling, even if we have more than just sexual chemistry, even if we get along well.. she just isn’t the THE ONE.. probably fun to date, more than great to have sex with, probably good to talk with, but not someone I’d really really want to be with for a long time.. for a lifetime.

So.. if she does write back.. and is interested, what to do?

I feel it might be somewhat against my personal ethics to be involved with her.. there could be trouble and maybe even tears ahead. I might not feel exactly great about future actions. I might not want to get sexually involved with someone.. really sexually involved with someone.. who I will likely not be in a very long term relationship with..

And maybe that isn’t right.. the way I am feeling these days about women, and sex, and love.

But..

Finding someone.. someone who is really really right for me, and who I am really really right for.. like that song “Unforgettable,” I can’t remember the exact lyrics.. but..something like..

“It’s incredible, that someone unforgettable, thinks that I’m unforgettable too.”

Beautifully put.

Yes, I have my ideals..

But.. I could be waiting forever.

I also feel it’s unethical for me to live for ages and ages without getting my needs met by a happily willing woman. Some of my mental health problems stem from not getting near enough sex. For far too long a time.. not getting any.

I don’t want to settle, but.. do I dare even hope for a moment I will EVER find the right woman for me? Most of the time I cannot even come close to hoping for such a woman..

Because hoping.. hurts too much.

I don’t know if the woman I wrote to will write back.. and if so, what I will do.

I know what I most want, and most need. It is not her.. but I don’t even want to think about the possibility of finding a woman I will ever truly love.

Will I settle for the woman I wrote to, at least for awhile, and enjoy her at least for awhile, if she is interested? Probably.. might even feel like an idiot not to.. but..

I won’t be entirely happy.

My whole heart will not be in the relationship, maybe none of it will be, and I will, when I am brave enough to..

Hope for someone else.

Musical obsessions etc.

Went through a bad period in December. Very bad. Fixated on guitars again. I had borrowed some money from a relative to pay off my credit cards with, but because of my overwhelming obsessive compulsion to buy an electric guitar, I eventually did buy one.

Note: If you have no interest in reading guitars.. feel free to skip this section…

Good thing I have cheap taste in guitars, and really do my research. Of course, with the OCD, I can’t help but do the research.. for countless hours.

I ended up getting an instrument that regularly costs $279 for $238. I buy from a site called Music123. I’ve had good luck with them so far.

In 2009, I bought a lot of gear from Musiciansfriend.com, but they were bad. I had to keep making exchanges, because the products were defective, or not as advertised, so I switched to Music123. Ironically.. I think Music123 might be owned by musiciansfriend. One of the music123 items shipped to me had a musiciansfriend return address on it.. hmm..

The guitar I bought.. and why.. I tried a zillion guitars.. at 2 small independent stores, and at Guitar Center. I wasn’t happy with any of the ones in my price range, or any that cost a hundred box more than I was planning to spend.

I like the feel of Fender guitars. Fender stratocasters, to be more specific. They are light, and have body contours. Which makes them very comfortable to play. There are loads of Fender knock-offs and other guitars similar to the strats, but this time I thought of getting a genuine product, so I bought a Squier (the word “squire,” meaning servant to a knight, is spelled differently. The guitar was named after a person.) Squier guitars are Fender’s cheapest line.

I didn’t want to go with Ibanez, because the necks of their instruments are often thinner than those on Fender products, and also, most relatively cheap Ibanez guitars are made in China, and I won’t buy a guitar made in China. No no no. I do NOT want a guitar made in a communist country! The electric guitar, in my opinion, is one of the great symbols of freedom we have.

So I bought one made in Indonesia. At least the Indonesians are not communist. The previous guitars and basses that I’ve kept for any length of time were all made in Indonesia, except for one (South) Korean-made base.

I didn’t buy a Schecter guitar because they are not all that comfortable to play, and if I remember right, some are made in China these days.

I love the Gibson sound.. far more than Fender guitars. But Gibson models are far less comfortable to play, Also, the affordable Gibson line, called Epiphone.. these guitars are almost all made in China. Bummer. Uncomfortable to play, and made in China.. damn. Yes, I love the Gibson/Epiphone sound, but.. no thank you.

