THE ARE MORE WAYS TO ZEN OUT THEN MEDITATION

TAKE TEN

Shut out the outside world,  put on your headphones, close your eyes, relax and ZEN out.

the Ol'Buzzard

AN OLD GREY BEARD BIKER SPEAKS

Nostalgia, rambling in the past is about as interesting to other people as watching someone’s home movies: ‘And here is Uncle Ralph with a lamp shade on his head….’

  

Having said this, the reason most of us blog is that we all have a need to write,  and so we troll through the attic that is our mind to possibly find something that someone else might be interested in reading. 

  

But, occasionally we write something that is meaningful to only us, knowing from the start that other people really won’t be interested:

Two weeks ago we went to Augusta (Maine) to have our Toyota serviced, and since we were near the bike shop my wife suggested (the woman must love me, I don’t know why: she is too damn good for me) we swing by so I could price the leather motorcycle jackets on sale at off season prices.

Recently the shop has become an Indian distributor and I was anxious to actually see one.   I am nostalgic about Indians because my grandfather road an Indian Chief way before I was even thought of.

The bike looked great; but I was blown away by the price.   The Chief started at $23,000,   Hell, my car cost that, and for another ten thousand you could buy a Mercedes.

Don’t get me wrong, I am very satisfied with my Honda, and owning another bike is not in my future. 

Seven thousand plus custom seats and saddlebags. 

 

I started riding when I was eighteen.   I have owned Triumphs, Hondas, Yamahas and one Second World War vintage  45 cubic inch military Harley.  I have never owned a bike more than 750 cc and I see no need for the extra displacement and weight as I don’t do long distance riding.  All the extra displacement cost more money and decreases your gas mileage drastically (The big Harleys costing about the same as the Indians get mileage in the thirties – I get sixty-five mpg and can cruise comfortably at seventy with a top end over one hundred.  

All these big expensive bikes are the must have for the generation that has been raised on cell phones, I-pads and internet.  Many of the bikers today are yuppies with good incomes and can afford new Harley and Indians.   They watch Sons of Anarchy and read Easy Rider, and act out their fantasy on the week-ends.

   

Don’t get me wrong, if you are on two wheels with and engine you’re a biker; but the image is false.

  

The original biker clubs came about after World War II when veterans got together and formed groups like the Hell’s Angles.  These guys were mostly riding Triumphs, BSAs, Nortons and Royal Infields: 650cc British bikes. 

It was Sonny Barger in the sixties that carried the Angles into the outlaw biker image that is so popular today.

I am fortunate to be in good physical shape and be able to still ride in my mid-seventies.   But, I can’t help but chuckle when I pull into a restaurant on my bike and see some young gun with a shiny new ride wearing a tea shirt that says: IF IT AIN'T HARLEY IT AIN'T SHIT.   He bought the shirt and bought the bike; but he has year to go to earn the creds.

Do not go gently into that good night.

Old age should burn and rage at close of day;

Rage, Rage against the dying of the light.

Dylan Thomas

the Ol’Buzzard

  

THAT'S MY EXCUSE AND I'M STICKING TO IT.

My wife said that I had already posted the story about the frog and the witch (or some version there of.)   My excuse is:  Hell I'm old!    Sometimes I will open the door of the refrigerator and have to stand there for a minute wondering, "What the hell did I come here to get?"  If I don't remember I can always grab a beer in default and the trip is not wasted. 

That reminds me; did you ever hear the story about the man with a little head?
the Ol'Buzzard

MORE SNOW: BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR #2

It is snowing like hell in Boston; actually they have more snow than Maine.

I was in Boston last week and stopped in an old Irish pub for a beer; but mainly to get out of the snow storm.   I was sitting at the bar drinking a John Adams Ale when another man entered.   He stomped the snow off his shoes and hung his coat on the coat rack then came and sat down on a stool near me. 

 

I didn't want to stare, but the man had an obvious birth defect or growth defect or whatever the hell you want to call it.   He was a big man, built like a weight lifter but with an unusually diminutive head – actually not much bigger than a cantaloupe.  

