I’ve never seen anything that more accurately portrays what I go through everyday.
I am an agent.
This guy carries “friendly letters and business letters”….that’s what it said in the movie.
That’s cool.
That’s what I do, too.
It’s all pretty amazing when you think about it….whether it’s 1946 or 2015, it’s a pretty amazing process that allows us to send a letter all the way across the country and believe that it’s going to be delivered correctly and in a timely manner.
No….I need to re-phrase that….not “believe”….KNOW that it’s going to get there.
Know.
Check out the segment in this movie about the “country mailman”.
That’s what I do….I’m a rural mailman.
I don’t have any thing that weighs packages, though.
That’s pretty cool if someone wants to mail a suitcase.
The rural mailman….doing it right….out in the country.
I heard a story on the news the other day about a billionaire going through a divorce.
The judge in the divorce proceedings ordered him to pay his wife half of his fortune….so he wrote her a personal check for a little bit shy of a billion dollars.
It’s hard to write out a check that big.
That’s a crazy amount of money.
Good work, lady!
Score!
But….she turned it down. She didn’t cash the check.
She was holding out for more.
She was angry and a billion dollars wasn’t going to sooth her anger.
She didn’t cash the check until the fan got hit with something stinky and gas prices started to go way down.
Now, personally, I love that gas is cheap right now. It makes it easy for me when I have to drive around all the time for work to save some money on gas.
I like it.
But these guys who are in the gas business are hurting.
They aren’t making the huge amounts of money they used to.
So….when things started to get rough….and profits were sinking….this billionaire said something like, “Hey! I’m poor! I can’t give you any more! A billion is all I can spare!” and….guess what?
His ex-wife cashed the check.
You can’t squeeze blood from a turnip….so….she cashed that bad boy.
Took the money….and ran….while the getting was good.
Wow.
Then yesterday, I heard that Canada was going to lose a lot of money because of the lowered gasoline price….like 450 million dollars in the hole because the profits had fallen so drastically.
Holy smokes.
What’s good for the goose….no, that doesn’t make sense….what?
I’m benefiting from all this cheap gas….and somebody else is freaking out.
Somewhere….some high-roller gas dude is totally freaking out.
So, you can’t make money selling gasoline right now.
I was thinking about that…..and I wondered if maybe this wasn’t the kick in the pants that the alternative energy movement needed?
Maybe when it becomes a matter of everybody’s inability to turn a profit with the old “paradigm”….maybe they’ll make a panicked leap onto some other technology that might be more profitable?
They sure aren’t going to do it because it’s the “right thing to do” or because it’s good for the planet….maybe when the money dries up with this “gas thing”, they’ll go looking for a deeper pond to milk for a while….
“A deeper pond to milk”…..that’s silly.
It’s all about the money, anyway. It’s all about a ghost….a construct….a fairy tale that we’ve all bought into.
We might have still been trading pretty shells if we hadn’t been advanced enough to eventually come up with something like Bitcoins.
Maybe “peak oil” isn’t the really scary thing…..maybe it’s the reduced profit margin that’s really going to take the system down?
Oh, what do I really care?
I think it’s time for a good road trip….gas is cheap.
Let’s go down South….sip some margaritas by the sea.
I heard this song on the radio the other day and thought, “How do you write like that?”
4 minutes of life….singing about a situation….a family at the dinner table….four short minutes…simple language……but what a lot of drama to cram in to a simple setting.
Man…..what a great song.
I forget about some of these great songs….and then they come around again.
The good ones come back around again most of the time.
I used to love the movie that was based on this song.
I won’t claim to “love” it now….I’m a grownup and it might be kind of embarrassing to say that I love it now.
I can’t take being embarrassed again.
That might destroy me to be embarrassed again.
Kidding. I’m only kidding. I have a lot more resilience now….and I’m a creature of habit. I can take being embarrassed.
I STILL LOVE THIS MOVIE!
It’s the kind of movie that Jenny would get a chance to look over at me and say, “YOU’RE NOT CRYING?! ARE YOU CRYING? OH MY GOSH….PLEASE TELL ME THAT YOU’RE NOT TEARING UP!! OH MY GOSH…..DON’T LET ME CATCH YOU CRYING…..THIS IS THE HOKIEST MOVIE EVER….DON’T YOU START CRYING….”
