CHANGING SEASONS

   Each year as the months progress I hear the same complaints coming from the people around me.  In the Winter it is the frigid weather and how many difficulties and inconveniences snow removal causes.  In the Spring the wind, the rain and the mud are criticized.  In summer it is the heat, lawn mowing and the constant battle with weeds.  In Autumn it is the falling leaves and the continual yard work they bring. Each season has its own unique set of problems but also its own set of joys:
     Winter brings skiing, ice skating and basketball.  
     Spring brings kite flying, gardening, and soccer.
     Summer brings swimming, vacations and baseball.  
     Autumn brings the harvest, school and football.  

   I have decided however, that there are really only two seasons during a year not four as most people commonly think:

   1. Spummer Road Construction season
   2. Fallwin Road Construction season

   Or maybe that means there really only one season: Spummerfallwin Road Construction season.  

   The real measure of the season is how fast you can get from here to there.  As life progresses in Utah it seems the the road works departments of all municipalities are in a conspiratorial plot to make getting anywhere as hard as possible on a year round basis.  It seems like one project stops and another one starts on the same part of a road that was just finished.  It is a constant pain and test of patience.  However, I won't let them get to me. As I dive up to the next man made obstacle course I will simply say to myself, "My tax dollars at work."

UPDATE: THE CHRISTMAS TREE CONSPIRACY

I resubmitted a novel to smashbooks.com. with a new cover:
  http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/91524

If you are a Sony Reader you can get to Smashwords here:
 http://ebookstore.sony.com/publishers/

It is also available at Barnes and Noble:
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/Ross-Martin-Madsen?keyword=Ross+Martin+Madsen&store=book

 It is also available at itunes if you have the capacity to download books from itunes.  If you do click on books and search for the Christmas Tree Conspiracy.

NBA:Owners vs. Players

   Wa, wa, wa! I hate to hear the wailing of spoiled children. Especially gifted and wealthy ones.

   Owners: You can't play basketball unless we say you can, and we will only pay you what we want to pay.
   Players: Then we won't play unless you pay us what we want to be paid.
   Owners: Good because we own all the equipment and the courts so we won't let you in to play.
   Players: Fine we will go play on European courts.
   Owners: Go ahead, but don't come back.
   Players: You need us to make your money, so pay us more.
   Owners: No we don't. We're already rich and this will hurt you more than it does us.
   Players: That's the point.  You're already rich and we want to be, so give us more money.
   Owners: Why? You'll just fritter it away.
   Players:  Pay us more or we will hold our breath.
   Owners: Don't hold your breath.  It ain't gonna happen.
   Players: What about the fans?
   Owners: The who?  
   Players: The fans!
   Owners: What's a fan?
   Players: You know the people who come to the games and pay to see "US" play.
   Owners: What have they got to do with any of this?  They will pay whatever we say they will.
   Fans: Grow up.  It's a kids game. You are all overpaid.  Maybe we'll just take our money and go to a hockey fight.

SCAMS?

   Beware! There are scams among us, hiding in the guise of legal businesses that have been around for so long we accept them as legitimate.  Three of them come quickly to mind:
  1. Banks
  2. Insurance Companies
  3. Travelers Checks
   I'm not sure about State and National Governments but they are under my scrutiny and I expect to come to a conclusion in the near future.  The reason I suspect government as a potential scam artist is because I finally figured out what John F. Kennedy really meant when he said, "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country."  When the code is translated it takes the following form. "Don't ask me what I am going to do for you, what are you going to do for me?"  That seems to justify a lot of what goes on in this nation. 
   Banks say to us, "Give us your hard earned money and we will protect it and pay you a small amount of interest, but don't go below the minimum balance (that means we want some of your money permanently).  We will loan out the money you have saved with us to a third party and charge a large amount of interest thereby making the bank a profit by using your money as though it were our own. Oh and you want access to the money you have given to us to hold?  Not a problem.  All you'll have to do is pay a checking account fee, an ATM fee, a debit card fee or any other fee we can come up with and foist off onto our patrons.
   Insurance companies say,"Pay us a monthly fee and we will 'insure' your home, automobiles, your health or whatever.  Pay us this fee year after year and we will give you a 'discount' for not making any claims.  Oh and by the way if you do make a claim we will take away your discount and charge you more per month for the privilege of having us insure your property or health. After all we have to recoup the money we had to pay out on your claim."  What this means is, "Give us your money year after year and don't make us give any of it back.  If you do make a claim we will punish you."
   Travelers check companies say,"Give us your real money and we will give you fake money to carry around.  While you are carrying around the fake money we will invest the real money and keep the profits.  Oh and by the way you will have to pay us a fee to let us give you the fake money in the first place."
 
