One day left. One Wolf, One

Big News Today

2007 will be here tommorrow and according to some news stations the USA will have 300 million people by then, or soon..........................

This news is alarming to many. As I listened on CNN I heard that one of the reasons this is a "big concern" is becuase the planet will soon no longer be able to feed everyone? The USA will have 300,000 and somehow that means the planet will run out of food. Poor timing I guess.

The Wolf

Really good news here. The Wolf is being reintroduced into West Yellowstone. I have read a little about the wolf this last year. A favorite story is about the good wolf and bad wolf inside us all, mentioned on another blog. Seems like the same folks that want the wolf reintroduced want us to have 200, rather than 300 million people here. Good timing for the wolf.

Good Day to Read the Funny Papers

This is not that easy however. The paper person was unable to drive by and deliver the paper. Now of course having had a paper route for maybe close to a year when I was a young man it may be time to talk about how I had to do it on my bike. No older folks took those jobs back then. Of course today you hardly ever see a kid that delivers the paper. Yes Sir. I went out in the early morning and braved the bad weather and did my paper route. I learned a lot doing that. Some of the real basic values perhaps even more helpful than a formal education was the "big" lesson that I learned as I delivered papers. When you finish the month in the red your not in a good business, was the lesson. That was it. I thought of it a few times over the years.

"Rule of Thumb"

If a guy laughs at the comics and laughs at good cartoons he must be a good guy. My dad taught me that valuable lesson. Like the paper route some lessons you have to gain through experience.

Boy I can hardly wait until

Midnight

A lone wolf stands in the forest. For me it seems to represent "individuality". 300 million "individuals". "One lone wolf". "All individuals", looking up or not.

Shoveling Through Paradise

My Home Driveway

*

It was the "snowest day on record", ever in Albuquerque yesterday and then it snowed all night and we had around 18 inches of snow all over. This picture shows what it "seemed like" after I shovel about 3/4 th of the driveway. I got some help for the last part. The airport was closed yesterday and we thought it would be today but it was only part of the day. Our family vistors did however get out of town this afternoon. Highways out of town were closed. Church tommorrow has been canceled. A shopping mall closed. What an unusal Holiday. Reminds me of years past in Utah. That picture reminds me of the driveway in Utah. Thought we were getting away from that.

"There are two kinds of statistics: the kind you look up

and the kind you make up. -Rex Stout, 1886 - 1975.

Book Reviews

*

(I have written a few for Amazon and they

are grouped in a special page that can be

clicked on to the right under the book picture. This blog has

some expanded options now. I can post pictures down

the side and do links better)

Today, because of wanting to do a Amazon review, I was thinking a little about this book, "Miles Gone By". I have always admired Buckley. He is unique. He is interesting. He is "real". In 1951 he published his first book, "God, Man and Yale".

In 1950, the year he graduated, it was controversial to defend individualism, religion and capitalism. His education seemed to be, somewhat like his early life, one full of advantage and opportunity. Considering that, it was even more of a surprise when he questioned the very mission of the institution he had been privileged to attend. He replied to his critics saying “a very recent graduate is not only supremely qualified, but uniquely qualified, to write about the ideological impact of an education he has experienced.”

*

Tommorrow is New Year's Eve. Probably another blog. Maybe some resolutions to consider. Buckley's earlier book "Racing Through Paradise" told the story of a long trip in a sail boat. The day to day dialog was a mixture of sailing information and comments on the events of the day. Sounds a lot like a blog. On the other hand the book left me wanting to sail. That could be a good goal. Thinking about Sailing on a snowy day.

Snowy Day, New Blog, and resolutions

Coming Soon

New Year's resolution time. Seems like the years that I wrote them down were the ones that I accompished more of them. Maybe putting out a blog about things that one likes is sort of like suggesting to others that those things are worth liking. Then again the most regular and loyal reader I have for this blog is "me". Guess that works out.

I am working on some resolutions. Don't know that I would post them. Might.

