The Mortal Engine

Everyone has seen ads on TV for various products promoting "heart health". I know,at least for me, in my youth I did so many things that were detrimental to my body overall and thought very little of it. I was a long time smoker....a heavy drinker for probably 10 years or more and my body kept fighting the good fight all those years....an amazing self healing machine that would recover from almost anything you could stupidly throw at it and it would come back for more. Hungover? Give it 8hrs and you will be ready to go out for a beverage with the boys. Got a bad cough? Cut back on the cigs or change to lights for a pack...problem solved.

What many of us know subconciously but don't heed is that eventually with enough abuse....the body can no longer spring back like it did some years ago.

In my case it is the one component of the machine that runs  the whole show....the heart....the mortal engine. I like to think about it as an electrical device that controls the voltage and current that goes to all other devices in the machine. When that overriding device stops sending out the proper current (blood flow) every other device in the system starts to fail. The brain is an amazing component in the system...controlling thought, motor function, memory, and a myriad of other things....but when it doesn't get enough blood (current) you find yourself feeling faint and dizzy...exascerbated by being a type 2 diabetic with orthostatic hypotension . Thats a big medical term for your blood vessels not constricting enough when you stand up to maintain your blood pressure caused by neuropathy from nerve damage due to the diabetes.

So due to my years of devil may care fun....now I am left weak, dizzy and grabbing for bottles of pills afer every meal to maintain my unproductive existence of weak and dizzy.

Bottom line take care of your heart kids....it's the Mortal Engine

Don't worry that the horse is blind. Just load the wagon.

The title to this blog is a quote from John Madden, the long time ago coach of the Oakland Raiders football team. It sounds silly, but I thought it was appropo to the subject matter of this blog. Namely that we are all being asked by this government, politicians and the main stream media to do just that.

There is a paradigm shift coming in the world, possibly in my lifetime and if not in my lifetime, definitely in the lifetime of the children of the world. It's the children who are blissfully unaware of the gravity of the situation who will pay the highest price from the coming changes. They were born deeply in debt through no fault of their own. They were born into an environment that has been trashed with greenhouse gases, toxins, nuclear waste, landfills and countless other things, all for cheap energy, industrialization, the ability to make war and the ability to neatly hide the mess we have made of things. Out of sight. Out of mind. You toss it in the garbage can and put it out once a week, and for a small fee a truck comes by and makes it go away. Problem solved....or is it? Ever been in close proximity to a landfill? I have, and I can tell you it's not somewhere you want to have a picnic. It's also not somewhere you would want to put the foundation of a house on 20 years from now. Think global warming is fiction? Take a little trip to the arctic circle and take a full day hike across land that was covered by 50 feet of ice not so many years ago.

The Constitution of the United States, written by some very  intelligent people who tried to look at all the angles and come up with a cohesive document that would cover many bases, isn't even used as a guideline any more. Remember the Writ of Habeous Corpus? It doesn't exist anymore. Heard about the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA)? This little ditty of legislation essentially says if your government deems you to be a terrorist, domestic or otherwise, they don't have to bring charges against you or give you the right to an attorney or a speedy trial. They can simply toss you in a cement cube and hold you there indefinitely. I have been in that cement cube, and I can tell you there isn't alot of freedom floating around in there.

Are you likely, as a taxpaying US Citizen who goes to work and pays their bills to  become a victim of NDAA? Probably not, but it's a slippery slope from there to widening the definition of a terrorist when you take the judicial system out of the loop. (Remember checks and balances from high school history?) Let's suppose for a minute that things are going to get worse before they get better (pretty much a given), and people start speaking out more against against government policy, like myself right now, and thousands of others around the country (the Occupy Movement...etc..etc). Who is to say that people couldn't be labeled "domestic terrorists" and tossed in a cement cube without any recourse?

If you are still reading, I will assume you are not in the camp of "this crazy old coot has gone senile and has lost touch with reality and is now a doom and gloom conspiracy theorist"....so let's move on.



 Petroleum products are in your tupperware, your toothbrush, your car tires, your car gas tank and on and on and on. These products are produced from refined crude oil which was created by the carcasses of prehistoric plant and animal life. We don't produce it. We suck it out of the earth. It's going away eventually. Sooner than most of us would like to believe. Look at any  world population chart online. It  has doubled in the last 35 years (roughly a generation). Those people will all eventually want their own car and house and appliances which are powered by...you guessed it...petroleum products (and coal, but that's a story for another time).Nuff said.

