So I was talking with Brian today a bit about College, the cost, and all that - and after lugging The Piano down to his place an idea hit me.
Free college for everyone. Well, sort of. But not really, exactly free - but pretty damn close.
As I thought about my own past, it suddenly occurred to me that the real problem with College costs - and why it's getting more expensive.
See - we hit high school graduates with a proposition, or conflict if you like. And we do it at a time when they're most vulnerable, least experienced, and for many - poorest.
So, knock holes in my theory, PLEASE. Tell me it wouldn't work. I've been in enough start ups to know a bad idea when I see one - but this idea just seems beautiful.
Here we go!
The SELL:
So you want a college education? How about a free one? That's right - free. You get four years in a small private university. You pay your own room and board - which you've got to pay anyway. Also, you buy the books.
The PAYBACK:
So, after those four years, you're gonna pay us 10% of your yearly income for 4 years. For most of you that should total around 3,500 a year. If you don't pay, then you fall back on the remaining balance of 14,000. If we did a good job, then we'll get you a better paying job - so it's in BOTH our interests to make sure your you're successful.
The COSTS:
I figure you need 10 full time teachers, or some combination thereof. Average prof pay would be around 62k. Add a rented building with 10 classrooms, around 50k. A couple of admins, provost, president brings you up to 850k. Average class size would be about 120 students per year, for a total of about 480.
Insurance, benefits, and equipment would round out to 100k total.
That should top out at 900k - 950k a year in operating expenses.
The BENEFITS:
Being a non-profit you pay no taxes as an institution. After 5 years you have 100 students paying in 350k - 20 will be bums (or grad students), right? So that 350,000 per graduating class. After 8 years you've graduated 4 classes for a total income of 1.4 Mil a year thereafter. Eventually those bums will pay up - but just count it as a loss for now.
If you get your guys hired at good places then those numbers go up, substantially.
Okay, I'll just stand next to the wall here while you all shoot me now. :-)
Anybody got 10 million laying around looking for a good purpose?
Sunday, September 30, 2007
Saturday, September 29, 2007
Gardening take 10000
Well, after many years of frustration, silliness and apathy,
I am returning to the only method of gardening that has ever worked well for me...
CONTAINER GARDENING!
I am doing this because I'm
-Tired of not having time to weed properly
-Tired of tilling this wacky gumbo
-Tired of grass growing so quickly as to completely overtake the garden in 1 rainy week
-I want to dig an irrigation trench (man-made creek) anyway, so the containers will be the destination of the trench soil.
That, and wow did the plants at the coop look great yesterday!
I am ready to grow some onions, garlic, broccoli, cauliflower, lettuce, tomatoes and cilantro
Now that I realize hobby farming is a matter of convenience, I really enjoy it!
What did I imagine previously? You really don't want to know that, because it was ridiculous.
Molly goat is about ready to visit our friend's buck in a couple of weeks. We're hoping she'll kid more does next time.
The hens started laying eggs last week! Hurray! No more running out to buy a dozen when 2 eggs are called for.
We celebrated the autumnal equinox with coffee, hot chocolate, apple cinnamon tea, B's famous coffee cake, beautiful orange, yellow, red paper chains, and a 7 foot homemade poster.
May the heat of the summer be gone for the remainder of the season!
I am returning to the only method of gardening that has ever worked well for me...
CONTAINER GARDENING!
I am doing this because I'm
-Tired of not having time to weed properly
-Tired of tilling this wacky gumbo
-Tired of grass growing so quickly as to completely overtake the garden in 1 rainy week
-I want to dig an irrigation trench (man-made creek) anyway, so the containers will be the destination of the trench soil.
That, and wow did the plants at the coop look great yesterday!
I am ready to grow some onions, garlic, broccoli, cauliflower, lettuce, tomatoes and cilantro
Now that I realize hobby farming is a matter of convenience, I really enjoy it!
What did I imagine previously? You really don't want to know that, because it was ridiculous.
Molly goat is about ready to visit our friend's buck in a couple of weeks. We're hoping she'll kid more does next time.
The hens started laying eggs last week! Hurray! No more running out to buy a dozen when 2 eggs are called for.
We celebrated the autumnal equinox with coffee, hot chocolate, apple cinnamon tea, B's famous coffee cake, beautiful orange, yellow, red paper chains, and a 7 foot homemade poster.