Trouble with Fender tone. There are two kinds of pickups on electric guitars.. single coils and humbuckers. Humbuckers are called that because they buck the hum.. the 60 cycle hum..I don’t remember enough about this to explain it, except that it has to do with electro-magnetism, and the humbuckers.. two pickups paired together, cancel the hum (barely audible electric noise.. sort of) that single magnetic coil pickups generate.

Fenders and Squiers, most of them, come with single coil pickpus. Many players have desired this sound.. Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, Stevie Ray Vaughn, to name a few..

But I prefer the humbucking tone, which is thicker and stronger.

Fender pickups tend to be weak, even for single coil pickups.. many players buy after-market pickups, remove the Fender stock p’ups, and put in some made by other brands.. and the sound improves.

I didn’t want to bother with that. What I wanted was a guitar with a Fender body and sort of a Gibson tone.

I didn’t quite find that.. got somewhere in between.

There are pickups called rails.. the magnets are set up like rails on a train track, and these rails pickups have hum-canceling properties.. making them humbuckers.. the rails pickups are made to fit in single coil spots, and are sometimes what players buy to replace their standard Fender p’ups.

There are some Squiers with the traditional humbuckers, but I decided to go with something more interesting… one of their newest models, which has three hot rails ( “hot” meaning a stronger, more intense signal and sound than pickups that are not “hot”), designed (although not made by) a company called Seymour Duncan.. the gold standard and leader of all after-market pickup manufacturers. Score! Duncan-designed pickups come stock with this model. Very cool.

The sound.. no, still not a thick humbucker tone, but thicker and more powerful than Squier or even high-end Fender single coils. And the guitar looks really cool too.. so I bought the right one.

It looks like this:

Notice the wicked cool guitar strap! I was unhappy with the myriad guitar strap designs from famous makers, so I went to an excellent website called etsy.com. People sell hand-crafted items of all sorts on this website.

I’d previously bought a rather attractive guitar strap from an etsy merchant for my aunt’s Gibson classical guitar that I use sometimes.. a friend is borrowing the strap, and I don’t have a picture of it, so I can’t show it here..

I decided to go back to etsy, and found one of the best, actually, the best, strap design I’ve ever seen, and bought that one. you can’t see the whole strap in the picture. It’s got various Asian scenes on it.

I was really stoked to find that strap!

What else did I buy? I’ve been borrowing a friend’s bass amp.. same friend who I lent my strap to.. he’s letting me borrow his bass and amp.. and I can run the guitar through the bass amp, although this doesn’t sound all that great.. but it works.

I already have a multi-effects processor. This is a small device that can radically alter an electric guitar’s sound in tons of different ways.. and I can plug it into my computer.. use it as an interface.. and my recording software (garageband) picks up the signal.

So.. I decided I needed a wah pedal. What is that? It looks like a gas pedal, and creates a VERY distinctive sound. You’ve probably heard the “Theme from Shaft,” by Isaac Hayes, at some point in your life, even if you haven’t realized it. Even if you haven’t.. chances are, if you’ve seen any programs or films from the ’70′s, you’ve heard a wah pedal put to use.

Have you listened to Jimi Hendrix? Have you heard the song “Voodoo Chile (Slight Return)?” You probably have.. and if not.. after you read this posting.. head over to youtube or whichever music site you like, and listen to the song I just mentioned, and the theme from the movie “Shaft” as well.

I did research on wah pedals too. I’d owned two by a company called Morley, but was never quite satisfied with the tone. Morley pedals are good in that they are designed for both guitars and basses, and that they don’t have a switch, you can just put your foot on the pedal and rock it back and forth and there you go.

But they don’t have that classic wah sound.. which is created by a particular pedal called a “crybaby,” made by the Dunlop company.

I decided I wanted a crybaby. There are too many models to choose from.. some are very basic, and some have many tone shaping options. I found one that was made as joint effort between Dunlop and Custom Audio Electronics.. I hadn’t heard of CAE before, but I read about the pedal, and went over to youtube to check demonstration vidoes.

This is a must for buying gear.. guitars, amps, effects, etc. Head over to youtube and watch some videos.. this will help you shop. It sure helped me. Some British guy demonstrated this way pedal, and I thought it was awesome. It has several tone shaping options, and these all can be operated using my foot to hit the switches, instead of bending down to adjust knobs and things by hand.

