Finding Heaven

Friday August 29^th 2008. 10:04 PM.

Here lately it seems that I seem to do all of my best, my clearest thinking at night. Maybe I have always had that tendency, but I don’t ever recall noticing it before, but it seems to be the case at least in my recent memory. So, tonight, I find myself in a familiar posture, alone in my dark living room in front of yet another blank screen patiently waiting for my touch to bring it to life. A fan in the window carries a slightly less than warm late summer breeze through my personal space, the faint scent of freshly brewed coffee fills my senses, Its not warm in here, yet strangely not cold either, the mood is perfect for a little reflection. Is Heaven real? Hmmm. Its as good a question as any I suppose, I saw that written somewhere, or perhaps I heard it spoken, I don’t really recall, only that it was recently brought into place somewhere in the back of my mind this week, and it appears to have stayed there until now.

I knew Heaven once, I lived there, somewhere in my early childhood, and on some nights, some like this night, I can close my eyes and see it as plain as day.

There is a wooden floor beneath my bare feet, my small hands clutch the brass doorknob , and it turns freely, I give the door a slight nudge and it swings outward onto a back porch that seems slightly sloped to one side. I step out into the early morning air, the fresh dew, and the grass seems to flow out into the world forever, in an endless sea of beautiful green. There are large trees that stretch up into the sky for miles on end, and on one of the lower branches there is a tire swing that hangs strangely still as if it were waiting for the next ride. And as I step onto the grass the cold dew seeps up and over the tops of my feet giving me a strange sensation.

I’m not sure what it is truthfully, whether or not the world really was a much larger place then than it is now, or if it just seems that way, because I was seeing it through the eyes of a child. It was more magical, there was more wonder, and Heaven was a real place that I lived in, a place that I touched regularly. Now, as I begrudgingly return to the here and now, and that childhood memory slowly fades, I find myself wondering if I will ever see heaven again. oh I am certain that I catch glimpses of it every now and then, but the magic isn’t what it once was, and the open spaces in the world of childhood have become somewhat cramped and closed in. but thankfully the world can still be a place of wonder, You just have to force yourself to stop what you are doing every once in awhile to take part in it.

Yes, I know Heaven to be real, I just don’t live there anymore, I don’t see endless fields of green, and miles of empty clean blue skies, and a lot of the trees have been cut down, to make room for new housing tracks. I am not a child anymore, I don’t see the world the same way as I used to, it is a bit smaller now, and I can see it for what it truly is. I see the bad with the good, and take both as I see fit. Everyone has their own interpretation of Heaven, and certainly to some it remains a myth. The reality for me is simple, I know that I will never be able to again see the world through the eyes of a ten year old child, but that doesn’t mean that I have to stop trying. So on finding Heaven? I guess it all depends on where you look.

A new Camera Coming soon.. (I'm Hoping)

While I was going through my pictures folders the other day I came across some older pics that I took last year that never made it onto a blog post. And then I realized I have only ever shared- (For the most part) – any of my photography on Blogster and occasionally on Facebook but I have rarely posted anything on Blogger in concerns to my photography.   All of the pictures I’ve taken were taken with my little Canon  PowerShot A810, and mostly it is of Nevada Sunrises and (More recently)  sunsets, here lately though the zoom button on the camera has been on the fritz so I will have to be buying a new one soon. I have my choices narrowed down to 2 possibilities  #1- the Canon SX 160 IS with 16x optical zoom and 16 mp’s. #2- The Canon SX 500 IS with 30x zoom and  also has 16 MP’s. Below are some of the pictures that I took last year with my old Canon. The last pic is a little blurry but it came out with a kinda surreal feeling to it so I included it.

One of those WTF moments..

Have you ever seen somebody doing something so ridiculously stupid that actually gave you one of those WTF moments? like one time at Mills Park here in Carson City I was watching a group of kids on skateboards doing all of these fancy Schmancy tricks at the skateboard track, but this one kid  was standing on top of this stone pic nic table and his plan- (I’m guessing) was to jump from one table to another on his skateboard, and they were at least 20 feet apart. I had one of those WTF moments, and I remember thinking, WHAT IN THE HELL IS HE THINKING?? well long story short he missed- (By a country mile) but he did land on the grass so I suspect the only thing that he hurt was his pride.

I see people do bizarre things all the time, and most times I’m left with the thought, “I wonder if this person’s brain is functioning properly?” A few days ago I had such an occasion, one of the machines on our line at work was all out of whack, the molds weren’t dropping onto the line properly. And when they would drop, sometimes  the tray wouldn’t load the sand mold onto the table, and when the next mold came along it would run into the first one and we would end up with a big pile of compressed sand on the loading table with a bunch of mangled cores to clean out.  A big mess to say the least, needless to say as the shift went on the problem only got worse so they finally called maintenance  over to get one of their guys to check out one of  the power panels on the machine to see if one of the censor’s were screwed up.

