A story I shared with college buddies

(original thread)Re: [JMC] Adam Smith has nothing to do with it

My house was built in 1896. On the site of an old cherry orchard. One of the original trees was still standing and producing fruit until 20 years ago. It had grown huge and was tearing into the foundation and side wall of my carriagehouse. I pondered and pondered. Ancient tree or ancient structure? The structure won. I rented a chain saw, put on a really outdoorsey and masculine t-shirt and brought the cherry tree down. Under the heart of the tree, I found a silver (real silver) spoon. An elderly neighbor (more elderly than I anyway) explained that in the old days, when a child was born around here, a tree would be planted for them with something of value placed beneath the root ball. I lamented choosing the building over the tree then.

But wait. There is more! Not having compleated the removal of the entire root system of the tree, I discovered a volunteer cherry tree shoot two years ago. The shoot was far enough from my carriage house to not cause alarm during my anticipated lifetime, so I let it thrive and grow.

And grow it did! Two years now, the volunteer is over ten feet tall and had the most beautiful blossoms this last spring. It even bore fruit. The original orchard tree is prospering into its third century. Untended. But protected. hmmmmm. Oh yeh. The elderly neighbor? Dead. Oh yeh number two. The rental place took one look at me and refused to rent me a gas powered chain saw. I had to do the job with a playskool electric saw.

Alaska Way Viaduct: an appeal to preserve an elevated roadway

Walking in the cooler shadow cast by the AK Way pier structures, a blind man could justifiably tell you that there is no view from ground level. This is the view from ground level. None. Do not need to mention a tunnel.

When I see how tunnel happy certain some ones are in Washington, I often reflect upon the below ground proletariat depicted in the classic film, "Metropolis." The spoilt riche live in the glorious light and clouds above, while the workers get to scramble around the dank underworld.
The Alaska Way Viaduct is the evener of that dichotomy. It is a public view of Olympic sunsets on the west and gleaming glass on the eastern side. To steal this momentary glimpse of the natural world and the rich cityscape from all citizens of the region, and lock up access to these views in condos for the already privileged is equivalent or greater , than bull dozing Central Park in New York and putting up shoulder to shoulder residences of great height and density.
Seattle is about Water and Air and long views of distant mountains that feed and fire up the imagination of every person. Do not privatize what is now public.
How wonderful that this ‘park’ of vistas is also one of the most effective movers of industrial, residential and recreational traffic in the region. The same forces that would obliterate the family wage- working parts of our fair city would make more personal money for themselves by the uneven process of buying, selling, tearing down and building up (a process that merely generates redistribution of wealth without regard to the real need for the structures and projects).

The original structure is neither ugly nor fragile. We can only hope that the new addition near the stadium is as elegant and strong. By the way, the Viaduct doesn't sit on liquid soil, but upon piers that rest firmly in bedrock. As for design, I am a world traveller who has seen no other structure that is so visually light and air filled. Because the old girl hasn't had a dime spent on her to remove grime and soot, I must admit, she is a dirty girl. Nor to my knowledge has anyone photoshoped her clean and publish it. No one has mocked up the type of sexy new structure sketches or real estate curb appeal visions of a cleaned up and restored Viaduct.
A few more comments. It is one of many viaducts in town. Portians of I-5 crossing through town are often much higher. Few know a portion of the AK Way viaduct rests within the federal Pioneer historic district, and serves to keep the scenery from those architectural gems secure. More is the shame that the public stadiums are not considered in this regard. Speaking of the stadiums. On the great pylon at Quest field a work of art by an Apache is seen by many, but remarked upon by few. The giant discs represent, the man made world (a cityscape in grey), the natural world (green world), the sun (life energy) and clouds (spirit world).
The Alaska Way Viaduct, be it from the cab of a working truck, or an exultant crowd of fund raising runners, affords splendid access to see all of these worlds.
Preserve an elevated roadway there for this and future generations.