Of course, the pedal I selected is one of the most expensive.. but I do believe it is one of the best. It looks like this:

I am quite satisfied with the wah pedal, and reasonably satisfied with the guitar.

Here’s how it is all hooked up. Start with a cable going out of the guitar, into the wah pedal. Another cable goes from the pedal to the Digitech multi-efx proccessor (I would suggest going with either Zoom or Line 6 if you want a multi-effects processor.. you’ll pay a bit more, but will sound a lot better. I don’t want to go further into debt to buy guitar gear, so for now, and for awhile, I am making due with the Digitech RP155. It isn’t all bad.) Yet another cable goes from the Digitech to the amp, or the computer.

The Digitech looks like this:

Ok.. so, that is my set-up thus far, except for an extremely cheap microphone, and small stand.

Now, I am into home studio recording. Have been for a short time, past couple months.. off and on.

I am now writing about other gear besides guitars, in case you are wondering.

The recording software I have is called “garageband.” It is very basic recording software, and comes with all macs made within the past ten or so years.

For the most part, I am glad the software is basic, because I am NOT a techie. I haven’t learned how to use the software very well yet, haven’t read the book I bought to help me learn, but that has not stopped me from working on many projects.. just by figuring things out by experimentation. And this is fun!

Since the mic I have is not good at all, I have bought an unusual microphone called a “Yeti.” Those of you who are familiar with the word “yeti” know that it is the name of a creature that is also called the abominable snow man.. that white, bigfoot-like creature that just might inhabit the Himalayas.

A strange name for a microphone? Indeed. It is made by a company called Blue, and is made to plug directly into a computer via USB. This is great. I don’t want to buy a better interface for plugging things into the computer. The best ones for macs, made by Apogee, start at $249. I don’t need one. I can plug my digitech into the computer.. and the guitar or bass through the digitech.. and even plug in the cheap mic into the digitech, as long as I don’t mind rather distorted vocal sounds..

And once the yeti mic has arrived, I can plug that straight into the computer.

Blue’s previous plug and play mics have been called the snowflake and the snow ball.. so their newest one.. it’s much larger than the others.. why not stick with the snow/arctic kind of thing, and (ok, the Himalayas are not in the arctic, I know that) theme and call the mic “Yeti.”

I hope it will turn out as good as the reviews say.

The recording projects I have worked on thus far..

Some I have made without using any instruments. I’ve just relied on supplied sound samples and effects.. drum beats, airplanes taking off, all sorts of sounds.. and tweaked and cut and pasted the sounds together and so forth.. yes, it really is a lot of fun.

I can’t play guitar very well at all, but if I just mess about on it long enough, and record what I play, I can go back and select short sound samples from it, and loop those.. (make them repeat), and put together interesting audio projects. I’ve also ran a cheap keyboard through the digitech into the computer, with interesting results.

Since I don’t know music theory, I don’t know how to compose music in the usual way.. so I am not doing usual music. I am making rather odd, experimental, often heavily distorted music instead, and I like what I’ve created thus far.

I don’t yet know how to do the final mixing.. final audio production.. to make the music I’ve created sound professional. I’ll get to that eventually.

That is something fun I have been up to lately, and will continue to work on.

The trouble with working on garageband projects is that even if I am not feeling manic, I tend to get that way once I’ve been working on a project for a little while. Often, I don’t start an audio project, or go back to a previous project for more work, until it is after 1 am. And I don’t want to quit for several hours.. I keep pushing myself to discover more.. create more, and make more changes.. so I don’t knock off until after 4 am.

This usually means that I can’t wind down for another hour or two or three.. And sometimes have to take more than one sedative to get to sleep.

I just like creating late at night. I keep the volume down, so none of the relatives here.

Some days, I feel tired and unmotivated to do much during the day, and really amp up at night, without any coffee or anything.. so I create at night.

And, here I am, writing at night.

I hadn’t planned on getting into all that detailed guitar stuff. But, often I sit down to write with something in mind, and write about something else.

Ok.. so, I will write about something else now…

I have started going to nature classes. There are not any large wildlife rehabilitation places where I currently live, but there are some nature centers that are pleasant places, and I am in a class that will give me some knowledge so that I can then volunteer at these places.