He mentioned to the bar tender that he was from Maine and I felt obliged to share that I, also, was from Maine.    We started talking and he was quite pleasant.   Trying to awkwardly steer away from his deformity I commented that he must work out all the time to maintain muscle tone like that.    He said that actually he never worked out and that he used to be smaller than me.    Then he said he had a story if I wanted to hear it. 

I bought us both a beer and he began his story.   It seems he had been camping on Chesuncook Lake in remote northern Maine.  He had just canoed back into camp after fishing all afternoon.   He left his fish in the canoe, rekindled his camp fire and popped a bear when he saw a spotted frog by the water’s edge.  The frog was making a strange sound so he walked over to take a look.   He had heard frogs croaking or making a noise like ribbet ribbet ribet, but this frog’s noise sounded more like kissme kissme kissme.    Well, there was no one around and he thought it was funny so he picked up the frog and kiss it. 

Instantly a beautiful naked woman appeared; she said she was a witch that had been turned into a frog a century before, and that since he had broken her curse she would grant him three wishes.  

He looked at her and though how scrawny he was and how beautiful she was, so he told her that if she actually could grant wishes he would like to have a body like Arnold Schwarzenegger.    There was a puff of cold wind and suddenly he was too large for his clothes.  

She asked what his second wish was and he said he would like to have mad passionate sex with her for the rest of the afternoon.    They had wild steamy sex right there beside the lake until they were both exhausted.  

They lay in each other’s arms falling asleep.  When they finally awoke she asked him what his third and final wish would be and he replied, ‘How about a little head?’

There is a moral to this story: be careful what you wish for – because a little head would have been my first wish.

the Ol’Buzzard  

29 DAYS TILL SPRING

SPRING WILL COME THIS YEAR!

I don't snore.   I just dream of motorcycles.

the Ol'Buzzard

EIGHTY-FIVE INCHES AND ANOTHER SNOW STORM TOMORROW

Two snow storms a week since the beginning of February.   When it is not snowing it is blowing.  When I am outside shoveling I try tho think of spring and tell myself that soon I will be riding the bike, but then the snow blows in behind what I just shoveled and I  I  I  I k no  w that it wi l l   be   o v e   r   soon   But.....
All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.   All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.  All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.  All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.  All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.  All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.  All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.   All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.  All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.  All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.  All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.  All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.  All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.   All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.  All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.  All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.  All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.  All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.  All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.   All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.  All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.  All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.  All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.  All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.  All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.   All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.  All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.  All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.  All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.  All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.  All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.   All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.  All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.  All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.  All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.  All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.  All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.   All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.  All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.  All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.  All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.  All work and no play makes Jack a dull Ol'Buzzard

MUSLIMS ARE NOT THE REAL DANGER TO AMERICA

Once a year Muslims in Texas meet at the State Capital to celebrate their American heritage. 

Muslim terrorist are creating havoc in the Middle East; but here in the United States the real danger to individual freedom comes not from the Muslim community, but from the fundamentalist Christian cabal.   They would establish their version of Christian rule that would be every bit as draconian as Islamic Sharia Law.

These people would send us back to the eighteenth century where church clerics could condemn people to the stocks, or public whipping, public shaming, imprisonment or worse for defying their interpretation of Christian law.

These radicals are not to be laughed at, for they have already infiltrated the highest levels of our government and are accepted and placated by the Republican Party

.

This type of vitriol, bigotry and intolerance is beyond freedom of speech – these people are capable of blind rage and violence in the name of their God, and they are seeking a Christian Nation.    

 Sound familiar?

Be afraid - be very afraid.

the Ol’Buzzard

1984 REVISITED

I urge anyone with time for books to read or reread George Orwell’s 1984.   The similarities to our government is astounding.   It is obvious to the observer that science fiction writing has predicted advances in real science; and we might say George Orwell has predicted our present.

The story, of course, is the extreme of an individual’s manipulation by a government; but the underlying picture of our government’s manipulation of facts and reality is strikingly familiar.

(Note: the movie sucks)

EXCERPTS FROM 1984 FOR CONSIDERATION:

WAR IS PEACE

FREEDOM IS SLAVERY

IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH

“The enemy of the moment represents absolute evil.”