May the heat of the summer be gone for the remainder of the season!
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
Long live iTunes... iTunes is dead
Well, not really. But Amazon is releasing the hounds to say the least.
Simple, stupidly easy music tracks for 89 cents. Albums starting at $4.99.
Did I mention plays anywhere? Indeed - all the music is the DRM free, plays on just about anything (phone, iPod, Zune, and probably on your MP3 toaster.)
They're not the first, of course. eMusic, AllOfMp3, even iTinues (sans MP3), and various others have done something along those lines. But it was either light on selection, bad presentation, or barely legal.
I predict Amazon will do great things here - at the very least
Simple, stupidly easy music tracks for 89 cents. Albums starting at $4.99.
Did I mention plays anywhere? Indeed - all the music is the DRM free, plays on just about anything (phone, iPod, Zune, and probably on your MP3 toaster.)
They're not the first, of course. eMusic, AllOfMp3, even iTinues (sans MP3), and various others have done something along those lines. But it was either light on selection, bad presentation, or barely legal.
I predict Amazon will do great things here - at the very least
Monday, September 24, 2007
Ahmadinejad and hypocrisy
So let me get this straight... why are we getting media-blitzed (yet again) about Ahmadinejad?
The Iranian regime is, at the least, noticeably better when compared to others in the region. For one, they actually get to vote - well, a rigged vote at least. They have a decent oil economy, build universities and academics. Religiously it's not quite like living under the Spanish Inquisition - though it's not a western nation by any meaningful measure either.
In other words - it's a modern Islamic society somewhere in the middle.
For contrast - we've been directly bombed and targeted in Saudi Arabia (Khobar Towers). A majority of the 9/11 terrorist were Saudi. Osama bin Laden is Saudi. Saudi Arabia has absolutely no freedom of the press, is a monarchy that held it's first municipal elections only two years ago!
Perhaps you might say that the difference is that the Iranians are seeking nuclear energy and the Saudis are not. Except that they are, as reported by the Times of London last year.
Essentially - Iran and Saudi Arabia are not great places to live for a lot of the people there. Ahmadinehad is not comparing his country to the American ideal. Iranian life is better than most of the places around there - and he's probably right.
That's not saying a lot - but it is something.
So when you get down to it... at least the dude has the balls to come here and discourse.
Something you'll never see from the murderous regime of China. We're funding his vastly larger nuclear program at the local Wal-Mart. And yet, we give Jintao a Time cover award for being influential.
Hypocrisy? Yeah, we're blind as bats.
The Iranian regime is, at the least, noticeably better when compared to others in the region. For one, they actually get to vote - well, a rigged vote at least. They have a decent oil economy, build universities and academics. Religiously it's not quite like living under the Spanish Inquisition - though it's not a western nation by any meaningful measure either.
In other words - it's a modern Islamic society somewhere in the middle.
For contrast - we've been directly bombed and targeted in Saudi Arabia (Khobar Towers). A majority of the 9/11 terrorist were Saudi. Osama bin Laden is Saudi. Saudi Arabia has absolutely no freedom of the press, is a monarchy that held it's first municipal elections only two years ago!
Perhaps you might say that the difference is that the Iranians are seeking nuclear energy and the Saudis are not. Except that they are, as reported by the Times of London last year.
Essentially - Iran and Saudi Arabia are not great places to live for a lot of the people there. Ahmadinehad is not comparing his country to the American ideal. Iranian life is better than most of the places around there - and he's probably right.
That's not saying a lot - but it is something.
So when you get down to it... at least the dude has the balls to come here and discourse.
Something you'll never see from the murderous regime of China. We're funding his vastly larger nuclear program at the local Wal-Mart. And yet, we give Jintao a Time cover award for being influential.
Hypocrisy? Yeah, we're blind as bats.
CompSci Research interest...
So I made an innovative discovery last month... probably nothing you all are interested in, but I wanted to document it as mine :-). I've never seen this done before and I'm a bit happy about it.
DISCLAIMER: This is probably not interesting to anyone who reads this blog - but it's a curious mental exercise for myself (and you)!
A common problem in multi-threaded design is locking... as in two or more threads/processes/CPU's are sharing access to a common piece of information - be it a structure, block of memory, what have you.
