Web Blah Garza

I want to start with saying in the past couple of years, it has been great reconnecting with old friends and making new ones on the social sites that I’m on. Now let me get on with the gist of this post. Over the years I have done many things in many areas of life, I have always been somewhat of a political activist ever since the Viet Nam war and have a very strong opinion about injustice and carelesness. For the most part I’ve always kept my personal life and politics apart as much as possible. With the advent of social sites, I have walked a careful path and occasionally voiced an opinion here and ther but recently the events of our world and the advent of many natural and man made disasters has brought out much of my strong feelings against injustice. We as a people, I think, like to find happiness and frolic in the flowers so to speak, but with the state of the world as it is I personally find that difficult. So my feelings have been more blatant and outspoken. and it is reflected on my social site profiles.

Soo, what are social sites for? The reconnecting of old friends, the voicing of opinons, the promoting of our buisness’s and art, music etc… As friends come and go and I become more myself on these sites I find that many people just don’t want to hear it or know about the truth. Are we destined to play among the daisies and frolic in the flowers of socil sites, as our world collapses around us?? I for one look to the future for my children, I want a better world for them and in that I know that it’s up to me to make one. If I can’t fight the good fight for justice and truth, then in my world I fail them. If I sit back and watch the greedy destroy our planet and maintain a system of poor and rich, then I fail the world. If I can’t point out the ludicrous behaviour of my fellow humans who tend to lead us astray from a good life then I fail my self.

Social sites are wonderful things and the internet is a treasure trove of information. Sharing that info is something I love to do. Yes much like the TV you can’t believe everything you see on the internet, but common sense and a little research can always prevail.

I will continue to voice my feelings and share my opinion. people may not always agree with it, but that’s the beauty of our freedom. If we let that be taken away out of fear, in other words what someone else may think or the policing of the internet then we have failed our country and the world. Don’t let the illusion of the internet or social sites water down who you really are, my friends are who they are and no matter what you may believe or think, what we have shared and what we can share will always be first and foremost. Life is not a social site, and social sites are not life, what I share on them is my life and being able to see the lives of others I have known over the years is a wonderful thing.

Spring has come on but has been slow to move in here in the Southern Rockies. We have had several baby goats and lost a few, It was a hard winter for the livestock, very cold very snowy and not much relief from the onsluaght of the weather. It was hard to lose a couple of babies but such is the life in the world of birth and death. We got rid of our sheep the other day, sad to see them go but it will be easier to focus on our yaks.

I’ve been in to taking photographs lately and sprung for a new camera, you can check out my gallery HERE. I’m not in to any single type of photography just what ever catches my eye and fancy. I can’t say I’m a phtographer but I aspire to acieve an art as always.

I have to admit this has been an incredibly intense spring. Several major earthquakes, a large volcanoe (more to come I’m sure), an unprecedented oil catastrophe and killer weather in diverse places. One could almost say it all seems quite apocalyptic. Of course the use of the word has been bent out of proportion as the true greek translation of the word means “to reveal hidden information”. Coincidence that the movie 2012 and the events of late seem to beckon to an almost true to life scenario of end times? Where is this all leading and if there is a revealing about to occur what will it be? One can only speculate and wonder, that is if one really cares.

My focus lately has been more on my family and the work needed to be done in the more immediate thing called my life. It seems the only thing that brings me joy are the small things, and my children. It seems a night doesn’t go by when I look up at the sky and take in the vast curtain of clouds or the bright vail of stars. I always feel so big feeling so small, and I try to take in the all. My life is full of hard work and feeling tired but I feel these things with a relish of satisfaction that I’m not wasting my life not thinking or not feeling.

It’s hard to say which direction things will go but I get the feeling it can’t be good. We are staring down the barrel of a galactic gun. I get the feeling we are under a universal microscope in some ones heavenly laboratory being watched and studied.

I’m sorry if I sound so morose, I do feel quite happy with life, and the things I know are more meaningful than the doom and gloom of it all. I know that these trials and tribuilations are necessary to reach the other side, the outcome. I think there is a good place for us all that can, and will survive what lies ahead.