Snow in New Mexico*

Most snow in one day in the History

of Albuquerque - Today

The way I hear it last weekthere had not beeen a snow like this in 5 years. Of course that was the story last week. Again today we have a repeat and in fact it is more today. I am sure we have the talent around here to take a better picture than this. The one here is a file picture showing the Sandia mountains. Didn't see any blue sky today. Didn't go out taking pictures either.

Blog changes

One thing that I did do today is that I modified this blog. It now has on the right side a picture of some books and then under it a link to Amazon. I found out how to reveiw books on Amazon and then how to have a link to the page with my own reviews on that page. Still have some figuring out to do but clicking on that link will take you to the page with the reveiws on them. My goal is to reveiw the books I really like. That will take some time.

A winter quote below

“In the depths of winter I finally learned there was in me an invincible summer." -Albert Camus, 1913 – 1957

White Green Blue above the Deepest Valley

A happy little cloud

I used to like to watch a show on TV about painting. The oil painter often referred to the clouds he painted as a "happy little cloud".

Only if you have been in the deepest valley can you ever know how magnificent it is to be on the highest mountain. by Richard Nixon
*
A Christmas present this year was a picture of Mt Olympus ( the mountain in our previous backyard in Utah) with the saying above from Richard Nixon written on it. The saying is a lesson in contrasts. On the other hand it may present a question about contrasts. Is it really necessary to have gone to the deepest valley in your life to appreciate the highest mountains. I hope not. Then again it is ok if it is for some folks. So maybe the mountain really is a lesson both in contrasts and in goals.

It is a good time of year to think about goals.



In this book on symbolism it suggested that mountains were an image of a temple or house of the Lord. Representive of revelation, inspiration, and a seperation from the world. When I look up at a cloud I remember a lot of things. When I look up at a cloud or a moutain I don't have to think about a deep valley if I don't want to. Mountains always uplift me. Being by them. Thinking about them. Looking at pictures of them. I often think of the times I have been on top of specific mountains. Interesting the difference between the "symbolic mountain" where we are inspired vs's the one that is just a contrast to all the troubles we have seen. The new year is coming. I guess the year itself may be symbolically another mountain.




I'd rather think of the mountain as something that offers a "likeness of something good" rather than a "contrast of something not so good".

When you get to the top of the mountain your closer to the "blue sky". Blue is often a symbol suggesting the heavenly nature of a thing. Down in the valley at the base of the mountain is "green". The standard symbol for life is represented by the color green. My mountain is covered with "white" snow. White symbolizes purity, innocence, victory, light, revelation and is often assoicatied with the happiness of the spirit. Seems to fit the cloud as well. Obviously a "happy little cloud" up there in the blue.

Christmas Eve Post - Food, Art, Tradition

Christmas Eve Post

Luminara, Tamale, Posole

In New Mexico this time of year you will see Luminara lights everywhere. Along the freeway the large buildings have them and then in the neighborhoods you see these more than regular Christmas lights.

Tamales must mean Christmas here. Kathy's friend has a guy who has gotten her some good Tamales for years. This year that friend had to be found and it took a while. When he was found he arranged to meet Kathy's friend in a parking lot in in a little town nearby and make the exchange. Lot's of people have "connections" to relatives or freinds who have a great Tamale. We already sampled the Tamales we got "through our connection" and it was really good.

Tamale

Acutally I like mine with a realy good red

chile sauce on it. Maybe the Red makes it

more Christmas like. Course the other sauce

I like is green chile sauce

Posole

I really really like "posole". It basically is Hominy and it has diced pork in it. I have sold food for my entire career but prior to coming to New Mexico I had just not seen more than 10 cases a year of posole sold. I probably have seen close to a 100,000 cases sold since I got here just from where I work and it mostly goes out in the winter. (Southwest Christmas Foods)

Collage Bosque
Soon to be Framed .........A group of pictures from the Bosque. The Bosque is the protected area along both sides of the Rio Grande from one end of town to the other. Great walking trails This picture will be good when I get it framed and on my office wall at work.