But….I’d probably tear up.
SPOILER ALERT…..
Billie Joe jumps off the bridge.
That was a pretty tragic moment in this young romance.
Who has a heart hard enough to keep them from crying a little when something unexpected like that happens?
Anyway…it’s a great teen romance….rural teen romance.
How many of those do they make these days where somebody doesn’t turn into a werewolf or a vampire?
Now it would be about Billie Joe getting torn limb from limb by some beast from the netherworld and then thrown off the bridge.
That wouldn’t make me cry.
That would be too violent.
Anyway….great song and a great….in its own way….movie.
I’ll confess to it being one that I watched for in the television forecast when I was younger….back before I rented my first VCR.
And….I guess that Billie Joe McCallister jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge.
Here’s another example of my friends taking care of me.
I got a chance to see Ray Charles before he was gone…playing at the State Fair in Columbia, SC.
I probably would have been going to another pawn shop….looking for old guitars….or maybe I’d be watching another movie….or generally just screwing around and wasting time if it hadn’t been for my buddies who said, “Hey! You want to go see Ray Charles with us?”
I wouldn’t have had a chance to see Ray and his band if I hadn’t listened to my friends.
That’s nuts.
If it wasn’t for my friends, I would be more of a stick in the mud than I already am.
I guess that’s good to know.
For sure.
I love this song, anyway…..it’s a good excuse for a nice memory and for a new post.
I heard an interview with, I think, the host of a show called something like “Brain Games” the other day
I was driving… at work…so I wasn’t paying as close attention to the interview as I might have been….so I didn’t catch the host’s name.
Let’s look it up….it’s crummy to be lazy when Google is so easy.
Jason Silva! That wasn’t so hard.
In the interview, he talked a little about how much he liked Carl Sagan….and how he’d heard the phrase “wonder junkie” first mentioned in the book Contact.
Then he went on to talk a little about Jodie Foster and the movie she starred in that they made out of the book, and how Jodie Foster’s character in the movie, Ellie, is a true “wonder junkie”….obsessed with and amazed at the vastness of the Universe.
It made me want to watch that movie again.
What a great phrase….”wonder junkie”.
What a great phrase that is….something great to aspire to….to be a “wonder junkie”.
Nate’s up now….waiting for me to finish this blog so that he can watch videos about Transformer toys on YouTube.
I haven’t made my coffee yet.
There are a lot of things that happen everyday that I focus on that might eclipse my ability to notice the things that are “really amazing”.
It’s hard for me to study the stars when someone short is tugging at my hand.
It’s hard to notice things that should fill me with wonder when I am helping to take care of the things that a parent needs to take care of.
I am not communicating with the stars.
I don’t interact with things far and wild….with the mysteries of the universe.
I am not a scientist.
I deal in the mundane.
But…my world is full of wonder. My world is full of wonder that I miss every time I think that I need to chase something “out there” that might be grand and mysterious.
I have a little boy sitting on my lap while I try to type this.
I can hear Jenny sleeping in the next room with Sparrow.
My oldest son is asleep in his room.
My daughter is probably still asleep up at college.
That’s my wonder.
I am a junkie for that wonder.
I guess that I’m a “wonder junkie” after all.
What a mysterious world it is….details big and small….so full of wonder and amazement.
The weatherman told me early in the week that today was the day it might snow….but it’s only raining.
One of my friends at work told me that it was only supposed to rain today….and she was right.
But….she also told me that next week, a “Nor’easter” was supposed to be blowing in….and that’s when it was all going to hit the fan.
I guess she was saying that today might be OK….but just you wait until next week.
NEXT WEEK IS REALLY GOING TO BE CRAPPY.
Man.
I have enough trouble believing the meteorologists…..now I’ve got all this other input to pay attention to.
No….that’s not true.
I don’t have any trouble believing the meteorologists (I’ve got to start saying “weatherman” or “weather guy”…..”meteorologist” is too hard to type….).
I believe them when they say something hard or bad might happen.