On my way home today, I was sitting at a light watching two large birds flying around each other and half fighting, as they got closer one of them turned sidways so the light caught it’s tail and it was white. What I had been watching were two bald eagles coming closer. As they approached a third came up, the bird that was out front flew off and the two paired up and flew off along the ridge to the south together. It was a spectacular few moments that took me away from my car and the surrounding traffic and hubbub. What made it even more incredible is that it all took place in an area where the balds are rarely seen, much too populated. I looked around and no one had even noticed them. I thought to myslef what a way to end the year, it all seemed like some type of message so I will ponder it into the new year and who knows what it will bring.

May the New Year find you all in excellent health and loved for who you are, as well as your incredible abilities to create what you see and feel!!

Recently I’ve begun to become more nostalgic than usual. Lately I’ve spent a lot of time on Facebook watching and reading the doings of many old friends I have come back in to contact with. Of course the contact is over the cyber reality of the internet and in a way it’s not real contact but, contact none the less. As I have watched and read and interacted, at times many memories and moments that have passed in to the ethers of time have raced through my head and I begin to see, that where I am now and where I was then is so far apart. It begs the question, “Is the me I am now and the me I was then, the same person?”. How do we determine who we are? Do we base it on our actions? On our relationships? On our accomplishments? On our failures. Or perhaps it’s a culmunation of all of these and more.

Many times I have watched people come and go from my life and even though they may be gone, they still dwell in my memories as (perhaps I’m part elephant?) I truly never forget them. I am, as one would say, an older man with different stages of my life here and gone by, I have older children that know a different father than the one I am now to my younger children. Time has a way, for some, to teach us different ways to be and that brings me back to my question. What do we base our changes in life on, time seems to be a huge factor but time is also an illusion we created to measure deteroration of matter and energy.

SO many times I look ahead and see where I want to be and make plans to reach that goal, but I find when I lose sight of them and move with the flow of the universe I become more of what I want to be than when I try to accomplish laid out plans.

I look at my friends so many of them in thier lives living them, and moving through space as gracefully as geese in flight, and all of us joining in this dance of information sharing on facebook. I begin to feel that nostalgia for the ones who aren’t here. Past lovers, deceased friends, people who have disappeared in to lifes fog of time, I begin to wonder where they are and what has, and did happen to them.

Perhaps what I’m feeling is my own misgivings at how I am beginning to change, a few more grey hairs, the pounds that come and go, the hint of double chin and the age appearing in my eye’s as I look in the mirror. The days I have spent in the high desert alone and in the mountains with no one else there but me were less lonely than now with friends and family in reach.

The irony of it all.

I’ve Been waiting to hear someone say this very thing, Finally someone in DC with courage!

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Kucinich: Why Is It We Have Finite Resources for Health Care but Unlimited
Money for War?

WASHINGTON - November 6 - Following a statement on the Floor of the House
of Representative, Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) today made the
following statement:

“Why is it we have finite resources for health care but unlimited money for
war?

“The inequities in our economy are piling up: trillions for war, trillions
for Wall Street and tens of billions for the insurance companies. Banks and
other corporations are sitting on piles of cash of taxpayer’s money while
firing workers, cutting pay and denying small businesses money to survive.

“People are losing their homes, their jobs, their health, their
investments, their retirement security; yet there is unlimited money for
war, Wall Street and insurance companies, but very little money for jobs on
Main Street.

“Unlimited money to blow up things in Iraq and Afghanistan, and relatively
little money to build things in the US.

“The Administration may soon bring to Congress a request for an additional
$50 billion for war. I can tell you that a Democratic version of the wars
in Iraq and Afghanistan is no more acceptable than a Republican version of
the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“Trillions for war and Wall Street, billions for insurance companies…
When we were promised change, we weren’t thinking that we give a dollar and
get back two cents.”