I swear the first thing this dope did was grab a screw driver and started poking around at shit, and as I was watching this Three Stooge’s routine unfold-  I just couldn’t bring myself to simply look away, I was thinking to myself, “Self? do you suppose he’s going to turn off the main power  to the machine before he starts messing with it?” Nooooo, silly rabbit, that would be too obvious! well I’m not sure what eventually convinced him that messing around with a live electrical circuit was a bad idea but I think it may have had something to do with the sparks that came out of the machine, Now I’m not a mainenance guy,  and I don’t know a doo-hickey from a thing-a-ma-bob, but I do know enough to turn the power off on anything that runs on electricity--- BEFORE  you work on it! well before I left work today that very same machine was doing that very same thing again, only this time the boss was over there with the maintenance guy chewing his ass out for not turning the power off again.  I don’t know what this clown was thinking the first time he pulled this stunt, but obviously he was thinking the very same thing this time too. Or maybe the real problem was, he wasn’t thinking at all.. It was definetely a WTF moment for me.

Just Be..

I just have to say something here.

Just a thought really..

it may or may not make sense to 

anyone but me ..

But that's okay.

it has occurred to me that,

the color of your skin-

in the grand scheme of things-

has very little to do with the content of your soul.

and is really quite trivial and meaningless to me.

your sexual orientation,

be you gay, or be you straight,

Means nothing

as long as you are

at least trying to be

the best YOU that YOU can possibly be-

without exception.

Just be a human-

Living

learning

loving

always reaching

always helping,

always

accepting of others,

not for how we are all different,

but how we are all the same.

So—

Be human—

or just be quiet.


~Scratch A.B.T Copyright © 2011. ~

My Encounter with Toby the Troll

I made the mistake of leaving the fan running in the front window of my living room last night, hey it happens- I’d fallen asleep and forgotten to take it out and close the window. Its my own fault, I knew it was going to get chilly, I just fell asleep. I woke this morning to the plugged sinuses that as of late; have become the bane of my existence,  but I think they were due more to the fan kicking up the dust mites in my apartment more so than it being a sign of coming illness. strangely enough though- it wasn’t the sinuses that woke me up, there was an ungodly commotion right outside my window, so I rose to investigate. and now I’m kind of sorry that I did. I stepped out onto the front landing and walked over to the railing  and leaned over the edge to see what the commotion was all about. directly below me; hiding behind some shrubery there was a short stumpy little fellow shouting out profanities at people walking down the sidewalk.

“What’s all of this nonsense about then?” I yelled down at him.

When the coast was clear he stood up and defiantly put his hands on his hips and looked up at me.

“Go back inside bub, this doesn’t concern you.” He taunted.

“No douchebag, you’re yelling outside my window at 6:00 AM on my day off when I’m trying to rest, so it does kind of concern me, maybe I should come down there and we could have this conversation face to face.” I retorted

Right then and there his whole demeanor changed.

“Look mister I’m just trying to do my job, I’m Toby the Troll and this is what I do!”

“You’re a Troll?”

He nodded.

“I thought you guys all moved to the internet years ago.”

“We did, but I lost my internet connection last night so I had to improvise.”

Out of the corner of my eye I saw an elderly looking gentleman walking his dog down the sidewalk,  Toby immediately jumped back behind the bushes and began throwing out insults, barbs and taunts.

“Democrats are Pussies! Democrats are Pussies! Republican’s are all retarded conservatives who couldn’t even get laid at a hookers Convention! Independants all have little winkies!” 

By this time my neighbor became aware of the commotion and was now standing right next to me leaning over the railing; curiously looking down at Toby. he looked at me and then back down at Toby.

“What are you doing down there hiding in the bushes you little jerk! don’t you know how early it is?” He asked.

Toby looked up at my neighbor Louie.

“I don’t have a computer right now so I’m hiding behind this bush to preserve my anonymity! Brown people Suck!!”

“You little prick I’m gonna come down there and kick your little ass!”

I decided to step in right there and defuse Louies anger..

“Why don’t just go inside and get some coffee and let me handle this little troll.. Okay?”

Still angry as all hell, my neighbor turned to go back inside his apartment to make his morning coffee as I returned my attention to the little troll down in the bushes.

“Anonymity aye?”

“Yeah its kinda important to us trolls that nobody knows who we really are, that’s why we dig the internet so much!”

“Well Toby I want you to listen to me very carefully, THIS isn’t the internet, I CAN see you. Do you get my drift? I told him,

“I don’t understand.. I’m hiding in the bushes! you can’t see me!”

“Hmmm.. Toby?

“Yes?”

“Did you ever go to high school?”

“Yes.”

“And do you know what an atomic wedgie is?”

“I don’t believe so.”

“Well that’s where someone comes up from behind you, and grabs the waistband of your underwear  and yanks them so far up the crack of your ass that your testicles feel like a lump in your throat. now if you don’t shut up and go home Guess what I’m going to come down there and do to you?”

Silence. I turned to go back to my apartment just in time to see my neighbor Louie step back onto the landing..

“Hey where did that asshole Toby go?” He asked.

“Back to the internet.”

What a strange morning this has been.