I registered for the class in November, but went through such mental illness hell for a month and a half, that by the time the class started.. just over a week ago, I’d lost all interest, and had to force myself to go.

Another bummer about the class is that it is almost entirely populated with retired persons. Nice enough folks, but they are almost all quite a bit older than me, very chummy with each other, and I feel out of place.

I have tried so many groups in the hopes of not only making friends, learning things, participating in new activities.. but have also tried out different groups in the hopes of meeting at least one single woman I’d really like to date.

I’ve been to three support groups, one discussion group (which I’m still in.. we talk about making positive changes in our lives, but it is not a support group), a hiking group, a pagan group, a Buddhist group (no, I am just not religious.. no thank you), a class on birds, and now this more general nature class.. and nope!

Mostly older people and/or married people. Not one woman I have I met I even remotely want to date.

So I put up a profile on a free dating site.

And that, and women in general, will be the subject of the next entry.. scroll upwards to read it.

But, I’m not going to write about the bad things. Or the few really good things that happened that are private.

Instead.. I shall mention that I found the right house for me and the relatives I live with.. found the house online, and it has worked out very well for us.

Also, and just as important, I made a few close friends. I was just starting to make some friends in California, in late 2010, but I moved here to Idaho in early December of that year.

I am very fortunate to have made some very good friends here in Idaho.

Finding the house, some private things that happened, and making friends… taking some great nature photos, finding new music (or music that is new to me) enjoying a few TV shows (finally watched “Arrested Development,” all three season.. awesome comedy, and got started watching “Lost,” and am loving it) and movies (my favorite one from 2011 is “Midnight in Paris”) seeing relatives much more often.. those who moved up here years before I did.. these are the best parts of 2011.

I am looking forward to this year, 2012. I have some nature classes I will be taking this winter and spring, more activities with friends to look forward to, and more opportunities to improve and enjoy my life.

Almost all of 2011 was terribly miserable for me though, because of poor mental health, and I need a far better year.

I am going to believe this year will be far better.

That’s it for now. I plan on getting back into the habit of writing entries for this blog, and will likely write at least one per week.

Hmm.. one more thing left to write about tonight.. resolutions.. plans.. etc.

1. Perhaps most important.. stop worrying so much about stuff.
2. go on a special strict diet for awhile to try and clear up allergies and some mental health issues.
3. get in the gym more often, and exercise more effectively.
4. enjoy life a lot more.

Yeah, that’s good enough for now.

Happy New Year to you, and may you be able to accomplish your goals, and enjoy this year.

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Those of us who were alive at the time, and who were not small children, remember that day.

I was working a swing shift, and wasn’t up in the earlier morning, because I’d gotten home late from work the night before, just as I always did during that month, and had needed to sleep in.

I came into the living room at .. I don’t know.. 11 am or bit later?

My dad was passively watching TV, just as he’d done the previous days, months..

What was on TV was not normal. I asked what was going on. Dad said, in his usual voice, that the World Trade Center had been attacked.

I watched for awhile. Perhaps my dad felt like I did. Too much to take in. Just some disaster on TV.

I felt kind of stunned, but didn’t experience a depth of feeling. I was tired, hadn’t had quite enough sleep.

Oh… the World Trade Center was hit by 2 planes, both towers collapsed, devastation everywhere.

My brother came by. Not sure. I very rarely got a visit from him before work.

I don’t know why he dropped in that day. Maybe needed some support, someone to talk to? He had his wife to talk to, but perhaps needed someone who could discuss current events with him, knew the political climate a little, etc.

We sat and watched for a little while longer.

Then he took me to Arby’s, (a roast beef sandwich fast food place), and we ate our food in the restaurant and watched the TV mounted to the ceiling.

Then, I’m not sure what happened. Either we had taken one car, and he drove me back home, or we had taken two vehicles, and I rode to work from there.

I was working as a telephone relay operator. Complicated job. I sat at a computer with a phone connection. A call from a deaf person using a teletext device hooked up to his or her phone would call into me, and I would read their message on the my screen, the number they wanted me to call.

When I got someone on the other end I would ask if they understood the phone relay process. If they did, I wouldn’t have to explain it. If they didn’t, I’d read from a script.

After explanation (if needed) I would type to the deaf person what the other person said at the other end of the line. Then, The deaf person would type a response, I’d read that, then the other person would speak and etc.