You don't really need

to book an "international

reservation" to fly here?

This story seemed, up to today, a little like the folk legends that just float around. Seems like every area has them. "So and so" gets on the line to call New Mexico, or to ship something to it, and they are told that it will be "extra" for the "international rate".

Today in trying to change an airline reservation today and the person at the ticket agency suggested it would be costly since it was an "international flight". Ho Ho, we all went. Anyway I noticed when I looked for a map image showing New Mexico that the only one I could find to post here was "blue". Maybe it was because of the blue sky?

Then too if you read my blog yesterday you will know that since this blog is a little like a Christmas Card that it is indeed important that I mention "the teams".

The Chair and then some Christmas Cards

Bought myself a Christmas Chair

The Logo on the chair says, "The University of New Mexico"

This is of course not my Univeristy. I suppose since I graduated from Idaho State that is. I also figure I really always have been a BYU fan. Then again it is "lonely" in that corner a lot of the time.

Seems odd that University preference would be part of a blog around Christmas. Then again it isn't my chair that made me think of this as much as this years Chirstmas newsletters.

The Message, Chair, Cards,

Christmas Weekend

“To write a good letter, you ought to begin without knowing what you mean to say, and to finish without knowing what you have written. -Jean-Jacques Rousseau, 1712 –1778

The difficulty of literature is not to write, but to write what you mean." -Robert Louis Stevenson, 1850 - 1894.




This looks like a good backdrop for a couple of emails. When I bought the chair they asked if they could carry it our for me. I mentioned that it was a couple of blocks away. I was told they had some young healthy collage guys and one would be glad to. So that was good. He was a music major studying voice technique. Seems like he thought the University of NM had a great program by the way.





I heard that these are Recyclable

At work one of the administrative assistants sends a note out each year. She mentions that these cards sent out are great for re using. Making things out of. Cut out stuff for kids. She had some good ideas for them. Yesterday as I left work I took most out of my office and handed them to her.

The ones we get at home often have newsletters in them. It took me a few years to get into reading the newsletters. Kathy had been one to always read them and I do too now. Interesting to see what people put in a newsletter. I did comment in a previous blog about how interesting it was over the years to listen to a great group of guys each get one hour to tell the rest of us about their lives. As I said in looking back family, work, growing up, for some WWII (the war) was a big part of the hour. With only 60 minutes the choice for what to report is interesting. It probably would be more interesting still if each person knew that they had one shot and only 60 minutes to then see what their subject choices would be.

Then to the Christmas newsletters. One time per year. One shot. Maybe a couple of pages. Often several family members share the page or pages. If so, then maybe a short paragraph for each. What to say. What to use the limited time to say. Odd that so many use it to avoid saying anything. Just fill the lines. Some tell you that they just are not going to tell you anything and then that fills a sentence. Others, and this was a surprise as I thought about it, (that was perhaps a mistake), define the differences in their family with football team preferences. Even so no one wrote this year bragging about being a Lobo fan? Actually I know some folks that would have if we had made their Christmas Cards ;list. Lots of Universities and teams mentioned this year.

A real question to ponder at this time of major importance is "did I go buy my chair so I could claim some football or sports preference claim". As Rouaaeau and Stevenson said above, I know what I mean but I don't necessarily know if I said it. I do like this chair.

Fight the good fight Faith never leaves you

I just don't like to watch movies

over and over.

Then again I just watched

"Cinderella Man" for the I have lost track time............

*

It isn't the story line or the movie plot. Truth is I just like the fight. It is good that the star is the old guy and that he is unlikely to win and that he goes against all odds and it is an upset. It is also good that it is a real story. Good that the win gives him the heavy weight world championship in 1935. Two years later he goes against Joe Lewis. Knocks him down in the first round. Joe does wind the fight and says this was the most courageous fighter he ever faced.