I beg of you to take some time out in your world and do your due diligence as to what's happening in the global picture. Turn off American Idol and google any of these issues that you want to know more about. Being informed is the first line of defense against being complacent. 

2.

The end of an era

I am very depressed about Fiona. She is my car. A 1984 Cadillac Sedan Deville. Metallic Blue. A land yacht that will seat six and hold a month of groceries in the trunk . She is very ill these days, and 28 is pretty old in "car" years.

I know I should probably just let go, it's only a car right? Here is the thing: I don't like plastic interiors and tinny light doors that don't *thunk* when you close them. I don't like that every car on the road today has that egg shape for aerodynamics to squeeze out another mpg. I mean can you really tell the difference between a honda fit, a hyundai accent a nissan versa and a kia rio from a distance?...I doubt it. When you saw my car rolling down the highway...most of the population would instantly recognize it as a Cadillac. Why? because its got tail fins and it's as big as a house...that's why.

 Probably at least 30 strangers have stopped me when I was out driving her and complimented her or asked if I wanted to sell her. I am betting that doesn't happen to Kia Rio owners.  Back in the day (I hate saying that shit...it makes me sound old) cars had style. They were built to evoke an emotional reaction by merely looking at them. Part of your individuality was tied to what kind of car you drove. Is that vain and silly?...of course it is...and I am sad that that time has passed in our society. Don't get me wrong, I definitely agree with conserving resources and am all about recycling and the green movement...and I think keeping this car on the road thus keeping another plastic egg from being created and all the associated energy costs and use of resources to make another plastic egg has somehow justified my driving a car that gets 20 mpg on the highway with a tailwind.

 You could comfortably drive it from anywhere to anywhere without a back ache or neck strain. It was like driving your living room couch down the road. It truly rode "like a Cadillac". Oregon to Texas in 4 days with a single one night hotel stay?...traveling with a trailer and a dog? Bring it on. I got this.



I am currently driving a rented Nissan Versa...a very plastic, very egg shaped car that you would never notice in your travels, because it looks like every other plastic, egg shaped car that you pass every time you go out.

I am trying to breathe life back into her, but it may be the end of an era for us.

A Visionary Gone

In the wake of the loss of Steve Jobs I just felt like writing my thoughts on the man. It's no secret to anyone that knows me that I am not a fan of current apple products and I have eliminated all of that "stuff" from my life. That being said, it is impossible to deny a few astounding things about Steve Jobs.

He was a visionary like few others. When he and Steve Wosniak started Apple in a garage he immediately saw what personal computing could be before it existed. I now sit here typing a post on the world wide web that almost anyone in any country in the world can access, translate and read if they so choose. I am old enough to remember the beginnings of what we now take for granted as the internet. When I got my first computer, a Color Computer 3 from Radio Shack that had no internet access and about the same amount of memory that your watch has today. I remember my sister getting a "Pentium 90" and sitting at her house watching her chatting online with people around the world. I was amazed. Those were heady times. I got my first computer with internet access, with a 486DX processor..custom built with a 3 1/2" floppy disk drive. It cost me $1500 and the operating system was Windows 3.1. You had to load software from floppy disks onto it to even have internet access available. That  machine opened a whole new world for me.

Steve Jobs was almost like a true psychic. He saw the future of computing at several points and created products that up until then didn't exist. It's not widely known that the Graphical User Interface and the Mouse that we all use today on our PCs or Macs had their first widespread use on Macintosh machines. While they didn't technically invent either one, Steve Jobs had the vision after visiting Xerox Parc (Xerox's research center of the time) that the mouse and GUI would be the breakthrough that would allow anyone to operate a personal computer.

Another impressive thing to me about the man was that in many of his speeches, he always stressed the importance of finding that thing you are passionate about and make it your life's work. While that isn't an option for most of us, it does inspire people and allow them to do the one thing that no one can take away from them. Dream.

Steve Jobs was also the consummate salesman. I mean, does anyone really "need" an Iphone, Ipad, Ipod or Itunes to get their work done daily? No, but his passion convinced hundreds of millions of people that they needed something that had never even existed before. That's Powerful.