And lately we have been using several mutex locks (mutually exclusive) - meaning one execution task can OWN it for reading and writing. Or perhaps we use semaphores (many shared) which allows several execution tasks to own it.
A more interesting innovation is a read/write lock - which is used when readers outnumber writers (in general). Basically you have many tasks reading this shared data - but only a few writing to it.
There are existing systems for read/write locks in place - specifically in pthreads (unix typically) and ERESOURCES in windows. I was forced recently to write my own due to the inadequacy of the windows kernel to provide a usable lock in DISPATCH/DPC interrupt mode.
Background: The Windows XP kernel uses the same mechanism to lock as it does for pre-emption (executing higher-priority code while in the middle of doing something else). This "feature" means that when a thread wants to lock for something that takes a long while (oh, like say, encryption) that in effect you are killing everything else running on that particular CPU.
So, the solution I propose is to use an atomic read/write lock that does not utilize DISPATCH/DPC mode at all. Where this is tricky though - is that in order to utilize this - you have to atomically compare and store both the read lock and write lock - at the same time.
So, here's the bit of hackery! It turns out there is no "dual operand" compare and store on X86. There was on the 68040 - but it's long dead. But what we DO have is a long long compare and store instruction - essentially a 64 bit CAS (compare and store) called CMPXCHG8B.
We're creating a pair of spin locks here - the read lock allows up to 2^32 readers and the write lock is for a single writer. The writer gets precedence over readers by forcing them to wait until completion.
The hackery comes in play in that we implement the locks in a structure like this - and make it's total length 64 bits like so:
Ah HA! So this suddenly becomes a much simpler problem. Now we can operate on both the read/write locks atomically with a single instruction!
So, to create a read lock - we do this:
Notice the 0xffffffff - this is masking (setting to zero) the top bits in the 64 bit integer - thus requiring that the write lock is not in place.
Here's the write lock:
Right now I'm using a basic mutex lock to ensure that writers are only let in one at a time - but I'll update this code to be mutex-free soon. This will involve testing for zero and updating the value to 1 - a basic spin-lock in essence.
DISCLAIMER: This is probably not interesting to anyone who reads this blog - but it's a curious mental exercise for myself (and you)!
A common problem in multi-threaded design is locking... as in two or more threads/processes/CPU's are sharing access to a common piece of information - be it a structure, block of memory, what have you.
And lately we have been using several mutex locks (mutually exclusive) - meaning one execution task can OWN it for reading and writing. Or perhaps we use semaphores (many shared) which allows several execution tasks to own it.
A more interesting innovation is a read/write lock - which is used when readers outnumber writers (in general). Basically you have many tasks reading this shared data - but only a few writing to it.
There are existing systems for read/write locks in place - specifically in pthreads (unix typically) and ERESOURCES in windows. I was forced recently to write my own due to the inadequacy of the windows kernel to provide a usable lock in DISPATCH/DPC interrupt mode.
Background: The Windows XP kernel uses the same mechanism to lock as it does for pre-emption (executing higher-priority code while in the middle of doing something else). This "feature" means that when a thread wants to lock for something that takes a long while (oh, like say, encryption) that in effect you are killing everything else running on that particular CPU.
So, the solution I propose is to use an atomic read/write lock that does not utilize DISPATCH/DPC mode at all. Where this is tricky though - is that in order to utilize this - you have to atomically compare and store both the read lock and write lock - at the same time.
So, here's the bit of hackery! It turns out there is no "dual operand" compare and store on X86. There was on the 68040 - but it's long dead. But what we DO have is a long long compare and store instruction - essentially a 64 bit CAS (compare and store) called CMPXCHG8B.
We're creating a pair of spin locks here - the read lock allows up to 2^32 readers and the write lock is for a single writer. The writer gets precedence over readers by forcing them to wait until completion.
The hackery comes in play in that we implement the locks in a structure like this - and make it's total length 64 bits like so:
// Packed on 4 byte boundary
__declspec(align(4)) typedef struct {
LONG ro_locks;
LONG rw_gate;
} GATE_LOCK;
Ah HA! So this suddenly becomes a much simpler problem. Now we can operate on both the read/write locks atomically with a single instruction!