“If all others accepted the lie which the party imposed – if all records told the same tale – then the lie passed into history and became true.”

Mission Accomplished

“Who controls the past, ran the party slogan, controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.”

George W Bush Presidential Library

“Statistics were just as much a fantasy in their original version.  A great deal of the time you were supposed to make them up out of your head.”

“The aim of the high is to remain where they are.   The aim of the middle is to change places with high.   The aim of the low, when they have an aim – for it is an abiding characteristic of the low that they are too much crushed by drudgery to be more than intermittently conscious of anything outside their daily lives – is to abolish all distinction and create a society in which all men shall be equal.”

U.S. Congress

“Imprisonment without trial, the use of war prisoners as slaves, public execution, torture to extract confessions, the use of hostages and deportation of whole populations not only became common again, but were tolerated and even defended by people who considered themselves enlightened and progressive.”

“In the past no government had the power to keep its citizens under constant surveillance.”

“The essential act of the party is to use conscious deception while retaining the firmness of purpose that goes with complete honesty.   To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient…”

Weapons of Mass Destruction

“The Proles (people) are only intermittently conscious of the war.   When it is necessary they can be prodded into frenzies of fear and hatred, but when left to themselves they are capable of forgetting for long periods that the war is happening.  

What War?

 It is in the ranks of the party, and above all the inner party, that the true war enthusiasm is found.”

Republican Neo-Cons

“We know that no one ever seized power with the intention of relinquishing it.  Power is not a means; it is an end.”

Partisan Politics

NEWS SPEAK: (news released designed to diminish the range of thought.)

DOUBLE THINK: (to successfully manipulate the mind to the point that people think the opposite of what is true.)

The correlations are obvious.  

the Ol’Buzzard

HIGH WINDS - SNOW BLOWING HORIZONTALLY

THE HOUSE IS ROCKING

Turn up your volume for old time boogie woogie.

the Ol'Buzzard

FIFTY SHADES OF GREY

YOUNG PEOPLE THINK THEY HAVE INVENTED SEX. 

BUT IN REALITY WE HAVE DONE IT ALL BEFORE.

the Ol'Buzzard

SNOBUARY: BLIZZARD CONDITIONS IN MAINE

I seem to remember that in January I complained about the lack of snow.    Well, so far during the month of February (the last thirteen days) we have had four major snow storms and a blizzard predicted for this weekend.   

Our local Maine WCSH weatherman has posted predictions of twelve to sixteen inches accumulation along with high wind over a thirty-six hour period beginning Saturday morning.   He hedged these predictions stating they are taken from the National Weather Service’s computer projections, and that the European Weather computer projections show a possibility of twenty-four to thirty inches accumulation. 

The thing that astounded me is not the depth of snow and blizzard predictions (this is Maine,) but that the weatherman said the European computer predictions are usually more accurate than the National Weather Service’s, because Europe has the most updated software and the latest high-tech computers, whereas our government funded programs are out of date and in serious need of upgrade. 

So, why does Europe has better weather prediction facilities than the U.S.?    Why does Europe and Asia have more modern railway facilities and infrastructure than the U.S.?   Why of the thirty-three developed nations is the U.S. the only country that does not offer universal health care?   And, why does the United States spends more on its military than the next ten highest militarized nations combined?

I think I just answered my own questions.   It is a matter of priorities.

A link to military expenditures posted by the International Institute for StrategicStudies (2013.)   

Note, military expenditure does not include Homeland Security, CIA, NIS, private security firms employed by the government, military foreign aid and covert operations etc. etc. etc.

GAY BEARS?

Rachel Maddow explains what gay bears are.

A link to  CJ and Charley.







the Ol'Buzzard

The president is now getting heat from the Christian 'right' about his comments that all religions, including Christianity, have gone through eras of religious mania resulting in unbelievable atrocities.     

He actually fell short of literally condemning all religions - including Christianity - that serve no actual purpose on the earth except to divide.   The few food pantries run by good people are not a counter argument.  

the Ol'Buzzard

GOD, GUNS, GRITS, GRAVY, COSMOLOGY AND CHIVAS REGAL

Today my wife bought me a bottle of twelve year old Chivas Regal Scotch Whiskey and I am enjoying my second glass. 