I walked from my car into work. It was hot. This was back in California, in the Central Valley.

It was a quiet evening and night at work. Only a few calls. Most just random conversations needing to be relayed, some discussion about what had happened.

Approximately four hours into my shift, I went out for my hour’s break.

I walked across the street to a small, independently owned pizza and Italian food place.

I sat down, probably had what’s called a pizza sandwich, and some fries. Just sat there and ate on my own, as I almost always did.

There was a big screen Tv in the restaurant. All of us diners watched quietly for the most part, viewing mostly what we had seen earlier, but with more coverage of the blinding dust and the rescue attempts, and so forth.

What really troubles me is that there were two dumb, big guys sitting at a nearby table behind and to the side of me.

One of them laughed. I felt sickened. Maybe he couldn’t deal with what he was seeing.. a view of bodies flying out of the towers, and so he laughed.

This still bothers me, ten years on.

After break, I went back to work. Got home late at night, eventually went to sleep.

That was what I did and experienced on September 11th, 2001.

Within weeks, on the news, it was told that there was some kind of military action going on in Afghanistan. We, on the day of September 11th, had heard the name “Osama bin Laden” for the first time. And, Afghanistan was in the news regularly for the first time since the 1980′s when that country was invaded and occupied by the Soviets. The Soviets were eventually defeated by Afghani freedom fighters, who members of the CIA and special forces armed and helped train.

Some of those freedom fighters, who were young during the 1980′s, were seasoned warriors, and eventually fought our troops.

There was no quick full scale invasion on of Afghanistan though, not for some time. I don’t know who was involved in that early skirmish.

Eventually attention shifted to Iraq, for no good reason. Pres. Bush, like just about all Americans, was lead by certain high officials in the CIA and Pentagon, and by Vice President Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, to believe that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, and needed to be stopped.

Our military actions, which had started in.. 2003? were practically halted, and troops and resources diverted to Iraq. We could have possibly made some progress in Afghanistan, could have gotten bin Laden then, but instead American forces needlessly invaded Iraq.

Even if the events of 9/11 did not happen, American troops still would have probably invaded Iraq. There were no ties between the radical Muslim hijackers, who were mostly, like bin Laden, from Saudi Arabia.

Cheney and Rumsfeld had for many years felt that the previous Pres. Bush did not go far enough to stop Saddam in the first gulf war, in which Saddam’s forces had invaded Kuwait. Our military kicked the Iraqis out of Kuwait, and wiped out most of the military in Iraq, but did not kill Hussein or occupy the country.

Cheney and Rumsfeld and others tricked the rest of us into believing that invading Iraq was necessary. So we did.

American forces are still in Iraq today, although attention has been re-focused on Afghanistan.

In my opinion, VP Joe Biden was right. Within a year after he was elected VP, and serving under Pres. Obama, Biden said he (Biden) believed that a full scale invasion and occupation of Afghanistan was not practical. Instead, Biden argued, we should have small, concentrated raids carried about by special forces.

Obama didn’t go along with this plan, and American troops in large numbers still fight in Afghanistan.

According to recent news reports, Al-Qaeda, the terrorist group lead by bin Laden, is now in tatters and scattered over the face of the globe.

Bin Laden was (it was reported) killed on May 2, 2011.

Perhaps our troops really did some good in Afghanistan. Maybe they did largely disrupt Al-Qaeda. I don’t know. According to the news, the American military has been engaging another group, the Taliban, which is impossible to defeat, because the Taliban can hide in Pakistan, and American troops, and even drone aircraft, for the most part, cannot get at the Taliban forces in Pakistan, or any other radical Muslim groups there.

Biden’s plan to use small groups of special forces worked out. It was a small group of Navy Seals who killed bin Laden in Pakistan, according to news reports.

September 11th, 2001. The world changed, and hundreds of thousands of people are now dead because of those events, and the instability that followed.

American troops are still in Iraq and Afghanistan. Security is much tighter at airports. There have been no successful terrorist attacks these past ten years. Which shows our intelligence agencies have been doing good work.

Our world is different though. And worse, because of the actions of a few deranged men, who flew airplanes into the World Trade Center, and the Pentagon, and who almost destroyed the American capitol building as well, or perhaps the White House, except that some heroic passengers on Flight 93 defeated their hijackers, and sent the plane down in Pennsylvania, before the hijackers could force the plane to reach its intended target in D.C.