Today is full of fall, I picked up my son Athan from school and he is having a play date with a friend named Gweny, short for Gwennivere. It’s strange to see my eight year old son having a great time with a girl who not only looks a little like him but shares so much of the same interests. I’m glad he’s finding friendship with girls at such a young age. It will benifit him later in life to know how to befriend women rather than pursue them.
The wind blew through here yesterday leaving the roof of the chicken coup torn up a little and a few other odds and ends that will need repaire before the winter sets in. We picked up our new young bull Yak, Oscar, this past weekend with a drive to Stemaboat Springs that was arduous yet well needed, as trips go.

After going over the wrong pass and having to go back over it to get back on the right road things smoothed out. The Yampa Valley was as beautifull as I remembered, but the town of Steamboat Springs was quite different, as well as Phippsburg and Oak Creek. Of course it has been almost fourty years since I had been up there. I remember playing at The Inn At Thunderhead back then and there was only a small dirt road up the side of the mountain with one large grey building for the lodge. Now the entier mountain side is coverred in condos and you can’t see much of it except for the ski runs on the mountain.

The trip got me thinking about how so much can change but how much the same we feel inside regardless of how old we may get. My body say’s 56 but my mind and heart say 20, perhaps this is the diachotomy of existance we all must feel but fail to recognize at times. Perhaps this is the joke played on us by time and space, supposedly both are illusions yet we feel something change as our bodies do become different regardless of the illusion of time.

Father’s Day, a day about Father’s. Somehow it never really seems to be like Mother’s Day, Mother’s get roses or candy or something very beautiful but men, we get ties (perhaps to hang ourselves), calogne ( do we smell bad?), tools (as if we don’t do enough work already). My father was a hard man to live with and so in turn I guess I am too. For years he wouldn’t talk to me much or even say he loved me or hug me. I guess in those days and being from the generation he is, that isn’t manly behaviour. Now, every time we talk on the phone he tell’s me he loves me.

For many years I held a grudge for my father and pretty much felt hate for him, for all the things he did and didn’t do. Over the years I realized how foolish that was and found forgiveness for him. Funny thing, as soon as I forgave him, I began to forgive myself for my own short comings.

Dad never spoke much about the war to me, he fought in Korea. I remember once as a kid we were watching a show called The 20th Century, it was a historical show much like those on the History Channel these days, I must have been about 10 years old. That night there was a show about a certain offensive that took place in Korea about a platoon of men who had been trapped in the mountains of Korea in the winter. About half way through the show my father who had been very quite, suddenly said ” I was there”.
I remember looking at him expecting more, but he never said another word about it.

Not too long ago we were talking on the phone and somehow we had gotten on the subject of my sisters bickering over my Mother’s jewlery after she had died. He asked me about a ruby ring. He told me he had given it to my mom. Then he told me an astonishing story. He told me he had been wounded while in the war and during his recuperation they put him on laundry detail, while washing blankets he had shaken out a blanket and out fell this ring, a very nice ruby ring. Then he told me he shook the blanket once more and out fell a finger. In all the years I had spoken with him he had never told me this.

I guess what I’m geting at is, we as children and young people tend to judge our parents pretty harshly without even knowing our parents as people until years later. This can only happen if we give them a chance and as adults we open ourselves to them as people. I know of many father’s who’s children are not accesable to them because of astranged situations or just plain misunderstanding. I myself have been in that position, and found/find it to be very painful, perhaps it ws this experience that led me to forgive my father, I had learned what he must have felt.

I won’t say Happy Father’s day, what I will say is Father’s deserve something different than we have gotten over the years and perhaps it’s time we rethink this whole Holiday. I feel strongly about the fact that many Fathers have received unfair treatment and although I know many women have too, this day is about Father’s, so hug yours and if you can’t, call him up and let him do all the talking, you never know you just might find out who you really are.