   The reason I'm not so sure about the government is that they are the ones who let the banks, insurance companies and travelers check companies get away with the scam hindered only with a few taxes here and there.

ONE MAN'S TREASURE

   That last post got a bit heavy but it was indeed how I feel about the subject.  On a lighter note I am in the middle of cleaning out my office, the utility storage room, and the grand children's playroom in preparation for painting and carpeting the playroom and my office. Over the years we have acquired a great deal of "material" which we have carefully stored in the nooks and crannies of these three rooms, most of it to be used at an undetermined 'sometime' in the future.  What is interesting is that as we looked at the material we discovered items which hadn't seen the light of day in three decades. Still deciding to discard it or send it to the local charity store became a gut wrenching process where it became perfectly clear that my treasures were junk and my wife's stored items were priceless heirlooms. 
   "But we can't throw those away I may need them," she says.
   "You haven't used them but three times in the passed thirty years and those three times were twenty-eight years ago," I say.
   "But some of them belonged to your mother and you never know when they will be needed."
   "I do too," I say. "They will never be needed."
   "If we throw them out I know I'll need them the day after we do," she insists.
   "So we are not getting rid of those glass snack trays with matching cups?" I ask.
   "Certainly not (smile from my wife) but we surely need to toss the air mattress inflation pump."
   "But I may need it to inflate and air mattress when we go camping," I explain.
   "We never go camping and we don't own an air mattress," she points out.
   "What has that got to do with it?  I may need it sometime and then I won't have it." I whine.
   Another treasure finds its way into the charity donation sack.

TO CULT OR NOT TO CULT

   The word "cult" is being thrown around frequently in the press and by certain "quasi" religious leaders during the current political upheaval occurring in the Republican Party as the next presidential election revs up. I use the term "quasi" religious leaders because these ministers apparently don't believe in practicing their avowed religion's original tenants.  They aren't sincere enough to live by the precepts of the founder of the Christian religion. I think it was Jesus who said:

 Mathew 5: 22 & 43-44 (KJV)

22 But I say unto you, That whosoever is angry  with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment: and whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca (term of derision), shall be in danger of the council: but whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire. 

 ***

43 ¶Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy.

44 But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you;

   You belong to a "cult" is a semi acceptable way of saying to someone in this increasingly politically correct world of ours that what you believe is rubbish because it doesn't agree with what I believe.  Law suits abound over matters including: sexual bias, racism, antisemitism and ethnic slurs. But somehow religion, even though the free exercise of ones religious beliefs is a guarantee of the Constitution (1st Amendment I believe), seems to be a popular target of the media and oddly of one religious group against another.

I looked up the definitions for the word "cult" and found the following entries: 

 

1. A particular system of religious worship, especially with reference to its rites and ceremonies. (Any Church fits this definition)

2. An instance of great veneration of a person, ideal, or thing, especially as manifested by a body of admirers. (For Christians that person is Jesus Christ)

3. The object of such devotion. (Christ again)

4. A group or sect bound together by veneration of the same thing, person, ideal, etc. (Again, any religious sect)

5. Sociology--a group having a sacred ideology and a set of rites centering around their sacred symbols. (Any religious group qualifies)

6. A religion or sect considered to be false, unorthodox, or extremist, with members often living outside of conventional society under the direction of a charismatic leader. (This is the definition one religious group throws toward another which does not believe the same things they do. What most Christian sects fail to acknowledge is that from the point of view of any other sect their view of Christianity is false, unorthodox, or extremist.  All current Christian religions, including Catholicism, were once considered cults by the majority religion of the time they were founded.)
  
  It seems a bit hypocritical for one group of Christians to point their fingers at another and cry "cult!" As you can see any religious group or community can be called a cult. For me what should be practiced is a little less religion and a bit more Christianity.