It has been ten years. We pray for peace.

so here I am.. in an imaginary conversation with someone, like usual.. mostly a very unfortunate habit.. very distracting..

but while in imagined conversation.. or my mind fading out of it, in a tired state..

A name came up. I don’t know why, but it showed up in my head.

“Shaftoe.”

As I was typing that surname into google, I came up with the first name, Bobby.

Bobby Shaftoe. Why did this name show up in my head? I couldn’t remember who it was.. not somebody I’d met, I knew that..

So, came up with a few listings on wikipedia.

Bobby Shaftoe was an 18th century member of Parliament in Britain. There’s a nursery rhyme named for him, which I don’t think I’ve ever heard.

The other listing for this name likely explains why the name was in my head at all..

One of the longest novels I read was called “The Cryptonomicon.” I won’t endeavor to describe the plot. Complicated book, and I am not sure why I stuck with it.. didn’t like it all that much, even though it was original.

One of the main characters in that book is named Bobby Shaftoe.

I read that book over a decade ago. Haven’t thought of it in over a decade..

And the name shows up in my head just now.

And I don’t know why.

I thought I might come up with a name referring to a Native American. I am just now recalling why I would have thought “Shaftoe” would have seemed like a Native American to me.

There’s a (likely fictional or at least partially fictional) book about the Yanomamo people of South America, written by an American missionary. Primitive tribe, well-known to Anthropologists. Some anthropologists have claimed the Yanomamo were extraordinarily violent, while others have disagreed.

I know of this group of people because I went to hear a missionary speak at a church. This was in 1999, I’m guessing..

The missionary told the story of the Yanomamo tribes and their supposedly awful sorcery practices.

Some of the natives converted to Christianity, and one of them was a man nicknamed “Shoe-foot.” I find it suspicious that Shoe-foot was not at the church like the missionary said he would be. Maybe Shoe-foot was a fictional person, maybe not. The missionary’s book certainly painted a horrible picture of the Yanomamo.. one of the most violent books I’ve ever read..

Some Christians will write horrible, made up things, and pass them off as truth..for example, a book called, “The Satan Seller.” Written by a Christian comedian named Mike Warnke, who was very popular in the ’80′s, until he was proven to be a total fraud, and his book a work of fiction, not an autobiography.. and it was a Christian magazine that broke that story.. cool.. magazine was called “Cornerstone,” not in print anymore, I don’t think. Maybe some parts of the Bible, even the pre-Christian parts are like this.. I think they are..

But back to the name recognition.. association…

Shoe-foot is similar to Shaftoe..

Sh-sound plus something to do with foot.. so it’s understandable that while typing in the name “Shaftoe,” I was thinking it might be some Native American.

Hmm..

While reading about the historical Bobby Shaftoe, another prominent British politician of Shaftoe’s era was mentioned.. “Pitt the Elder.”

That name seemed familiar too, like I’d heard it mumbled in some line in a movie.. some very quickly mumbled line by a surly person..

But did I really hear this line? ??

Last night, or the night before, I was listening to an audiobook which Stephen Hawking (the most famous physicist on the planet) co-wrote.. and the audiobook is read by a British actor who I’d never heard of.. his voice doesn’t sound surly.. but did he mention Pitt the Elder? I doubt it.. The book is about Quantum Physics, and please don’t ask me to explain quantum physics.. I couldn’t very well anyway.. tried to understand it.

The Hawking book, called “The Grand Design,” .. so far out and strange and .. surreal.. I listened through the first disk.. not likely to continue it!

So.. going back to Pitt..

Pitt the Elder, according to the Wikipedia link was Prime Minister of Britain during what we in America call “The French and Indian War,” and what the British call “The Seven Year’s War.”

(That is, if I’m reading the article right.. rather long, and I’m tired. Hadn’t planned on writing anything tonight.).

I don’t recall where I heard the name “Pitt the Elder.”

And in the article on Pitt, I see a person called “The Duke of Orleans.” Who New Orleans was named after? Seems I’ve heard of the Duke too.. mentioned in some context (not in relation to the city.. ) .. maybe..