So, to create a read lock - we do this:
volatile __int64 c, old;
// c is volatile, should be atomic
c = lock->gateLock.ro_locks;
// We're comparing the entire gate lock with the ro_locks count
// Should block if a read-write lock has been set
while( (old = CAS( ( volatile unsigned __int64 *) & lock->gateLock,
c + 1, c )) != c+1) {
c = old & 0xffffffff;
} // while RO_LOCKS
Notice the 0xffffffff - this is masking (setting to zero) the top bits in the 64 bit integer - thus requiring that the write lock is not in place.
Here's the write lock:
// Set the gate lock, drain out the readers
XCHNG( (volatile LONG *) &lock->gateLock.rw_gate, 1);
// Wait for the readers to empty out
while( (__int64)1<<32 != CAS( (volatile unsigned __int64 *) & lock->gateLock,
(__int64 ) 1 << 32,
(__int64 ) lock->gateLock.rw_gate << 31 ))
} // while RW_GATE
Right now I'm using a basic mutex lock to ensure that writers are only let in one at a time - but I'll update this code to be mutex-free soon. This will involve testing for zero and updating the value to 1 - a basic spin-lock in essence.
Sunday, September 23, 2007
Rough Week
Wow, was the past week difficult.
Seems like everything hit at once.
At least I managed to climb out of the quagmire a couple of times.
Hope you had a better week than I did :0)
We did manage to go to the Bash for an hour or so Friday night and a couple of hours Saturday.
It was fun, as always. I sure hope I feel more up to it next year, though.
Now we are looking forward to St. Therese's feast day. I read Story of a Soul at Daddy's bedside when he was battling cancer
I had to put the book down when it came to Louis' death (St. T'herese's Dad)
I never finished the book.
In any case, St. Therese has been a great help to me these past 3 years, so we will celebrate and hope the rose bushes cooperate.
Adios for now
Seems like everything hit at once.
At least I managed to climb out of the quagmire a couple of times.
Hope you had a better week than I did :0)
We did manage to go to the Bash for an hour or so Friday night and a couple of hours Saturday.
It was fun, as always. I sure hope I feel more up to it next year, though.
Now we are looking forward to St. Therese's feast day. I read Story of a Soul at Daddy's bedside when he was battling cancer
I had to put the book down when it came to Louis' death (St. T'herese's Dad)
I never finished the book.
In any case, St. Therese has been a great help to me these past 3 years, so we will celebrate and hope the rose bushes cooperate.
Adios for now
Sunday, September 16, 2007
Why ME?!?!? Why NOW?!?!?
Of all of the weekends in my year, why, oh, why, oh, why?!? did I have to come down with a vicious flu-like disease thie weekend?
I spent Friday writing it off as allergies hey... everyone mowed this past week...allergies was an educated guess.
Saturday morning I woke up with a horrendous headache and muscle ache
By my usual 20 minuted power nap time, I was so zonked, I slept for 2 hours, despite CD coming in every 20 minutes, saying "time's up!!!"
and I woke up with a fever.
a FEVER
the worst thing that could've happened Saturday, when some of our very best friends on planet earth were to have a baby shower. Not just any baby... a real Baby Love we have been waiting and waiting to celebrate.
---slam pained stuffed head on wall repeatedly---
Sometimes, life makes absolutely no sense to me.
Maybe, someday, our friends can forgive my shoddy immune system.
I sure hope so, anyway.
The worst thing you can give a woman in her third trimester is a flu-like bug
Not much consolation I know. Some days, like Saturday, are too important to miss.
sigh
Sorry, dear friends. I love you!!
I spent Friday writing it off as allergies hey... everyone mowed this past week...allergies was an educated guess.
Saturday morning I woke up with a horrendous headache and muscle ache
By my usual 20 minuted power nap time, I was so zonked, I slept for 2 hours, despite CD coming in every 20 minutes, saying "time's up!!!"
and I woke up with a fever.
a FEVER
the worst thing that could've happened Saturday, when some of our very best friends on planet earth were to have a baby shower. Not just any baby... a real Baby Love we have been waiting and waiting to celebrate.
---slam pained stuffed head on wall repeatedly---
Sometimes, life makes absolutely no sense to me.
Maybe, someday, our friends can forgive my shoddy immune system.
I sure hope so, anyway.