Submitted by egoboy

Things I made the time to say on my myspace page

Sunday, May 04, 2008
I was alive when Kennedy was President. Current mood: nostalgic Category: Life
Gweny and Sir Lance-a-lot singin' "tis May! Tis May! The Merry month of May!" I sang the role of Sir Lancelot in my sixth grade musical. (I was also the artist who provided the handsome backdrop drawings of castles and trees).
Curious to think of it all these years later. The place, P.S. 93, the Bronx. The play, "Camelot." John F. Kennedy was president but headed for that fateful intersection with destiny and death that has since led to the very notion of a glittering but doomed, I say doomed, court being summerised in the single word "Camelot."
Oh yeh! I was the only idiot who wore the perscribed tights as part of his costume. Me. In tights. Everyone else, jeans beneath their tabards. Talk about doomed!
My teacher, I later learned, altered the charactor of the musical by removing any notion of Guinivere's lusting after Lancelot while married to Arthur. Which I wouldn't have understood at the time any way. My teacher also had a nervous break down on the day Kennedy was shot, and was never seen again (by myself, anyway). She was followed by a string of seriously interesting substitutes. They ranged from an out of work merchant marine seaman to a young woman I strongly suspected of moonlighting as a .10 cents a dance type dancer or some such 'exotic' female job. She, I thought, looked like a flamego dancer in the movie "Ship of Fools," which I managed to watch one late night on TV. Compared to some of the riff raff I have been exposed to in primary and secondary educational facilities, they were all brilliant and interesting creatures that managed to excite my desires for knowledge for knowledge's sake.
There were field trips to a Japenese Tea house, the New York Museum of Natural History and its planitarium (I am still haunted by the life size Blue Whale suspended from a ceiling), someone even managed a jaunt to the Merchant Marine Academy (wonder who thought that one up) where I got to touch my first actual suit of Samuri armour and see massive model ships with working miniature cranes, that were used to teach the proper way to load a sea going vessal.
I had my first tutor, which was also my first exposure to osteoperosis. She was a retired NYC teacher bent in half by disease. It made me feel some how guilty when I later built an Aurora model kit of the Hunchback of Notre Dame. (Which was another old movie I managed to sneak a viewing of on late night TV. To this day I weep for Esmerelda's goat.)
So, Tis May, Tis May! And I will never be in the 6th grade in New York City again. Nor shall I ever return my over due copy of Gulliver's Travels to the New York Public Library. I am just bad, I guess. It was the trauma of wearing the tights. I am sure of it.

