Posts in the “personal” category

People who knew us at the end might be surprised by this, but one thing I wish I had asked my business partner more often was, “How are you doing? Really, how are you?”

Just like my Jenny Lane Cottage painting, this is another small version of a “faux painting” I recently created from a photo. This one is of a sidewalk in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

The complexity of this image was in removing several modern aspects from the original photo, including signs that were on those green columns, and cars that were in the street. Everything after that is what has become fairly standard work with Gimp for me, including making it look like an oil painting, and signficantly modifying and enhancing the colors.

FWIW, my week leading up to the Memorial Day weekend went like this:

Tuesday: Went to the liver doctor, he said my numbers are greatly improved, no worries, keep up the good work. A couple of hours later I started having chest pain, and eventually went to the ER. Their first two tests didn’t show any heart issues, but they wanted me to take a stress test the next day.

For anyone interested in the radioactive iodine treatment instructions I received from the hospital back in 2014 (for the post-surgical treatment of thyroid cancer)(which I’ll be going through again), here you go. As I note in the image, as a writer I appreciate the strong finish. :)

Wow, this radiation is good stuff. I just woke from a very long dream sequence where I was in three and then four dimensions, all at one time. It was similar to what happened to Picard in the last episode of STNG. In my case I was trying to help the people in the third dimension, who I originally thought may have had an earthquake, but as I later found out, they were in some sort of battle or war. As Spock would say, fascinating.

(A note from my radiation treatment,
June 24, 2014)

Another tequila sunrise. Virginia Beach, Virginia, November 7, 2009.

“Spirits are very fragile. Easy to break, but not impossible to repair.”

~ from a Monk episode

June 23, 2020: I woke up in the middle of the night only to find someone drilling in the back of my head. It didn’t hurt, but it was just like what you might expect, kinda like a dentist drilling in your mouth, but this was someone with a larger drill, drilling into the back-right side of my head.

This happened once before, maybe 1-2 years ago, and that time I panicked. I started trying to yell, “I’m not dead,” “I’m not asleep, either!” I just wanted to get the heck out of there, so I woke up quickly.

This time I was extremely groggy, but I realized that there wasn’t any pain, just noise, so I tried to keep my eyes open and look around. Unfortunately most of my view was obscured, and I could only see out of my right eye, and most of that view was blocked. I could only see the floor and the bottom of some people’s outfits. From what I could tell, they were all wearing white and lightblue or lightgreen surgical garb.

My favorite part of doing lower-body yoga work is that when you’re finished, your hips and legs are so loose that it’s impossible to walk a straight line. It’s like daily life makes your legs only go in one direction, but once you loosen all the joints, you lose that straight-line stiffness.

Sometimes in lucid dreams I get so busy doing what I want to do that I forget to pay attention to other things in the dream holodeck. Last night I was trying to get something done before I woke up, and I knew I didn’t have much time.

So I’m flying around around trying to get it done, and then as I’m flying down a pathway like Superman, there’s my dad standing in my path. He’s wearing a bright Hawaiian shirt, and so I come to a screeching halt and pause for a moment in front of him like the Road Runner. I’m torn between the time clock running out and having a conversation, so I just say, “Hi dad.” Then I poke him in the belly and say, “Great shirt!” Then I zip off again with a little “meep meep” because I know my time here is almost up.

#HappyFathersDay

Donald Trump can’t even utter the words, “Black Lives Matter,” and his son Eric refers to protestors as “animals.”

I’m an independent voter, and I have supported both Republic and Democrat candidates before, but I could never vote for these people.

If you’re a Republican, I certainly understand that. All I can say is that the Trump family is alienating so many voters that I think it’s better for the Republican party that he loses, and then Mitt Romney can take the mantle in 2024. The longer Trump is in office, the more people he will alienate, and the worse it is for the Republican party in the long run.

Sixty days ago I was taking the maximum doses of two blood pressure medications, and my resting BP was 150/106 with a pulse of 92. I more or less assumed that one day the pericarditis would strangle my heart. Last night it was 111/68 and 58, while I take 1/2 of the medicine I was taking.

It’s amazing what a proper diet and exercise can do for you. :)

“The best use of imagination is creativity. The worst use of imagination is anxiety.”

~ Deepak Chopra (Image from a now-gone Google+ page.)

I was writing with a friend recently about trying to find a way to love all beings, and she sent me this quote:

“I leave you free to be yourself: to think your thoughts, indulge your tastes, follow your inclinations, behave in ways that you decide are to your liking.”

When I read that it made me think something like, “I love you (your spirit), and I acknowledge that you’re a separate being here on Earth. I can’t control you, I can’t make you act in a way that I want you to behave (i.e., in a non-harmful way), so I just have to let you be, so you can work out your own karma.”

For some reason that gives me hope that there is a way I can love all beings (not just the good ones).

Namaste, Al

A couple of days ago I received an email about these guided meditation practices on Michael W. Taft’s TheMindfulGeek.com website. I’ve only listened to the first two so far, but if you’re interested in meditation, they can be a good resource.

One problem I ran into is that Mr. Taft quickly mentions “The Meditation Algorithm,” and when he said that without any introduction, I couldn’t remember what he was talking about. So I grabbed my copy of The Mindful Geek and found the algorithm described on page 53.

Well said.

A painting titled Chop Suey, by Edward Hopper. I found a nice collection of paintings at WikiArt.

I looked at “teardrop” style trailers earlier this week, then just saw this image on Google Plus. I don’t remember the name of the company I looked at earlier this week, but if you Google teardrop trailers, you can find all sorts of interesting concepts.

This is a photo of Tim Hudson’s changeup grip, courtesy of FoxSports and MLB.

“When you need an answer, look over your left shoulder and ask your death.”

~ Carlos Castaneda