The worst thing you can give a woman in her third trimester is a flu-like bug
Not much consolation I know. Some days, like Saturday, are too important to miss.
sigh
Sorry, dear friends. I love you!!
Global Warming
The political forces advocating Global Warming have succeeded in paralyzing rational thought. Once again, many people are rushing to a confused state of distorted common sense whereby we'll be taxed and starved for a perceived threat of global disaster.
Don't get me wrong - I want to believe in Global Warming. I want to believe that our disastrous record of pollution, waste, and carelessness are leading to some wayward, irreversible path to self-distruction.
But the science is there, and it's non-conclusive. And in fact many scientific facts are played down, politicizing and energized by a group of "true believers" who've blinded themselves to anything that contraindicates their belief.
I find arguments that "carbon emissions of all kinds are extremely dangerous" to be a bit laughable. Animals, swamps, and volcanoes are enormous generators of so-called "carbon emissions" and yet the world has so far survived.
Again, Hansen and Schmidt, of the famous NASA report on global warming, have been thoroughly debunked with their incredible oversight of a Y2k bug in their data, and completely ignoring solar radiation in their findings. A layman blogger, Steve McIntyre, was apparently the only person to audit the data produced by NASA and found the resulting mistakes.
NASA has now silently released corrected figures, and the changes are truly astounding. The warmest year on record is now 1934. 1998 (long trumpeted by the media as record-breaking) moves to second place. 1921 takes third. In fact, 5 of the 10 warmest years on record now all occur before World War II.
So much for the scientific process!
So, perhaps we should turn to a more reliable key indicator of Global Warming, Peira or Pirata. The decreasing population of sea-born pirata is ample evidence that we're not merely distorting the scientific record - but completely overlooking valuable trends.
Shocking, isn't it.
Don't get me wrong - I want to believe in Global Warming. I want to believe that our disastrous record of pollution, waste, and carelessness are leading to some wayward, irreversible path to self-distruction.
But the science is there, and it's non-conclusive. And in fact many scientific facts are played down, politicizing and energized by a group of "true believers" who've blinded themselves to anything that contraindicates their belief.
I find arguments that "carbon emissions of all kinds are extremely dangerous" to be a bit laughable. Animals, swamps, and volcanoes are enormous generators of so-called "carbon emissions" and yet the world has so far survived.
Again, Hansen and Schmidt, of the famous NASA report on global warming, have been thoroughly debunked with their incredible oversight of a Y2k bug in their data, and completely ignoring solar radiation in their findings. A layman blogger, Steve McIntyre, was apparently the only person to audit the data produced by NASA and found the resulting mistakes.
NASA has now silently released corrected figures, and the changes are truly astounding. The warmest year on record is now 1934. 1998 (long trumpeted by the media as record-breaking) moves to second place. 1921 takes third. In fact, 5 of the 10 warmest years on record now all occur before World War II.
So much for the scientific process!
So, perhaps we should turn to a more reliable key indicator of Global Warming, Peira or Pirata. The decreasing population of sea-born pirata is ample evidence that we're not merely distorting the scientific record - but completely overlooking valuable trends.
Shocking, isn't it.
Thursday, September 13, 2007
The things kids do...
So I'm finally settled down a bit from the trip to the hospital. Since I'm a "regular" there I figure I should start getting a discount... but no dice.
As a parent, I'm fairly used to this... Broken bones, spider bites, stitches, burns, scrapes, colds, shots, and everything in between.
It starts with the oldest child running in and crashing through the door with "So-and-so just..." and you don't even hear the rest of the words - you just jump and go. It's a ritual that you INSTANTLY jump into hero mode, or doctor mode, or whatever you call it.
But not this time...
As I arrived, I couldn't believe my eyes - poor little girl was playing with a bicycle, and got her finger stuck between the chain and the sprocket. As in - all I see is a chain, sprocket, and the tip of her finger sticking out. Her twin brother is screaming and other kids are staring in disbelief. So am I...
Oh my God. This is NOT on the list.
Removing fingers from sprockets is a careful thing to be done - and adrenaline does NOT help in this situation. Thankfully Mom's calm hands removed the finger as I turned the pedal without a yank and off we go to the hospital with a bag of ice.