Until you get melancholy and philosophical (and whiskey helps) you miss the point that we are  creatures with limited-intelligent living in a meaningless world; and since we are all alive only through happenstance, if we do value above all things moments of enjoyment we are squandering our chance existence.

We only need to pull our heads away from daily triviality and ponder infinity to realize how unimportant the human race - and you and I are.

Now wrap your mind around this: we are God’s chosen little pissants creatures living on a tiny spec in the Milky Way Galaxy, but it doesn't stop there - our Milky Way Galaxy is only one of millions of other galaxies inside our universe. 

Cosmology is the scientific study of the universe.    The only actual truths known among cosmologist are that our universe is 13.7 billion years old and that when astronomers peer out into the universe they can only see to a distance of 42 billion light years (known as our Cosmic Horizon) as this is how far light can have traveled since the Big Bang.  Almost everything else proposed by cosmologist is speculation. 

The only difference between a science fiction writer and a cosmologist is the sci-fi writer tells a story - since they are both speculating from a known to an unknown. 

Common sense tells us that space does not stop at our Cosmic Horizon and that there must be realms beyond our observable universe; but we have no ability to ever see or know this for a fact. 

The Idea that space has no end is beyond our meager ability to comprehend – some things just are.

Cosmologist have speculated that we are living in a bubble universe, brought about by the Big Bang - and that our bubble is composes of particles like electrons, quarks etc. that are held together by forces like electromagnetism and gravity - and that our bubble continues to expand.

 

Outside of our bubble are other bubbles produced by the same or similar eruption – some having very different types of physics, particles and forces.

 Outside our bubble exist an infinite number of other bubble universes. 

 

In other words: mankind is an insignificant creature and our personal existence is an anomaly: so why, as pseudo-intelligent life forms, are we squandering our brief existence on wars and politics and dividing factions and on the trivial minutia of everyday existence without stopping to enjoy a glass of Chivas Regal Scotch Whiskey?

I’m just asking

the Ol’Buzzard

BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR

One week ago I published a blog post complaining that throughout the month of January we had so little snow here in Maine that I wasn't able to bank the house.  

One week later and three major snow storms, the Goddess whose job it is to keep men humble has bestowed her satirical blessing.

We now have about thirty inches of standing snow and drifts that are deeper.   I normally wouldn't complain; but Her benevolence didn't stop there.

This morning I got up at daybreak to clear the driveway of the ten inches that had fallen over night.   The temperature was four below.   I pulled the snow blower out of the shed and tried to start it, but the engine would barely turn over.   I was not overly concerned, as the little nine horse has an electric starter.   I ran an extension cord from the back porch to the shed, pumped the primer, set full choke and hit the start button.    The starter motor spun, the engine caught immediately, but then a loud bang…   I shifted into gear, held down the auger handle and drove into a snow bank: the drive worked fine but the snow blower wouldn't blow snow.  

Back in the shed, at four below zero, I disassemble the fan belt cover and the bottom plate exposing the pulleys.    Sure enough, the auger belt had broken. 
 

By this time it’s after eight, so I call Sears to see if they have the belt in stock: no, but they can order one – which will take a week to ten days to deliver.  That would be no problem in July, but another snow storm is predicted for Thursday. 

I have to find a belt.  

In order to get the car out of the driveway I have to shovel a path to the road.    I make the seven mile ride on slushy, icy road to the auto parts store with the broken belt.   The young man at the store measures the belt with a tape measure and sells me a belt guaranteed to fit – except when I get home it doesn't; so, back to the auto parts store for a larger belt.

It is approaching noon by the time I get home, and I have skipped breakfast, so I decide it is time for a break.  My wife makes me cereal, toast and tea.  


An hour later I am back outside trying to mount the belt.   This time it fits.

 

I remount all the panels and everything seems to be working.  I still have the driveway to clear, and by the time I put the snow blower away it is four-o-clock and I am beat.   

As I stamp back to the house I think I hear faint laughter – a woman’s voice; but it has to be just the wind blowing through the trees. 



the Ol'Buzzard