“I never,” he said, “take a step to one side.”
February 14, 2009
The texture & melody the Strawberry knows is that of love & gratitude.
The point of my previous prattle was that I’m very thankful for where I am in life and for those who’ve been there for me along the way. In a hard core world, it’s good to know where one’s heart is.
And, that’s all I’m going to say about that, for now.
February 12, 2009
Amang the train, there is a swain
I dearly lo’e mysel’
What am I doing on this train? This train is great. It’s winter and spring is coming. This train takes me from where I live to where I work. It takes me away from one place to another and back again. I can’t wait each day to see what will be new at each stop.
The places are the same, but the times are different. It really is amazing how the places change from time to time. You may say that they are the same, that it’s a place you can always come back to, and it’s still as you remember it–but, it’s not.
It’s different. It’s new and not the same. It’s a new time. It really is amazing each new moment in time.
If you are listening to the Red Priest, Antonio Vivaldi, you might be hearing his Four Seasons. A collection of pieces of music that changes from beginning to end. It represents places in time, the year. They say he had a feeling for melody and texture in his music. I say he had a penchant for recognizing that every year we have a group of constant reminders that times are a-changing.
The year is always there. It’s something you can count on. The people and events of each year come and go, but rest assured the year will always be there. And with each year, one can count on the seasons of the year as one’s perennial visitor, a pilgrim, if you will, on a mission to remind us that change is coming. We are rest assured with the changing seasons that things are and time is new, different, changing to a new moment in our lives that has never been.
Yes, another year, another day, in the same place, but what makes this day, this moment in this same place so unique and amazing is that it has never been here before. This is what all the crazy people are saying. They’ve been saying it long before Lucio wrote its soundtrack. Every moment in time is a juncture that we have choose to refashion our world or stay the same and do nothing at all. If we listen to the anthem of the train, the chorus of our providence, we will see that every new moment is a moment for us to behold, grow, love, change, fail, and triumph.
What am I doing on this train? The train is coming to the last stop of the day. It’s not the last stop in this life. It’s another moment in time for me to feel the texture of love and to be dazzled by you, life.
December 18, 2008
As I sit in a waiting room waiting for my child to go into play therapy, I see the few other children waiting in this waiting room. They are all here waiting with us, their parents, in this waiting room to wait and play. When the waiting is over, the children will go in and play with one another while the parents wait for the hour to pass. We wait not for the hour to pass alone, we wait to have our children back next to us. We also wait for the play therapy to work its magic on our children.
It’s nice to see our children play with other children who want to play with them in return. We know more than any other parent that our child is normal, yet we are accustomed to making excuses we forget where we are. The children understand one another quite well. I know this because we as adults understand the other adults quite well. We can tell which one of us we will get along with and which one we won’t. Our children don’t really care about that, do they?
I look at the children waiting to play. It’s how they wait for us to stop waiting on them to grow up.
November 23, 2008
2006 Santa Cruz Chameleon Hardtail Mountain Bike Frame
I’ve been carrying this frame around hoping to build it up into a single speed. I’m going to hold off for now and try to find this sweet frame a good home.
This frame was ordered from the factory 3 years ago and never been used or built. It’s just been sitting on my shelf. Some of the decals are a bit scuffed from coming too close to other stuff, but the frame is still in perfect shape.
Here’s a blurb from the catalog in 2006:
Like the name implies, a versatile bike. Or a lizard that can change colors. It looks more like a bike than a lizard though. Anyway, the Chameleon is a stiff and tough 7005 aluminum bike. It’s built with a pair of rocket fast 1 inch square chainstays, wishbone seatstay, gusseted top and down tubes, horizontal dropouts, and snappy geometry. We designed the chameleon to be a fast handling, fun to ride bike that should last a long time even under the hands of abusive psychopaths. Slalom? Why, yes. X-C? Of course. Single speed? Certainly, you sick pervert. The name is Chameleon, after all.. Frame weighs 4.1lbs
Update: SOLD! 
September 25, 2008
I enjoy language, as one can read from my previous Hungarian language post.
English is my first language, yet only recently have I’ve learned that there is more than one English language. My ignorance led me to believe that there was only a difference in accents and verbage, however living out of my own country for the last ten years has taught me that there are vast differences.
Joe Clark now spells out this difference in his new E-book, an electronic book you can read in a Web browser or print, Organizing Our Marvellous Neighbours.
Canadian spelling is tricky and easy to get wrong. But the book reveals the results of new, original research – into everything from newspaper articles to court rulings to literature to blogs – that Canadian spelling is well accepted, well practised (not “practiced”), and stable. Except there’s one little fly in the ointment: Your spellchecker will steer you wrong every time unless you already know all the rules by heart. After you read the book, you will know those rules.
Check out Organizing Our Marvellous Neighbours and learn for yourself so you don’t have to be as ignoramus as I be. :p
September 22, 2008
I’m just writing this to fill the 1.5 hours left in the flight after my two movies ended to vent, if you will.
The Hungarian language is a beautiful language. It’s a language all on its own without much relation to any other language out there known to a similar group of 14.5 million people. After listening to the language for some time, one eventually starts to discern certain words. But that’s not the point of this part of the story. The point is, that it is harmonic and delightful to listen to the way these sounds come out of the mouth of mature humans, of which more than 14.5 million people, mature and otherwise, understand. It truly is amazing the way the grown human palate can produce such vocabulary with a grammar richer in structure and with an alphabet more robust than my own English, with the rises, falls, and pitches constructing the linguistic intonations.
Do not mistake this homily as a diatribe against the Hungarian language or culture. I may be colourful with this expounding, but I do truly enjoy listening to the language being spoken. When I lived in Croatia, Hungary’s southern neighbour, before I made an effort to learn the Croatian language, I’d listen to Hungarian radio stations. The reason for this is simple. Radio stations are the same the world over–a little bit of music and a whole bunch of talk. If you’re given the choice to listen to two radio stations, each talking endlessly about very important matters and trivial issues, in a different language that has no relationship to any other language that you know, and you must listen through the talking to get to the music, which one would you choose? Irregardless of which you’d choose, I chose the language that was more pleasant on the ear.
This all changes when old ladies enter the picture, or shall we say “sound stage”. They enter stage left behind me on a 9 hour transatlantic flight in coach flying from Budapest to New York. Old ladies talking is just fine. Really. People talking is just fine, too. Look at us. We all talk. Ladies, young and old, have been talking for time eternal. Some of the smartest people have been some of them old ladies talking to other old ladies. Honestly. Some of my favourite relatives are old ladies. And, they talk. That’s just fine. Heck, I’ve known men, old and young, who talk just as much if not more than your average old talking lady.
The real point is that old ladies talking is great and all, but when they’re speaking Hungarian the entire time, hacking and sneezing up a lung or two, sitting behind me on a 9 hour flight across the atlantic, and constantly pushing and pulling my seat and using it as an assistive device to enable them in and out of their seats each time they have to go to the potty, stretch their legs, or get something out of their luggage in the overhead compartment during the movie and stand in between me and the movie screen of a movie that I’ve never had the chance to watch but always wanted to watch and now that I’m on this nine hour flight over the atlantic, gosh, it’d sure be nice to watch, it gets a bit bothersome.
Honestly, it could’ve been any language and anyone.