I don't know know quite how to write this one.

I look around, I listen to people around me and I'm lost.
 What's wrong with you stupid assholes? You trample each other to get a TV! And you think this is OK! Kill for a half price uplift bra?
 Stop! Go down to the nearest halfprice bookstore and get a copy of The Aristos. Read it. If you got the cash fly to the amazon basin and live with the head hunters for a couple of months. They see life right.
 On Christmas Eve, don't pack presents. Take your kids into the living room by the tree, turn out the lights and read the Christmas Carol to them. I don't care if you're an athiest. The night isn't about the birth of some kid 2000 years ago. It's about the birth of what you can be. I don't know if there is an afterlife (although having been dead I think there is) but live as if there is. Believe in Santa Claus. We'll all be a lot better off.

Heraclitus - "The road up and the road down is one and the same."

This was brought on by this idiotic "Black Friday" crap. The most difficult question I ever get is "What do you want for your birthday/Christmas?" I don't want anything. Say "Merry Christmas" to me and go give $5 to some bum. Even better, give him a six-pack of good beer. Go to a nearby cemetery and say "Thank You" to some poor 20 year old soldier who never got to experience life. Or to a cop or fireman who was taken away from his family.
  The road up and the road down means we all have to make our choices. To go up is to choose the harder way. Going down is controlled by gravity, the universe takes control of you. Or you can choose to stand still. Those are all choices made on the same road.
 Black Friday is a surrender to the path down. If for no other reason than to please me, don't surrender.
"Kýrie, eléison, down the road that I must travel"  - Mr.Mr.

My Thanks

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving so I thought it only appropriate to give thanks where it's deserved.

1. I want to thank the Army for being so incredibly incompetent that I was sent to Ethiopia instead of Vietnam. Not because it was an easier life but because I met my incredibly beautiful wife of 40 years there.

2. I want to thank my wife for tolerating me for 40 years. I was, and probably still am somewhat off the rails. She raised 3 wonderful daughters while I was off around the planet making life miserable for others.

3. I want to than the Russians, Irani, certain criminals and a handful of others for giving me a job. Without you I would probably have ended up in prison.

4. I thank my friends, although they were as nuts as me. There aren't many people that would wander around Istanbul in the middle of the night looking for IEDs, or give me immediate support when a bunch of Arabs attacked my car in Frankfurt.

5. I thank my daughters (the only people who'll read this) for giving purpose to my life. Without them and my wife every thing would have been pointless.

Tomorrow is a day set aside to remember all this and the rest that goes with it. Thank you all.

Like

I'm watching "The Bucket List". Damn, I like Nicholson's character. I find an incredible affinity to his unrelenting sanity. Keep in mind that I'm not circling the drain but I am on the edge of the sink. This is easier to understand if you read the meanderings of August20th.
My Will: I want to be buried in a pine box with a cigarette between my lips in a space with a clear view of the sky.

What I'm writing about

If you happen to be one of my followers you've probably noticed that I've used quotes from somebody else as my title. This is done because I've read something that tweaked my interest.
I used to love to read. But Vonnegut is dead.
A quick nonsequitor: Afghanistans Mr. Karzai would do well to read the biographies of Ngo Dinh Diem and Salvador Allende. There's a time to cut and run and I think that time was yesterday.

Alexander The Great - "I am dying from the treatment of too many physicians."

I was thrown into remembering my medical past while watching some program touting the advances of the medical arts this morning. My only serious problem with doctors is they practice medicine. They always practice on me. Can't we wait until they got it down? I've been practiced on so many times that I'm amazed that I still function. A quick history:

1974 - I was assigned to the Diplomatic Mission in Bangkok, maybe the best assignment in the military. My kidneys quit. Talking with doctors in the following years leads me to believe I was poisoned. The American doctors NEVER came to examine me. One morning the nurse put a toe tag on me and I was sent to a Navy hospital in Chicago. When I arrived, the doctor I was sent half way around the world to treat me examined me and said the only way he knew I was sick was that the 2 week old paper work said I was. I was cured before I left Bangkok. He admitted me anyway. Specifically, to the hospice ward. Everyone around was considered terminal. (Except the guy in the bed next to me. He had out of control hypertension.) Nobody, nurses or medics could figure out why I was there. There was nothing wrong with me. I ended up spending Christmas and New Years on the ward, not sick, because the doctor went on vacation and forgot to give my case to another doctor. The one advantage to being terminally healthy is that you can do just about anything you want. That guy on the bed next to me (in the same situation) shacked up with the swing shift nurse and didn't spend more than a couple of nights in that bed. I just got myself into trouble. As there were no doctors seeing me, I changed the name on the chart to E5 Banana, placed a banana on my pillow, and left to tour the area. When I returned, no-one noticed I was gone all day. A couple of days later I built a model Boeing 747, complete with paint and decals, and flew it out of the 5th floor window. One time I was called down to the detailers (the poor guy in charge of giving jobs to capable patients) office. He assigned some silly job to me and I laughed at him and told him to screw off. He tried to threaten me with judicial action. At that point I reminded him that I was on the terminal ward and his threats didn't carry much weight. And so on...
1978 - Germany. There was an early morning alert in the dead of winter. I got my section ready to roll. During the down time I went to work on one of my generators. While trying to start it, it backfired, yanking the pull rope from my hand. At that moment the order to roll out came and we did a training rail load. When finished that afternoon we went home. My section put everything away and I went to the 1st SGT to report we were all done. While in his office I took my gloves off and saw my hand was very swollen. I immediately went to the clinic, where the medic told me my wedding ring had to come off. The swelling was too much to pull it off so it had to be cut off. It was cutting my circulation off. No one in the clinic knew how to use it so I took it and cut it off myself. I then had to drive myself to a major clinic where I was xrayed and found that that tendons were ripped from my fingertips and would need surgery to fix the problem. I drove myself to the hospital on Ktown, admitted and rushed into the O.R.. The anesthesiologist decided a local was adequate and started sticking me in the neck (3x) and the armpit (5x). At that point I explained to the doctor that within the next 5 minutes one of us would be asleep.
It's getting late and I,m tired of typing. More later.

Denis Diderot - Every man has his dignity. I'm willing to forget mine, but at my own discretion and not when someone else tells me to.

As usual I have been watching the news and the topic of the day seems to be the TSA Scanners that see everything. My problem with that is not that someone will get a look at my shriveled dongle. (I think half the city has seen me laid out naked on a table.) What I do see is the continual attack on Dignity.
As a young trooper I was taught the mechanics of subjugating a people.
1. Make them dependent on government.
2. Limit their mobility.
3. Censor their news.
4. Monitor their individual communications.
5. Encourage people to report their neighbors for "incorrect" thinking.
6. Control access to resources.
7. Subvert important industrial leaders through money or coercion.
8. Erode the individuals dignity.
Is there any part of this you recognize? or don't?

(Any engineering types out there? How about a low wattage xray laser strobe against a phosphor coated screen, like the inside of an old TV tube. No computers needed and immediate recognition of target density variations.)

A Note to all the morons out there!

I'm getting old, I'm always cranky and honestly, you people are pissing me off!
I fix computers. You break computers. But why do you always break them doing the same thing? The last time you picked your machine up I told you the viruses came in through Limewire. A week later you're back trying to scam me by saying that I didn't fix your idiot box because the virus is still there. When I find it again I read the date it came in on and it was after you took it home! I CAN READ YOU MORONS, unlike you. Every file and temporary Internet page on you machine is date/time stamped!
Then you try to argue with me about the source because you're too stupid to follow the advice I gave you last time. "Limewire has so much free music." you say. I have a sign in my window that says "If you're stupid enough to use Limewire, then you're stupid enough to pay me $200 to clean up the mess." If you think that $200 is free then I am right.
When you get the urge to tdo something stupid, hit your fingertips with a hammer. In your case it may take 15 or 20 hits but eventually you'll learn. Even earthworms learn.
Incidentally, Limewire doesn't cause the viruses. They come from other morons in the music you download. It's sort of like STDs. (Do you know what that is?)

Another thought

Odysseus-
Men are haunted by the vastness of eternity. And so we ask ourselves: will our actions echo across the centuries?  Will strangers hear our names long after we are gone, and wonder who we were, how bravely we fought, how fiercely we loved?
If they ever tell my story let them say that I walked with giants. Men rise and fall like the winter wheat, but these names will never die. Let them say I lived in the time of Hector, tamer of horses. Let them say I lived in the time of Achilles.

Today-Let them say I lived in the time of SloppyBJ_DJ

A Week Later

For those of you who don't know, 1 week ago I had another seizure. I spent
1 or 2 nights in the hospital. (I honestly can't remember which.) A week
later I find I have developed a tendency to go into a "1000 meter stare".
I'm hoping this passes because it's really annoying.
Sensory: It's like someone turned up the color intensity on the TV. No
distortions or actual color changes, just stronger. I really noticed that
my sense of smell has improved. While going thru the produce section with
mom I was able to smell each vegetable or fruit separately as I passed it.
Emotional: Since it's been only a week, it's hard to say what's going on.
As is usual I'm in a mild state of depression. It doesn't take much to make
me cry. (I just cried for Jason Bourne.) Usually, this mostly passes after
a week or two. I sincerely believe Atavan sticks to my brain cells like
cheap glue and it takes that long to wash out of my system.
Summary: When I put it all together, although I didn't suffer much
physical damage from the physical aspect, I am somewhat concerned about
what happened inside my head. (My description is it's like a stroke in slow motion.)
That's about it from the farside. Good Night.