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Friday, January 25, 2008
Vacuum part returns!
Renewed hope for humanity! The lost attachment to my vacuum cleaner has been returned to its nestling place in the mothership! Now, if only the poor, shattered, hooking apparatus that permits the hose assymbly to store upright on the main body, if only it could see a new and repaired day!
Think I whine too much? Think I am a cranky old man who complains about every little detail in my life? I remind you, sir, the oft told tale of the nail.
"For want of a nail, a shoe was lost (refers to a horse shoe and nail).
For want of a shoe a horse was lost!
For want of a horse a rider was lost! (refers to a vital messanger).
And for want of a rider, a kingdom was lost! (Some versians say 'for want of a rider a crown was lost.)
I am thinking this is a reference to Shakespear and one of those king Henrys. Simply put, some doof didn't take care of making sure his horse's shoes were firmly attached. When the king was getting it put to his army in a battle, he summons the very same doof to ride hard for reinforcements. Doof jumps on old Neillie and rides hard, only to have his loyal mount throw a shoe, go lame and not make it to the reinforcements in time. (In the versian I like, the horse throws the shoe, stumbles, throws the rider, who flys into a creek and breaks his neck while drowning!) No reinforcements, good king Henry loses da battle, and his head and crown with it.
So see, if my busted vacuum falls on me when I am walking by, and I lurch to avoid it, and fall, breaking my poor old hip, and I miss work, losing money that pays for the internet service that provides access to this heavily read web page, well, you can see why the vacuum cleaner must be in tip top shape!!! LOL!!!
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Wednesday, January 09, 2008
beware the toothless dog, he will lick you to death. Current mood: virginal
I would like to say that is an old indian saying (it very well may be, only I do not remember hearing it from an old indian). It is the phrase that came to mind as I spend a rare day off (in other words, I am still working very hard and doing stuff, but I wont see the hours on a pay-stub). As I age it all becomes clear to me (even clearer after a dose of visine in each eye). The toothless hound survives by learning new tactics for dealing with life's necessities. Instead of getting all snarly and scarey, he without fang must turn to displays of affection and unbearable cuteness to earn sustinance and a warm place to sleep.
Based upon this flash of insight, I anticipate Osama bin Laden will come out with a fun line of valentine day cards. Beware! The licking begins!
This cryptic message is a memnomic device for my personal diary. To pull back the curtain abit, it refers to my recent month long contest with my bank over certain missed occaisions for getting their job done in a timely and pleasant manner.
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Friday, January 04, 2008
The new year is old already... Current mood: fabulous
gee...headlines blare regarding the Britney situation. The Washington Post throws salt in the wounds left by the loss of a female soldier in Iraq.......Iowa caucasi are over before the last Christmas tree has been mulched. I loaned a friend a vacuum cleaner which I have babied over the years and he returned it missing an attachment and with a key piece broken that wont allow me to store it in an upright position, therefore saving space. Gee....no surprises at all.
Of course the New Year is an artificial line of demarcation in time. Like the insanity of y2k, y2k-plus-8 is pretty pedestrian. Sure it's a leap year! An American election year! A Britney falls to pieces year!
Don't get me wrong, the dependability of peaceful transitions of power in the good ol' USA is a remarable thing in this world of Pakistans and Kenyas. And the idiot who broke my vacuum is still being called a friend by me....of course that may change when I demand he pay for repair parts! What I'm blowing smoke about is the same old human behavior (also remarkable, considering the wealth of articles claiming human evolution is accelerating, and the current crop of 20 somethings is actually more intellegent than preceeding generations. LOL! I guess lowering the standards for SATs and re-rigging standard IQ tests counts for something! LOL!)
Soooo...to make this a truely new year, let's do something ORIGINAL. I mean really original, not something you are told is original, not something that is meerly an unoriginal negative image or action of what you percieve to be "the norm.'
You know what would be really new!? Leave politics out of the election! Vote for people who will serve the country as a whole, with honesty and integrity. Leave Britney alone, I mean let her go so private she forgets why she is so messed up. Leave your under-grad sloppy journalism at the door.
Let's see...oh yeh! Try being boring and hard working instead of flash-in-the-pan criminal. World peace? Do I hear World peace, from anyone? Guess what? In peaceful times and places, more people make more money and enjoy much higher standards and quality of life!

If you are still reading..have a happy and wonderful, NEW YEAR!

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Friday, November 30, 2007
Because I care..... Current mood: bitchy
I just re-read my blather about jobs and hunting them. In the misty background of me brain the twittering warnings of some internet job advice writer seep into my periphiral view. What's that? Employers might read your Myspace Blog and not hire you?!! Huh!!! Employer's might read your Myspace page and Fire you!
Well, knuckleheads, I am an American. I live in America, and if it aint illegal, it is absolutely none of your dinkin' business. Not hire me? Fire me? Over something I wrote and shared in a public forum? I don't want to work for you if that is the case. Oh, and if you think I trust you clods with a 'modern' education to be able to judge anything about anything....don't waste your time.
When I had a graduate of the University of Washington start ranting about Abraham Lincoln owning slaves, I knew it was time to stop taking current college graduates seriously. Besides, if you live in King County, Washington, you have experienced close up how people can lie about having degrees and keep their jobs ( I referrence one of our fine County Councilwomen.)
I post this here, because I care. It is just what I do.....
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Tuesday, November 27, 2007
job hunt, I am just too good to work for any of these folks! Current mood: awake
Ah the frustration of my life, that got to get the jingle dance must be done a-new. Sure, more options (and less, there are very few jobs where you get to play with crayons, and get a nap session, these days, it seems).
But the worst of is, I just never seem to find an employer worthy of me. There have been a few, in the past. And even one or so that were too good for me! But not now. Not in this town. Not in this new world of beige box lives and broken with the meaning of meaningful work. Some of those I came into this world with (that is my generation of toffu bacon burger eating freaks) seem to have figured out that there is a rigged game on. And they play, and played accordingly. I just never seem to smell the fix. But I keep up by being as unhappy as those that can smell it.
Nope, I am definetly not smart enough to play dumb, and not dumb enough to be smart about things. Hell, I was in my thirties before I figured out how to dunk an oreo cookie properly. Of course about the time I did figure it out, cookies started tasting like card board play food and milk went all non-fat on me. You wont be surprised to hear me lament the fact that they no longer make hair combs from bone.
Well, off to little nemo land now. The job safari can wait till dawn. O.K., till noon.
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Monday, November 26, 2007
reason for stuff.... Current mood: blank
egoboy splains it!
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Matt Lauer, R.E.M and the Ghosts of 911.