Being a parent can be hell on the heart. Holding a screaming, hurt baby in the Emergency room is far worse than anything you could imagine. Looking into those tear filled eyes you realize how easy it is to fail, no matter what you do.
And so I pray, and love, and hope - because I know it's all I can do. She sleeps in my arms, clutching her hand with the other. I know the Doc can't do a thing - tiny bones and arteries are beyond medicine. I hold her swollen hand on the cold steel plate as we get X-Rayed. Another tear wells up. My finger is there, on the film with hers.
So now she's sleeping at home - she's going to be fine. Thank you, God.
As a parent, I'm fairly used to this... Broken bones, spider bites, stitches, burns, scrapes, colds, shots, and everything in between.
It starts with the oldest child running in and crashing through the door with "So-and-so just..." and you don't even hear the rest of the words - you just jump and go. It's a ritual that you INSTANTLY jump into hero mode, or doctor mode, or whatever you call it.
But not this time...
As I arrived, I couldn't believe my eyes - poor little girl was playing with a bicycle, and got her finger stuck between the chain and the sprocket. As in - all I see is a chain, sprocket, and the tip of her finger sticking out. Her twin brother is screaming and other kids are staring in disbelief. So am I...
Oh my God. This is NOT on the list.
Removing fingers from sprockets is a careful thing to be done - and adrenaline does NOT help in this situation. Thankfully Mom's calm hands removed the finger as I turned the pedal without a yank and off we go to the hospital with a bag of ice.
Being a parent can be hell on the heart. Holding a screaming, hurt baby in the Emergency room is far worse than anything you could imagine. Looking into those tear filled eyes you realize how easy it is to fail, no matter what you do.
And so I pray, and love, and hope - because I know it's all I can do. She sleeps in my arms, clutching her hand with the other. I know the Doc can't do a thing - tiny bones and arteries are beyond medicine. I hold her swollen hand on the cold steel plate as we get X-Rayed. Another tear wells up. My finger is there, on the film with hers.
So now she's sleeping at home - she's going to be fine. Thank you, God.
Sunday, September 09, 2007
Long Commentary
This post is a response to subjects found here, here, and here.
Few and Far Bewtween
"Times are far between,
and few I bet,
when we can look upon
our lives without regret.
Of all the things I have done,
you think I'm proud of everyone
without exception?
'Till you make your peace
with yesterday,
you'll never build a future.
I swear by what I say.
Whatever penance you do,
decide what it's worth to you
and then respect it.
However long it will take to
weather your mistakes,
why not accept it?
-10,000 Maniacs
And then, for those who might need to hear this from me:
Artist: 10000 Maniacs
Album: MTV Unplugged
Title: Trouble Me
YouTube Video
Trouble me,
disturb me
with all your cares
and your worries.
Trouble me
on the days
when you feel spent.
Why let your shoulders bend
underneath this burden
when my back is sturdy
and strong?
Trouble me.
Speak to me,
don't mislead me,
the calm I feel
means a storm
is swelling;
there's no telling
where it starts
or how it ends.
Speak to me,
why are you building
this thick brick wall
to defend me
when your silence
is my greatest fear?
Why let your shoulders bend underneath this burden
when my back is sturdy
and strong?
Speak to me.
Let me have a look
inside these eyes
while I'm learning.
Please don't hide them
just because of tears.
Let me
send you off to sleep
with a "There, there, now
stop your turning and tossing."
Let me know
where the hurt is
and how to heal.
Spare me?
Don't spare me
anything troubling.
Trouble me,
disturb me
with all your cares
and you worries.
Speak to me
and let our words build
a shelter from the storm.
Lastly, let me know
what I can mend.
There's more, honestly,
than my sweet friend,
you can see.
Trust is what I'm offering
if you trouble me.
And one more, for good measure, cause we're all human, ya know?
(HUGS!)