Back to William Pitt senior (his son being Pitt the Elder).. Pitt is associated with the name Chatham. I’m not going through the article again to figure out why. It gets confusing.. I don’t know how the systems within the British aristocracy work. Sometimes people have titles because they were born into certain families, some get titles by appointment of king or queen? And some people already with a title get another one if they achieve a military victory. They get promoted..

And when they get a title, they get a new name.. at least some of the time the name is associated with the land/estate they are awarded. I remember this part from Shakespeare.. one of the reasons Shakespeare’s historical plays were confusing..

And from poetry..

George Gordon, Lord Byron. That’s the name of one man, not two. Byron was a poet, 19th century English.. “She walks in beauty like the night..” If you’ve seen the movie “Dead Poets Society,” you’ve heard of Byron and at least one of his poems..

So Pitt the Elder was probably eventually called “Lord Chath.. pardon me.. just saw the heading for the wiki article.. “William Pitt the Elder, Earl of Chatham.” Told you I was tired. “Earl,” in England, is a title, not a person’s name.

Right then..

So.. there are many places in the US named after Chatham (Pitt.. same person). This is because he stood up for colonial American rights. Pitt was concerned that the colonialists in the New World would rise up and fight if their rights were taken away. Nobody listened to him.

He even predicted that if war broke out, America would not be conquered.

I don’t know which cities were named after Pitt before the American Revolution, and which were named after, if any, but there are many of them..

The most famous is Pittsburgh, PA. There’s also a Pittsburgh in CA, which I found rather odd. The city in CA was of course named after the one in PA.

There’s a Pittsfield in Massachusetts, another Pittsfield in New Hampshire, places in several states called Chatham..

Read the article on this historical figure.. interesting..I’ve bookmarked it and will get to it later. I’ve got a bookmark folder for wikipedia articles.. I like that cite very much..

Anyway..

I still don’t know why the name “Bobby Shaftoe” welled up from my subconscious mind. Almost like something that would happen after I’m asleep. I do feel in a bit of a dream state now.. tired but not in a usual way..

And the connection with William Pitt, which I didn’t write about here.. just found the name “Pitt the Elder,” in the Shaftoe article..

And one last name association. “Pitt the Elder” reminds me of the name “Pliny the Elder,” who is some ancient Roman philosopher or ruler.. 23AD-79AD .. wiki sez.. “author, naturalist, natural philosopher” not sure what “natural philosopher means.

There’s also a Pliny the Younger, just as there is a Pitt the Younger. But, Pliny the Younger is the Nephew of Pliny the Elder, but the Pitts were father and son..

It would make more sense if Stephen Hawking mentioned Pliny not Pitt, but I don’t think either were mentioned.. but I’m not going through that first disk of “The Grand Design” again to find out.

So yeah.. Pliny and Pitt both historical figures worth reading about, and Stephen Hawking.. if you want to find your mind in a very strange place check out “The Grand Design,” or his most famous book.. “A Brief History of Time.”

Good luck with all that Hawking stuff. I think I’ll stick with history and leave quantum physics alone.. I hope.

Ok, I’m hungry, still need to take a shower and am getting a headache..

The subconscious is a mystery.. I guess I’ll have to leave it at that.

Very strange..

—————

I wrote the upper part of this post at around 2 am, or something like that.

I got some sleep, and left my bed at 9:30 am.

Just after 10 am, I was listening to an NPR (National Public Radio) interview on the program “Fresh Air.” The woman being interviewed was some kind of high profile restaurant owner.

I was cooking breakfast, so I wasn’t paying all that much attention. I did hear her say that she only went to restaurants a few times when she was a child, and one of the restaurants was..

The William Pitt, in Chatham, New Jersey.

Chatham being another name for William Pitt, also known as Pitt the Elder, who I wrote about in the main part of this post.

And I hear the name this morning on the radio.

Any significance to this? Who knows.. certainly strange.. worth mentioning.

Never thought I’d read that in the news.

I’m neither a Democrat or a Republican. I have no faith in either party.

And generally I find the news too sickening to watch or read.

I was checking my email just now when I saw the story about Obama wanting to keep a tax cut, and the GOP being against it.

Life continues to become more and more absurd.

I don’t think such widespread rioting will occur in the US. There was a large riot in Los Angeles. 1993, I think.