Rest in Peace Mr Jobs. Your life was inspiring.

Failure is Humbling, but Educational.

It occured to me recently that I had never really epically failed anything in my life except relationships until now. That's not a bad track record.

I tried to dip my toes into a retail storefront after years of doing mail order sales online. It didn't go well. I don't think it was the product line or the layout of the store or even lack of effort. It was the cardinal rule of real estate that caused the downfall. Location, location, location. I didn't have it. I wanted the store close to home to have a short commute and also because I believed, and I still believe, that this sleepy little town is going to grow up and be somebody. I just don't have the time or finances to wait for that to happen.

I learned alot of things through the whole 6 month experience that will be a major help if I ever attempt brick and mortar retail again. I threw money at the problem trying to make the thing work and that was definitely the wrong  approach. The first step is to find the proper location that will bring interest and walk in traffic without having to spend a ton of money for people to find you. The second step is to start out with a strong inventory and not necessarily the same inventory that works online. It is a completely different ball game in brick and mortar.

Anyway I chalk it up to experience, and even though I am beyond broke, which makes Bill a dull boy, I don't regret having attempted it. It was just a very expensive school of brick and mortar retail. I took away many lessons. I certainly would feel worse if I had never at least tried it.

It's been said that you learn more from your failures than your successes. I  always thought that was a line of bullshit. Now I see the light.

Be Childlike not Childish

I attended a birthday party for Charyl  today at an arcade/mini amusement park. Even though I was hanging out with medium age youngsters (the other birthday party attendees) and really young youngsters (gabillions of kids hanging out at Austin Park N' Pizza) I had a really good time. There is something very satisfying about passing a 20 something on the go kart track, crushing the competition on the Miniature Golf course, and having 6 year olds  eyeing your stack of arcade tickets and commenting "that's a lot of tickets". Yeah it is, and this pile of tickets cost me $20 in tokens and will buy me oh, about $5 worth of stuff at the counter. Jealousy will get you nowhere kid. Go ask your mom for more tokens and practice the Dump Truck game.

Here is what I learned: If you are a large slow moving target, don't expect to do well at lazer tag, especially if you haven't studied where exactly the targets are on the vests.

All in all it was a blast and I think the birthday girl had a good time, which is the important part.

On friday I went up to Winstar Casino on the bus. I wanted to see if I had the self control this time to avoid the Satanic Slot Machines (for the most part) and just play poker. Well I managed to do that, but still came out on the losing end against some seriously bad players, a couple of bad beats and one really bad decision 15 minutes before the bus left for home.

The first table I sit down with has a standard maniac directly to my right. Perfect. I am on his left and he is buried like 2 grand and raising every pot and throwing money away like it grows on trees. All I need to do is wait for a hand and move on this guy. I finally pick up a pair of 7's, he makes a raise like always and I shove . He shows 8 6 offsuit and catches an 8 on the flop, but I catch 7,7 on the turn and river to make quads. Nice.

I go card dead for a while and finally pick up AQ suited and shove my chips in again. I get one caller who seems strong, but maniac guy goes over the top and moves all in protecting my hand with the worst of it I am sure. Perfect. He shows J 8 and I catch a queen on the flop. Its looking good right? Not so much. There is also a 9 out there giving him a gutshot straight draw. He needs a 10 and only a 10 to beat me on the river. You can guess the rest of the story. I've got a serious case of run bad tonight.

I get up for a while and wander around. Later I come back to a different table. The play is horrible and the guy two to my left is a newbie (He watched the WPT a few times and thought, how hard can it be?) I lose half my stack with 3 Kings bad kicker against 3 Kings good kicker...standard. That's fine. I shouldn't have tossed in another buck with K8 suited. My bad. So I wait for a hand and pick up AJ in late position and move in for like $40. The newbie who hasn't folded a hand yet and is up $100's of dollars calls me with A9. Perfect. Just fade the 9 and we are back in this thing. You guessed it, 9 on the flop, no help for me. No biggie, after all I am only about a 70% favorite to win that one.