A “chance” of anything fills me with dread…..unless it’s a chance of sunshine.
I guess that I’m hopeful if it’s a chance of sunshine.
Nobody reports a “chance” of something good happening, though.
It’s funny, though, how apt I am to jump to the conclusion that someone else’s prediction of snow or “hard weather” is going to come true.
I will, apparently, jump on any gloomy bandwagon that comes rolling through town.
I guess that I have too much riding on the weather to not jump on a slow moving doom mobile when I have the chance.
I guess that I really need to work on a “believe it when I see it” mindset.
Until proven otherwise…..and even a negative final result can be spun around to appear positive, I suppose….I need to expect that the good thing is my thing….that I roll with the good times…the good weather….the hopeful outcome.
Hah! I forgot to turn off the thing that makes all my typing BOLD…..there…..that’s more like it.
There is no difference in outcome except how I perceive it.
Everything’s the same….except what I think is happening around me.
That changes…. moment to moment.
I don’t want to ruin my weekend living in fear of what someone said might happen later on.
But….if I don’t jump on some kind of bandwagon, how’m I ever going to be able to say, “See? I TOLD YOU SO!!!”
I don’t want to miss my chances to say, “See? I told you so….”
Those chances, like bad weather, don’t come along everyday.
I found some cheap hi-tops on a site called 6pm.com….and so now….after 45 years or so of not owning a pair, I am cruising around in new PF Flyers.
My shoes are just like these.
That’s my contribution to an impending second childhood….my substitute for a red sports car when I’m locked in my mid-life crisis….my way to make myself smile if I get mired in any other kind of crisis.
I CAN RUN LIKE THE WIND!!
RUN, PETER….RUN!!!
The thing about PF Flyers….the thing that a cheap price and fast, free shipping couldn’t satisfy for me….was knowing that I wasn’t going to get a toy when I opened the box.
(Wait!! I didn’t look in the box!! Maybe they still….mayybeeeeee……No….they don’t…..)
The attraction of buying a pair of these shoes that was such a pull….a tantalizing bonus….when I was younger was that if you bought a pair of PF Flyers, in addition to super powers and the ability to run like the wind just because I had a new pair of sneakers, was the fact that you got one of the coolest toys ever available to a kid anywhere….just because you got a new pair of shoes.
You might have gotten one of these:
Or….if you were lucky and your timing was right, you might have gotten one of the Johnny Quest decoder rings they used to give out….like this one…
Or…maybe if the cards were in your favor, you might have been fortunate enough to get one of these things that you had to snap together.
I remember all of them.
I probably had all of them at separate times.
I wore out the shoes a long time after I lost interest in the toy….but that was the price you paid.
You had to need a new pair of shoes before you could get a new toy.
That whizzing tooth was probably my favorite.
I’ve never had another tooth that whizzes after I lost that one.
His comment to me….on Facebook….about my post yesterday was, “I think completing a really nice porch to sit on and sip lemonade as you contemplate (plan) what to build on to it would be a nice Spring project”.
Hah!
Bingo!
Maybe that’s the secret. Even if it wasn’t the “perfect step” in working on that house, it would give me a nice place to contemplate all of the other things that I need to do to it?
I worry about stuff too much….need to just get on with it, and if the only thing driving me is the expectation of a nice place to sit and drink lemonade, well….that would be enough.
That’s pretty motivational….thinking about a nice Spring day, sipping lemonade….maybe even covered in sawdust as I take a break from all the other projects?
We had a couple of nice warm days here….I could see how much easier a warm day is than a brutally cold day. That didn’t take any creativity to come to an obvious conclusion.
Here’s to warm days and easy decisions.
And….even though President Obama had a State of the Union address last night, I got to spend some time with Jenny, so I missed it.
What did I miss?
I’ll bet I had a nicer evening than most of the folks who watched the show.
The “show”….that’s about all it ever is.
I need to go make some coffee.
That’s a good plan, John….sit….drink some lemonade, let the warm breeze blow gently across me…..plan….and don’t even turn on the TV….no matter what leader is getting ready to tell me something.
I like that plan.
“you can make it if you try” Sly and the Family Stone”