Woke up and flicked on the boob tube (‘boob’ also means idiot or dummy, associated somehow with the breast meaning of the word). Perennial monarch of the broadcast morning, the NBC Today Show was what flickered on, channel selection inheritor of last night‘s Medium viewing. Matt Lauer was old manishly-restrained-rocking out on the edges of an outdoor stage set up in Rockefeller Center Plaza. The song was Supernaturaly Superserious. It was R.E.M on stage and the typical audience of New Yorkers and touristos. Big Apple at her best.


The NBC cameras professionally roved the faces. R.E.M sound tracked and on the caressing camera feed, the band’s aged by life faces joined the audience’s in expressing the good times of being out of doors on a fine early spring day in what is without question America’s greatest city for life lived at full speed.


Then I saw them.


Sprinkled in that happy, life affirming gathering. Here and there in the places the living weren’t touching shoulders.


The young neck-tied 80th storey jumpers, the broad-hipped admin staffers left to die on stair well landings by fate and circumstances. Youthful first real job executive assistants mingled with emotionally self contained just working for the check engineering staffers. Somber silver-backed mid managers and overly ambitious executives shared the moment with the cheerful at all costs because the tip depends on it waitresses. Working moms and dads, confirmed bachelors (that's code for guys who like other guys), bachelorettes (that's code for gals who are too smart to marry) were briefly visable in the light of day. To the back of one shot I saw a pan handler or two (maybe they were the living still breathing kind of ghosts one sees in our citys). Here and there the dusty uniforms of police and fire, security and medical. Was it all an after image of horror or the yearning spirits of New York City trying to join in the joy of a fine early spring day?


Was it an effect of the R.E.M. ballad?


Maybe it was just a hangover mental-emotional thing from a late evening of watching Medium.

Maybe it was just my inner desire to share the experience with all those who don’t make it to the first fine early spring day in New York City.

Maybe those souls were really there. Maybe I am a little crazy.

Maybe it was Supernaturaly Superserious.

egoboy 'splains why Terrence Knox's picture appears here.

This is not a picture of me. It is a movie star named Terrence Knox. He has done a lot of TV as well. You may remember him from "Call of Duty."

Mr Knox was kind enough to sign a model kit box from that show for me. He hails from the Tri-Cities of Washington state. Home of Hanford, which in turn is the birth place of the bomb they plopped on Hiroshima, or was it Nagasaki? Anyway Terry is alot like that place. A spot of green on the Columbia River as it pulses through the desert of Eastern Washington. Clean. Honest. Decent. Ready to do the right thing, even if it is the hardest call of all. He is a very likable guy and a great actor. And he sticks to his professional standards and his craft like a dragonfly in amber.

I just figured I should explain why his picture is here. I am better looking, but he is a much better actor and more than earned a picture on my blog by the enjoyment his practice of his art has brought to millions. Yes. Millions.