Well I upgraded to Wordpress 2.7.1, since I run my own site I was a little worried about doing it, but no problems and things are running smoothly, I highly recommend doing it if you are tired of the upgrade nag that appears at the bottom of your page. Taking some getting use to the new format in the Dashboard and Admin area but no biggy. Also added a photo album page using a plugin for Wordpress, WP-Photo Album. very simple plugin and easy to use, nothing fancy but integrates with the existing Theme nicely. If you are interested stop by and take a look. This is just a brief entry to chronicle my doings.

Well first of all Happy New Year to all. Now to the meat of this post. During Christmas I found myself completely inundated with the commercialism of the season. As I work in the retail industry (just a job) that wasn’t to hard to do. My partner and I joined the fray of consumers bouncing off the walls to get gifts for our children and close ones, but in the spirit of Cindy Lou Who I was constantly wondering, (Where are you Christmas?). I spent the last days before the seasons end wondering and contemplating what has become of us and the celebration of the Christmas holiday. Now at this point I wish to express that I am not a devout Christian nor do I have spiritual beliefs that are a kin to the standard Christian belief system although I was raised Catholic and was an alter boy. So you can imagine I spent many years developing my own system far from the so called normal Christian methods. Although this may be the case I have a longing and childhood memory of what Christmas once was to me and this spirit has lived on in my later years ( I am 55). Being raised in the era of family Christmas shows i.e. Andy Williams, Dean Martin and a Host of many variety and warm cuddly remembrances of the true meaning of Christmas, I turned to the tube on Christmas eve for a warm fire and the heavenly host of Christmas spirit. As I moved through the channels I was soon to find no sign of such warmth. The usual stuff was there, the bombardment of truck and car commercials as well as the shouting of marketeers selling their wares. TMZ was there and all the CSI’s as well as the shootings and killings of bad and good guys, but no Angels, no Shepherds, No star in the sky and no Christmas!!. PBS had Faith Hill singing carols but a one woman show was not the same and there was no sign of Rudolph, The Drummer Boy, or any child like showing of warmth and spirit. On Christmas day again I checked the one eyed cyclops for any sign of Christmas, there was a rendition of Heidi on PBS using dogs as the actors and there was Rachel Ray cooking here little heart out as well as the usual soap operas but no Christmas, again NO Angels, NO Baby Jesus, No Shepherds, No Wise men and most of all NO Star!! As the day wore on I would check and on into the evening, I was quite disappointed by the lack of spirit and tradition that poured from the tube. We finally shut it off and I pulled out my copies of the Little Drummer Boy, It’s a Wonderful Life and so on and we watched our own movies. As i watched my Children on Christmas morning opening their presents and over the week before as I saw them grow in anticipation of the coming day, I could see where Christmas had gone. It’s hiding in the spirits of the Children, waiting for the day it can come back again. Waiting for the day when a new car or a new house means much less than the happiness of a child and the remembrance of why Christmas exists at all. As I looked to our grown up world and the media I saw a sorry rendition of what has once been and I could see Christmas was no longer there. It was gone and will remain so, I fear as the years pass in to our economic disasters and the lack of understanding Brotherhood. War has taken Christmas away, Money has taken Christmas away, and a host of other fears and misgivings. Most of all I think that Christians have spent way too much time worrying about other peoples politics and belief systems, that they are the biggest culprits for the loss of the Christmas Spirit and the true meaning it exists. I think next year we’re going to celebrate Chanukah.

Comming home from our trip to Cailifornia the nest day I went out to check on my goats and other critters. I found one of my goats (Butterscotch), with a broken leg. I was distraught and wasn;t paying much attention to the other critters. Later I was quick to blame one of my dogs as he is prone to chasing the animals and was loose the night before. The next day I went out to feed in the morning and found my 2 roosters gone and feathers everywhere as well as one of my goats with a huge gash in his side. Of course I really mad! We took Butterscotch to the vet and after a talk with her decided that because of the nature of the break it would be a slim chance she would ever use it again, we decided to put her down. After the ride there it was one of the hardest decisions I’ve ever made, I rode int he back of the truck with her and one the way she was nuzzling me and looking to me for reassurance. What a betrayal I felt, I let her down somehow.

What would you do???