TUACHAN

   What the heck is a Tuachan?  I thought it was a South American bird with a large beak used to eat breakfast cereal.  This week I found out it is an outdoor theater located among the red rock hills north west of St. George, Utah.  They put on plays and concerts there.  This summer it was The Little Mermaid and Grease.  
   We had an entire summer to purchase tickets.  So what did we do?  You guessed it.  We waited too long and by the time we made the decision to drive down from Salt Lake and meet our daughter and her children who were driving from California, all of the performances for The Little Mermaid were sold out.  We got tickets for Grease to make the trip at least somewhat productive, but we still wanted to see The Little Mermaid. So we decided to go to the theater and see if there would be any tickets turned in or if someone wanted to sell the tickets they had purchased.  We needed six tickets to accommodate all of us.
   At the box office I put my name on a waiting list and waited.  For two and a half hours I waited.  It rained and I waited.  It stopped raining and I waited.  I ate pizza and waited.  A women wanted to sell me two tickets and I thought, What if I can't get four more?  So I said, "No thank you, and I waited.  A man tried to sell me two tickets and I declined because I needed six, and I waited.  When the box office finally told the lucky people on the  list that their wait was over.  Because our names were about midway down the list and several above us had left I thought we might get in to see the performance.  No such luck.  All they had when they got to my name were two tickets and I needed six.  We didn't get to see The Little Mermaid.

   For those of you who are math challenged:          2 + 2 + 2 = 6

But then hindsight is much clearer than foresight.

UP AND DOWN?

 

   Thinking like a physicist I once tried to convince a skeptical and unbelieving manager at my part time job that there is no such thing as up and down.  By way of a greeting he had asked me, "What's up?" I replied, "There's no such thing as up or down."  This of course demanded an explanation and I offered it to him carefully. I didn't want to overload his thought processes.  He listened intently, gave me a strange look and told me slowly the management line he had learned in his How to Handle Employees Handbook.  "Get back to work."I did but it didn't change the up or down argument.

  Think about it.  If two people are on opposite sides of the world, the direction one calls up is down to the other person and visa-verse the  direction one calls down is up to the other.  How can the same direction be both up and down.  To make matters more confusing.  It they are both facing the same direction (that might require one of them standing on his head), that direction may be east for one but it would be west for the other.  If behind them is west for one it would be east for the other.  To their right would be south for one and north for the other and to their left is north for one and south for the other.  No wonder no one knows which way to turn. 

          I solved the problem for him by explaining the truth about directions.  What we call up is really away from the center of a gravity well and down is toward the center of a gravity well. This is true no matter where you are on the surface of the earth.  As to the other directions i.e. North, South, East and West, forward, backward, to the right or to the left will just have to do until we can accept forward or backward parallel to the center of a gravity well and right or left parallel to the center of a gravity well.

          So the next time someone asks you, “What’s up?”  Tell them kindly, “There is no such thing,”  but don't try to explain it to them.

 

REALITY

   I've been reading a book called The Dancing Wu Li Masters.  It was published in 1979 which makes it somewhat out of date and I understand the subject matter has only become more complicated since then. It's all about physics and how physicists are trying to make sense of the world around us and explain what reality truly is by using Mathematics, the Theory of Relativity, Quantum Mechanics and Particle Physics.  What the book says so far is that if we accept what physicists are telling us, then the world, including each one of us, on the sub-atomic level, is in constant chaos changing from matter to energy and back again. We may look real but we are actually made up of waves or particles or both, glued together by electromagnetism, except particles don't really exist, and waves are only probabilities that may or may not come into existence, which means we don't really exist, and if we do exist it is only because someone accidentally observed us existing. Remember this the next time you see something no one else does.  You may have just created whatever it was you saw because without you to observe the event then it probably wouldn't have happened in that exact manner and may have popped into existence in a parallel dimension skipping us all together depending on if someone observed it over there and how close to the speed of light it was traveling for velocity = mass = energy, maybe, because some particles are mass-less, except mass is what makes up the universe.
   The whole subject is very deep, esoteric, hurts my brain when I think about it and makes me glad I'm not a physicist.  Trying to cope with cleaning the bathroom and taking out the garbage is difficult enough for me to understand at this stage of my life. The book also gives me a clear view of how totally off their rockers most scientists are.  After reading this book I now believe Rod Serling (Twilight Zone) was  a Dancing Wu Li Master physicist.