But the riots mostly occurred in black neighborhoods, didn’t spread that much, if at all, into the more ethnically diverse middle class, and there were no riots anywhere else in the country.

Yes, there were riots in the 1960′s.. Kent State, in Ohio, the Democratic Convention in Chicago, the free speech movement in Berkeley, CA. But, even during the incredibly volatile 1960′s the riots didn’t last very long and were not very widespread.

The class struggle riots in Britain that just ended..

I don’t think these types of riots will happen in the US.

Here’s why..

In Britain, it is against the law for anyone other than the military and law enforcement to own firearms. Think about that.

Here in America, just about any law-abiding citizen with no criminal record or history of mental illness can buy guns.

There was looting and burning during the LA riots, but some shop keepers brought out their shotguns, stood on the roofs of their stores, and pointed their guns at the rioters. Even in the mob frenzy of a riot, shotguns get attention. Many shopkeepers saved their stores and their livelihoods because they owned and were not afraid to use firearms.

Riots like those that occurred recently in England and spread to several cities in that country are just not likely to happen here. People will protect themselves.

There is a downside to all this firearm ownership though.

It is slightly possible that American youths could start a riot, and bring guns with them. A band of armed teenagers could do a lot more damage. They’d still be put down buy the rest of us, but it would be a bloodbath. And the rest of us would win.

I don’t think today’s American youth are going to riot, and if they do, I doubt they will bring guns. Frankly, I think American teenagers are far too self-absorbed and lazy and distracted to put down their cell phones and video games and get up from their computers and start rioting.

So I’m not that worried about it.

They drive and drive around and around the lot, risking fender-benders, and irritating themselves more and more..

To get a parking space a few yards closer to the entrance to the gym.

On a day with good weather.

Parking a little closer to the entrance, so they will have to walk a little less far to get to go inside.

And once they are in the gym they will walk or even run on a treadmill for over an hour.

Utter insanity.

Somehow the message got muddled, confused, mistranslated, or just disappeared.

It was always the message that was important, not the messenger.

But we humans, we get things wrong. Throughout time, instead of putting the message into practice, committing it to our hearts, we have instead worshiped the messenger, and the message has faded. Worshiping a messenger is easier than following the message.

Buddha, Christ.. two examples.

Let’s start with Christ. I haven’t studied my bible much in awhile, but I used to read it a lot. Especially the New Testament.

I never once found a quote from Jesus, telling his disciples, or anyone else, to pray to or worship him. In the gospels, it is not Christ but Satan who demanded to be worshiped.

I know that in the beginning of the Gospel of John, it is said that the Word became Flesh. What that means is Christ was the embodiment of the message in human form. But, even so, Christ never instructed anyone to worship or pray to him. Christ taught many things, and when he mentioned worship and prayer, he referred to his father. Christ’s teachings and conduct were the message. That was what was important, not the messenger.

I doubt the real Jesus had planned to be worshiped as God, or have a religion focused on him, the son. Perhaps Christ would have been appalled by how the church evolved, had he known.

Most of the books of the New Testament are epistles – letters written to various emerging church groups, or to people. All the writers of the epistles, especially St. Paul, who wrote most of the letters, got it wrong, I think. The epistles didn’t just focus on the message, they focused on Christ quite a bit too. And so it is today, in modern Christian churches.

Buddha was born 500 years before Christ. Buddha was all about the message too. He was the teacher, and had disciples, but it was what he said and how he acted that was important. Buddha never claimed to be any sort of deity. I don’t think he ever wanted statues made of him, or ever desired to be prayed to. He came to bring a message.

What is the message? At its most basic, the message can be found in all religions.. be kind to others, be kind to yourself, be at peace. In the case of Christianity, love and follow God, in the case of Buddhism, the message was pretty much the same as Christ’s message.. peace, compassion..follow a code of simple morality.

You can find the message in its basic form in other faiths, but the religions of Christianity, and Buddhism – two religions named after the two teachers, have lost some of their intended focus, the focus the teachers had in mind, the message that they taught.

I don’t think Christ or Buddha wanted to form a religion at all, much less a religion focusing on themselves. But, instead of people following the message, the followers formed a religion that was more of a personality cult.

I am not religious, because I don’t like the focus being on any one individual. I feel this isn’t right.

The messenger is not important.

The message is.