Time to rebuy. So I buy in for $200 and blind down to about $180 and there is only 15 minutes to go before the bus gets there. I figure I will play a big pot if I pick up a hand, and if not, we take the last buy in home with us. A girl who has been playing solid makes it $20 to go in front of me. I know  she has a hand. She has shown KK, QQ and JJ so far and always has the goods. I  look down at KK and think, she can't have AA can she? I mean she has already been a card rack the last hour with the big pairs. I shove and she instantly says in a calm voice "I call" I know before the cards are turned over. She has AA. I watch the board blank out and head for the bus.

So, where is the lesson in all this?

 First of all, avoiding the silly adrenaline rush of lucking out on a slot machine is a profitable play. Keep that silliness to a minimum.

Secondly, I am not a bad cash game player, I have made mostly good decisions and recently had bad results. The thing is, I am much more suited to playing tournaments. In cash games the bad players can luckbox you and you have to reload and give them a chance to do it again. Also, if you are completely card dead in a cash game it is boring and frustrating.  In tournament play, the bad players only get one shot at you and if your hand holds up, they are gone. They no longer have to be dealt with. Also in tournaments, there is value in folding when you are card dead, especially in the early levels. Players are mixing it up and some are even dropping out. Even when you can't play a hand, you are progressing toward a goal in tournaments..survival. That makes it less boring and frustrating.

I have cashed in about half the live tournaments I have played in. Cashed in Washington, Delaware, Las Vegas Oklahoma and my biggest cash was finishing 86th out of over 8000 players for just over $2000 in the Sunday Million online.

The good news in all of this is that Winstar is having it's big tournament series starting the last week in August and the Main Event the 1st week of september. I am going to play a couple of preliminary tourneys and try to buy in or satellite into the main event. Last year I had one $1500 cash in the series and would have gotten into the Main Event via satellite had my Aces held up against Kings. That one hurt. I would have been chip leader in the 4th level of blinds and breezed to a $2100 ticket.

I always hated politics.

I have always avoided political and religious discussions mostly because what I had to say would create a debate I could never win. I can't refute invisible friends and I had no political candidate that I could believe in that I thought could stand on a stage and tell the truth. Well that seems to have changed.

 In this next presidential campaign I am going to move off the couch of futility and support a candidate. He is a republican congressman from the great nation of Texas and his name is Ron Paul. I don't even know if I am still eligible to vote in this next election as I have never registered to vote and I know there are timelines and conditions to doing that. I am certainly going to find out, and if I can vote in this election, I will.

Why, at my advanced age did I finally decide to go from throwing my hands in the air and saying to myself "what good would it do to vote?" to actively supporting a candidate? Here are a few facts that brought me to this decision:

The US is about $14 Trillion (that's 12 zeros in case you were wondering) in debt currently and printing or digitizing currency every day just to pay the INTEREST on that debt. This needs to stop.

Since 1971 the currencies of the entire world have been "fiat" currencies. The dollar is not backed by any hard asset and since the rest of the world's currencies are pinned to the "reserve" currency of the world, the US dollar, they too are now backed by nothing. A dollar bill has a true value of 2 cents, the cost to produce it. A hundred dollar bill has a true value of, you guessed it, 2 cents. Every fiat currency since 470 AD has failed (eventually reached it's true value). Look up Zimbabwe currency or weimar republic on google. This needs to stop.

For 5000 years the only true forms of  money (not currency, money) have been gold and silver. The reason for that is twofold and simple. There is a finite amount of gold and silver that has been mined and is still in the earth's crust. There will never be any more of it. Governments cannot print it, therefore they cannot debase it's   value.

The Federal Reserve is actually a private corporation. It is not Federal, nor is it a Reserve. The federal reserve act of 1913 is actually unconstitutional. Here is an excerpt from Article 1 Section 8 of the United States Constitution that proves it:


The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfareof the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;
To borrow money on the credit of the United States;
To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;
To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization, and uniform Laws on the subject of Bankruptcies throughout the United States;
To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures;


Ok, enough with the history lesson on money versus currency. Why Ron Paul?

Here is what this nutjob believes in:

Getting back to "sound money" (money backed by a hard asset)
Smaller government (I think we can all agree $14 Trillion is a bit much to run up on the credit card)
Following the rules set down in the United States Constitution to the letter. (how refreshing)
Stop assuming we need to be the police force for the entire world and mindlessly going to war.
Less oversight and regulation by the government.
Quit giving illegal immigrants an unfair advantage in this country and not support entitlements to law breakers.

That's it for now. More later if you can stand it :)