*

Mohammad Ali

He is only 4 years older than me. I remember his first fights. I have just never missed one of his fights and I have seen them re run over and over. The picture above of the Thiller in Manilla was indeed...............................

*

Related memories

When I was about 8 years old I started boxing with my Dad in the evening. He would be on his knees. He didn't really punch me but he would break my defense sometimes and I would just try to get through his. I spent a lot of time playing checkers with him too. Not a lot of difference really between checker and boxing. I enjoyed boxing. In high school I just went out for the wrestling team in my senior year. I had never played any school sport before then. I really enjoyed it. I won ever match that year "except one". I even stepped in to the top spot in my weight for a lot of the year, which was unusal for a first year attempt. The one match I lost was a "real loss". It was between the two local high schools. Big match. Everyone was there. It was the type of loss you hate. That lose was far bigger than all the wins that year. I lost one wrestling match. I lost one "fight" with a kid down the block in grade school. I hated both loses. I have never forgot them. Even so those loses were more important that the wins. You have to be able to lose and then never ever ever hesitate to fight again. Life in many ways is a fight.

*

When I blog I like to refer to books. I like to rethink the books I have read. You can never read a good book too many times. Maybe you can never watch a good fight too many times. Lots of books remind me of a good fight. War and Peace. Not the war but the effort. The effort of the journey. The effort of the hero. Off to war, wounded. Leaves the one he loves. Walks across Europe. Returns. Dies in the arms of the one he loves. Then too William Buckley's Miles Gone By. His look back at his life. His faith. His foucs and individuality. His sustained belief in his Catholic upbringing. His willingness to say clearly that his "faith never left him". Just his own sustained "testimony" of what he belived is a win in lifes fight.

Other books I have enjoyed remind me of fights too.

Myth, Fairy Tales and Movies

Thinking some about

Myth, Fairy Tales and Movies

(good time of year to see a good movie or 3)

Fairy Tales seem mostly to be true. This is becuase they are attempting to teach things that are truths. Lots of focus on right and wrong and things that reflect our deepest longings.

Myth on the other hand mimics the thinking of what heaven is thought to be about. It often goes deep to our prmordial past.

*

Good Movies have some Fairy Tale and some Myth

George Lucas said that myth is psychological archaeology. He felt that the success of Star Wars was that it was built around those archetypal patterns of human perception. That probably means that it taps into the deeper reality people have perceived from the roots of time, through myth.

A good example of a movie that seemed to have stopped in the middle as far as it mythic qualities was "King Kong". Once Kong left the island the mixture of plot and interaction with myth seemed to end.

"Some" favorite movies

(I would suggest that they all draw from Myth and Fairy Tales)

The Godfather
Schnindler’s List
Star Wars
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
Citizen Kane
It’s a Wonderful Life
The Matrix
Apocalypse Now
To Kill a Mockingbird
Raging Bull
The Great Escape
Some Like It Hot
All about Eve
2001 A Space Odyssey
Batman
Terminator
Braveheart
Star Wars
The Sixth Sense
Cool Hand Luke
Back to the Future
The Deer Hunter
Platoon
The Graduate
Gandhi
Stand by Me
Patton
Gone with the Wind
Groundhog Day
The Philadelphia Story
King Kong (s)
Walk the Line

Planet of the Apes

Frankly, the meaning of the merchant may be more still

Favorite Book as a Young Man

The other day Kathy listed what for her was her favorite book as a young girl and even today. Her choice was Gone with the Wind. I have thought some about this trying to decide what book may have been my first favorite book and which one was my favorite. I would not be able to pick just one all time favorite but I still wondered which was a first one or an early one. A recent book I bought suggests that myth or fairy tales are very important becuase they teach us truths about right and wrong. "Revisiting Narnia" probalby would not have even gotten my attention if I hadn't read most all of C.S. Lewis's books. The ones I didn't read were the fairy tales so out of curiousity I have now read some.