"I May Know The Word"
YouTube Video
I may know the word
But not say it
I may know the truth
But not face
I may hear a sound
A whisper, sacred & profound
But turn my head
Indifferent
I may know the word
But not say it
I may love the fruit
But not taste it
I may know the way
To comfort & to soothe
A worried face
But fold my hands
Indifferent
If I'm on my knees
I'm begging now
If I'm on my knees
Groping in the dark
I'd be praying for deliverance
From the night into the day
But it's all gray here
It's all gray to me
I may know the word
But not say it
This may be the time
But I might waste it
This may be the hour
Something move me
Someone prove me wrong
Before night comes
With indifference
If I'm on my knees
I'm begging now
If I'm on my knees
Groping in the dark
I'd be praying for deliverance
From the night into the day
But it's all gray here
But it's all gray to me
I recognize the walls inside
I recognize them all
I've paced between them
Chasing demons down
Until they fall
In fitful sleep
Enough to keep their strength
Enough to crawl
Into my head
With tangled threads
They riddle me to solve
Again & again & again
Few and Far Bewtween
"Times are far between,
and few I bet,
when we can look upon
our lives without regret.
Of all the things I have done,
you think I'm proud of everyone
without exception?
'Till you make your peace
with yesterday,
you'll never build a future.
I swear by what I say.
Whatever penance you do,
decide what it's worth to you
and then respect it.
However long it will take to
weather your mistakes,
why not accept it?
-10,000 Maniacs
And then, for those who might need to hear this from me:
Artist: 10000 Maniacs
Album: MTV Unplugged
Title: Trouble Me
YouTube Video
Trouble me,
disturb me
with all your cares
and your worries.
Trouble me
on the days
when you feel spent.
Why let your shoulders bend
underneath this burden
when my back is sturdy
and strong?
Trouble me.
Speak to me,
don't mislead me,
the calm I feel
means a storm
is swelling;
there's no telling
where it starts
or how it ends.
Speak to me,
why are you building
this thick brick wall
to defend me
when your silence
is my greatest fear?
Why let your shoulders bend underneath this burden
when my back is sturdy
and strong?
Speak to me.
Let me have a look
inside these eyes
while I'm learning.
Please don't hide them
just because of tears.
Let me
send you off to sleep
with a "There, there, now
stop your turning and tossing."
Let me know
where the hurt is
and how to heal.
Spare me?
Don't spare me
anything troubling.
Trouble me,
disturb me
with all your cares
and you worries.
Speak to me
and let our words build
a shelter from the storm.
Lastly, let me know
what I can mend.
There's more, honestly,
than my sweet friend,
you can see.
Trust is what I'm offering
if you trouble me.
And one more, for good measure, cause we're all human, ya know?
(HUGS!)
"I May Know The Word"
YouTube Video
I may know the word
But not say it
I may know the truth
But not face
I may hear a sound
A whisper, sacred & profound
But turn my head
Indifferent
I may know the word
But not say it
I may love the fruit
But not taste it
I may know the way
To comfort & to soothe
A worried face
But fold my hands
Indifferent
If I'm on my knees
I'm begging now
If I'm on my knees
Groping in the dark
I'd be praying for deliverance
From the night into the day
But it's all gray here
It's all gray to me
I may know the word
But not say it
This may be the time
But I might waste it
This may be the hour
Something move me
Someone prove me wrong
Before night comes
With indifference
If I'm on my knees
I'm begging now
If I'm on my knees
Groping in the dark
I'd be praying for deliverance
From the night into the day
But it's all gray here
But it's all gray to me
I recognize the walls inside
I recognize them all
I've paced between them
Chasing demons down
Until they fall
In fitful sleep
Enough to keep their strength
Enough to crawl
Into my head
With tangled threads
They riddle me to solve
Again & again & again
Thursday, September 06, 2007
Great Weekend
What a whirlwind weekend of joy we had! Absolutely fabulous!
The first stop was my m-i-l's for lamb, sauteed potatoes and squash, and great conversation.
After a couple of dips in the pool, learning how to make a yummy crustless quiche, and CD cleaning up Mother's computer, we headed to Irving.
Since the twins and #3 were asleep, CD took #1 and #2 to Lone Star Comics. They used their allowance to buy some truly awesome baseball cards. CD says they have Star Wars cards. Wow! If only my parents hadn't tossed my collection from the 70s... sigh
Next stop: Bunny and happy crow's home... but we thought they were out and about, so we knocked on LQ and Leo's door... surprise! Janus Gate and a friend were visiting, and Leo was making compagnola (sp?) DELICIOUS!
We were able to peek into the serene setting our friends have created for their soon-to-be-born babylove. Very, very beautiful!! Great job! Truly smart to keep a bed in there for Mama and Papa.
I was also imparted the wisdom of Leo's "Great Aunt Sally 3 Penny Loaf." Woah! I might actually get groovin' on the bread making thing again, because with this recipe as a foundation, you can do sooooo many variations on a theme.
The cookies provided were most awesome, as well, with the children begging for more.
To our surprise, lo and behold, bunny and HC had been home the entire time. While we regret not being able to visit with HC, bunny was a most gracious, and fun!, hostess.
We saw wedding pictures!!
Oh, my, goodness... so much love.
So very much love.
Captured on film.
Breathtaking!
We tried the home-roasted coffee noted on bunny's blog.
She's not kidding. There's a HUGE difference. I'm afraid I am now spoilt for life!
The children were in awe of the "Wall of Death." Hope to post pics soon.
We had the most convivial conversations with bunny, and were sad to part company around 7 or so.
On the Road Again, (yes, that Willie Nelson tune) should have been the theme for the weekend. We opted for "I've Been Everywhere, Man" by Brian Burns (Hey! He and I could be related, ya know!)
Upon departing Irving, we headed straight to Mom's, talked, slept, and went to work the next morning.
In the afternoon, we had a wonderful cook-out at Mom's, and met a new neighbor.
We had a blast, but needed to hit the road again, heading eastward to our humble, but friendly, abode.
On our way home, we stopped to visit with some friends in New Hope. I really like the name of that town! We stayed way past our collective bedtimes, but it was a very nice way to end the day.
Hope to see YOU soon!
The first stop was my m-i-l's for lamb, sauteed potatoes and squash, and great conversation.
After a couple of dips in the pool, learning how to make a yummy crustless quiche, and CD cleaning up Mother's computer, we headed to Irving.
Since the twins and #3 were asleep, CD took #1 and #2 to Lone Star Comics. They used their allowance to buy some truly awesome baseball cards. CD says they have Star Wars cards. Wow! If only my parents hadn't tossed my collection from the 70s... sigh
Next stop: Bunny and happy crow's home... but we thought they were out and about, so we knocked on LQ and Leo's door... surprise! Janus Gate and a friend were visiting, and Leo was making compagnola (sp?) DELICIOUS!
We were able to peek into the serene setting our friends have created for their soon-to-be-born babylove. Very, very beautiful!! Great job! Truly smart to keep a bed in there for Mama and Papa.
I was also imparted the wisdom of Leo's "Great Aunt Sally 3 Penny Loaf." Woah! I might actually get groovin' on the bread making thing again, because with this recipe as a foundation, you can do sooooo many variations on a theme.
The cookies provided were most awesome, as well, with the children begging for more.
To our surprise, lo and behold, bunny and HC had been home the entire time. While we regret not being able to visit with HC, bunny was a most gracious, and fun!, hostess.
We saw wedding pictures!!
Oh, my, goodness... so much love.
So very much love.
Captured on film.
Breathtaking!
We tried the home-roasted coffee noted on bunny's blog.
She's not kidding. There's a HUGE difference. I'm afraid I am now spoilt for life!
The children were in awe of the "Wall of Death." Hope to post pics soon.
We had the most convivial conversations with bunny, and were sad to part company around 7 or so.
On the Road Again, (yes, that Willie Nelson tune) should have been the theme for the weekend. We opted for "I've Been Everywhere, Man" by Brian Burns (Hey! He and I could be related, ya know!)
Upon departing Irving, we headed straight to Mom's, talked, slept, and went to work the next morning.
In the afternoon, we had a wonderful cook-out at Mom's, and met a new neighbor.
We had a blast, but needed to hit the road again, heading eastward to our humble, but friendly, abode.
On our way home, we stopped to visit with some friends in New Hope. I really like the name of that town! We stayed way past our collective bedtimes, but it was a very nice way to end the day.
Hope to see YOU soon!
Funniest political rant in a while...
Posted by: Regina | Sep 6, 2007 6:15:03 PM
Just remember, the "war on terror" is just a bumper-sticker slogan.
Also, we have already lost the war on terror.
Anyone who votes democrat is a maroon!
What the heck is a maroon? Sheesh!
Just remember, the "war on terror" is just a bumper-sticker slogan.
Also, we have already lost the war on terror.
Anyone who votes democrat is a maroon!
What the heck is a maroon? Sheesh!
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