I haven't read Gone with the Wind

I remember my parents reading to me at age 3 or 4. I learned to read as they did that. I don't remember much of what I did read as a young boy. Magazines. Newspapers. A few books. Wish I would have had a library like my current one in my house. It was Junior High probably the 7th or 8th grade that we read in school the "Merchant of Venice". It was the first I had really heard about Shakespeare. I was caught up in the plot. I found the irony in the story very interesting. I found in this book a way of thinking and looking at events that had not occured to me before.

If I had to find a starting point to thinking different about what reading was it would be that book. Still and interesting story.

Interesting quote form Merchant of Venice.

"The devil can quote scripture for his purpose" .

Concerning the meaning of the "Merchant of Venice"

Still thinking about it

The difficulty of literature is not to write, but to write what you mean."

-Robert Louis Stevenson, 1850 - 1894.

Saturday Evening reflected on the wall

This is a Saturday Evening Post


On the other hand I didn't really read this magazine over the years anyway. Popular Mechanics, Boys Life, Reader Digest, Popular Science, Life, and Changing Times were regular at my house growing up. Superman and Batman and Spiderman were there too. I remember trading my friend Steve a big bunch of those funny books for the 45 record "Jailhouse Rock". That may be off subject a little but then I am not sure I have found "the subject" yet anyway. Books, by the way, didn't become all that addictive until I was a little older.

I was "thinking" about what I had been "experiencing", this last week.

Work, December 7th, a 4 mile walk today. The internet down yesterday. Christmas shopping, alone today. Having a nice lunch, today, together. Buying a book for myself. "Revisting Narnia", a Fantasy, Myth and Religion in the C.S. Lewis Chronicles. I suppose I ought to be reading it rather than typing this.


Allegorical

Just thinking about or I suspect reading "Revisitng Narnia" seems to have a lot of allegorical components. A lot like Plato's allergory of the cave. In that story people sat in a cave chained to to wall. The fire behind them were the lights for the cave. As figures and objects passed before the fire but behind those chained their shadows were cast where the viewers could see them. For those chained to the cave the shadows were reality. In fact the cave is a matrix. A place where people are trapped in a world of illusion they believe to be completly real. We all wonder at times if we are in or out of the matrix.

North Korea is obviously in a Matix

I was thinking about the special I saw on TV last night about North Korea. The people lived a life projected on their walls. They had no internet. No news from the outside world is given to those who live there. No understanding of other people. The only knew what they were told. A dear leader defined what they knew of life. North Korea was collectively not much better than those folks chained in Plato's cave. Both seem to be extremes. Perhaps on our planet the ability to see the real world is accomplished in degrees and North Korea might just be one extreme. What then or who is in the middle still looking at reflections rather than reality.

Thinking versus Experiencing

Lewis wrote in a essay called "Myth became Fact" that experience allows us to know things concretely in a way that is intense, intuitive and immediate on the one hand but critically vauge on the other.

Thinking, he said, allows careful contemplation that is clear, but abstract and it distances us from the reality we are wanting to know about. We can have the knowledge that comes from being in an experience, or we can have the kind that comes from being outside it.

Course it might make this blog a little more personal if I would just admit that the picture of the guy on the wall was me?

Notoriety caused by evil,

"Infamy" began on December 7th

People called in to the talk radio show today as I drove home from work. Some talked of Grandpa, others of Dad, and a couple of their own specific memories. My Dad talked some about this war. I remember friends in a church group who talked about this day. Some where on the ships that were hit. The talk show host was respectful. He will hang up on a lot of folks and just yell about how dumb they are on other days but anyone with a memory or thought about this war today, was treated with respect. Some wars command some respect. Some who fight in the wars get respect, even if the wars don't. Sometimes neither the soldier or the war is respected. Points of view change...............................

In July 1945 at Potsdam, Churchill, Truman and Stalin came together and Truman told them of what was to happen that very next month in August. Two things happened in August. Besides Hiroshima and Nagasaki a book was published.

This seems a little disrepectful, considering the wars impact, but in August 1945

Animal Farm was published.

Animal Farm seems to be aimed at socialism. The book targeted the same enemy that the war did in many ways. The book continues today to make a strong political and "human" statement. For example maybe it really points to the rise and fall of the republicans of the last 10 years. At any rate the pigs took over for the animals and tossed the humans out. Then an interesting thing happened. They started out with good ideas and were working together and then it turned out that......................

"some animals were more equal than others"

Pretty much real life when folks move into a place of power. The "donkey" sumed up things, both before and after, when he said that life just seemed to go on about the same as always, "badly". Sort of looks like there is more to having things turn our correct than just winning. Then again in the end the pigs who took the place of the men, looked like men. Equality realized, they found the lowest common denominator.

The lesson was in what was missed.

Trying to do better than those that proceeded you. Stepping up rather than down. Sunday we met a man from Japan. He lost his dad when he was a very young man. His father was killed in the war by Americans. He had later converted to a church introduced to him by two young American missionaries. He joined and then served his life seeing Americans not as people that had killed his father but as people that he had learned to love. He stepped up.

A soft reflected look

This picture was not taken today

In fact two people will not be found "reflected back as shadows" today because the walk was taken many months ago. Kathy was still getting better, but then we did go over to the craft fair at the high school. It happens once a year and it is a very good one. Artists with a variety of skills come from all over the country for this fair. We went two years ago and found a lady that did some neat stuff and she was there today. She remembered Kathy? and what items she sold her two years ago. This is not a surpise to anyone that knows Kathy real well by the way.

The picture is a favorite. I have in on my desk.

Scanner on my computer now works.

Nothing here is a product of that, yet. The good news is that I can scan some better stuff for my blogs going forward. Then too I sent Mike a picture of Skipper. No relationship to these guys below by the way. Skipper was a good old dog. Showed up when I was about 8 or 10? and stayed for 23+ years I think. I left before he did. He took center stage on a blog way back a month or two ago.

I got some emails back on my "two wolves" story. See blog of November 23rd. I sent it out to some folks by email. Better answers back on emails than this blog, really. Anyway I don't know that I am really all that interested in wolves but even in a picture I find their eyes interesting. Actually I liked to watch the eyes of Mike's cat. Good cat. I would give her a A for being the best cat I have come accross. Now I have no " cat standard" to measure by. I am not sure I really like dogs really except Ginger.

It usually takes several points of view that let you come up with anything useful or maybe original. In fact "thinking" is what takes place when your finding something from several points of view. Reporting information collected sometimes only from one source is not thinking. For example, I was thinking that I find the picture and the shadow interesting becuase it is a "reflection of a fun time" and then the picture itself is a reflection of a reflection. Wouldn't it be intersting to see with other eyes. Wonder if we see things different now, and if there is more new to see, than just the shadows once missed. What is really the reflection?

When you are old and grey and full of sleep,

And nodding by the fire, take down this book,

And slowly read, and dream of the soft look Your eyes had once,

and of their shadows deep;

The soul can render an honest man - course one branch is bare

This tree seems to have had a long

career

Yesterday I went to a meeting and talked about my own career with some young men. I have done that a number of times over a lot of years. Once I thought what I was doing was showing a possible career direction since that was what I was talking about......................

The career iteself really doesn't matter after all. Thinking and learning all you can about what you do and keeping track of people and relationships and actually caring about the people you work with does matter. It really isn't possible to learn everything about anything but there is nothing wrong with trying.

Emerson said that there is a time in every persons education when they arrrive at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is wrong, and that one must take themselves for better or worse. (Notice how I copied and imitated Emerson to make my point here by the way) .

Speaking of Emerson I do like this poem.....................

Man is his own star; and the soul that can

Render an honest and a perfect man,

Commands all light, all influence, all fate,

Nothing to him falls early or too late.

Our acts our angels are, or good or ill,

Our fatal shadows that walk by us still.